Can I just nominate Jessica Alba? Man, is she a terrible actress.
Zooey Deschanel - I’ve known trees with more personality than her. She’s cute, and I liked her in Elf–but everything else I’ve seen her in she’s been really wooden.
Yeah, but she looks really hot doing it!
Sofia Coppola (the actress, not the director) and Jack Lord
One word: Gigli. I think even the film it was printed on was wooden.
I first saw House of Games when I was pretty young 13 or 14 y/o or so, and I still remember to this day how I felt watching Crouse in that film. I though ‘wow! That lady’s REALLY good at keeping her emotions to herself - she’s completely unreadable’ (it was a gambling film, IIRC, so she was good in context).
Then years later I saw her again in something else and I was 
:mad: Damn, she wasn’t acting.
But in defense of Crouse, isn’t that partly how David Mamet directs his actors? The sister in The Windlow Boy for example (whose name escapes me but who I think is a good actress directed to act woodenly by Mamet)?
Yikes I just looked it up and it’s Rebecca Pidgeon who is mentioned above! Is it all possibly down to Mamet???
Jack Lord’s hair was stiff, but he owned the character of Steve McGarrett, to the point that, in his absence, you could not remake Hawaii Five-0, although someone is foolishly trying to.
I think that’s more a case of horrible direction, though - while I’m not a fan of Affleck or J-Lo, neither is normally what I’d consider wooden. I took the OP to mean actors who are always wooden - otherwise, there are too many decent actors who’ve given bad performances (the Star Wars franchise, anyone?) because of shitty directors for the question to be meaningful.
Steven Seagal and Francesca Le.
For those who don’t recognize Le’s name, she’s a porno actress. Good looking but all I can say about her acting ability is that she stands out for her bad acting even in a cast of other porno actors.
Males:
Gary Shandling
Matt Damon – now there’s a log for you.
Rob Brown
Sonny Bono – actually melded with a tree!
I’ll call your Steven Seagall and raise you a Jean Claude Van Damme
Oh yeah, and nearly the definition of wooden acting, Richard Kiel (Jaws in the Bond films)
Which reminds me of Ted Cassidy, Lurch from The Addams Family
I gotta say, my list of males alone shoots me right into the thread win category.
Eh, it’s getting too late. I’ll have to list the women tomorrow. For the moment I’ll start with Joan Crawford, who had a range from uptight to angry.
David Duchovny and Tea Leoni. He’s so wooden you could build a cabin out of him; she’s so awful she couldn’t portray “falling” if you pushed her off a cliff.
It’s true Ellis, that Lord turned woodenness into a certain kind of macho sublime. But can you imagine him pulling off a romantic comedy?
Oh, and is someone really masochistic enough to try to remaking Five-0? Yeesh–I would have thought AMC’s crack at the Prisoner was enough tempting of the 60s re-make gods to last a century.
Although I love, love love his wooden self, all three of the little pigs could have made a house out of Clint Eastwood. His style is delightful and totally works for him but a font of emotion he is not.
How about Robert “reverse mortgage” Wagner?
Poor Andie McDowell always gets slammed. I thought she was really good playing a frigid woman in Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Oh wait.
Well she’s not at the top of this totem pole, but Kirsten Dunst deserves a mention. Cute girl, love the snaggletoothed grin, but wow she’s a bad actress. Her few scenes in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind nearly wrecked what was otherwise a superb movie.
My vote for the top two would be Keanu Reeves and Lindsey Crouse. I re-watched House of Games the other day, and I agree with the OP that she really fouled up a nice script.
I can’t figure out how Crouse gets work. She doesn’t even bring eye candy to the game. (She looks reasonably attractive, but definitely not good enough to build a film career on looks.)
Who was the blond chick in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? She’s solid wood.
Most of the Star Trek actresses have been wooden, or perhaps some new fangled alloy.
Wooden actreeses are harder to come up with – so many of them are bad, but bad-perky rather than bad-wooden. Meg Ryan comes to mind as bad-perky.
Ooh, one of my co-workers just suggested Appolonia(sp?) from Prince’s Purple Rain.
Re: Lindsay Crouse and Rebecca Pigeon. Crouse used to be married to David Mamet (when House of Games was made) and Pigeon is currently married to him (The Winslow Boy, The Spanish Prisoner). So that explains how they got those roles, anyway.
Keanu Reeves and Meg Tilley. He could play the chalkboard and she the fingernails.