12 Actors Who Broke Typecasting In The Most Epic Way
7. Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad
His Type
Up until 2000, if you saw Bryan Cranston, it was in a supporting role in the likes of Seinfeld or Saving Private Ryan, but his casting as goofball father Hal in Malcolm In The Middle gave him a career and an image. And no matter what he did in filmic terms, he was Hal, who everyone seemed to remember dancing in his underpants.
How He Broke It
In 2008, Cranston's career was turned upside down by AMC and Vince Gilligan when his clean-cut image from Malcolm In The Middle was used to establish some expectations for Breaking Bad's mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White.
From those early days, he became completely unrecognisable as White turned into Heisenberg and Cranston drifted further and further from his comedy image. The transformation was stunning and he's now absolutely inseparable from the image of White, who everyone remembers cooking meth in his underpants. Some things don't change.