Typecasting

I do think most of her roles in the last 20 years have been less important to the movie, than her playing the role. She's typically played a very self-assured independent woman, can't remember when she last played a deferential woman dependent on her husband for her well-being. Obviously she played more varied roles early on, but she's usually always played the protagonist in her movies in the last 20 years, if not the prime mover, the person who the movie hinges upon.

 

You think Streep plays the same person in every role? She is one of the very few actors working today who disappears into her roles.

 

I'm not diminishing her abilities as an actress at all. But she's kind of like Dame Maggie Smith in that whatever role she is playing you are fully aware that it is her. I was never thinking I was watching a documentary when I saw "The Post" - I was watching Tom Hanks in a movie with Meryl Streep - and I paid the full freight at the movie theater to do that.

I half remember a quote from a movie person - maybe it was America's Sweethearts from the '90s - and during development someone asked "what was the movie about?" The guy responded - "It's about Julia Roberts in a movie with Billy Crystal - does it matter?"

 

I think that’s the curse of a recognizable actor.

 

When "The Post" came out - a lot of people wondered why they'd tell the story of the Pentagon Papers from the runners-up perspective - the answer was Hanks and Streep wanted to work together and this was the script that was settled on. The story of the Pentagon Papers wasn't the driving force. Again - huge fan of Meryl Streep - check out "August: Osage County" if you haven't done so already.
And let's be honest - when we're talking about movie leads, there is a point where they become an amalgamation of their screen personas on screen and off-screen, in talk show appearances etc. Not sure where the line is where they bring who they are into a role and where the roles they play shape our perceptions of who they are as people. I think that kind of is the point of "typecasting" for lack of a better word, particularly with character actors. You can bring on an actor in a supporting role who is a familiar face and not give a long backstory because people get a sense of "who they are" just by them walking into a room. Think Dabney Coleman, Louis Gossett Junior, Marcia Gray Harden, Margo Martindale. What they've done in the past - the characters they have played informs the audiences of "who" that character is.
Also think of the shock when someone we perceive as a "good person" is in a movie and they turn out to be the villain and what a shock that is to the audience.

 

Scott Thompson playing a waiter in Kids in the Hall sketches.

 

there's another one- Billy Crystal

 

How many actors were in both Goodfellas and The Sopranos?

 

How about Joe Pesci?

 

27

27 Same Actors in The Sopranos and Goodfellas | Hardcore Italians

 

Maybe they've been mentioned before, but I submit Adam West ... and Burt Ward.

 

And the gift of guys like Tom Hardy and Christian Bale, and their godfather, Daniel Day-Lewis.