Tim Curry Roles: Rocky Horror, It, Muppet Treasure Island And More

The late, great Tim Curry certainly left his mark on the acting world during his 50-year career.

A perpetual scene-stealer, the British star made his start in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a role with which he’s still synonymous today, before trying his hand at everything from chilling horror and action to family-friendly adventure and cheeky comedy.

Following the news of his death at the age of 80, we’re taking a moment to celebrate the roles that helped Tim become a beloved household name…

Alright, this might be a bit of an obvious one, but we could hardly do a round-up of Tim Curry roles without mentioning Rocky Horror, could we?

Tim originated the role of Frank-N-Furter during the musical’s original theatrical run in London, before taking the role to the big screen in the mid-1970s.

Inarguably the cult musical’s most iconic figure, Tim also delivered a number of stand-out musical performances as Frank-N-Furter including the boisterous I Can Make You A Man, the surprisingly touching I’m Going Home and, of course, the scene-stealing Sweet Transvestite, one of the film’s signature numbers.

Carrying on with the musical theme, Tim returned to the big screen a few years after Rocky Horror when he was cast as Miss Hannigan’s henchman and brother, Rooster, in the first screen adaptation of Annie.

For his work in Annie, Tim shared the screen with TV icon Carol Burnett, with the cast also featuring the likes of Albert Finney, Bernadette Peters and Aileen Quinn in the title role.

Considering where the entertainment has wound up today with adaptations of existing IP, it might come as a surprise to learn that the film adaptation of the board game Cluedo from the mid-1980s is actually a laugh riot.

Now considered a cult classic, Tim chewed the scenery as the fabulous butler Wadsworth, alongside a cast that featured great character actors like Christopher Lloyd, Madeline Kahn and Eileen Brennan.

In a fun gimmick, when Clue was originally released, different endings were distributed, meaning there was a different outcome depending on where you watched it (though in modern reprints, all versions are included).

Bill Skarsgård’s take on Stephen King’s manifestation of evil, Pennywise The Clown, was chilling stuff, but to many, Tim’s version of the character is the real stuff of nightmares.

In 1990, he played the villainous figure in a TV miniseries based on the classic horror novel, which aired in two instalments on the US network ABC.

While the show initially divided opinion, It – and in, particular, Tim Curry’s performance – is now much more popular among fans of the horror genre.

Considering where he started out, the 1990s proved to be a decade of family-friendly roles for Tim Curry, beginning with this festive sequel.

In the follow-up to Home Alone, he portrayed the concierge at the Plaza Hotel, which at that time was owned by future US president Donald Trump (who even makes a cameo in it, in a moment many prefer to fast-forward when revisiting the Christmas classic).

His character, Mr Hector, was a foil to Macaulay Culkin’s mischievous counterpart, originally introduced in the 1990 original.

Tim was visibly having a blast when he got to play alongside The Muppets in their second big-screen literary adaptation, Muppet Treasure Island.

Playing the swashbuckling villain Long John Silver, he claimed in his 2025 memoir Vagabond was “the most delightful cinematic experience I’ve enjoyed”.

“It’s just a world of fun and I’d been glued to the TV show. I had no hesitation about working with them,” he added. “I cannot overstate how much I adored working with the Muppets.”

This certainly shone through in his performance, which is one of the strongest aspects of the family adventure movie.

Besides his on-screen and stage career, Tim was also a prolific voice actor.

Perhaps his most famous animated role was as the patriach Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberries, a character he voiced in all five seasons of the original show and its two spin-off movies.

In the US series, the Thornberry family is a group of adventurers who travel the world documenting animals in their natural habitats, with the cast also including future Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert and Red Hot Chilli Peppers musician Flea.

Tim made a small – but nonetheless memorable – appearance in the film adaptation of Charlie’s Angels, which crash-landed into cinemas in 2000.

Initially, viewers are led to believe that his character, owner of the tech company Redstar, is the villain of the piece, until several twists reveal this not to be the case.

While there’s no denying this movie belongs to its female leads, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, Tim always made the most of whatever role he was given, and Charlie’s Angels was no exception.

Tim’s Will & Grace stint lasted just two episodes, but it was nonetheless a memorable one, not least thanks to a prolonged kiss he shared with both Megan Mullally’s iconic character Karen Walker and his own on-screen brother, John Cleese.

His guest appearance came towards of the show’s sixth season, as Karen prepares to marry the rich Lyle Finster.

These episodes were also notable as they marked the beginning of a multi-episode storyline featuring none other than Jennifer Lopez as herself.

Alright, this oft-forgotten video game might seem like a strange inclusion on a round-up of must-see Tim Curry roles.

But his live-action performance as Colonel Anatoly Cherdenko was so off-the-wall, so eccentric and so delightfully Tim Curry that it continues to go viral almost 20 years after the game was originally released.

Check out what we’re talking about in the above clip, where even he struggles to contain his laughter as he delivers that final utterance of “space”.

After his stroke in 2012, Tim made only a few on-screen appearances, but he returned to his roots in this TV special based on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Starring Emmy winner Laverne Cox as a new take on Frank-N-Furter, Tim took on the role of The Criminologist, played in the original film by Charles Gray.

While Let’s Do The Time Warp Again may not have quite gone down a storm with Rocky Horror fans, there was no denying how great it felt to see Tim back on screen, particularly in the franchise that had launched him to fame more than 40 years earlier.