That's not Henry Fonda!!

So said my Nan, to my Dad, after she had witnessed her hero, Henry Fonda, playing the eponymous villain Frank in Sergio Leone's masterpiece 'Once Upon a Time in the West', kill and maim one innocent bystander after another. It was at the point when he killed the kid that she walked out of the cinema, marched into a pub, ordered up a double vodka to steady her nerves and vowed never to watch the end of that bloody film. She forgave Henry, eventually but the relationship was never the same. My Nan's hollering 'That's not Henry Fonda' had me thinking about the notion of typecasting and those actors/actresses that have tried to shake an ingrained persona in the hope of not being labeled as a one trick pony.

A seriously nasty Henry Fonda in 'Once Upon a Time in the West'

So, in no particular order of preference, I give you 7 of those that, at least, tried to rid themselves of their adopted typecasting.

Robin Wiliams
With every single film stuffed with as much pathos as to be able to fill Madison Square garden ten time over,(Awakenings, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting), Robin was in danger of becoming the all encompassing misery bag of acting. Deciding to shake things up a bit, Williams went for the tired, but well trusted, route of roughing it up, so out went those weeping eyes and hound-dog expressions and in came some seriously deranged shenanigans in the films Insomnia and One-Hour Photo . Did it work? Time will probably be the judge of that.

See Insomnia trailer here

Tom Cruise
No matter what role Cruise had acted in before Magnolia you would always get the same cutie faced routine, even Stanley Kubrick wasn’t able to extract anything new from the man. So it's with some amazement that the transformation is so great in P.T Anderson's 1999 epic masterpiece. Are we actually seeing the real prancing, dancing nut case that leaped up and down on Oprah's sofa? Or is this in fact just fine acting?

See Cruise in all his madness (in Magnolia that is) here

Deborah Kerr
She was the bright young thing of the British film studios in the 1940’s willing and able in churning out one well-bred young lady on our screens after another; she even played a nun for heaven's sake in Black Narcissus. She was chastity, purity, spotless. Then she said to hell with this and blew that typecast straight out of the water with 'that kiss' in From Here to Eternity. As the passionate adulteress, frolicking in the sand with a buffed up Burt Lancaster, Kerr never looked back and her career flourished.

Watch Kerr and Lancaster frolic here

James Stewart
All American everyman, war-hero and movie giant, Stewart moved with grace and humanity from one joyous picture to the next (Mr Smith Goes to Washington, The Shop Around the Corner, The Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life) encompassing a strong moral fiber which cemented his persona. But then along came Vertigo. More than any other director Hitchcock deliberately challenged the persona of Stewart (Rope, Rear Window) and with Vertigo he managed to rip it to shreds. Before our very eyes James Stewart is transformed from the bastion of everything good and American to that on a sexually obsessive pervert in one swift film. Once seen you never look at him the same way again.

Watch the trailer to Vertigo here

John Travolta
Old swivel hips had truly lost his way and with the Look Who's Talking franchise coming to an end what was he to do now? He hadn’t had a hit for over a decade and not since the 70's had anyone expected anything of any note but then one inspired piece of casting later from Mr. Tarantino and boom! A new Travolta was born. Carving a new niche out for himself he went on to something of a roll with Get Shorty and Face/Off soon after, so well done Mr. Travolta; that doesn't mean we've forgotten, or indeed forgiven you, for Battlefield Earth.

Royale with Cheese anyone?

Meg Ryan
Rosy cheeked, blue-eyed with curly locks and fluttering eyelashes, Meg Ryan's persona screamed American Sweetheart. The bastion of the Romantic Comedy (When Harry Met Sally, Prelude to a Kiss, Sleepless in Seattle) it appeared that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. What better way then to demolish a persona than by getting down and dirty in the erotic thriller In the Cut. All grown up and naked and stuff Meg revealed all in Jane Campion's flawed film in an attempt to shake off that apple pie image once and for all.

Watch the trailer to In the Cut here

James Cagney
Pit-bull faced Cagney was the supreme hoodlum overlord of the Hollywood studio system, the perfect identifiable gangster; this man was Public Enemy number one. Forever dying in a hail of bullets Cagney filmed one gangster movie after the next (Angels with Dirty Faces, The Roaring Twenties) with great success. Not content with being typecast Jimmy changed all that with the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy , which not only changed his persona in the public eye but also bagged himself an Oscar in the process.

Sing along with Cagney here

Do you know of any other actors/actresses that deliberately tried to shake off their persona's?