So in your opinion: Bruce Pearson, Travis Bickle, Vito Coreleon, Rupert Pumpkin, Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale, Maximilian "Max" Cady , Leonard Lowe, Dr. Richard Wells, Fr. Bobby, Rodrigo Mendoza, Jake LaMotta, Wally , Lt. Moe Tilden, Louis Gara, Conrad Brean, Arthur Lustig, Monsignor Desmond Spellacy, Fearless Leader from Rocky & Bullwinkle, Chief Leslie William 'Billy' Sunday, The Archbishop of Lima, and David Callaway are all pretty much the same person? Seriously? No personality differences?
I've have to say you're pretty much in the minority if you think DeNiro played a slow-witten backwoods redneck ballplayer, an naive italian immigrant who rises to power and takes out his foes, an inept wannabe comedian turned creepy stalker, a brutal out of control boxer, a cartoon cold war communist sterotype, a man who's been in a coma since he was a child, etc., as the exact same person.
Having witnessed each of those characters, pretty much the ONLY trait they had in common was they were played by Robert DeNiro.
Now, had they cast the aforementioned Keanu Reeves (on my list of "most overrated") in those parts, you would have basically gotten the same performance no matter what part he's in. A lot "whoa, man" moments from Reeves.
As for Johnny Depp, he genuinely makes an effort to play parts differently, but there's some types of roles he just has no idea what to do with. Martin Short played The Mad Hatter. After Depp got into bizarre makeup for the part, he tried using about the 2 or 3 different British accents he can do and ended up giving us The Random Hatter. It was odd but certainly wasn't the deranged character from Alice in Wonderland, and it was clear he was trying something different from take to take because he didn't know what do with the character. And when Tim Burton cast him as "Willy Wonka", Depp clearly had never read the book and no idea what kind of person he was supposed to be except from the script that added in a new "struggles with daddy issues" storyline. So he played "Wonka" as some kind of creepy satanic pedophile (basically a hybrid of Michael Jackson & Marilyn Manson) that enjoys torturing children. Nothing like the eccentric wise older gentleman from the book, by the way.
“So he played “Wonka” as some kind of creepy satanic pedophile (basically a hybrid of Michael Jackson & Marilyn Manson) that enjoys torturing children.”
Disturbing, but funny statement.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on DeNiro. I’ve viewed most of his films, and Taxi Driver and The Godfather were his most memorable. My personal favorite was Midnight Run. Funny film.