10 Remarkable Movie Performances By The Last Actor You'd Expect

When talking about actors playing against their usual type, you've got to pay tribute to the granddaddy of them all, Psycho.

Now obviously we all know Anthony Perkins best for playing the role of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece (which it is, even if the ending doesn't quite hold up), but at the time, the idea of him playing a deranged killer was unthinkable.

Perkins had made a name for himself playing naive but earnest characters and had even released a few pop albums as Tony Perkins. This was exactly why Alfred Hitchcock picked up for Psycho, so that no-one would ever suspect that the innocent and unassuming everyman Norman Bates was really a murderer.

It worked amazingly well, hitting audiences at the time with a twist that they didn't see coming, in a film so unpredictable that it had already killed its main character halfway through. It was a big part of what made Psycho so successful and was helped by the air of mystery surrounding the film, assisted by Hitchcock's insistence that no one be allowed into the movie theatre after the film had started.

Then in the 90's Gus Van Sant made a shot-for-shot remake which seemed completely pointless except for proving that Vince Vaughn is definitely not an innocent and unassuming everyman.