# Bad director / actor combinations
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 13, 2014, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986 "2014-04-13T02:41:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/21 "2014-04-14T17:44:13Z")
I’m going with George Lucas / Hayden Christensen.
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### Author:  [@chargerrich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chargerrich)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/22 "2014-04-14T20:42:39Z")
> [@Sauron](#):
>
> I’m going with George Lucas / Hayden Christensen.
You win… :smack:
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### Author:  [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/23 "2014-04-14T21:05:24Z")
Lucas/Jake Lloyd
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### Author:  [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/24 "2014-04-14T21:05:39Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#):
>
> My choice: Judd Apatow/Leslie Mann.
>
> Listen. I know they are married. But that is no reason to stick her in every movie he makes and making them almost unwatchable. The last movie I saw her in was “This is 40”. Paul Rudd is his normal, humorous self, but Leslie is a piece of chalk on a blackboard. Her voice is awful, her acting is awful, she is awful.
> Who is your choice for this dubious honor?
I’m not even going to try at this game because I know I can’t come up with anything; but I do want to say I like Leslie Mann in almost anything she’s in. I thought the movie This is 40 was just a really really shitty movie. I watched it on PPV and felt like I wasted my $3.99 or whatever I paid for it.
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### Author:  [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/25 "2014-04-14T21:17:44Z")
I came in to add another log to the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp fire. Enough already. Glad Burton appears to be moving on to a new leading man.
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/26 "2014-04-14T21:35:31Z")
> [@42fish](#):
>
> How about Norman Taurog/Elvis Presley.
>
> Separately, Taurog won an Oscar as best director for “Skippy” (1931) and got a nomination for “Boy’s Town” (1938). Elvis was never an-Oscar caliber actor, but in his pre-Army films he at least showed some promise, notably in “Jailhouse Rock” and “King Creole.”
>
> Together they made nine films. They started off with the mediocre but bearable “G.I. Blues” (1960) and “Blue Hawaii” (1961), then settled down into the truly wretched: “Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962), “It Happened at the World’s Fair” (1963), “Tickle Me” (1965), “Spinout” (1966), “Double Trouble” (1967), “Speedway” (1968) and “Live a Little, Love a Little” (1968).
Interesting fact: Norman Taurog was legally blind during much of the time he worked with Presley. He retired in 1968 when he lost all his vision.
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### Author:  [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/27 "2014-04-14T23:47:17Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Woody Allen and Diane Keaton? What are you talking about? The OP for this thread asked for cases where an actor and a director don’t work together well, not just for any case whether an actress and a director were married or lived together and made several movies together. Allen and Keaton worked together very well. Incidentally, all of their movies together were made after they broke up. Keaton did very well in Allen’s films, and she won an Oscar for one of them. Allen and Keaton helped establish each other’s careers, and there’s nothing to complain about their work together.
>
> Why are you always blaming the actress for the movie? Mann is “a piece of chalk on a blackboard”? Locke is “one of the worst actresses of her era”? I can’t trust your judgment on anything now. You feel it necessary to exaggerate everything. I thought that people would be coming up with cases where a (male) actor and a (male) director don’t work together well, despite being good when they weren’t working together. It appears that all you want to do is find examples of director/actress pairs who worked together and were married or living together and then blame the actress for all the problems with the movies, even when there weren’t problems with the movies.
I agree that Woody Allen and Diane Keaton were not a bad pair. Woody Allen just skeeves me. Period. So Woody Allen and anyone doesn’t work for me.
I don’t care if you trust my judgement in anything I have to say. This is an opinion thread. Like all art, it is subjective. But your premise that I am picking married couples and slamming the women is nonsense. Locke and Eastwood weren’t married, and Woody Allen (in my opinion) is the problem with both of his collaborations with his wives/lovers/exes. And if this thread isn’t meeting your needs, don’t participate. You aren’t required to.
I stand by my evaluation of Leslie Mann’s acting skills. I think it is safe to say thst without Apatow making movies, she would have a very limited Hollywood career. Sondra Locke is also someone who. I am comfortable with my evaluation. She may have been nominated for an Oscar, but there are many people nominated for Oscars, and I don’t have to agree with all of them… I would wager you have not agreed with every nomination. If you say you have, well… Ok. But if that’s your stance, then you are either not being honest with yourself or you are not permitting your own feelings and opinions from making an individual judgement. The acadamy is not infallable.
Why you think that I cannot reject Locke’s awful stiff acting for over a decade Is beind me, but pleaee… Show me thst Oscar level acting in any of those Clint Eastwood vehicles. Go ahead. Dealer’s choice. Was it her role as Lynn Halsay-Taylor in “Every Which Way But Loose”? Or her magnificent performance as Gus Malley in “The Gauntlet”. Please.
Notice. I didn’t bring up Coen/McDormand. Mainly because Coen doesn’t stick himself in front of the camera AND McDormand is a much more versatile actress. She can blend into the scenery of a movie and become a part of it. And she would get plenty of work without her roles in her husband’s movies.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/28 "2014-04-15T02:54:54Z")
O.K., you start by saying that you want examples of actor/director pairs who don’t work together well. You cite Diane Keaton/Woody Allen as one example. Then you say that “Woody Allen and Diane Keaton were not a bad pair.” You say that you’re citing them because “Woody Allen just skeeves me.” So what? You’re changing your criteria for what kind of actor/director pair you want. Do you want cases where they don’t work together well, or do you just want examples of skeevy directors?
Incidentally, talking about skeeviness is a terrible way to judge the quality of an actor’s or a director’s or a screenwriter’s talent. I don’t much like this fact either, but it’s quite clear to me that a person’s artistic talent doesn’t have much to do with the quality of their personal life. Compare Woody Allen to Charlie Chaplin. He was at least as skeevy as Allen:
[http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9179261/charlie-chaplin-by-peter-ackroyd-review/](http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9179261/charlie-chaplin-by-peter-ackroyd-review/)
Artistically, he was brilliant though, and so is Allen. A lot of the best film comedians have been rather skeevy in their personal life. Read about Groucho Marx or W. C. Fields. If you feel it necessary to find out about a person’s skeeviness before you can comment on their artistic talent, you don’t know much about how to judge anyone’s talent.
If you’ll actually read my post, you’ll see that every time I carefully specified that a couple could be either married or living together. I never limited my statements to their being married. Locke wasn’t very good in her roles in the movies she made with Eastwood. Have you ever seen anything else she has made? She was apparently quite good in some of her early films. I think it was Eastwood’s fault for casting her in roles that she wasn’t qualified for. I also think you’re wrong about Mann. She’s not a great actress, but she’s not “a piece of chalk on a blackboard.” I think you try too hard to exaggerate when you criticize some actor’s abilities. Your artistic judgments just aren’t very good.
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### Author:  [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/29 "2014-04-15T17:43:07Z")
Wendell,
What is your problem?
This is a thread in Cafe Society, not GD OR GQ. Which means it’s not meant to be heavy and opinions are fine.
I didn’t even recognize your name, but from this one thread, you appear to fancy yourself a movie expert, and knowledgeable about Hollywood, actors, and movie history. Well, good for you. But your ability to google, search wikipedia and provide links to info doesn’t make you someone who’s opinion is any more impressive than anyone else’s.
In this thread, you haven’t supplied one answer to the OP.
Let’s look at your posts
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> There’s no chance that Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke will ever make another movie together:
>
> [Sondra Locke - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sondra_Locke)
Well, that’s nice, but I don’t recall anyone suggesting they would. And how exactly is that important to the discussion at all?
But you continue:
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Here’s something that makes the case that Tim Burton should quit making movies with either Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter:
>
> [4 Artists Who Should Probably Just Take a Break for a While | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-artists-who-should-probably-just-take-break-while/)
>
> Yeah, he’s your best friend. Yeah, she’s your long-time girlfriend with whom you’ve had two kids. That doesn’t mean you have to cast them in all your movies. You three are all good at what you do. You have just overdone working together.
Well, again, this is nice. But you don’t say this is your opinion. You quote the author of the article, and then summarize it with this final paragraph. But is it your opinion too? The OP requested your opinions, not someone else’s. Unless of course, you have no opinions of your own.
I’ll refer back to this last paragraph, because it sums up my feelings on Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, and Woody Allen and Mia Farrow.
But let’s continue
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> And Guy Ritchie and Madonna aren’t going to be making any more films together either.
Wow. Another earth-shattering news nugget. Did anyone mention Ritchie and Madonna? More importantly, what does it have to do with the OP? The OP did not ask for a list of couples who worked together and had a bad breakup. No, it asked for Director/actor combos that don’t work. My example provided happened to be a married couple, but it wasn’t a requirement.
Someone mentioned Eastwood and Locke, to which I agreed, you come to the rescue of Locke, giving us the history of Locke’s career. Who cares? The answer Eastwood/Locke was a perfect example of what I asked for in the OP.
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Sondra Locke was actually a good actress at one time. She was nominated for an Oscar. It’s only the films she did during her time living with Eastwood that were so bad. It was Eastwood who screwed up her career, and it’s never recovered. She went along with him as he made a long series of good-old-boy-comedy-adventures. When they broke up, he went on to make much better films, both as actor and as director. She couldn’t get any further roles. Read the Wikipedia entry on her that I’ve given the link for. Eastwood was a jerk who destroyed her career for the fun of it.
I didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion about WHY someone sucked. And the fact is. Locke sucked in those movies. She stinks in every movie she appears in with Eastwood. I would say she is arguably the weakest acting link in each of those movies. Why is their relationship worth discussing?
But wait, there’s more!
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Peter Bogdanovich and Cybill Shepherd won’t make any more films together either. The interesting thing was that Bogdanovich’s wife at the time of _The Last Picture Show_, Polly Platt, was really sort of the co-director and co-writer of that film, despite what the credits say. It’s the best thing that Bogdanovich ever did, and by breaking up his marriage to Platt, he made sure that he would never do anything as good again.
Another relationship-gone-bad combo. Now, I wasn’t aware of all the films that Bogdanovich and Shepherd made together. How many? You don’t say. But you’re only sharing this with us because in your opinion, Bogdanovich screwed himself because he couldn’t do top-notch work without his wife, Polly Pratt, who in your opinion was the real reason for Bogdanovich’s success.
Again, that’s nice of you to share, but who cares? It is irrelevant to the OP. I did not ask in the OP “tell us all couples that can no longer work together in Hollywood because they don’t like each other anymore.”
For some reason, I engaged you by saying I have no problem believing Eastwood hosed Locke.
I then tacked onto the post (which, by the way, was not written just for you and was not a part of the reply to you, but I can see how you made that mistake), the Woody Allen/Diane Keaton and Allen/Farrow.
To which you seem to take umbrage.
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Woody Allen and Diane Keaton? What are you talking about? The OP for this thread asked for cases where an actor and a director don’t work together well, not just for any case whether an actress and a director were married or lived together and made several movies together. Allen and Keaton worked together very well. Incidentally, all of their movies together were made after they broke up. Keaton did very well in Allen’s films, and she won an Oscar for one of them. Allen and Keaton helped establish each other’s careers, and there’s nothing to complain about their work together.
blah, blah blah. Yes, Keaton and Allen did some good movies together. My point for adding Woody Allen, and Keaton and. farrow was to echo what you said in your quote from the Cracked article. Basically, they made too many movies together and it got stale. That’s my opinion.
It is also my opinion that Allen is a terrible actor. He is a one trick pony, who delivers his lines in the exact same way no matter what character he is playing. His neurotic, stuttering persona has gotten old for me. And my point was that when you see the same people in multiple projects, it gets stale. Just like the Burton/Depp/Bonham Carter example you provided.
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Why are you always blaming the actress for the movie? Mann is “a piece of chalk on a blackboard”? Locke is “one of the worst actresses of her era”? I can’t trust your judgment on anything now. You feel it necessary to exaggerate everything. I thought that people would be coming up with cases where a (male) actor and a (male) director don’t work together well, despite being good when they weren’t working together. It appears that all you want to do is find examples of director/actress pairs who worked together and were married or living together and then blame the actress for all the problems with the movies, even when there weren’t problems with the movies.
This is my favorite. “Why are you always blaming the actress for the movie?” I am? I did it twice. Mann and Locke. You then accuse me of picking married couples to point out, when it was you that did exactly that. I didn’t pull out Bogdanovich or Richie. You blame me for your own behavior., then add the nonsense of me blaming the actress all the time.
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> O.K., you start by saying that you want examples of actor/director pairs who don’t work together well. You cite Diane Keaton/Woody Allen as one example. Then you say that “Woody Allen and Diane Keaton were not a bad pair.” You say that you’re citing them because “Woody Allen just skeeves me.” So what? You’re changing your criteria for what kind of actor/director pair you want. Do you want cases where they don’t work together well, or do you just want examples of skeevy directors?
>
> Incidentally, talking about skeeviness is a terrible way to judge the quality of an actor’s or a director’s or a screenwriter’s talent. I don’t much like this fact either, but it’s quite clear to me that a person’s artistic talent doesn’t have much to do with the quality of their personal life. Compare Woody Allen to Charlie Chaplin. He was at least as skeevy as Allen:
>
> [http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9179261/charlie-chaplin-by-peter-ackroyd-review/](http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9179261/charlie-chaplin-by-peter-ackroyd-review/)
Yawn. Who cares? Charlie Chaplin?
You are going a bit off the path here. I haven’t changed any criteria. I think Allen/Keaton and Allen/Farrow ran their course and were tiresome. Seeing the same people appear in Allen’s movies stopped working for me. But I can admit that Keaton wasn’t a terrible actress. That doesn’t mean I want to see her every time Allen makes a movie. Nor do I want to see Mia Farrow, or the latest woman he’s connected to. It gets old.
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> Artistically, he was brilliant though, and so is Allen. A lot of the best film comedians have been rather skeevy in their personal life. Read about Groucho Marx or W. C. Fields. If you feel it necessary to find out about a person’s skeeviness before you can comment on their artistic talent, you don’t know much about how to judge anyone’s talent.
I never equated Allen’s talent with his skeeviness. I said he was skeevy. And I made my opinion on Allen before he started sleeping with his ex-wife’s adopted daughter. But here is my assessment of Allen’s talents, skeeviness included. He is an excellent writer. An above average director, and he is an average to below average actor. In my opinion. It is also my opinion that he cannot direct himself. And I can’t stand watching his movies. Oh, and I also don’t like him as a person. But I never tied his talent to his personality. You did that in your own head for me, and then accused me of it.
By the way, thanks again for the history lesson. Yes, Wendell you are certainly a treasure trove of Hollywood gossip.
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> If you’ll actually read my post, you’ll see that every time I carefully specified that a couple could be either married or living together. I never limited my statements to their being married. Locke wasn’t very good in her roles in the movies she made with Eastwood. Have you ever seen anything else she has made? She was apparently quite good in some of her early films. I think it was Eastwood’s fault for casting her in roles that she wasn’t qualified for. I also think you’re wrong about Mann. She’s not a great actress, but she’s not “a piece of chalk on a blackboard.” I think you try too hard to exaggerate when you criticize some actor’s abilities. Your artistic judgments just aren’t very good.
And your artistic judgements are? No Wendell. I hate to tell you, but they aren’t. They are opinions, just like mine. And if you don’t like my opinions, that is ok by me. I don’t care
“Eastwood’s fault for not casting her in roles she wasn’t qualified for.”’ Seriously? You are going with that? What exactly did those roles require? Because all of them could have been performed by a high school student or a monkey. (Yes, Wendell… That’s an exaggeration. I do it to make a point.)
And no, I haven’t seen anything else she has made. I don’t need to. For the purposes of this thread, it is about her work with Eastwood which is in question. And it sucked.
And sadly, I read your posts, just as I am painfully re-doing here for you. Because all of your posts are simply your opinion. (And the opinion of others, since you like to link to other people’s words.)
Finally, I am not wrong about Mann. But if you like her, great. How about this? I will wager she never wins an Oscar. You like her enough to think she will? And to me, her voice is as grating as a piece of chalk on a blackboard. Both sounds hurt my ear and are unpleasant. I think it is a good comparison.
Your posts are bizarre, your logic is weak, and your points are useless. You are not an expert on movies or Hollywood history. Anyone who reads People magazine knows a lot about Hollywood couples, and their working history.
One more thing, Wendell. Notice when YOU changed the criteria of the OP and started adding couples with bad breakups, no one bitched and complained. The thread went on. Because it is a thread in CS. It’s not something to get into a twist about.
If you feel a need to respond (and I know you will), try to add to the discussion in the thread, and take any personal issues you have with my exaggerations or opinions, and send them to me in a PM. This dialog is cluttering up the thread.
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### Author:  [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/30 "2014-04-15T18:12:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> And there was parental nepotism with Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola.
To be fair, she was a last second stand-in. Going entirely off of memory, the part was Winona Ryder’s and she either got sick or hurt just prior to shooting, FFC panicked and filled the part with the first brunette he saw (okay, the last phrase was a bit of an exaggeration, but not a huge one).
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/31 "2014-04-15T18:16:07Z")
Yeah, that Wendell Wagner sure is a long-winded blowhard who takes things way too seriously. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/32 "2014-04-16T15:07:42Z")
The so-so comedy\*\*\* Irreconcilable Differences\*\*\*, co-starring the very young Drew Barrymore, was actually based on Peter Bogdanovuch’s affair with Cybill Shepherd, and his subsequent split from Polly Platt.
In real life, Bogdanovich cast and directed Shepherd in a terrible version of Henry James’ \*\*\*Daisy Miller \*\*\*. In the movie comedy, he directed Sharon Stone in a godawful musical version of _ **Gone With the Wind.** _
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/33 "2014-04-16T15:23:19Z")
Shatner/Shatner, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. By the time they got around to making this one, most of the main cast were pretty much done working with the guy, and he used the fact that he was directing to get his way.
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### Author:  [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/34 "2014-04-16T16:06:24Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> In real life, Bogdanovich cast and directed Shepherd in a terrible version of Henry James’ \*\*\*Daisy Miller \*\*\*. In the movie comedy, he directed Sharon Stone in a godawful musical version of _ **Gone With the Wind.** _
Interesting… Never heard of the musical version of GWTW.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/35 "2014-04-16T20:47:39Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#):
>
> Interesting… Never heard of the musical version of GWTW.
Sharon Stone is actually very funny in that part. She nagged the Bogdanovich character (played by Ryan O’Neal) into making a huge-budget musical of \*\*\*Gone With the Wind, \*\*\* with herself as Scarlett O’Hara.
She did an admirably horrible singing job!
“This… Civil War… ain’t gonna get… me doooooown!”
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/36 "2014-04-16T20:54:52Z")
Belushi and Aykroyd/John Avildson: _ **Neighbors** _ (1981). As bad as John and Dan were in that one, Avildson (from all I’ve read) was a total douchebag.
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/37 "2014-04-16T21:10:56Z")
[David O. Russell and Lily Tomlin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SG43wa7Alo).
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/38 "2014-04-16T21:56:53Z")
Uwe Boll and… anybody.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-director-actor-combinations/685986/39 "2014-04-16T22:05:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> How about David Mamet and Rebecca Pidgeon? Another case of married nepotism.
David Mamet and whoever he’s [del]banging[/del] married to at the moment seems to be a problem for him. Cite: Lindsay Crouse’s dreadful performance in _House of Games_.
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