Howdy fellow film freaks, Robert here. Typecasting can be the end of an actor's career; getting inseparably linked with a character can make it very difficult to find new work after the project that made that actor famous has ended. One solution, should the opportunity arise, is to take a role that's so different from the one they are best known for that it destroys the connection. Sometimes it backfires, as in the case of Elizabeth Berkeley and Showgirls. Sometimes it works too well, a la Matt Smith in Lost River. And occasionally it poisons the well just enough that you never look at that actor's most famous character the same way again. 2010's The Perfect Host does this for its star, David Hyde-Pierce, best known as Niles Crane, the brother of Frasier Crane in Kelsey Grammar's Cheers spinoff.
