Acting!

Here's a discussion of actors who distract in any role they play. The responses aren't much, but one seemed especially wrongheaded. From Nathan Rabin:

Sometimes an actor will do such an amazing job of creating a character that it’s nearly impossible to buy them as anything else [....] I felt [that] way when Bryan Cranston popped up in a small cameo as a sleazy politician in the recent prostitution-themed snoozefest Love Ranch. The rational adult in me understood that Cranston is a gifted, sought-after actor who portrays different characters in television and film, but some idiot part of my brain went “Oh my God, it’s Breaking Bad anti-hero Walter White! What the hell is he doing in Reno in the 1970s, and when did his hair grow back?” Needless to say, it took me out of a movie I was never that into in the first place.

It's unfair that actors get so associated with certain roles that in anything else they take us out of the story, but that's the way it goes. (Ironically, before we know them well, they can play tons of roles without us noticing them at all.)

But the weird thing here is when Cranston first appeared in Breaking Bad, a lot of critics wondered if he could ever break away from his farcical role as Hal on Malcolm In The Middle. He can't win.