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These actors surprised us all in horror movies.
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00:00It's always incredibly fun to see actors playing massively against type in movies,
00:05in turn allowing them to showcase some versatility we never knew they had.
00:10And this is especially true in the horror genre,
00:13which has so often served as a sandbox for performers to experiment.
00:17The heightened, surreal nature of most horror movies makes it an especially safe space
00:22for actors to try new things,
00:24and often the result can be spectacular enough to reinvent the actor's entire career.
00:30Whether that was true of these performers or not,
00:32each nevertheless proved their incredible range by ditching their archetypal casting
00:37and doing something totally different.
00:39I'm Ellie for WhatCulture, and let's take a look at these actors
00:42who played totally against type in horror movies.
00:46Starting with Sean William Scott, Bloodline.
00:50Sean William Scott is of course best known for playing vulgar idiot Steve Stifler
00:55in the American Pie franchise,
00:56and elsewhere his filmography is mostly populated with roles in studio comedy films.
01:02So nobody expected to see him cast as the serial killer protagonist of 2018's Bloodline,
01:08where he plays Evan Cole,
01:10a high school guidance counsellor who murders child abusers in his spare time.
01:15But the film ultimately proved that Scott has far more range than most have ever given him credit for.
01:20Despite his seemingly affable exterior,
01:23Scott brings a ferocious intensity to the scenes where Evan is killing the victims,
01:29enough that Stifler basically feels like a distant memory.
01:32It was certainly a risky cast considering Scott's prior body of work,
01:36but he absolutely acquitted himself admirably,
01:39taking the assignment seriously and delivering a performance
01:42that left everyone re-evaluating his acting potential.
01:45And then a few years later, Scott dipped a toe back into the horror villain waters
01:49by playing the leader of a right-wing extremist cult in The Wrath of Becky.
01:54And once again, he knocked it out of the park.
01:56Patrick Stewart, Green Room.
01:58Patrick Stewart has had an incredibly successful and iconic career playing wise, dignified characters.
02:05Most notably, Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek The Next Generation,
02:09and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise.
02:12Everything about Stewart's presence on screen makes him perfect
02:16to play smart, composed, statesman-like leaders.
02:19But this was flipped entirely on its head for his role in Green Room.
02:23Here, Stewart plays Darcy Banker,
02:25the merciless leader of a group of neo-Nazis
02:28who couldn't be more polar opposite to the actor's most statuesque prior roles.
02:33Darcy is a violent sadist,
02:35yet rather than swing for the rafters with an intensely volcanic performance,
02:39Stewart plays the villain as eerily calm and composed for the most part.
02:44With a clinical level of detachment,
02:46Darcy decides to kill the punk band who witnessed a murder in his bar.
02:50And that's that.
02:51The result is a Stewart performance like he's never given before or since,
02:56and it ranks among his finest work to date.
02:58Amy Madigan, Weapons.
03:00Amy Madigan was widely acclaimed for her performances
03:04in numerous dramas throughout the 1980s,
03:07most notably Love Child and Twice in a Lifetime,
03:10for which she received an Oscar nomination.
03:12And though her acting profile has dipped considerably over the years,
03:16she's worked steadily for almost half a century.
03:19But at this point in her career,
03:20just about nobody expected Madigan to star in a horror film as a terrifying witch.
03:26But damn it, she just went and did it.
03:28Madigan, of course, plays the horrifying Aunt Gladys
03:31in Zack Kreger's mesmerising Weapons,
03:34the woman or entity responsible for the disappeared children
03:37and all of the bewildering mayhem that follows.
03:40Beyond being virtually unrecognisable in the role under the heavy makeup,
03:44Madigan has simply never played a character this menacing and downright evil before.
03:49It's the last thing anyone expected from the 75-year-old actress
03:53at this stage of her life and her career.
03:55Yet she gives by far the most widely acclaimed performance in the film,
03:59enough that some are calling for her to receive another Oscar nomination for her work.
04:03We can only hope.
04:05Ethan Hawke, The Black Phone
04:06In his earlier career, Ethan Hawke was regularly cast as the handsome heartthrob,
04:12before graduating into dramatic roles where he was generally a heroic character,
04:17with only a few exceptions.
04:19By his own admission, Hawke has shied away from portraying villains for fear of being typecast,
04:23but in 2021, he instantly became a genre icon through his performance in The Black Phone.
04:30Hawke stars as a mask-wearing serial killer of children known as The Grabber,
04:34and as such, the character couldn't be further from the sensitive, thoughtful individuals
04:39he's spent decades portraying on screen.
04:42The Grabber is, conversely, a monstrous, terrifying murderer,
04:46with Hawke's typically calming on-screen demeanor nowhere to be found.
04:50He instead cuts a pulse-quickening presence every time he appears.
04:54In fact, Hawke was electrifying enough in the role that, despite The Grabber dying at the end of the movie,
05:00director Scott Derrickson had him resurrected for the sequel
05:04as a Freddy Krueger-esque antagonist who can haunt his victims through their dreams.
05:10Sure, why not?
05:11Paul Reiser, Aliens
05:13Younger audiences might not be aware that prior to appearing in James Cameron's Aliens,
05:18Paul Reiser was a stand-up comedian best known for his roles in films such as Dinah and Beverly Hills
05:24Cop.
05:24But in 1986, Reiser went totally against this by playing Aliens' human villain Carter Burke,
05:30the infuriatingly self-serving scumbag rep for Corporation Wayland Yatani,
05:35who serves as a major obstacle to heroine Ripley throughout the film.
05:39At the time, Reiser was best associated with funny, self-deprecating characters who were generally likeable,
05:45so to see him playing a sleazy suit with basically no redeeming traits marked a total 180 from expectations.
05:53And of course, it goes without saying that Reiser knocked it out of the park.
05:56Burke remains his most iconic and recognisable performance 40 years later for good reason.
06:02While other comedians might have been tempted to play Burke as a broader caricature,
06:07there's a clinical quality to his bureaucratic villainy here that feels nauseatingly realistic.
06:13Kathy Bates and James Caan, Misery
06:15And now for a film that pulled off two against typecastings at once,
06:20Rob Reiner's incredible adaptation of Stephen King's Misery.
06:23First and foremost, Kathy Bates was best known for playing warm,
06:26maternal supporting characters at the time of the film's release,
06:30her southern charm making her perfect for approachable, welcoming roles.
06:35But here, Bates plays murderously deranged superfan Annie Wilkes,
06:39and gives a performance so astonishingly brilliantly unhinged that the Academy handed her a Best Actress
06:45Oscar despite their historic bias against horror films.
06:48And then there's James Caan, who was well known for playing tough guys in the likes of The Godfather,
06:53Rollerball and Thief. But as imperiled author Paul Sheldon, he plays a totally vulnerable,
06:59understandably terrified man who not a single person would describe as macho.
07:04Both actors played bold reversals on their acting archetypes, and the result is pure magic.
07:09Bates may have ended up with a well-deserved Oscar, but Caan's performance is quite fantastic in its own right
07:14as well.
07:15Chris Rock, Spiral
07:16Now, nothing said that the casting against type in this list had to be good.
07:21Saw fans were shocked when it was announced that the ninth film in the series,
07:25a soft reboot called Spiral, had a story conceived by comedian Chris Rock,
07:30and moreover, Rock would also be starring in the movie.
07:33Rock ultimately played Spiral's protagonist, Detective Zeke Banks,
07:37who spends the movie tracking down a jigsaw copycat.
07:41To say that Rock's casting was a surprise is quite the understatement,
07:44given that the bulk of his filmography is populated with broad comedy films,
07:49and this marked his first ever foray into the horror genre.
07:53While there was pre-release hope that Rock would surprise everyone with an unexpectedly intense performance,
07:58ultimately Rock received wildly mixed notices for his turn.
08:02Many felt that he failed to leave his popular comedic persona at the door,
08:07ensuring that his star profile just saddled the movie with unnecessary baggage.
08:11Bill SkarsgÄrd, Barbarian
08:13Bill SkarsgÄrd gave such a brilliantly chilling performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the recent It duology,
08:20that it basically immediately typecast him as a very creepy guy whenever he showed up in a horror film.
08:26And this was weaponised quite ingeniously by director Zack Kreger in his terrific debut, Barbarian,
08:33where SkarsgÄrd plays Keith, a man who has apparently been double-booked into the same Airbnb as the film's protagonist,
08:41Tess.
08:41Barbarian's marketing leaned into the unease surrounding SkarsgÄrd,
08:46ensuring that when he showed up in the movie, many viewers assumed him to be the antagonist,
08:51most likely a not-so-secret serial killer.
08:54But this isn't the case at all. Keith is ultimately revealed to be a nice, regular guy who was indeed
08:59genuinely double-booked with Tess,
09:01and who meets a shockingly brutal end at the conclusion of the film's first act.
09:06This was an incredibly clever misdirect which perfectly exploited the audience's existing association with SkarsgÄrd,
09:13only to then pull the rug out and have him die at the hands of the real threat,
09:18a mutant woman residing in the Airbnb's basement.
09:21Emma Roberts' Scream 4
09:23When it was announced that Emma Roberts had been cast as Sidney Prescott's teenage cousin Jill in Scream 4,
09:29it was assumed by most fans that she was effectively being drafted in to become the new Sidney,
09:35and that the film would largely function as a soft reboot of the franchise.
09:39And it makes total sense. At the time, Roberts was best known for playing entirely wholesome girl-next-door types
09:45in a bevy of films and TV shows.
09:48But in Scream 4's third act, Jill is actually revealed to be the main ghostface,
09:53driven to kill and frame herself as a survivor out of jealousy of Sidney's own fame as a survivor.
09:59It's a brilliant turn that works so well precisely because nobody expected the actress who played Nancy Drew a few
10:05years prior to now be playing a deranged psychopath.
10:08The casting quite shrewdly took full advantage of Roberts' unassuming public profile,
10:14as well as the expectation that she was being cynically presented as a younger replacement for Neve Campbell.
10:20Roberts did well enough in the role that it basically helped redefine her entire career,
10:25with subsequent roles in horror TV shows American Horror Story and Scream Queens.
10:31Harrison Ford, what lies beneath?
10:33What's the first word that springs to mind when you think of Harrison Ford?
10:37There's a good chance it's something like hero.
10:40Considering that the legendary star has spent decades playing rugged heroes in the Star Wars,
10:45Indiana Jones, Blade Runner and Jack Ryan franchises.
10:49Not to mention films such as The Fugitive, Air Force One and so on.
10:53Ford is exceptionally good at portraying the put-upon hero.
10:57And so his casting in Robert Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath seemed entirely by the book at first.
11:03As Dr. Norman Spencer, Ford appears to initially be a charming, trustworthy guy,
11:08who we assume will help his wife Claire resolve the whole haunted house conflict by film's end.
11:14But Norman is actually revealed to be the film's surprise villain,
11:17as the ghost haunting the Spencer's home is a woman Norman had an affair with
11:21and murdered after she threatened to expose said affair.
11:24He's a real piece of work, alright.
11:26Ensuring a fun subversion of expectations for audiences and a rare opportunity for Ford
11:32to play a genuinely awful human being.
11:34A challenge he rises to with sure aplomb.
11:37Ryan Reynolds, The Voices
11:39Over the last 25 years, Ryan Reynolds' reliable brand has been that of the quippy,
11:45somewhat annoying motormouth who just doesn't know when to shut up.
11:48The final form of which is obviously his magnificent portrayal of Deadpool.
11:52But Reynolds entirely upended this for 2014's The Voices, where he plays protagonist Jerry Hickfang,
11:59a downtrodden schizophrenic whose hallucinations compel him to become a serial killer.
12:05There's absolutely nothing even superficially charming about Jerry.
12:09He's an unhinged, disturbed man who isn't gregarious or appealingly chatty at all.
12:15On paper, it might not sound like the sort of part Reynolds could ever pull off,
12:18and yet he did, and it remains one of his finest performances to date.
12:23It's just a shame that The Voices flopped at the box office and is rarely discussed today,
12:27despite Reynolds receiving high acclaim and himself insisting in 2020 that it remains one of his favourite films he's ever
12:35been involved with.
12:35Octavia Spencer, Ma.
12:38If you need to cast a likeable female character who won't take any crap,
12:42there are few better choices than hiring Octavia Spencer,
12:45who has enjoyed an incredibly fruitful career playing just such characters,
12:50even winning an Oscar for it in 2011's The Help.
12:53Spencer can instantly bring integrity and gravitas to just about any part she plays.
12:58But that certainly wasn't the assignment in 2019's Blumhouse horror flick, Ma.
13:02Here, Spencer plays Sue Ann Ellington,
13:05a lonely, middle-aged woman who is befriended by a group of teenagers
13:09who have little idea that this apparently harmless woman is actually murderously obsessive.
13:14Spencer's typical casting makes it easy to appreciate why nobody would assume Sue Ann to be capable of murder,
13:20and also makes it that much more fun to see Spencer letting loose with a role this hilariously demented.
13:26Powered by Spencer's terrifically twisted performance,
13:29Ma was a box office hit, enough that a sequel was recently confirmed to be in development.
13:35Vince Vaughn, Psycho
13:36Vince Vaughn's career breakthrough came with 1996's Swingers,
13:41which swiftly established him as a go-to for any casting director
13:44who needed someone to play a cocksure, superficially charming motormouth in a comedy.
13:49It didn't really suggest that Vaughn would be a natural fit to play Norman Bates
13:53in Gus Van Sant's rather puzzling remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, then.
13:57Because of course, spoiler I guess,
14:00Norman is actually the film's murderous villain.
14:02Anthony Perkins was cast against type as Norman in the original film,
14:06his boy-next-door-like qualities ensuring few would have suspected him to be the real killer.
14:11Though the twist was widely known by the time of the remake's release,
14:14Vaughn's casting was no less against type,
14:17because the timid motel owner with a brutal secret seemed so far outside of his wheelhouse.
14:22To this very day, the jury remains out on Vaughn's performance as Norman,
14:26many feeling that Vaughn exudes a more obvious natural creepiness,
14:30which makes him a little too easy to finger as the potential killer.
14:34Love it or hate it, it was definitely a bold casting swing.
14:37George Clooney, From Dusk Till Dawn
14:40In the mid-1990s, George Clooney became a megastar,
14:44thanks to his breakthrough role as Dr Doug Ross on hit medical drama series ER.
14:48Clooney's good looks and suave charm made him an instant swoon-worthy hit with audiences,
14:54enough that many likely expected him to stay in this deeply affable lane for the considerable future.
14:59But Clooney did something bold by immediately pivoting for his first major movie role,
15:05Robert Rodriguez's 1996 vampire film, From Dusk Till Dawn.
15:08No, Clooney doesn't quite play the action hero here,
15:12rather, his Seth Gekko is a fugitive bank robber who just happens to be somewhat less terrible than the vampires
15:19trying to kill him.
15:20Some of Clooney's charm certainly still shines through,
15:23enough that he's decidedly more likeable than his degenerate brother, Richie.
15:27But in the wake of ER, it was immensely jarring to see him taking hostages and killing vampires while rocking
15:33a neck tattoo.
15:34He nailed it, though, and smartly proved early on that he was more than a mere dreamboat.
15:40Betty White, Lake Placid
15:41Betty White is one of the most iconic actresses of all time,
15:45and undeniably best known for her roles on sitcoms, the Mary Tyler Moore show, and of course, the Golden Girls.
15:51White had a rep for playing sweet, nurturing characters like the Golden Girls' Rose Nyland,
15:56but she turned that entirely on its head when she appeared in the first and only horror film of her
16:02storied career,
16:031999's Lake Placid.
16:05White plays Dolores Bickerman, an elderly widow who isn't quite the wholesome sort you'd reasonably expect.
16:11Rather, she's a sarcastic, foul-mouthed woman who has actually been feeding the giant crocodile that's terrorising the town.
16:18Adrian Brody, Predators
16:20When a third Predator film was first announced, many wondered which badass on-the-rise actor would be hired to
16:26play a new protagonist
16:27who could possibly live up to the hyper-masculinity of Arnie and Danny Glover from the first two films.
16:34So, jaws collectively dropped then when the lead of 2010's Predators was revealed to be Adrian Brody.
16:40Though Brody's acting chops were never in doubt, the man has always had a wiry frame,
16:45hardly the sort of physique you'd expect to see for the hero of a Predator movie.
16:49Brody had never been cast in the gruff action hero role before,
16:53but to the man's credit, he clearly took the assignment seriously.
16:57Sure, he was never going to match the might of Arnie,
16:59but he packed muscle on top of his lean build and ultimately convinced as the film's cunning mercenary protagonist, Royce.
17:07He didn't match the iconic heights of Arnie or Glover,
17:10but Brody absolutely acquitted himself ably in the sort of role nobody ever imagined him playing.
17:16Kristen Wiig, Mother
17:18Kristen Wiig is one of the most recognisable comedians on the planet,
17:22having come to major prominence through her work on Saturday Night Live,
17:25before fully breaking into the Hollywood mainstream with 2011's rom-com Bridesmaids.
17:31Wiig swiftly became a bankable comedy talent,
17:34so it was hugely unexpected to see her cast in Darren Aronofsky's 2017 horror film Mother.
17:39Despite Wiig clearly excelling at playing perky and neurotic characters in comedies,
17:44here she was cast as one of the film's villains,
17:47the intense publicist of him who eventually orders her fellow cultists to start executing hostages,
17:53while even offing a few herself.
17:55Though the character initially appears to be more in step with Wiig's traditional casting,
17:59once the veil drops,
18:00it's by far the most surprising and unexpected performance of Wiig's career.
18:04While Mother remains a fiercely polarising film for many reasons,
18:08Wiig proved beyond any doubt that she could be a genuinely chilling antagonist with the right material.
18:14Jeff Bridges, The Vanishing
18:16Jeff Bridges is generally cast as likeable, heroic characters,
18:20because that's just the vibe he so effortlessly gives off.
18:23His laid-back charisma has been his popular brand for decades.
18:27But Bridges did opt to play a rare villain role in 1993's remake of the legendary horror film The Vanishing.
18:34Here, Bridges plays Barney Cousins, a sociopathic professor
18:38who is responsible for the disappearance of protagonist Jeff's girlfriend, Diane.
18:43There's absolutely nothing charming or alluring about Barney.
18:47Both his superficial veneer of normality and the disturbing truth beneath
18:51couldn't be much further from the easygoing characters Bridges has spent most of his career playing.
18:56To his credit, Bridges acquitted himself just fine in the role,
19:00though this remake was a pale shadow of its 1988 predecessor,
19:04largely due to the decision to replace the original's bleaker-than-bleak ending
19:08with a happier, very, very Hollywood one where Barney is foiled and Jeff is saved.
19:14Anna Lynn McCord, Excision
19:16Prior to 2012's Excision, Anna Lynn McCord was almost always cast as confident, badass characters
19:23where her good looks were placed front and centre.
19:26But in Richard Bates Jr.'s aforementioned horror film, McCord plays Pauline,
19:30a deeply disturbed teen who has bad skin, weathered hair and poor posture to boot.
19:35Despite McCord being depicted as conventionally beautiful in just about every prior role,
19:41here she was given a firm dressing down to be as plain as possible.
19:45Yet it's really McCord's performance which truly sells Pauline as a twisted outcast,
19:50stripping away all the vivacity she's displayed elsewhere,
19:53trading it in for a more introverted, anxious, mousy type of character.
19:58Few casting directors would take a look at McCord's headshot and consider her a natural fit
20:02to play the weirdo pariah.
20:04But this only makes McCord's performance that much more startlingly impressive.
20:09Though Excision is something of a cult gem among horror fans,
20:12McCord's stellar performance desperately deserves more eyes on it.
20:16And finally, Leslie Nielsen, Creepshow.
20:20The late, great Leslie Nielsen had such a storied career that he managed to be cast against type
20:26in both directions.
20:27As a younger actor, Nielsen was known for his dramatic performances in films such as
20:33Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure, before being cast against type in the comedy
20:38Airplane, after which he firmly established himself as an all-time comedic performer
20:43in the Naked Gun franchise.
20:45Yet in 1982, just as Nielsen had cemented himself in the world of comedy with the TV series Police
20:51Squad, which was the precursor to The Naked Gun, he played a ruthless villain in the Stephen
20:57King-written horror anthology film Creepshow.
21:00In the story Something to Tide You Over, Nielsen plays a psychopathic millionaire who plots
21:05one hell of a nasty revenge plan on his wife and the man she's having an affair with.
21:09Nielsen is brilliantly ice cold in the role without a fleck of wink-wink comedy, in turn
21:15demonstrating his underrated range as an actor.
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