Actors Who Played Classic Movie Characters On TV - And Nailed It

Donald Sutherland is an actor that radiates gravitas, and imparts cool intelligence upon any character he plays. That holds true for his portrayal of Captain Daniel Pierce, AKA Hawkeye, in Robert Altman’s seminal film M*A*S*H, but with a dash of world-weary wit thrown in for good measure. And though Sutherland’s performance and Altman’s film both are widely recognized as excellent, the version of the character that lives in the minds of audiences everywhere more than any other, is Alan Alda’s Hawkeye from the identically titled M*A*S*H television version.

Alda’s razor sharp comedic timing, mixed with a healthy dose of wistful melancholy and justifiable dread, turned an already popular character from a successful film into an iconic figure in American pop culture.

Hannibal Lecter is a horror villain on par with any legendary movie creep; Anthony Hopkins's iconic portrayal of the cannibalistic killer psychiatrist in The Silence of the Lambs cemented that fact. The performance was strong enough to earn Hopkins an Academy Award for best actor, despite appearing in only 16 minutes of actual screen time.

Following in Hopkins’s footsteps is no easy feat - just ask the late Gaspard Ulliel - but with NBC’s Hannibal, Mads Mikkelsen pulls off the high-wire act with stunning ease. Mikkelsen imbues Lecter with a terrifying sense of composed evil. He oscillates between startlingly intelligent, calculating, graceful, and absolutely monstrous - often within moments. It’s a truly stunning collective work from Mikkelsen, and a perfectly unique take on a horror icon that still manages to find the spiritual through-line of previous iterations of the character.

Martin Scorsese’s serio-comic Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore proved to be a mainstream coming-out party for the director - and it turned its lead actress, Ellen Burstyn, into an Oscar winner. Her at once complex, warm, sharply funny, and emotionally vulnerable performance as the titular widow secured the award for the legend-in-progress.

Following up Ellen Burstyn in any capacity is an intimidating prospect, but with CBS’ long-running sitcom adaptation Alice, Linda Lavin made Alice Hyatt all her own. Keying in on the humorous aspects of Burstyn’s original take, Lavin elaborates upon the character’s built-in resourcefulness to establish a plucky, can-do energy that resonated with American audiences for a total of nine seasons.

While it wasn't the first incarnation of Wednesday Addams (that honor belongs to Lisa Loring), Christina Ricci’s comically dispassionate take in 1991’s The Addams Family and its sequel cemented the character in the hearts of goth tweens everywhere as an aspirationally dark figure. In turns hilariously deadpan and unnervingly malevolent - albeit in a typically low-key way - Ricci crafted a totally modern take that has continued to resonate for decades.

When news broke of on-the-rise scream queen Jenna Ortega taking on the role of Wednesday in Netflix’s Tim Burton directed show of the same name, audiences were nervous. But Ortega’s interpretation of the character has proven those misgivings needless, and has clearly resonated in a similarly impactful way, spawning endless memes, and even an internet dance trend. The actress pays enough subtle homage to Ricci’s classic performance to satiate the die hard fans, and brings a completely new sarcastic verve to the proceedings that has left franchise newbies totally enraptured, too.

Few characters are so closely associated with the inception of an entire genre (even if it’s not totally accurate) as Pyscho’s Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins's meekly doddering performance as Hitchcock’s titular psychopath essentially provided the framework for similarly unnerving man-next-door killers in the many decades after its release.

A handful of talented performers have tried their hand at assuming the role of Norman Bates over the years - be it in various sequels or ill-advised remakes - but not until Freddie Highmore’s portrayal in NBC’s “contemporary prequel” Bates Motel did a non-Perkins take stick. Highmore’s natural sensitivity and off-kilter, gangly physicality is a natural successor to Perkins's similarly gawky style. Highmore wonderfully encapsulates the dangerous tension between Bates’s seemingly docile exterior and roiling interior, crafting a modern and distinctive interpretation of the character that still feels true to the spirit of Perkins's original. 

Legendary actor Sidney Poitier is as iconic as they come, as is his portrayal of homicide detective and criminal profiler Virgil Tibbs, in 1967’s In The Heat of the Night. Poitier commanded the screen with an authoritative (and in many ways socially groundbreaking) performance that lifted the movie to bona fide classic status.

Taking over the reins of a character from such a staggeringly respected figure as Poitier is enough to have any actor shaking in their proverbial boots, but in the network television sequel series of the same name, Howard Rollins proves more than up to the task. Rollins carries the legacy of Poitier’s imposing original performance while still managing to impress a unique emotionality and presence upon the character. The performance was widely praised over the duration of Rollins's tenure on the show, earning him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Dramatic Series.