10 Movie Actors Who Can't Escape Their Most Iconic Role
You're a wizard forever, Harry.
It has been said many times over that Norman Bates' most unfortunate victim was the very man that actually brought him to life on the big screen in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Psycho. Despite winning critical acclaim for a variety of award-winning performances throughout his career, Anthony Perkins is most fondly remembered for his legendary portrayal of the deranged and eerily-soft spoken psychopath who ran the Bates Motel, harboured a passion for taxidermy and co-habited with the decaying corpse of his dead mother. So revered was his performance that Bates was voted the second greatest screen villain of all time by the American Film Institute (Anthony Hopkins took that particular accolade for his chilling turn as Hannibal Lecter, although Bates did beat Darth Vader). It was a character Perkins would become forever associated with in the annals of Hollywood history - aside from the film's own sequels, he rarely acheived that same level of success, the actor quipping to the New York Times during the filming of Psycho II that "Without Pyscho, who's to say if I would have endured?" Sadly Perkins isn't without company in the pool of actors who are similarly afflicted and have struggled to shed the skin of their biggest role role. 55 years after Psycho's release, his story has become a prevalent trend for several actors who have tried and ultimately failed to distinguish themselves from their most iconic of characters. For many actors the success they crave usually culminates in that career-defining role - what you might call the Moby Dick of the profession. But as they become inextricably connected to the character that brought them to mainstream fame it can, in some cases, become an oppressive curse.