- 4 minutes ago
From Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator to Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, some actors become so synonymous with their characters that it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Explore 10 iconic portrayals that were simply born to be.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00In an era where franchising is the grease that lubes up the gears of Hollywood,
00:05ooh, roles are rarely occupied by just one actor. Whether it's reboots constantly changing the face
00:10of your favourite superheroes seemingly every other year, or performers being swapped out of
00:15prestige pieces due to boring old scheduling conflicts, there are few roles that are so
00:20sacred studios and fans alike couldn't picture anyone else giving their take on them. However,
00:25that only makes those rare instances where a character is so perfectly cast,
00:30and the synergy between an actor and their role appears so effortless, even better.
00:35That overused phrase used by critics to champion an actor of,
00:38it was the role they were born to play might be a little bit meaningless now,
00:42but in these cases, yeah, that old saying absolutely holds water.
00:47I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 iconic characters only one actor could play.
00:52Number 10, Ray Nicolette, Michael Keaton.
00:55Michael Keaton has had plenty of roles he's defined, from Batman to Beetlejuice,
01:00but it was a surprising turn in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown that he embodied so singularly.
01:06In that movie, he plays Ray Nicolette, a hard-ass FBI agent with the weirdest interrogation tactic
01:12ever. Namely, he kinda just walks around and then perches on chairs in uncomfortable ways
01:18as an intimidation tactic. At least, that's what I took from it anyway.
01:22However, Jackie Brown was based on the book Run Punch and was made by Miramax,
01:26so when Universal set its own sights on adapting the text's follow-up out of sight,
01:31they faced the issue of having to cast someone else to play Ray.
01:35That said, despite the rights to both works being held by two different studios,
01:39rather than cast someone new, Michael Keaton actually returned uncredited to play the role again,
01:45partly because old QT himself convinced Miramax to not force Universal to cough up money for the cameo.
01:52Number 9, M, Judi Dench.
01:54The James Bond franchise has never really had any qualms with recasting characters.
01:59Hell, part of the appeal is that the central hero perseveres across decades via the magic of Hollywood
02:04casting agents. M, Bond's boss and MI6 head honcho has also been a role swapped out to new actors
02:11playing successors to the throne. Each version of M is admittedly a different in-universe character,
02:16but that makes it even more impressive that the series went to such great lengths to not recast
02:21Judi Dench's version, who quickly came to overshadow the rest. Dench's M was introduced in Goldeneye,
02:27and the actors' cold, no-nonsense takedown of 007 made her an instant fan favourite. So much so that when
02:33the series was rebooted with Casino Royale, the producers asked the actor to reprise her role,
02:38in a move that could've destroyed the clean break they were striving for. There have been M's before,
02:43and there'll be plenty after, but this version can never be replicated.
02:47Number 8, Ash Williams, Evil Dead.
02:50If you've only ever seen the first Evil Dead, you might wonder why Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams
02:54has remained an enduring horror icon. In that first flick, he's actually a bit of a meathead,
03:00and only survives where his friends died through a good dose of luck. It was the sequel where the
03:05character really came into his own though, which was necessary considering the first half of that
03:09film is essentially an Ash one-man show. Blending horror and physical comedy in a way few other
03:15actors have ever achieved, the first half of Evil Dead 2 is a gauntlet of personal nightmares for Ash,
03:21and Campbell captures the manic insanity with gusto. And after being put through the ringer,
03:26the second half, and subsequent rest of the franchise, sees the character transformed into a bumbling,
03:31yet unwaveringly charismatic, action hero. With a chainsaw for an arm, and a shotgun for a partner.
03:37Like seriously, the lines this dude spouts would've sounded absolutely ridiculous coming out of any
03:43other actor's mouth, but Campbell turned them into some of cinema's most memorable.
03:48Number 7, The T-800, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
03:51Old Arnie Schwarzenegger isn't the only Terminator in James Cameron's classic sci-fi franchise,
03:56but he's arguably the only one fans care about. Well, Robert Patrick's T-1000 notwithstanding.
04:02He debuted as the villainous T-800 in the first film, and then returned for cinema's greatest
04:06babyface turn in the sequel, completing his arc and sacrificing himself in Molten Metal, but not
04:13before netting another cinematic best in the movie industry's greatest ever thumbs up. At that point,
04:19two different versions of Arnie's character had been destroyed, and yet following movies continued to
04:24bring him back, even when the actor couldn't turn up in the flesh. Shocked and appalled at the very
04:29thought of having either someone else play the T-800, or omitting him entirely. Salvation even
04:35CGI'd Arnie into the movie onto the body of another actor. The desire to see him constantly come back
04:41is partly because nobody can quite mix mechanical menace and alien endearment the same way as Arnie can.
04:48With only a few looks and a couple of lines, the hulking performance was burnt into the minds of
04:53audiences everywhere, to the point where, for better or worse, there's just no franchise without
04:58Arnold Schwarzenegger. He'll always, always be back.
05:02Number 6. Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford
05:05Harrison Ford has such a defining presence and an undying charisma that you could make the argument
05:10that pretty much any of his roles could only be played by him. The most notable time someone else
05:16jumped into the boots of a character he made famous was Alden Ehrenreich's take on Han Solo in
05:21A Star Wars Story, which pretty much amounted to the actor doing his best Harrison Ford impression
05:26for around two hours. That obviously did not go down well, and that's partly because Ford brings
05:32so much of himself to his defining characters, especially Indiana Jones. There is no franchise
05:38without Ford though, and nobody else could embody this lovable rascal of a hero, especially not Shia LaBeouf.
05:44Number 5. The Mask, Jim Carrey
05:47In a lot of ways, Jim Carrey only really ever plays Jim Carrey in movies, well with the exception of
05:53certain things like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Especially during his peak in the 90s,
05:58there was nobody else able to do the kind of outlandish physical comedy the actor made millions
06:03perfecting, and his reputation of essentially being a human cartoon made him a perfect match for The Mask.
06:09After all, this was a film about a literal cartoon character come to life via the power of a magical
06:15mask, and there's nobody in the world animated enough to do that premise justice in live action
06:20than the man who became famous because of his rubber face. In this movie, Carrey's regular overacting
06:26was ramped up even higher, and the ridiculous green makeup only made the comic's unnatural facial
06:32contortions all the more hilarious and pronounced. The reason there are few sequels to Jim Carrey movies is
06:37that Jim Carrey doesn't like doing them. And even Hollywood recognizes that he is the be all and
06:43end all of the films he stars in, and that goes double for a character like The Mask. And yes,
06:48I am just going to sit here and pretend Son of the Mask just doesn't exist because we're all better
06:53off
06:53for it. Number 4. Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise
06:57I've talked a lot so far about actors embodying their characters and blurring the line between performer and
07:02role, but nobody takes that quite as far as Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series.
07:07Though he technically plays a character called Ethan Hunt, a top level secret agent with a seriously
07:13toxic on and off again relationship with his bosses at the Impossible Mission Force, he really just
07:18plays Tom Cruise. Or at least the imagined version of superstar actor Tom Cruise everyone has in their
07:24heads. In the run up to these movies and in the weeks following their release, the focus is never on
07:30what's happening to Ethan in the films, but what insane new stunt Cruise has put himself through.
07:35The actor insists on doing his own daring stunts, whether that's performing a real life Halo jump,
07:40hanging onto the side of a real plane taking off, or putting thousands of hours into getting a flight
07:45license so he can correctly pilot a helicopter during action scenes. Cruise's mad dedication to the role
07:52is why Mission Impossible remains so successful, and trying to replace him with an actor even half as
07:57committed would cause it to self destruct. Cough, Jeremy Renner, cough.
08:023. Princess Leia Carrie Fisher At one point the idea of recasting the original Star Wars cast
08:08with younger actors probably appealed to Disney. Solo was the film that tested the waters on that front
08:14though, giving audiences new versions of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, and while both were interesting
08:20takes, especially Donald Glover's Lando, both lived in the shadow of the previous stars. Like I mentioned
08:25earlier, it didn't help that the performances of the new actors felt like imitations of what came before.
08:31Even without that in mind though, the idea of recasting Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia would have been
08:36an incredibly controversial move. Even her silhouette, those buns from A New Hope for instance,
08:42that I definitely did not take hairstyle inspiration from, is instantly iconic, and Fisher across the
08:48original trilogy and the sequel trilogy brought such heart to the galaxy far far away. Young Leia has been
08:55needed in other movies like Rogue One, but the Mouse House opted to use digital scans of Fisher
09:00rather than recast. 2. Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. Even though I've hypothesized over the qualities
09:07needed to decide whether or not an actor is irreplaceable, often it just comes down to basic
09:13maths. Yeah, it might not be that sexy, but it's a concrete method. For instance, the ludicrous amount of
09:19money Robert Downey Jr. has earned playing Iron Man is a testament to just how inseparable the actor
09:24and hero are, and how much fans have invested in the two being one and the same. For the Avengers,
09:30Downey Jr. reportedly took home $50 million, he netted $1 million a minute for Spider-Man Homecoming,
09:36and secured a whopping $75 million payday for Avengers Endgame. Put simply, studios just don't
09:44pony up that kind of money if they can swap the actor out for someone less costly. Of course,
09:49Robert Downey Jr. absolutely knows this. When Tony Stark announced at the end of the first Iron Man that
09:55he was the superhero, that wasn't just a statement from the character, but also from the actor playing
10:01him. From there on, the two would become inseparable. And though the world of superheroes means there'll no
10:06doubt be another Tony Stark at some point, whoever takes the reins will always be living in the shadow
10:11of Downey Jr.'s work. Number 1. J. Jonah Jameson, JK Simmons
10:16It's so easy to get J. Jonah Jameson wrong. The loudmouth newspaper editor could quickly become
10:22abrasive and obnoxious to the point where he simply allowed annoyance in the wrong hands. But he remained
10:28a highlight of Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man trilogy because J.K. Simmons plays assholes like
10:33nobody else. He was so good in fact that when Sony rebooted the Spidey series, they omitted the
10:38character entirely rather than try to recast him, because Simmons' take was so entrenched in the
10:43minds of fans. Even when a second reboot came around, introducing a new genre was put off once
10:49again, and nearly two full standalone movies went by without the character showing up. However,
10:54in the final moments of Spider-Man Far From Home, a news bulletin from the Daily Bugle is displayed
11:00all throughout New York, led by none other than Simmons' JJ. Like with Sony and M, which we've
11:06already mentioned, the studio risked shattering the clean break of this second reboot by bringing back
11:11a character and actor from a previous universe, but it worked a treat. J.K. is JJ, and fans will
11:18happily
11:18ignore a continuity blurring appearance to have both him and the character back for good.
Comments