Too late to nominate Christopher Walken, the first one I thought of. However, there are some actors that really should have the nominating committee reject their application:
Jeremy Irons - ham
Nicholas Cage - cheese
Gary Busey - Oscar nominations mean nothing. Marisa Tomei and Mira Sorvino actually won Oscars, which should indicate their relative worth.
Frank Sinatra - ineligible; only a two (or three) scene cameo as a favor to his good friends Dino Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
So that leaves:
Michael Caine
Jon Voight
Christopher Walken
F. Murray Abraham
Robert DeNiro
Sir Anthony Hopkins
Sir Sean Connery (whom I think benefits more from a good director and his charisma rather than being a “great” actor)
Sir Laurence Olivier
Honourable Mentions to:
Walter Matthau
Groucho Marx
Sir Alec Guiness
Dame Helen Mirren
All the good replies are taken (there are plenty of others, but you’ve got just about all of them). I’ll just mention Donald Pleasence, who has knowingly been in lots of bad movies. Reportedly, when asked why, he replied
“I hear voices.”
“Voices?”
“Yes – my bank, my mortgage company, my restaurant…”
For my money, Donald Sutherland is the worst of these. I’ve been dragged unwilling to two movies simply because the man was in them, and they were both movies squarely in this category, so I have a visceral dislike for the man when he does this. In one film (Gas from 1981) he never even appears in a scene with any of the other principal actors. He clearly came on the set one day and did all his lines by himself. In fact, considering the quality of the film, I’d be willing to bet that he made up his own lines on the spot.
JFTR are there any great actors who haven’t made bad movies? I’m hard pressed to think of any. I guess there’s John Cazale, every one of whose movies was a classic , other than a tyro effort when first starting, but he died young and only made six.
If you’re an actor you want to work, even when you’re old and the star parts stop coming. (Step forward, Oscar winners Ray Milland and Joan Crawford, who late in their careers appeared respectively in the ludicrous films The Man With Two Heads and Trog.)
Voight is a strange case. For years, he worked surprisingly little, taking only roles that really appealed to him. And now? He seems to take any paying gig that comes along.
In fairness, I think Malkovich does a pretty fair balancing act. He’ll make some lousy Jerry Bruckheimer action movie, and that will pay him enough money to allow him to spend the next few years doing artsy European movies or plays at the Steppenwolf Theater.
Similarly, there are some fine British stage actors who’ll play the villain in a moronic American action picture, because that allows them to go back to the West End and do the kind of low-paying work that actually interests them for a few years.
I won’t hold up Roger Moore as a master thespian, but he said Noel Coward once gave him this advice:
“Take every role you’re offered. Never turn down a role, because you’re not really an actor if you’re not working. And if you’re lucky enough to be offered two roles at the same time, take the role that pays better.”
Eddie Murphy - Best Defense, Pluto Nash, Meet Dave, any Nutty Professor after the first one, Norbit, that Werewolf movie, The Golden Child, Another 48 hours…Lord make it stop
Russell Crowe - I liked him in the Quick and the Dead. If only he had stopped.
“Whoring” makes it sound as if the actors in question are doing something illegal or immoral. Actors who take paying jobs in movies or TV shows that they know (or suspect) won’t be very good don’t fall into that category.
I mean, if an unknown actor gets a job driving a cab or waiting tables at a coffee shop, do you call HIM a whore for taking a job just to pay the bills?
Heck, never mind show biz- don’t MOST of us work “just for the money”? If I worked only when I was “truly inspired” by a project, I’d starve to death!
The lawsuit which he’s filed against his investment adviser (and the countersuit which his adviser recently filed against Cage) strongly suggests that Cage takes on so many movies because he has to, just to keep making the payments on all of the houses, boats, cars, etc. that he likes to buy.
Well whoring was the term given in the OP. For the record, I don’t see anything immoral about any form of whoring. An actor who loves to act may take a part in a movie they would not otherwise take because of the money. A prostitute who loves to have sex may have sex with a person they would not otherwise have sex with because of the money. Legal aspects aside, I have no problem with either.
Seeing a great actor in a crap movie - PSH in MI III for example - makes it pretty clear to me why they have done it. There is nothing wrong with it at all - I would love to spend my life working pro bono, for example, but then I wouldn’t eat. I imagine there is a tinge of regret in it for the actor, too.
No you don’t – by your own cite, de Niro was the Producer of that film – he wanted to make it, and to play Fearless Leader. In theory, this should have been a good flick. It wasn’t, though – the script lacked the necessary wit, and something was missing from the execution. (I don’t buy that you couldn;t make a good Rocky and Bullwinkle movie today.)
You don’t get to claim incompetent execution on your own part of your own project as “whoring”.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned James Caan. He’s been in a lot of crap movies, especially in the past 15 years or so. But unlike many great actors who just ham it up or phone it in for their “whoring” movies, he always delivers a solid performance. The rest of the movie may suck balls, but the moments he’s on screen are golden.