Random Greatest Characters Who Never Actually Existed (11 items)

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  (#11) Ivan

  • The Machinist

  Who is the muscle-bound Ivan (John Sharian), and why is he always menacingly smiling at Trevor (Christian Bale)? Trevor takes insomnia to a whole different level in The Machinist, a method role for which Bale lost over 60 pounds (he weighed a mere 120 pounds during production). Ivan works with Trevor at the industrial plant, but there is something off about the man which makes Trevor feel uncomfortable.

  After Trevor causes an accident in which his co-worker Miller loses a finger, the machinist attempts to place blame on Ivan. The thing is, no one has ever heard of Ivan. The picture that Trevor has of Ivan and Reynolds (a former co-worker at the plant), well that's not Ivan in the picture, it's really Trevor. Paranoia and sleeplessness eventually get the better of Trevor, and he is finally forced to confront the event (car accident) that is causing his incredible guilt. Ivan is essentially a manifestation of Trevor's guilt, once he gets rids of Ivan, he can confess to his past crime and finally sleep peacefully.
  
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  (#10) Elvis Presley

  • True Romance

  All Clarence seems to need is a little pep talk from his hero Elvis Presley (Val Kilmer) in the Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance. Elvis appears to Clarence on sporadic bathroom breaks where he gives him much needed advice, especially after marrying a hooker with a heart of gold named Alabama, and having trouble with her vile pimp Drexl (Gary Oldman). The audience never thinks Elvis is real; we always know that he is figment of Clarence's imagination, a father figure and friend who has his back and reminds him, "I like you Clarence. Always have, always will."
  
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  (#3) Randall Stephens

  In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) knew that it wouldn't be enough to just dig a hole and escape from prison. He had to have some money hidden away to survive on the outside. Dufresne invented a man named Randall Stephens, equipped with Social Security number and all, who only existed on paper in order to launder the evil Warden Norton's (Bob Gunton) prison labor funds. When Dufresne escapes from prison, he is able to personally act as Stephens in order to collect all the money from the bank.
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  (#4) Norman Bates

  • Psycho

  If Sigmund Freud had been alive to see Psycho in 1960, the psychoanalyst might have stood up and applauded the film's twist ending. In a movie that is the quintessential example of the power of repressed memory, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is a grown man who appears to be totally controlled by his overbearing mother. The evil matriarch murders pretty hotel guest Marion (Janet Leigh) in the shower, just in case her son feels an attraction to her.

  The twist ending is that Norman murdered his mother and her lover years back after discovering the pair in bed together. Not wanting to accept that he killed his own mother, and also aching for his mother's controlling love, Bates dons wig and dress in a game of pretend in order to act out his homicidal fantasies.
  
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  (#7) Delbert Grady

  • The Shining

  To Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), Delbert Grady (Philip Stone) at first appears to be a very polite butler at the Overlook Hotel. Of course, as the plot of The Shining moves forward, we eventually discover that Jack is completely mad and that Grady was a former caretaker at the Hotel. Grady ultimately succumbed to his madness and murdered his wife and two daughters. He then shot himself in the head with a shotgun. So that would make Grady a ghost at the Overlook? Or perhaps just a figment of Jack's deluded mind? Either way, Grady is not real and is just another victim of the insanity created by the Overlook.
  
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  (#1) Tyler Durden

  • Fight Club

  Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) is the plot twist in David Fincher's 1999 rant on the feminization of the American male and the perils of consumerism. In order for The Narrator (Ed Norton) to break away from his boring and aimless life as an insomnia-ridden insurance investigator, he conjures up the coolest, craziest alter ego to ever hit the silver screen. Together, they form what becomes the first fight club and also attempt to erase the world's debt by blowing it all up. That is, until The Narrator realizes that Tyler isn't real but instead a manifestation of his own subconscious.
  

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