12 Actors Who Broke Typecasting In The Most Epic Way

8. Henry Fonda - Once Upon A Time In The West

His Type

Like Tom Hanks, for most of his formative career, Henry Fonda was a blue-eyed vision of the dependable hero. He was known for his likeability, his charisma and his familiarity and looked to be both cut from the cloth of old-world heroes and destined to do it forever.

How He Broke It

This was basically the first stunt casting and remains one of the most famous and successful examples of type-breaking.

Sergio Leone saw in Fonda's casting an opportunity to play with expectations to great effect in Once Upon A Time In The West. The inversion in itself became chilling, but Fonda's performance is completely alien to his former roles. It's almost like his humanity has been struck from his piercing eyes and replaced with something far more sinister.