Sam Worthingtown to me is the epitome of the Hollywood-manufactured (or in this case, Cameron-manufactured?) star. Hand-picked from up on high and relentlessly pushed by the Machine, while a lot of people downstream stand around thinking, “Huh?”
Plus, to me, Sam Worthingson is like the human personification of the Memento-effect - he’s so bland that by the time I’m done with the effort of recalling his given name, I just either can’t be arsed to or actual forget to recall his entire surname.
His full name is just not worth the effort of recollection - that’s how bland Sam Wortherspoon is to me.
Olivia Munn. Even if I didn’t associate her with G4’s nosedive into crass pandering, she’d still be as charismatic as a wooden plank that was somehow trying too hard.
I’ve seen both on screen. Might have been the first season of Alphas that he used his whole name, might have shortened it even for the second. I guess if there’d been a third season he’d have just been “Ma Ali.”
He’s got a kind of deadpan thing going, but he plays his characters well. I wouldn’t put him in this list.
I will go with Channing Tatum, or Tater Channing, or whatever his name is. He actually IS a potato, with abs carved in. They play up his abs because he’s got nothin’ else. He is so bland and forgettable, and they keep pushing pushing pushing him as the Next Biggest Thing EVER. It hasn’t happened and time is passing for Mr. Potato. (I know someone who complains she can’t pick him out of a crowd, he has ‘generic Man Face’. Like a blah Ken doll.)
I don’t like Will Ferrell at all, but he’s made some very successful comedies. THAT is why he works steadily, not because studio execs have some irrational love for the guy.
Tom Cruise strikes me as a weird guy, but he’s a handsome guy, he’s made a lot of highly profitable movies, has been quite good in many of them, and has a reputation as a hard working actor who’s easy to get along with on the set. Why WOULDN’T he work steadily?
leonardo dicaprio he has never transitioned into Leading Man for me, I still see him as a retarded kid from 'whats eating gilbert grape" I refused to watch titanic because of him
Yeah, but DiCaprio’s trophy case speaks for itself.
Josh Hartnett hasn’t been mentioned yet I don’t think. Hartnett has been in some good movies, but as an actor there’s just nothing there and he’s never been a draw.
Jonah Hill. Hollywood seems to love him (2 Oscar nominations - 2!!!) But I just don’t get it. He started out getting roles in every movie made as the fat dick-ish funny-ish guy, then somehow got morphed into fat disk-ish funny-ish guy with Oscar nominations.
Watch any 1970’s Nicholson to see Jack at his finest. There’s this western, The Missouri Breaks, where he’s required to show several layers of emotions at the same time throughout the movie and is absolutely natural at expressing them.
And then Strassberg method legend Marlon Brando appears, chomping scenario like it was made of custard, with a crazy oirish accent and being very flamboyant- and Nicholson with his Checkhovian “realistic” and more subdued style- and he’s still not out shined at all.