Weird things I find interesting...

So, as my earlier M*A*S*H post suggests, I have this weird fascination with recognizing actors in places I didn't expect to see them. I mean, I know that Tom Hanks starred in Big, so seeing him there isn't really that interesting. And even if I hadn't known that going in, he's such a big star now, and he's the star of the movie, so it's not that interesting.

But, if he had a bit part as a bartender in some crap movie, where he doesn't even really look like Tom Hanks and you look at him and think, "Hey! Is that Tom Hanks?", now that's what I think is interesting.

I know. I'm weird.

I've been watching the Firefly series recently (I want to watch the whole series before I blog about the content, so you'll hear about that later), and this situation presented itself with 4 of the show's main characters. I was sitting there, watching the pilot episode, thinking, "I know I've seen these actors in other stuff. But where?"

The easiest to figure out was Alan Tudyk, who plays Wash, the pilot of the ship Serenity. His character is kind of happy-go-lucky, always cracking jokes and relieving tense moments. That and his red hair made it easy to place him as Steve the Pirate from the movie Dodgeball. The characters are similar enough that I didn't have a completely different idea of that actor in my head.

The other easy one was Adam Baldwin, who plays Jayne Cobb, the mercenary muscle whose allegiance to the captain and Serenity are always sort of in question. He's a tough guy, very much into physical force, so it wasn't that hard to remember him as Major Mitchell in the movie Independence Day. When I double-checked this on IMDB, I realized I'd seen him in a bunch of other stuff as well, including ads for Daybreak (although I've never seen the show).

The other two were a bit tougher, and I think these really show why I'm fascinated by trying to place actors. Sometimes it's really hard. And when it's that hard, you know they're really doing a great job, because they have created such a believable character that you can't think of them as anyone else, not even the real person behind the character. For me, this happens most often when actors play roles that are very different from each other.

A great example of this is Nathan Fillion, who plays Captain Mal Reynolds on the show. He holds his cards very close to his chest and tries not to get emotionally involved with his crew and passengers, and because of this, I had a hard time placing him as Johnny Donnelly from the stupid sitcom Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place, even though his haircut is almost identical in both shows. I think it's a real tribute to his acting that even when I thought I recognized him, I had to double-check online because he seemed so different.

But the one that really blew my mind was Gina Torres, who plays Zoe Washburne, Mal's #2 and wife of Wash, the pilot. It honestly took me until I saw the credits to realize who she had played--Anna Espinosa from Alias. Those of you who know me know that I'm a bit of an Alias nut; I've seen most episodes at least twice, often more. So it's not that I haven't seen Alias very much. It's just that Torres' character is so different in Firefly. While both Anna and Zoe are incredibly strong female characters, Zoe is, well, gentler. Her hair is curly and pulled back, while Anna's was usually straight down her back. And I think the biggest difference is that Zoe smiles, and the only time we saw Anna smile was when she was mocking Sydney Bristow.