# Actors acting wasted: Hall of Shame **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2007, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324 "2007-06-08T23:31:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/1 "2007-06-08T23:31:44Z")
What acting performances are the most ridiculous, non-realistic displays of being wasted on film? My nominations – Anne Heche in **Six Days, Seven Nights**. She takes a Xanax and ten seconds later acts like Dudley Moore in **Arthur**. You’d figure crazy as she is that she’d have some experience with taking Xanax, but apparently not. First of all, it doesn’t hit you like a line of coke. Second, it doesn’t make you slur your words and act like you just drank a fifth of Old Grandad. – Kathleen Turner in **Romancing the Stone**. She gets a contact high from a campfire burning a brick of weed, and acts like, well, like Dudley Moore in **Arthur**. She even passes out mid-sentence like she has narcolepsy. Was anyone involved in the production of this movie even the slightest bit familiar with getting high? Apparently not. Yours? ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/2 "2007-06-08T23:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=Morbo] What acting performances are the most ridiculous, non-realistic displays of being wasted on film? My nominations – Anne Heche in **Six Days, Seven Nights**. … [/QUOTE] You could have stopped there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Hildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Johnny\_Hildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Hildo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/3 "2007-06-09T00:16:18Z")
Pretty much anyone in [Reefer Madness.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness) ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/4 "2007-06-09T02:39:18Z")
As an aside, the best drunk acting I have seen (that is to say, someone acting drunk, not acting _while_ drunk) is Jaime Lee Presley as Joy in _My Name is Earl._ ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/5 "2007-06-09T05:51:18Z")
Yeah, that girl has it nailed. And her interpretation of someone with serious anger issues on happy pills was, if not realistic, at least harrowing. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/6 "2007-06-09T07:01:27Z")
Mickey Rourke in Barfly ---
**Author:** ![Trillionaire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@Trillionaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trillionaire)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/7 "2007-06-09T13:55:40Z")
If we’re expanding “wasted” to include “drunk”, Tom Cruise in _A Few Good Men_ was pretty bad. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/8 "2007-06-09T13:58:28Z")
Pretty much every instance of a character smoking weed in a mainstream movie. Pot doesn’t automatically turn you into a giggling fool or a profound philosopher. Most everyone I know either becomes more quiet, or displays no change at all, after getting high. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/9 "2007-06-09T18:54:55Z")
If we count drunk, then there was Marsha Mason in **The Goodbye Girl**. Every actor has to play a drunk scene at some point in his or her career, and Mason clearly wanted to get this over with so she wouldn’t have to do it again. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/10 "2007-06-09T19:15:44Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] If we count drunk, then there was Marsha Mason in **The Goodbye Girl**. Every actor has to play a drunk scene at some point in his or her career, and Mason clearly wanted to get this over with so she wouldn’t have to do it again. [/QUOTE] IIRC though Richard Dreyfus’ drunk scene in that same movie was pretty funny. He was reading the newly published reviews of the horrificly awful play he was the lead in. (OT: I saw that movie in the theater when it came out and hadn’t seen it again until I caught it on cable a couple of years ago. I was struck by how dysfunctionally needy the Mason character was portrayed. I hadn’t noticed it the first time but then I was much younger then and had no experience with romantic relationships.) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/11 "2007-06-09T19:28:08Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] Pretty much every instance of a character smoking weed in a mainstream movie. Pot doesn’t automatically turn you into a giggling fool or a profound philosopher. [/QUOTE] Yep. A good example is Nicole Kidman in _Eyes Wide Shut_. I also found Scarlett Johansson’s “tipsy” scene in _Match Point_ to be a distractingly bad performance in an otherwise good movie. Surely she has some actual experience being drunk that she could’ve called up as inspiration? Also pretty unrealistic was the scene in the movie _Medicine Man_ with Sean Connery, where he gives Lorraine Bracco something containing caffeine (guarana root, if I recall) and she starts acting as loopy as if she were on three hits of ecstasy. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/12 "2007-06-09T19:37:41Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] Pot doesn’t automatically turn you into a giggling fool [/QUOTE] Frankly, it not infrequently turned _me_ into a giggling fool. But, yeah - I know what you mean. My reaction always seemed atypical compared to my friends. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2007, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-acting-wasted-hall-of-shame/407324/13 "2007-06-10T02:23:06Z")
I remember thinking that one strangled cough let out by Charlie Sheen in _Platoon_ sounded just like a true stoner! 😉