Five Actors Who Always Play Dicks, But Are Probably Nice Guys In Real Life
“Type casting” doesn’t begin to cover it. These are the five actors who might be nice guys in real life, but are always cast as big a-holes on screen.
Maybe it’s his name. Or the fact that he does kind of look like a penis, but I’m sure the real-life Cam couldn’t possibly be as big of a jerk as the characters he’s played. He launched his career of playing buttholes with his role of Kevin Volchok—abusive drunk boyfriend to Marrisa and fight-in-the-making to Ryan—on “The O.C.” He’s tried to change things up with his role as some underground-fighting-world guy who will never back down in 2008’s Never Back Down, but with villainous turns in Twilight, he keeps reminding everyone how easy it is to hate him. Maybe he was really nice and unabusive in Who’s Your Caddy, but having not seen it myself, I can only assume he punched some kid’s goldfish or something. On the golf course.
Fans of the Saw series have feared him for most of the 21st Century, but they may be happy to know Bell has been playing jerks for years. Even on a show with seemingly little use of villains as “Seinfeld” found a way to let Bell do his best kind of bastard. I also always remember him for a line he may not have even said in a movie I can’t remember. He’s some sort of informant getting questioned, and he’s down and out and kind of avoiding the questions. A question is posed, Bell, pauses (like a dick, don’t forget that), then roots around for an old cigarette from his ashtray. Then he lights it, takes a drag and growls, “I’m smokin’ old butts… from the ash tray.” Here’s the thing—even if he didn’t say this line, or do anything close to whatever movie this was, that doesn’t stop me from ASSUMING it was Tobin Bell. If it wasn’t Bell, then the guy playing the part was channeling him. That, my friends, is a legacy of on screen dick head.
“Can you fly, Bobby?” Having recently re-watched Robocop, I was prepared for a fair amount of Kurtwood-based dickery. But no line (or delivery of line) quite sums it up so well when Smith throws his own wounded underling at a cop car. From there he went on to be the “less bad, but still a red-ass” Red Forman, but since he was always harshing Topher’s buzz, I can still call this another role on his Dick List. Maybe it’s our society’s unfair bias against bald(ing) men and foreheads… lucky Jason Alexander. If “Seinfeld” hadn’t come along, he was headed straight for Kurtwood Smith Dick Head territory with Pretty Woman.
Steff. The name says it all. His roll as sandal-wearing-rich-26-year-old high school asshole in Pretty in Pink set a standard for detached bastardness. Just remember the party scene where Andie (played by Molly Ringwald) and Blane (Andrew McCarthy, who probably assumed they were talking to him every time they refered to “Andie”) go to Steff’s house (even his house feels like a hairy pair of nuts), and Steff’s upstairs having sex with his bitchy girlfriend, and he’s drunk, and he belittles our heroine just by telling his girlfriend, “We have guests.” Steff always seemed like he had a cigarette stuck in his nasal cavity. The weird part is that my mother in law LOVES James Spader, and this led me to question if his rolls betrayed his actual likability. Sure, he’s played “heroic” rolls afterwards, but lok at his face. Man… Steff. The guy who played Neidermeyer owes him a major thank you for taking some of the work load of the 80’s villains.
And the Number One Actor Who Always…yeah-yeah-yeah… is…
The T-1000 has not been able to live down that head-tilted-down intense stare. Crooked cop (Cop Land) or Johnny Cash’s jerk-ass dad (Walk the Line), Patrick is destined to never play the Nice Dad Who Works Hard and Loves His Gay Son, or even the dad that learns to love his gay son. The best he can hope for is taking the thankless roll of replacing a fan-favorite character on a cult TV show (“The X-Files”) and playing the lead in the “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn” sequel. I bet he picks his kids up every day after school, gives them homemade treats and rebuilds their kites with a smile… but he’d never ever ever EVER get a chance to do that on screen.
