Actors and the Signature Roles They Became Known For

Batman in the 1966 television series West’s Batman treats every absurd emergency with complete seriousness, and that is what makes the jokes land. Compare him with Mayor Adam West on Family Guy. The character is an exaggerated version of the actor, but the joke still depends on how confidently West can deliver something ridiculous.

Spock in Star Trek Spock makes small changes in expression carry more weight than most speeches. Compare him with the Great Paris, the master of disguise Nimoy played on Mission: Impossible. Nimoy later drew on that show’s habit of giving each team member a specific job when he directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Lieutenant Columbo in Columbo Falk makes the lieutenant’s apparently casual questions feel like a patient method of taking a story apart. In Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, he plays a version of himself. That film is a good place to see what his unassuming manner can do when nobody is waiting for him to solve a crime.

Fonzie in Happy Days Fonzie is in control even when he barely moves. Winkler’s acting teacher Gene Cousineau, in Barry, also knows how to command a room, but that confidence can unravel in seconds. The latter performance won him a Primetime Emmy and makes a sharp companion to the role that introduced him to so many viewers.

Princess Leia in Star Wars Fisher’s Leia takes command even when the people around her think they are staging the rescue. For another side of Fisher’s work, read Postcards from the Edge. Its blunt comic voice carries some of the same impatience with easy answers, on a page Fisher wrote herself.

Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Luke’s earnestness is what makes his anger in the later films count. If that is the Hamill you know, try his Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. The laugh and the way he stretches a threat before letting it drop show how thoroughly he could change the impression he made with his voice alone.

Superman and Clark Kent in Superman The way Reeve adjusts his stance between Clark and Superman is part of the effect. In The Remains of the Day, he plays Jack Lewis, an American who attends a conference at an English country house. His directness has a different kind of force in a room where people are careful about what they say.

Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote Lansbury made a mystery novelist’s curiosity inviting enough to follow into a new case every week. For a different use of her composure, watch The Manchurian Candidate. The certainty that puts people at ease in Jessica Fletcher becomes much more unsettling in the film.

Sarah Connor in the Terminator films Put The Terminator beside Terminator 2: Judgment Day to see how far Hamilton changed Sarah Connor’s bearing between films. Then try her Dr. Kay in the fifth season of Stranger Things. It gives her a different relationship to power, with the character issuing orders from inside the very institution that frightens everybody else.

Frasier Crane in Cheers and Frasier Grammer carried the same psychiatrist from somebody else’s bar into a sitcom of his own. Start with Frasier if you want to see how much comedy he can get out of a man explaining himself. His recurring turn as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons takes that same eloquence somewhere far less reassuring.

Steve Urkel in Family Matters The role began as a guest spot, and White turned Urkel’s voice, stance, and timing into something viewers wanted to see again. Try his memoir Growing Up Urkel for his account of the job and what came after it. The book gives the actor room to tell the story from the other side of the joke.

Mr. Bean in Mr. Bean Watch Bean try to get through an ordinary task and notice how Atkinson lets his face tell you what he will do next. Then try Blackadder, where timing depends as much on the next line as on the next movement. The comparison shows what the near-silence of Bean asked him to do differently.

Dana Scully in The X-Files Scully makes a skeptical look into an argument without slowing a scene down. In The Fall, Anderson plays another investigator, Stella Gibson, with an even more deliberate stillness. Seeing the two side by side makes it easier to pick out the difference between Scully’s active doubt and Gibson’s refusal to be hurried.

Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess Lawless gives Xena room to look amused without losing the gravity that makes the character work. Try her as investigator Alexa Crowe in My Life Is Murder for a contrast in scale. She brings the same confidence to an exchange across a table that Xena needed in a much larger adventure.

Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Buffy’s jokes can buy her a moment to think, which makes Gellar’s timing matter even in a fight scene. Then watch her as Kathryn in Cruel Intentions, where quick replies are used to control other people. The two roles make a good pair because the skill is easy to hear and the intention is so different.