Life Perspective | 15 Actors Who Keep Getting The Most Degrading Roles | Part1
Channel: Life Perspective
Date: 2017-09-23

Life Perspective | 15 Actors Who Keep Getting The Most Degrading Roles | Part1

15 Actors Who Keep Getting The Most Degrading Roles. There’s a decent debate to be had about typecast actors. Should we be viewing them as poor souls that have been limited in some way, or should we be celebrating them for having the chance to work in the industry at all, regardless of how similar an actor’s roles have been? Most of the time, typecast is an overused word. If an actor plays the same character a few times, that doesn’t mean that they’ve been typecast, it just means that the actor has had success with the role. Even the most beloved actors in the world have taken on similar roles on more than one occasion. Having said that, not every actor and not every role is equal here. While some actors have that teacher look and continue getting cast as teachers, other actors continue getting cast in less savory roles. They may say they’re happy to get the work, but there’s a part of us that has to wonder if the actor feels a little strange about these roles. What is it about these actors, aside from their talent, that makes them seem so ripe for these parts? Obviously, looks play a big part, but is there something in their natural mannerisms? Maybe they’re really capable actors, but for these roles, they don’t need to change much. Maybe this is kind of who they are. The names on this list might not be the most recognizable, but chances are you’ve seen many or most of them. In fact, you’ve probably only seen them in these roles. Here are 15 Actors Who Keep Getting the Most Degrading Roles. 

1. Lupe Ontiveros – Maid. Guadalupe “Lupe” Ontiveros, sadly, passed away in 2012, but she makes this list because of all her maid appearances in film and on TV. Normally, it wouldn’t be offensive to be cast as a maid, but Ontiveros has played so many Mexican maids that there can be no doubt she was offensively typecast. Her most famous of these roles probably came in The Goonies, but she played similar parts in a crazy number of big shows and films. Some numbers have her playing a maid more than 150 times. There’s Reba, Alice, Charlie’s Angels and As Good As It Gets, to name a few. When Ontiveros was offered her biggest role as Beverly in Chuck & Buck, she jumped at the chance, saying, “Beverly? Her name is Beverly? I’ll do it. I don’t care what the script is about because her name is Beverly. It wasn’t Maria Guadalupe Conchita Esperanza, this Latino stereotype.” Obviously, the stereotypical roles wore her on her nerves over time.

2. Michael Emerson – Evil Weirdo. Aside from his role on Person of Interest, basically every memorable role from Michael Emerson has been that of the evil weirdo. It’s a strange category but it suits Emerson well. He’s been just that. Look at the characters of Oliver Martin in The X-Files, the serial killer, William Hinks, on Private Practice, the antagonist Benjamin Linus, on Lost and the sadistic Zep Hindle in Saw. What is it about Emerson that makes him so effective at playing the villain? It’s not all in his looks, but that has something to do with it. He looks intelligent and a bit awkward. This might put some people off. There’s also his voice. When Emerson voiced the Joker in The Dark Knight animated film, it kind of confirmed our suspicions that his voice was just as creepy, if not creepier, than his appearance.

3. Timothy Spall – Creepy Evil British Assistant. It’s possible that we’re making an offensive category here. Perhaps this is just the Timothy Spall category, but this is an actor who sure seems to play an awful lot of creepy assistants. Whether it’s Harry Potter, Sweeney Todd, Enchanted, or any of his other similar roles, Spall is often the conniving, evil, creepy underling. He’s done very, very well in these roles as well. Now, that’s not all Spall does. His Winston Churchill in The King’s Speech might be his best role to date, but he is most memorable playing the sneaky antagonist. The best test for a creepy actor is to play the ultimate creepy role in literature, that of Fagin in Oliver Twist, which Spall did for BBC. While his version of this character was more sympathetic than usual, there’s still so much weight behind the character that it doesn’t improve Spall’s unpleasant stereotype.