[QUOTE=kushiel]
Oh God, I watched that movie and wondered who the hell the poor schmuck playing the villain was. Then I found out it was Jeremy Irons and I was in shock. I mean, he’s an accomplished actor - not a bad fantasy caricature.
[/QUOTE]
In that vein, how about Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness in Legend?
[QUOTE=N9IWP]
Jeremy Irons in Dungeons And Dragons
Brian
[/QUOTE]
And Eragorn. It seems he just loves to ham it up in bad Fantasy movies.
[QUOTE=jacob wrestling]
Jack Nicholson in The Departed. During the “rat” scene, he was practically a cartoon.
[/QUOTE]
What’s!!! The rat scene was the best part of this overacted role because then, at least, he was making a cartoon of something else, instead as overacting “HIMSELF”!!!
But I was going to nominate him anyway.
[QUOTE=Johnny Hildo]
Holy fuck, have you SEEN Rod Steiger in The January Man?
The director should have said, “Rod, you’re at about a 400. We’re gonna need you at a 7.”
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=DataZak]
I nominate Rod Steiger as well but for Amytiville Horror. Not everytime he’s onscreen but the scene where he tried to convince the other priests the house is eeeeeeeviiiillllllllll.
[/QUOTE]
You can pretty much pencil in any Steiger performance after he won an Academy Award for In the Heat of the Night. Before that, he was actually quite good (e.g., see his performances in Dr. Zhivago and as a Holocaust survivor in The Pawnbroker). Unfortunately, winning an Oscar seemed to do something to him. His performances became increasingly hammy and heavy-handed until he virtually became a joke. (However, to be fair, Steiger later admitted he suffered from chronic depression and that he thought it adversely affected the quality of acting.)
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Richard Burton is often cited as egregious in this regard, especially in The Exorcist II
[/QUOTE]
Burton clearly had talent but I think at a certain point in his career he decided he really didn’t give a damn anymore and stopped trying to give an good performance. He figured that even if he just growled and over-ennunciated his lines, they were still going to give him a big fat paycheck. Also, don’t underestimate the role Burton’s alcoholism played in diminishing his effectiveness as an actor.
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy]
[Pacino’s] still great now (Glengarry Glen Ross, The Insider, Donnie Brasco, Insomnia) but he has also become somewhat of a caricature of himself–though nowhere in the same league that DeNiro has. Still, it doesn’t help that Pacino’s Oscar was for something as bad as Scent.
Still, I was going to enter this thread to cite Devil’s Advocate a ridiculous movie that’s saved by Al’s tremendous appetite for the scenery–a perfectly appropriate route to take given his material and co-stars.
[/QUOTE]
In terms of overacting, Pacino’s quite a bit different than Steiger and Burton because he’s clearly camping it up and enjoying himself (especially in The Devil’s Advocate). He knows when to turn it on and turn it off.
[QUOTE=NDP]
You can pretty much pencil in any Steiger performance after he won an Academy Award for In the Heat of the Night.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t remember if the little seen The Loved Ones, based on the Evelyn Waugh novel, was made before of after In the Heat of the Night. However, remembering Steiger singing “Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread” as a mama’s boy just makes me cringe.
So far we’ve only had male overacting. Faye Dunaway in **Mommie Dearest **proved actresses can also chew the scenery and swallow it whole.