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In some movies I watch, there is a character who, at the beginning of the movie, seems like they're supposed to be a minor or background character, but the person playing them is a name-brand actor and so you know that they are not going to remain a minor or background character. Sometimes, for plot/story telling reasons, it is the case that this character is intentionally (falsely) portrayed as just a minor character at the beginning. However, since the actor playing the character is a big deal actor, it is easy to suspect that this minor character isn't so minor after all, and this destroys the illusion of the character not being important.

Is there a term that means this? A character that is intentionally initially portrayed as not being important to the plot even though they are but that it is fairly obvious to the audience from the beginning, based on the star-level of the actor portraying the character, that the character won't remain a minor character?

NeutronStar
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    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize – BCdotWEB Nov 28 '17 at 15:20
  • Could you give an example, because despite how a character is executed into a movie, lead actors/actress are paid more for their roles, hence why they are the leads. There are plenty of cases, especially on TV series, where you can get a well known actor whom will either reoccur and/or be a "special guest star" and I am sure there are big name actors in smaller non-lead or supporting roles in films too like Matt Damon in Intersteller is considered an A-List cameo. – Darth Locke Nov 28 '17 at 15:20
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    @DarthLocke Just look at Julia Roberts' appearance in Law & Order: she barely features on-screen in the first half of the episode, but you just know that she's likely the killer or at least very important to the plot because why otherwise have Julia Roberts on your show? If you can get her (in part because she was dating one of its leads), surely you're not just gonna have her in one scene. – BCdotWEB Nov 28 '17 at 15:26
  • @BCdotWEB I don't watch much Law and Order, but this an example of a guest star or a special guest star, which is what I was getting at on my first post. I think the OP was asking for a leading role/top billing in a movie (not a tv show) that starts off as a red a hearing as opposed to a cameo or guest? I can't think of any off the top of my head--so that's why I wanted an example in case they were actually taking about guest stars and/or A-List cameos like we are discussing. – Darth Locke Nov 28 '17 at 15:50
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    this is more than a cameo which is usually a small part for a big name star or recognizable celebrity (Matt Damon in Thor Ragnarok, Donald Trump in Home Alone 2, etc.) A cameo is just a small part - it does not denote a part that is critical to the plot in some way. I'm not sure if there is a term for what you are describing - would be helpful to have some examples. – Bryan Turriff Nov 28 '17 at 16:29
  • @BCdotWEB, "Not-So-Small Role" (linked in your link) is more like what I was thinking of. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotSoSmallRole – NeutronStar Nov 28 '17 at 16:41
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    @DarthLocke, an example (not the best one, but the one I can think of quickly) is Jamie Foxx in "The Amazing Spider-man 2". A name brand actor playing a small-time engineer? Obviously he's not going to stay a small-time engineer the whole movie. This isn't the best example of what I'm talking about, since Foxx's character is focused on a bit in the early movie even before he "becomes" a major character, but it gives an idea. BCdotWEB's Law & Order example is a good one. – NeutronStar Nov 28 '17 at 16:45
  • In AS2 JF is third cast mentioned on Wikipedia--I don't know what he was paid, but his role is probably a co-lead since he becomes the films 'you know what'. I think the role, in this case, is that the character is a red hearing, because it's not that one doesn't know he's a lead/important, you just don't know HOW he is an important character. One doesn't know to what end. Thanks for the example though...I'm going to see if I can find other red hearing tropes for leads... – Darth Locke Nov 28 '17 at 17:42
  • There is this which is called Decoy Protagonist http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DecoyProtagonist

    Or Billing Displacement: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BillingDisplacement

     – Darth Locke Nov 28 '17 at 17:46
  • this question is brilliant ! i always wondered too... you see a major actor playing a not so significant role, but you know they would have a major role to play otherwise why are t hey even roped in in the first place ? – Anu7 Nov 29 '17 at 04:29
  • {spoiler} When they killed off Steven Segal in Executive Decision, I was convinced he must be clinging to the outside of the plane via secret akido-ninja skills, for a dramatic, bad-guy killing save-the-day reappearance later, because, surely, they wouldn't have killed him off just like that so soon. – PoloHoleSet Nov 29 '17 at 15:26
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    idk the Segal movie, but I'm sure we all thought Ned Stark was going to be more than a one season hero. – Tetsujin Nov 29 '17 at 18:48
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    @Tetsujin: that's another trope. Have a big name to promote your show. Kill him/her to show that everything is possible. Bonus point if (s)he is was leader, so you gain a leadership crisis. It happened to Robert Patrick at the beginning of Stargate:Atlantis – Taladris Nov 30 '17 at 11:20
  • @Tetsujin, I second Taladris' comment. Ned Stark wasn't a small, seemingly unimportant character in the beginning. – NeutronStar Nov 30 '17 at 16:16
  • @PoloHoleSet, see Taladris' comment on Tetsujin's comment. Killing off Steven Segal is a different trope, since his character wasn't seemingly small and unimportant in the beginning. – NeutronStar Nov 30 '17 at 16:19
  • @Joshua - he was a peripheral character with minimal impact on the movie, overall. I wasn't saying it was the same trope, just that one is often surprised when someone gets a smaller role than expected. Certainly less than what one would expect by the fact that the advertising played up the fact that he was in the movie. – PoloHoleSet Nov 30 '17 at 16:29
  • @Tetsujin - not a Segal movie, actually, since they smoked him early on. :D Kurt Russell was the star. Not a bad flick, overall, though they do fall back on some other stereotypical Hollywood action movie tropes. – PoloHoleSet Nov 30 '17 at 16:30

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Based on a link in a link provided by BCdotWEB, what I am describing is known on tvtropes.org as "Not-So-Small Role", and it appears to also be a corollary of Roger Ebert's "Law of Conservation of Characters", which is quoted as being

Movie budgets make it impossible for any film to contain unnecessary characters. Therefore, all characters in a movie are necessary to the story—even those who do not seem to be. Sophisticated viewers can use this Law to deduce the identity of a person being kept secret by the movie's plot: This "mystery" person is always the only character in the movie who seems otherwise extraneous. Cf. the friendly neighbor in THE WOMAN IN WHITE.

Thus, if you have an expensive actor, the Law of Conservation of Characters is sure to strongly apply and you can all but guarantee they will be important to the plot at some point.

NeutronStar
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