11 Safe Good Guy Actors Who Should Have Played More Villains
8. Jim Carrey
Went Bad In... The Cable Guy Okay, so the rubber-faced one's turn in A Series Of Unfortunate Events wasn't quite as successful as it could have been, but that was largely because the limits of the source didn't allow him the scope to be really malevolent, and the adaptation wasn't exactly great, but Carrey has showed other form. The Ace Ventura star is the kind of actor who shows in very brief flashes what he is actually capable of, before he reverts to type and makes another Liar Liar clone, in which he plays a slightly awkward, gurning everyman with an improbable ability to turn on unfeasibly hot women. He's played serious to great effect in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and he was easily the best thing about Kick-Ass 2, but his range is frustratingly limited by the career choices he makes, meaning great villainous turns like Chip Douglas in The Cable Guy are all too sporadic events, despite how surprisingly layered that performance is. Chip is malignant, but disarming and darkly sympathetic at the same time, and there are glimpses in there that Carrey could (and should) have done a lot more with his opportunity to bring The Riddler to the screen. But then, with Joel Schumacher in charge, it was never likely that anyone, let alone Carrey, would be given the scope to create anything but a bloated pantomime caricature.
Went Bad In... The Cable Guy Okay, so the rubber-faced one's turn in A Series Of Unfortunate Events wasn't quite as successful as it could have been, but that was largely because the limits of the source didn't allow him the scope to be really malevolent, and the adaptation wasn't exactly great, but Carrey has showed other form. The Ace Ventura star is the kind of actor who shows in very brief flashes what he is actually capable of, before he reverts to type and makes another Liar Liar clone, in which he plays a slightly awkward, gurning everyman with an improbable ability to turn on unfeasibly hot women. He's played serious to great effect in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and he was easily the best thing about Kick-Ass 2, but his range is frustratingly limited by the career choices he makes, meaning great villainous turns like Chip Douglas in The Cable Guy are all too sporadic events, despite how surprisingly layered that performance is. Chip is malignant, but disarming and darkly sympathetic at the same time, and there are glimpses in there that Carrey could (and should) have done a lot more with his opportunity to bring The Riddler to the screen. But then, with Joel Schumacher in charge, it was never likely that anyone, let alone Carrey, would be given the scope to create anything but a bloated pantomime caricature.