Random Greatest Characters Who Never Actually Existed (11 items)

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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#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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