What actors have had their careers ruined by typecasting?

I agree with Jon Mixon, who offered up Leonard Nimoy...but I'd extend that to any actor from either the original "Star Trek" series or "Star Trek: The Next Generation." (Even Patrick Stewart, who was Dr. Xavier in the X-Men series and is an incredible Shakespearean actor, will always be first associated with Jean-Luc Picard.). read more

I'm not going to cover actors who've had a slow decline (Tim Robbins, Robert De Niro) or who Hollywood think are still big when audience s would beg to differ (Will Smith, Tom Hanks). These are all people who have one major offending movie, with its poster on their dartboard and a Golden Raspberry (the terrible movie equivalent of the Oscars) proudly on the mantle. read more

Given this, reducing typecasting is a complex problem especially as some typecast characters are just supposed to be simple stereotypes in a supporting role and frankly a movie doesn't have time to explore the feelings and intricacies of personality of a supporting character to move them beyond a typecast character so making them a stereotype works better from a film timing perspective as well. read more