I saw this discussed on a blog, and I apologize if I missed an earlier, similar thread, but here’s the question: can you name any actors whom you generally despise, but who changed your mind (or entranced/captivated you, anyway) for just one role?
For the blog owner, it was Brendan Fraser in Bedazzled. For me, it might be Courtney Love in The People vs. Larry Flynt. The woman just embarasses me, and I’m not even related to her in any way, shape, or form. But she WAS very good in that movie.
George W. Bailey played the earthy and ever-dependable Sgt. Rizzo on MASH,* then spent the rest of his career in one insufferable stick-up-the-ass martinet role after another.
Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love. His role was a wonderfully nuanced performance of a very repressed man with anger issues slowly coming apart at the seams and ultimately saved by the love of a good woman. I’m certain that this will be the best performance of his career, due in no small part to the casting genius of PT Anderson.
In contrast, the rest of his filmography appears to consist of one screaming idiot after another. Oh, and stupid voices.
Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ( that and maybe the first season of In Living Color ). Even in more semi-dramatic roles his mugging usually ends up annoying the crap out of me. Not saying he’s completely untalented - there are sometimes individual moments in various films I can appreciate. But the whole of him is always worse than the parts for me and he ends up grating on my nerves.
But the subdued, rather depressive persona in the above film worked for me.
Nicole Kidman in The Others. I normally am distracted by her presense in any movie (she’s so pointy!), but The Others was so good for its genre that I couldn’t help but love it . . . and her. I wanted to like her in The Hours, but something stopped me. I haven’t figure out what yet. Bewitched has me faintly interested. I think she might win me again in that one, but I may be asking too much.
Absolutely agreed. I really liked him in River’s Edge, too, but alongside Dennis Hopper and Crispin Glover, it would be hard NOT to appear subtle and nuanced.
Seconded.
Aside from those two, the other movie that sprung immediately to mind was Nicholas Cage in Adaptation. He bugs me for no reason I can explain, and he usually does shitty movies. But Adaptation was just wonderful, and he really was excellent in it. Being cast with Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper doesn’t hurt, though.
Val Kilmer. Normally he’s just annoying, but he made a great Doc Holliday in Tombstone. The bar-room “duel” in which he faces off against a showoff gun-twirling Michael Biehn, and languidly shows him up by mockingly twiddling his cup is a brilliant scene.
I usually don’t like Richard Gere, but I think he’s great as cocky, smarmy defense attorneys. That’s why I liked him in two movies, Primal Fear and Chicago (in which he was excellent).
Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. Perhaps it’s the bad actress/bad movie combo that I just love!
Oh, and Andie McDowell (sp?) in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I think maybe that was a case of a bad (BAAAAAAAAD!!!) actress being saved by a good movie. And hella good looks.
