Random Greatest Characters Who Never Actually Existed (11 items)

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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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  (#2) Keyser Söze

  • The Usual Suspects

  Who is Keyser Soze? At the conclusion of the jaw-dropping twist ending in The Usual Suspects, audiences are led to believe that little, feeble, crippled, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) was duping Agent Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) all along, and that he is actually Keyser Soze.

  However, that doesn't necessarily mean that Kint is Soze. He could still be making up that character, the legend of Soze, with a demonic back story that includes killing his own family, just to let people know that he means business. Kint even explains this possible theory to Kujan, "He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. 'Rat on your pop, and Keyser Soze will get you.'" Kint may be the originator of the myth of Soze, but whether or not an actual Keyser Soze exists is questionable. But that is sort of the point, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist."
  
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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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  (#5) Charles

  • A Beautiful Mind

  Charles (Paul Bettany) plays the college roommate and best (well, really only) buddy to John Nash (Russell Crowe) in A Beautiful Mind. Where Nash is introverted and doesn't like most people he meets, the good-looking, fun-loving Charles somehow gets on Nash's good side and acts as someone the brilliant mathematician can actually trust. The big reveal is that Charles doesn't actually exist. The filmmakers use Charles (and a few other characters in the film) as a visual way to depict Nash's schizophrenia.
  
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  (#6) Frank

  • Donnie Darko

  Who or what is Frank the Rabbit from Donnie Darko? We know that he looks like a demon and is certainly a sinister vision. He appears to be a figment of Donnie's imagination. Frank's apparent role in the film is to guide Donnie in an effort to save the world by going back in time to stop a jet engine crash that creates an alternate universe. Is Frank actually from the future? Was he Donnie's sister's boyfriend who Donnie mistakenly shoots at the end of the movie because he was wearing a rabbit outfit? Is Frank actually some kind of angel out to save the world? Or is he a mere delusion of a boy riddled with mental illness? Take your pick, the ending is left up to personal interpretation.
  
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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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  (#8) Mal

  • Inception

  Why does Mal (Marion Cotillard) continue to sabotage Dom's (Leonardo DiCaprio) plans in Inception? We find out that Dom and Mal used to live in the incredible inception dream world of limbo, a place they could construct any way they wanted with their imagination. The issue for Mal was that she wanted to stay in limbo so badly that she turned it into her reality. In turn, Dom had to trick Mal into believing that her reality was only a dream.

  The audience finds out at the end of the movie that Mal jumped out of a window and died because she thought her reality was truly a dream. Therefore, all the times that the audience would see Mal turn up in Dom's dreamworld and sabotage his mission, she was not real, but a manifestation of Dom's guilt over her suicide.
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  (#9) Parcher

  • A Beautiful Mind

  John Nash (Russell Crowe) is a brilliant mathematician who loves to solve puzzles in Ron Howard's Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind. Nash is approached by an agent from the United States government named Parcher (Ed Harris) to work on a top secret project to help combat the Soviet Union. It's clear that Nash has some mental health problems, but the extent of his delusions are not truly revealed until the film's final act. Parcher is part of Nash's schizophrenia, figments of his deluded imagination, and of course, desire to solve complicated math puzzles.
  
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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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  (#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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