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- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Warner Bros.
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- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Veteran actor Gary Oldman has had a long and impressive big-screen career. Many of his most memorable roles have come from playing the villain, such as in Léon: The Professional and True Romance. The Oscar-winning actor was certainly not an obvious choice to take on the role of Harry Potter's wizardly godfather Sirius Black in 2004's third Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
However, Oldman added the fantasy movie to his resume in order to score some street cred with his kids. Oldman said that he became something of a hero at the kids' school. He added:
And of course I've got kids of my own now, and they love me being in the Harry Potter films. I'm now part of a phenomenon. You become incredibly cool to your kids, and you get a young fan base. So you became the cool dad at school. You're suddenly hip.
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Turns out Sir Michael Caine can do it all. The British actor got to show off his singing and dancing in the 1992 musical fantasy The Muppet Christmas Carol. The Walt Disney/Jim Henson production is an adaptation of Charles Dickens's timeless tale, A Christmas Carol.
By the time the early 1990s rolled around, the Oscar winner had already played everything from a violent gangster to a womanizer. Despite his impressive filmography, his young daughter had not been able to see a single one of her father's movies. Caine explained why it was so easy to take the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Muppet movie:
To start, my daughter, who is the mother of my grandchildren, was then 7, and she had never seen me in a movie. I had never made a movie that a 7-year-old can see. And so a man mentioned the Muppets and I said, 'That’s it! I’ll do that!' And it’s A Christmas Carol, it’s a fabulous tale! You’ll be old Scrooge, it’ll be marvelous! And it was absolutely perfect at that time for what I wanted. I could make it, and my daughter could see it. That’s why I did it. And it was lovely.
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Matthew McConaughey's three kids are way too young to check out their dad's Oscar-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club. In fact, the actor's filmography is packed with roles not suitable for young children. That changed in 2016 when McConaughey signed on to voice the character of Buster Moon, a koala, in the animated movie musical Sing. McConaughey explained:
I got tired of answering the question, 'So what film have you made that is your kids' favorite?' I looked at my last 10 years and I hadn't really done one that they could see. So I’d watch animated films with them, and I was like, 'You know what? I want to make an animated film, do some voice work.'
The actor's kids thought their dad's performance was alright. "They love it, I'm Buster Moon around the house now," said McConaughey. "They were glad I did it but they were into these other characters."
The cast is filled with a number of other big stars who lent their voices to the box-office hit, including Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson.
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Unfortunately for Ryan Reynolds's three kids, they won't be able to see his Deadpool movies for quite some time because they are (very) R-rated. However, the Canadian star was thrilled to play the titular investigator in Detective Pikachu. Reynolds did both the voice and facial motion-capture work in the 2019 hit movie. The live-action mystery is based on the Pokémon franchise.
Reynolds accepted the role as the wise-cracking detective with his kids in mind:
When I first heard about this film... Detective Pikachu, I was excited to do a film that my kids would love. For me, that's a big one because then I can watch it with them.
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Raúl Juliá was a classically trained actor with an impressive dramatic resume. He endeared himself to American movie fans when he took on the role of patriarch Gomez Addams in two 1990s installments of The Addams Family.
There really isn't a lot to love about 1994's Jean-Claude Van Damme-starring action movie Street Fighter. It's a bad movie that absolutely tanked critically. However, there is one thing that saves the campy video game adaptation from total wreckage, and that's Juliá's scene-stealing performance as the movie's supervillain M. Bison.
Turns out the actor was suffering from terminal stomach cancer when he took the role. Despite being in pain and severely underweight, it was important enough for Juliá to be in the movie because his kids were big fans of the Street Fighter video game:
My children play the video game and as soon as I mentioned the title of the film all of a sudden their faces lit up.
The actor passed in 1994, the same year the film was released.
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One of James Marsden's goals for his career as an actor is to vary his roles as much as possible. One reason why the handsome star chose to play the kindly Green Hills sheriff in the family adventure comedy Sonic the Hedgehog was because it was completely different from the dystopian darkness of Westworld. "I always try and do the polar opposite of what I just finished, and Westworld is a heavy show," said Marsden. "You want to go do something else completely different."
Another reason why he chose the live-action/CGI animated movie was to try and show off a little for his kids. "My kids are wonderfully underwhelmed with what I do," said the X-Men star. "It's not like they're begging me to be in movies, they've always found that kind of strange."
Marsden figured that his young daughter would at least enjoy seeing her dad play Prince Edward in the Walt Disney musical fantasy Enchanted. However, the experience made her anxious. "She didn't like me sitting next to her on the couch with me on the screen," he said. "It was a struggle for her to comprehend... They want you to be dad and not anything else."
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Jamie Foxx decided to add supervillain to his impressive Hollywood filmography when he agreed to appear in Marc Webb's 2014 The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Foxx took on the role of Electro because of his daughter's fondness for the webbed superhero. In fact, when Foxx told his 4-year-old that he would be playing Electro, she told him, "Spider-Man's going to kick your butt!" Foxx said:
That right there, for me, is everything I need. Because now my daughter can come to the set and she's dressed in her Spider-Man costume while I got my Electro costume on, and that's just great.
The Oscar-winning actor wanted to bring a little of his comedy background to the villainous character. He solicited his sister to help him come up with Max's hairstyle; before Electro gets his superpowers, he's a nerdy electrical engineer who is obsessed with Spider-Man. "I told her I wanted to be the first Black man with a comb-over," Foxx joked.
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Back to the Future wrapped up its wildly successful trilogy in 1990 by crossing over into the Western genre. According to Back to the Future Part III's DVD commentary, Steenburgen agreed to take on the role of Doc Brown's (Christopher Lloyd) long lost love, school teacher Clara Clayton, for the sci-fi comedy because her kids were fans of Back to the Future.
It wouldn't be her first Western or her first movie with Christopher Lloyd. The veteran actress made her cinematic debut in another Western comedy called Goin' South, which co-starred Lloyd.
Great kid-friendly role?How many two-time Academy Award winners take roles in superhero movies? Cate Blanchett agreed to sign on to play the villainous Hela for the third standalone Thor movie, Thor: Ragnarok, at the behest of her kids. "It's a universe that I've sort of been happily dragged into by my kids," said Blanchett.
The Australian actress actually made MCU history with her 2017 performance as Hela, the Goddess of Death. She was the first female villain in any Marvel movie at the time. (There had been 16 MCU movies up to that point.)
Blanchett discussed whether or not she felt any pressure being Marvel's first female villain:
You only feel pressure if you think this is the only shot that women will have, which is ridiculous. I mean, there's a huge female fan base and having a daughter myself, you want them to be able to identify with [the villains] as well as the heroes. Of course, Marvel [just] announced Captain Marvel. [So] this is the beginning of a rolling stone that's gonna gather a lot of female moss... I was super excited because, like with any film, whether it's an action film or a small indie drama, it depends on who's looking down the lens and when it's Taika [Waititi] - that for me was a really exciting thing.
Great kid-friendly role?Djimon Hounsou has received two Oscar nods for best supporting actor, the first for In America and the second for Blood Diamond. The West African-born actor decided to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe for his son. Hounsou saw the opportunity to play Korath the Pursuer in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy as a chance to show his son there could be real diversity in superhero movies. He said:
The lack of diversity, specifically in genre films and the superheroes our kids grow up watching and emulating, they can't really identify with. When you see the same thing, over and over again, and it seems not to speak of you and your heritage and your culture, it leaves you out of this world, a little bit. It gives a certain social distance with your world. So, it was very shocking when my son said that. It shocked me, but at the same time, it was not a surprise. It's one of those things that even I have been looking for. I'm looking for a hero of my kind, and I'm looking for a shero of my kind. Now, we have Zoe Saldana, who is a shero for minorities, and that's kind of nice.
Hounsou reprised his MCU role as the cybernetically augmented warrior for 2019's Captain Marvel. He also entered the DC Extended Universe in 2018's Aquaman as the Fisherman King. The actor additionally played the titular wizard in 2019's Shazam!
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Tommy Lee Jones did not seem like the obvious choice to play the supervillain Two-Face in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever. The director talked about the first time he met Jones, who was with his 11-year-old son Austin. He had a speech prepared in order to convince the very serious Oscar-winning actor to appear in the comic book movie.
"I got there and Austin had a pile of Batman comics with Two-Face on top. Tommy told me he’s doing the character because it’s Austin’s favorite," said Schumacher.
It's always cool to be a cool dad. However, it also turned out that Harvey Dent/Two-Face fit into the normal parameters Jones uses when deciding whether or not to take a movie role: "I like roles that are well-written, that are part of a good business deal, and that will take me to a pretty location."
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- Insurgent
- Lionsgate
Kate Winslet has never been a stranger to taking chances in her film career. When the English actress was approached with the opportunity to appear in the popular YA adaptation Divergent, the decision was a no-brainer. "I didn't have any hesitation at all," said Winslet. "It was such a great script. It's a fantastic book."
Winslet would not just be appearing in a dystopian sci-fi catered to the young adult crowd, but would also be playing the movie's main villain, Jeanine Matthews. The Oscar-winning actress seemed most concerned about impressing her two young children above all else, as she said in 2013:
My daughter is going to be 13, and my son is almost 10, and they're getting to that age where this is the type of literature they're going to be reading very soon. In fact, my daughter, two days ago, came home from school and went, 'Mom! You're never going to believe it. Rufus came up to me at school and said, "Is your mom really in Divergent? Is there going to be a premiere? Can you get me a ticket?"' My daughter suddenly [had a] newfound respect. 'My mum is actually really cool.' I'm just going to go with that. I did it because I wanted my kids to think I was cool.
Winslet reprised her nefarious role for the second film in the franchise, Insurgent.
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He-Man was everywhere in the 1980s. The Masters of the Universe superhero had a popular line of action figures, five different animated series, multiple comic book series, and a live-action film in which the muscled-up He-Man battled the evil Skeletor in the fight to save the world.
Frank Langella is a four-time Tony-winning actor and accomplished big-screen thespian. There are plenty of high points in the actor's career, which may make it a surprise to hear Langella admit that playing the villainous Skeletor in Masters of the Universe was "one of his favorite parts."
Langella agreed to play the antagonist because his son was a big fan of Skeletor. Many critics of the 1987 superhero movie believe Langella was about the only good thing to come out of the film. Robert Hurlburt from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel wrote, "If not for the superb villainy of Frank Langella, who plays the evil Skeletor, Masters of the Universe would be as barren as an asteroid."
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- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
- Lionsgate
Most people recognize Julianne Moore from her critically acclaimed dramatic work in films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Still Alice. However, the actress certainly likes to mix it up, as audiences saw in the 2001 horror-thriller Hannibal and the 2017 action spy comedy Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Both of Julianne Moore's young children read the YA book series The Hunger Games. The Oscar-winning actress started to read her daughter's copy one day when the family was on vacation. Moore ended up enjoying it so much that she read the entire dystopian series.
Moore then signed on to play low-key villain Alma Coin in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 and Part 2. The career choice made the mother of two a hit at home. “It’s been a great thing for my kids to have me in these,” said Moore. “[Director] Francis Lawrence is tremendous. A really, really exciting filmmaker, so it’s been a lot of fun.”
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- The Twilight Saga: New Moon
- Summit Entertainment
Michael Sheen is well-known for his esteemed dramatic roles like Tony Blair in The Queen and David Frost in Frost/Nixon. However, the Welsh thespian has been known to step into the supernatural world, as well. He played a werewolf in 2009's Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.
The actor would probably not have much interest in appearing in a movie catered to the YA crowd. However, Sheen took on the role of Aro in the Twilight movies for all the right reasons. "I was mainly excited about it because I knew I would make my daughter very happy," said Sheen. "That was the main reason, and then I read the books and I really enjoyed them. I didn’t think I was going to, but I really did."
Aro is actually kind of a big deal in Twilight. The bloodsucking vampire is the leader of the Volturi, the organization in charge of keeping order among other vampires. Sheen played Aro in New Moon, Eclipse, and both Breaking Dawn films.
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