Actors who play one role for most of their career

I think Sir Ian McKellan wanted to be in Coronation Street because it looked like fun.

Beg your pardon Beswitched but that’s just what you implied
But if you're not good enough to make a living from stage work or playing different TV and film roles

But anyway by the by what you now illustrate is an entirely different scenario if you played Hamlet all your life you would be going over and over and over the same story night after night which would drive you insane but with a soap it’s a constantly changing story isn’t it ? so quite interesting watching how it unfolds and move onto the next storyline I d presume

Yes I do think very few actors are good enough to make a living purely on film and stage work. The vast majority of soap actors aren't which is why they return to soaps and reprise their roles so often. But I did not say that acting in a soap is creatively inferior. Anymore than I think local theatre groups are creatively inferior to West end theatres.

Slightly off topic but I have wondered if the actors who left 'Downton' early on to enhance their careers have regretted it. Apart from Lily James who seems to be in everything.

Aside from actors such as Bill Roach aka Ken Barlow, incidentally, his son Linus is a good actor, there are actors, I use the word loosely who only ever play themselves. I'm thinking of royal descendant, Danny Dyer, he's always the same, could he ever be anyone else? I did think at one time Hugh Grant could only ever play floppy haired posh boys, but he did rather a splendid turn as Jeremy Thorpe.

I'm always impressed by actors who can turn their hand to a whole breadth of characters, always thought Daniel Day Lewis typified amazing versatility.

Bruce Willis has made a good living from playing the same role in pretty much every film he's ever been in; he's become type cast as John MaClane. Michael Sheen, on the other hand, has played so many different characters, from Tony Blair to Kenneth Williams and he not only sounds like them; he looks like them too and seems to "become" whoever the character is..

Still a bit bewildered that viewing soap operas as being artistically inferior to great plays performed in the West End, Shakespeare, Bafta winning dramas etc makes me judgmental

Sparklefizz

Or some actors take roles in a variety of different films, etc. but always play it the same, eg. Hugh Grant.

Did you watch Hugh Grant in A Very English Scandal, Sparklefizz?
Definitely different from his normal role.

And in Paddington 2 his send-up of himself was hilarious!

Bruce Willis has made a good living from playing the same role in pretty much every film he's ever been in

The Sixth Sense was quite a different role for him, apparently.. Never having seen him in any other film I thought he was very good in that!

Yep, I agree with you there Callistemon, Sixth Sense was excellent.

Lots of actors seem to leave the soaps to take on different roles and to broaden their experience but many of them are never heard of again. Michelle Keegan is one of the exceptions that prove the rule. A nice secure role in Coronation Street must be a godsend if you have a family to look after.

Chewbacca

Yep, I agree with you there Callistemon, Sixth Sense was excellent.

I remember telling a friend that I'd been to see it, Chewbacca and said that Bruce Willis was excellent - he looked at me in astonishment ?

Dirk Bogarde used to play such a variety of characters. He was fresh faced and attractive in the Doctor films and then evil incarnate in others. He could play historical roles and literary figures as in A Tale of Two Cities. Then there was Richard Attenborough, again he portrayed a school boy in The Guinea Pig or a gangster in Brighton Rock. He could terrify an audience as a Crippen in 10 Rillington Place. So many parts but agree many actors tend to play similar parts. Hugh Grant however has changed in recent years. He was brilliant as Jeremy Thorpe in I think it was calledAn English Scandal. He was different again in a Paddington Bear. John Wayne, however, played himself his entire acting career.

Hamlet or Blanche Dubois are each just one role, though. A long-standing role in a soap is, as Namsnanny points out, a lot of different roles in one.

I agree with BlueBelle that staying put in a soap is not a sign of an inferior or limited actor, and that it's akin to someone working for the local council or something all their lives. Not everyone wants to live out of a suitcase.

I think if you are offered a role in a soap which earns accolades each year, get on well with the other actors, become a ‘household name’, go to work in the same place each day, rather than spend time away from family in other parts of the country and get paid well, why wouldn’t you?
I imagine there is a long waiting list of well known faces who are trying to get onto the soaps.
I don’t watch them myself but some of the headlines about the storylines must mean that they get challenged every time they go into work?
I saw that the actress who plays Dot Cotton is 94! Must be nice for her to be able to get to work easily.

Also some of the actors who leave the soaps to branch out then find the grass is not always greener. They seem quite glad to return to their old roles a few years later, older and wiser.

Thinking only of coronation street, there’s many younger actresses who have left over the past few years to broaden their experience who you never hear from again apart from magazines or newspapers. The actresses who played Eva, Bethany, Kylie are just three that spring to mind. No wonder then that others on the show who are not particularly photogenic or talented stay put. It’s a nice little earner and secure.

Yes I suppose in general the versatile and very talented actors move on and can make a living while creating many different characters - Sarah Lancashire, Amanda Burton, Anna Friel etc. Others leave, test the waters and realise they're just not enough in demand to make it and reprise their soap role.

I just wonder if actors like Sally Dynevor and Adam Woodyatt, who joined soaps when they were very young and never left, regret it. They are so typecast now they would probably struggle to get other roles.

I think soap actors will be the same as the rest of us, we all make compromises with our careers, it must be very rare not to have to do that.