History Main / NiceCharacterMeanActor

* On ''DuckTales'' Huey, Louie and Duey idol worship Captain Courage, hero of the TV show "Courage of the Cosmos." Uncle Scrooge owns the show and has Gyro redo it to make it more realistic. The boys go on the show and are blind to the fact that their hero is just a vain, egotistical actor. They also don't realize that Gyro made their set an actual spaceship and it launches into outer space. When they realize where they are and real aliens have captured them Courage panics and the boys see what a coward he really is.

* In the ''KangarooJack'' animated movie, the star of a children's zoology show is actually a smuggler of exotic animals.

* One episode of ''TheGoodies'' had a game show host who was all charm and warmth on screen, but the moment the cameras were turned off he became a total bastard.
* Pierre Chang of ''{{Lost}}'' seems to act like this, as he's quick to anger whenever something interrupts one of his recording sessions for another DHARMA initiation video.

* ''America's Sweethearts'' was built around this trope. Gwen and Eddie always played sweethearts in the movies (see the film's title). In real life, Gwen left Eddie for another man, treated her sister/assistant like garbage, and was a general bitch to most people she met.

* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/Cyberchase'', Digit gets to be on his favorite show the Fearless Chef, a cross between ''IronChef'' and ''TheAmazingRace''. The host of the show, the fearless chef, is kidnapped by Hacker. When Jackie and Inez go to rescue him they realize that the so-called Fearless Chef is really a complete coward.

There's an actor who is well-known for playing brave and courageous characters who are as good as it gets, or an actress whose characters are sweet and easy-going. [[BeneathTheMask But off camera, it turns out that these people are not as nice as they appear to be when they start yelling at the rest of the cast, snapping at the director]] ([[ClusterFBomb in the sort of language that their characters would NEVER dare use]]), and proclaiming that [[ItsAllAboutMe they alone have the talent]]. When meeting with fans, they'll usually take on their nice character persona, but when alone they'll complain loudly about how much they hate their annoying fans.

* In ''Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure'', Amber Lee Adams at first seems like she's quite a nice person. However, as the movie goes on, it turns out that Amber is planning to have the 'best friend' written out of the show. In doing so, she hires Sharpay as (unknown to Sharpay) her maid by making her do Amber's dirty work, so that she'll 'help' Sharpay's dog, Boi, get the role as the 'best friend' in the show. Of course, [[spoiler:Amber's karma catches up with her when she is exposed as a {{jerkass}} onstage at dress rehearsal, and right in front of her own fanclub, too!]]

* Sho of SkipBeat is kind and sweet to his fans . . . and a ruthless, cruel jerk the rest of the time.

There's an actor who is well-known for playing brave and courageous characters who are as good as it gets, or an actress whose characters are sweet and easy-going. [[BeneathTheMask But off camera, it turns out that these people are not as nice as they appear to be when they start yelling at the rest of the cast, snapping at the director]] ([[ClusterFBomb in the sort of language that their characters would NEVER dare use]]), and proclaiming that [[ItsAllAboutMe they alone have the talent]]. When meeting with fans they'll usually take on their nice character persona, but when alone they'll complain loudly about how much they hate their annoying fans.

* ''ThePurpleRoseOfCairo''

* Baby Herman of ''WhoFramedRogerRabbit''. When the cameras stop rolling, he turns from a cute baby to a foul-mouthed, cigar-smoking, womanizing JerkAss. We later learn he is actually a JerkWithAHeartOfGold when he offers to hire Eddie Valiant to clear Roger's name, explaining that he and Roger are actually close friends. In all fairness, he is stricken with a [[CantGrowUp "forty-year-old lust and a three-year-old dinky."]]

NoRealLifeExamplesPlease. There are [[EleventyZillion scrillions]] of gossip magazines and websites that delve into this exact thing, and celebrities are held to higher standards of "nice" than normal people; having a short temper on a stressful day of work can be spun into making one sound like [[RonTheDeathEater the most colossal bitch/douchebag on the planet]].

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** In the manga, [[spoiler:Raymond Spume]] plays one of the "good guys" on the Sparklestar show, but it turns out that [[spoiler:he killed the person who was going to replace him as Sparklestar and tried to pin it on Julie Henson because he thought her habit of biting her nails was indicative of her lacking the attitude of a professional, and would ruin the show]].

* Baby Doll Teeter-totters between this and [[Nice Character Nice Actor. MeanCharacterNiceActor.]] In BatmanTheAnimatedSeries. Only unlike most actors, who's excuses were drugs and scandals. She was a very sympathetic character, all she wanted to do was play a serious role but do to her disorder she couldn't and last of all she wanted her old show back. However some things she does tend to cause sympathy levels to teeter totter.
* The ''TinyToons'' movie "How I Spent My Vacation" had a Johnny Depp parody (Johnny Pew the skunk) who turned out to be much less friendly than his screen presence would suggest.

* Neville Sinclair in ''TheRocketeer'', an Errol-Flynn-style 30's action hero actor who turns out to be a jerkass primadonna who "accidentally" ''stabs'' one of his costars for upstaging him. [[spoiler: He also turns out to be a Nazi spy, kills multiple people (enemy and ally alike) in his quest to steal the jetpack for his Nazi superiors so they can take over the world.]] So yeah.

* British girls' comic ''Mandy'' ran a strip in which a TV actress who plays a loving mother is in fact horrible to her stepdaughter behind closed doors.

* British girls' comic ''Mandy'' ran a strip in which a media personality known "Everyone's Perfect Mother" is in fact horrible to her stepdaughter behind closed doors.

* PeterSellers plays the primary VillainProtagonist of ''YourPastIsShowing'' and is a variant on TheKrusty/DepravedKidsShowHost. The public knows him as a kind FunPersonified variety show host, but in reality, he's cold and cynical and has made money by investing in/being the landlord of slum housing.

* Played brilliantly for comic effect in PeeWeesBigAdventure when child actor Kevin Morton (played by actual nice guy child actor [[TheWonderYears Jason Hervey]]) acts like an arrogant prick toward the cast and crew in between takes on a film where he plays an orphan that all of the nuns and fellow orphans love him dearly.

** Yukie Fujikaze from the first movie is a straighter example, actually being a movie star. She gives a powerful and moving performance while on film, but is cold and bitchy everywhere else.
*** Though that's mostly due to her traumatic past.
*** [[DefrostingIceQueen She got better]].

* There was an episode of ''SpecialUnit2'' where they were investigating a Barney {{Expy}} and his TV Show. The Barney expy was great with kids and very nice, but turned out to be a brainwashing demon that fed on fear. It ended similarly to the Fresh Prince example above.

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