For me I think it was Jack Black in King Kong. I just wasn’t prepared for Jack Black being in a more serious role.
Kind of a cliche answer now, but at the time, everyone was shocked by Heath Ledger’s casting as Joker.
Similarly, I was initially skeptical when Robert Pattinson was announced for The Batman. But I thought he did a fantastic job!
Seems to be a tradition. Back when Michael Keaton was announced as Batman nobody could see him in that role either. He was only doing comedies at that time.
Nicholas Cage in ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’
I never would have expected John Malkovich to want to do the movie ‘Being John Malkovich’. It was such a crazy movie, and he is such a serious actor
Oh, I have a better one; Angela Lansbury in ‘The Manchurian Candidate’. As far as I know, the only time she has played a villain. And she was fantastic
Kevin James as a violent Neo Nazi in ‘Becky’.
And he was actually really good in it!
This is a deeper cut but check out the movie, Runaway, starring Tom Selleck and…
Gene Simmons as a scientist who makes killer robots and has a gun that shoots homing bullets.
Robin Williams in One Hour Photo. He did such an amazing job but it was just so unexpected at first to get over that he was doing a serious role that was a psychopath.
The Harry Potter guy in this movie where a guy gets guns screwed to his hands. I forget the name.
Guns Akimbo. Personally, feel it didn’t really live up to its premise, but was fun enough I guess. I feel like Daniel Radcliffe has generally tried to do lots of different things since Harry Potter, which I can understand. Similar to Robert Pattinson after Twilight, that move away from big franchises, at least initially.
Mike Myers in Inglorious Basterds just always stood out to me as being, weird. Supposedly Adam Sandler was supposed to play the Bear Jew, and Simon Pegg was supposed to play the British Spy masquerading as the German officer. (Michael Fassbender). So the movie could have been quite “diverse” in terms of casting.
