No actor wants to be known for just one role. Even if it’s a critically acclaimed breakout role that makes them a millionaire, most actors would rather be known for their talent and their range. These fifteen actors, for better or worse, will always be identified with one major role.
Kit Harrington as Jon Snow
Kit Harrington is a fine actor, and made the role of Jon Snow on Game of Thrones his own. However, it’s worth noting that he’s somewhat one-note. His performance in Eternals felt like more Jon Snow, giving fans the impression that he was basically playing himself on Thrones.
William Shatner as Captain Kirk
The original Star Trek was a huge hit, and most of its main cast turned into household names overnight. That goes for William Shatner, too, who has remained a high-profile star but has only ever really been famous for playing Captain Kirk on the 60s sci-fi show.
Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper
Jim Parsons has been in a few things besides The Big Bang Theory, like the Zach Braff movie Garden State, but he’s pretty much always playing Sheldon Cooper. It doesn’t help that he played the character for over a decade on TV, meaning he’s pretty much synonymous with his nerdy character.
Josh Radner as Ted Mosby
Speaking of sitcom actors who are now seen as their long-running TV character, Josh Radner’s role as Ted Mosby on How I Met Your Mother is pretty much his only notable credit. And there’s nothing wrong with that, as his performance on the show is great. It’s just notable that he really hasn’t been in anything else.
Rainn Wilson as Dwight
Rainn Wilson has popped up in a few projects here and there, but he’s mainly known for his role as Dwight on The Office. It’s very difficult for an actor who plays a specific sitcom character for over a decade to shake that role, which has stuck with Wilson even years after The Office has ended.
Adam West as Batman
Adam West was a gifted actor and really got to flex his comedic muscles on Family Guy. However, he’ll always be remembered as the 60s Batman. His campy, over-the-top approach to the Caped Crusader defined an entire era of the superhero’s evolution.
Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister
Macaulay Culkin hasn’t been in many movies since the Home Alone series, and he’s mainly known as Kevin McCallister to this day. Those two things could be directly related. It doesn’t help that he’s instantly recognizable, even as an adult, as “the kid from Home Alone.”
Iñaki Godoy as Luffy
Mexican actor Iñaki Godoy has been in quite a few Spanish-language productions. However, in the English-speaking world, he’s known for his jubilant take on Luffy, the future King of the Pirates from Netflix’s live action adaptation of One Piece. Godoy is uniquely exhilarating in the role of the young pirate captain, and his magnetic personality is pivotal to the fantastical show functioning as well as it does.
David Schwimmer as Ross Geller
Unsurprisingly, Ross Geller has become the only real role you can associate with David Schwimmer. When sitcom leading actors are indistinguishable from the role they’re playing for nearly ten years, it becomes very difficult for them to get work as anything else.
Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams
Wednesday is great, as is its breakout star Jenna Ortega. However, Ortega will likely be known as “that girl from Wednesday” for the foreseeable future. Part of the issue with her being so tightly tied to this role is that her other major appearances have been in psychological thrillers and horror movies, like the new Scream entries and the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel.
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker
Mark Hamill has had a long and illustrious career as a voice actor, but his only notable live action role has been as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise. His iconic portrayal of the optimistic farm boy who topples the evil Empire made Star Wars a timeless tale.
Jack Gleeson as Joffrey Baratheon
Jack Gleeson has been in shows that aren’t Game of Thrones, but his appearance tends to illicit cries of “oh man, that’s Joffrey!” and “I hate that Joffrey kid!” Suffice it to say, being typecast as a particularly loathsome villain isn’t great for an actor looking to find work in a variety of roles.
Jerry Seinfeld as… Himself, Kind Of
Jerry Seinfeld played a somewhat remixed version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld. The character was a stand-up comedian, like the real Seinfeld, and was also a completely unhinged jerk who never felt a drop of remorse for other people. You can decide for yourself if the fictional Seinfeld resembles the real one in that regard, what with his relationship with high schooler Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss in the 90s and his outspoken opinions about controversial current events in the modern era.
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Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee
Crocodile Dundee is basically the American “stock image” for an Australian man. As such, Paul Hogan’s portrayal of the comically Australian man became synonymous with the actor himself, and he found it difficult to ever shake the image of an Outback survivalist. That’s not a life we’d wish on any actor.
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Leonard Nimoy as Spock
Leonard Nimoy spent decades rebelling against his typecasting as the logical alien space explorer Spock. His role in Star Trek was so influential that anytime anyone saw him, they just thought “Spock.” In his later years, Nimoy embraced what the role and the franchise had meant for his life, and even appeared in the modern Trek reboot, directed by JJ Abrams.
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