One of my very favorite things to see in movies and TV shows is an actor cast against type. Nothing beats that feeling of surprise when an actor successfully plays a character totally opposite from what they’re known for. Not only is it rewarding to the audience, but it’s great for the actors who get a chance to show their range and possibly even redefine their whole career.
Before Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston was a comedy guy, yet he became a badass drug kingpin in that series. Michael Chiklis was known for being an affable everyman before he became a corrupt killer cop on The Shield. Conversely, before Airplane!, Leslie Nielsen was known for serious, square-jawed roles in B dramas, but after getting some laughs in that movie, he got to spend the rest of his career showing off what a goofball he was. (The recent Naked Gun reboot pulls a similar trick with Liam Neeson.)
These are the kinds of performances that were shocking as hell when they first arrived and that’s what I was looking for when browsing for something to watch on Prime Video, where I found three really good examples of movies that completely cast against type. You won’t find any of these on the homescreen of Prime Video or served up by Amazon’s algorithm, but they’re each worth watching while you can stream them for free from the same company that sells you toilet paper and protein powder.
3
The Perfect Host
Throughout his 11 years playing the neurotic, fastidious, self-important Niles Crane on Frasier, David Hyde Pierce was nominated for an Emmy every single season — he ended up winning four of them. Since then he’s been very selective about his TV and film roles, which is part of the reason why his surprisingly villainous turn in The Perfect Host is such a delight.
The Perfect Host begins with a bank robber named John Taylor (Clayne Crawford) on the run. To hide, he pulls into a rich neighborhood and knocks on a door. The man who answers is Warwick Wilson (Pierce), who invites him in, offers him some wine, and explains he’s getting ready for a party. As it turns out, the wine was drugged and John passes out only to awaken later tied to a chair. By that time, the party is supposedly in full swing but the guests are all revealed to be figments of Warwick’s imagination. The torturing of John is the party’s main source of entertainment.
At first, there seems to be quite a bit of Niles Crane in Pierce’s performance, but that familiarity only serves to mislead the audience, making his dark turn all the more unexpected. Once we realize who Warwick really is, Pierce is completely convincing as a menacing, unpredictable psychopath, and the film unfolds with a variety of unexpected turns.
2
Pacific Heights
When Michael Keaton got the role of Batman, director Tim Burton was most certainly casting against type. At the time, Keaton was known for comedies like Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice and while those are two very different kinds of comedies, the general public still expected the former stand-up comedian to make them laugh. However, 1989’s Batman quickly redefined Keaton’s career as more of a leading man capable of a variety of roles — even entirely serious ones — and his very next film only served to underline that point.
Pacific Heights stars Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine as a young couple restoring a multi-family house in San Francisco. They’re normal, friendly people who make the mistake of renting out one of their units to Carter Hayes (Keaton). Before paying the advance rent he promised, Hayes moves in and locks himself in the unit. He’s soon heard hammering and drilling, and he acts like a total creep around Griffith’s character. While the couple tries to remove Hayes, he’s always one step ahead of them legally. At one point, Modine’s character goes to jail for assaulting Hayes, which allows Hayes to do even more horrible stuff to the couple.
Directed by John Schlesinger and written by Daniel Pyne, Pacific Heights drew from real-life landlord horror stories, which effectively makes the movie seem not like an outlandish thriller, but like a true-to-life story of a nightmare tenant.
1
Burn After Reading
After they won the Oscar for Best Picture with the drama/thriller No Country for Old Men, the very next film the Coen brothers did was Burn After Reading, a comedy that seemed to be a bit of a throwback to their broader, sillier work like Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy. It featured a CIA analyst (John Malkovich) who loses some documents and, as a result, gets blackmailed by a couple of moronic gym employees (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand). From there, the plot twists and turns its way through various government agencies in a complete mockery of bureaucracy at the highest levels.
The Coen brothers’ gear change from heavy drama back to live-action cartoon was unexpected back in 2008, and the transition was made even more surprising thanks to a few against-type casting choices. Brad Pitt played a confident, big-haired moron who was in way over his head in the world of government intrigue. His partner in crime, played by McDormand, is almost as dumb as he is, and she’s obsessed with using the potential blackmail money to get all kinds of cosmetic surgeries. But it’s George Clooney though who gets the strangest part. The usually-cool guy plays a paranoid, obnoxious, easily distractible U.S. Marshall who spends his free time building what’s best described as a dildo chair. He’s also a bit of a moron, as are most of the characters in Burn After Reading, which is probably what’s so funny about it.