I’m going to third (?) Zooey Deschanel. I just saw her in The Happening and she was worse than Mark Wahlbergh, which is really saying something.
I didn’t think she was atrocious in Dirty Pretty Things. Not exactly world-class maybe, but not atrocious. Also I like her elfin mug :).
It’s all so subjective, I guess, excluding perhaps the professionally trained who are able to seperate appealing/good direction from good acting. I am no such professional, but I’d mildly disagree with a number of the suggestions so far, while acknowledging most of them aren’t all that great. Just not the *worst.
But I guess I’d agree about Pidgeon in Mamet vehicles. She really does come off worse to me than all the rest of her deliberately stilted co-actors ( but then so did Lindsay Crouse, maybe Mamet just likes his women to suck ass on the screen ). But even she didn’t make me want to ill myself in State and Main ( I think it was ). She wasn’t exactly good, so much as rather less sucky ( and I agree, less stilted ).
If you want to talk bad acting on L&O, look at the time when Elisabeth Rohm was ADA. Uggh.
Maybe the thread should’ve been “worst actress anybody has ever heard of.”
Huh? I don’t worship at his throne or anything like a lot of people do, but he is an above average actor at the least. Why the hate?
who . . . are these people??
No, he’s gay. And he loves me!
Well, the Academy Awards and BAFTA, to name two.
Milla Jovovich
What makes a bad actress (& actor) bad? I see many examples here, but few specifics. Is it that they can’t handle an emotional scene without coming across as unitentionally comic, as Emma Watson did in the 4th Harry Potter movie? Extremely limited range? Do we expect more from a female than a male, in that a Clint Eastwood can remain stoic for an entire film, and get kudos for it, while a similarly understated woman can’t? Not trying to start any flames, just curious about specifics-movies, roles, scenes.
How have you all managed to wipe the horror that is Darryl Hannah from your brains? Please tell me, because I can’t.
There’s a difference between “understated” and “wooden,” though. Glenn Close does understated very well. Ali McGraw, on the other hand, might just as well be a cardboard cutout with moving lips.
Uh, yeah, though how that’s relevant to her talent I don’t understand.
That’s like saying Meshulam Riklis’s millions had nothing to do with Pia Zadora’s acting career.
I disagree. When I see her in a Mamet film, I see the stilted artificiality, and it feels right to me; it feels like she’s doing exactly what’s being demanded of her for the role. It doesn’t strike me, personally, as bad acting, but as carefully, subtly stylized acting. And I haven’t seen her in a lot of non-Mamet things, but those I have seen she holds her own very well, and without the stilted artificiality that Mamet demands of her.
The fact that Mamet is married to her might also suggest that she, more than anyone else, “gets” what he’s trying to accomplish, and that’s why she may stand out from the other actors: because she’s doing it perfectly and they’re not quite there. Although, watch the exchanges between Joe Mantegna and Lindsay Crouse (the then Mrs. Mamet) in* House of Games*, for acting that’s even more stilted and stylized than Rebecca Pidgeon’s. Or see William H. Macy in Oleanna: his performance is deliberately artificial, that if you didn’t know him you might think he’s a terrible actor.
Bottom line, for me, if you criticism of an actor is that they’re stilted and wooden, that doesn’t count if it’s a Mamet piece.
Um, no it’s not, no more than saying Helena Bonham Carter’s marriage to Tim Burton is the only reason she has a career. Using an artist’s personal relationship as some kind of objective measure of their talent is absurd. Pia’s bad because she’s bad; the money is irrelevant. I’m judging Pidgeon on her work, not on her marriage. Guilt by association doesn’t fly even in CS threads.
Never mind.
Paul Newman directed Joanne Woodward. I think that trumps your argument,** UD.**
I think there might be something to this. In the first half of the century, all of the greatest actors were women–Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Ingrid Bergman, Jane Wyman, Greta Garbo, Anna Magnani, Shirley Booth. You could count the male actors who could hold a candle to them on one hand: Charles Laughton, Lon Chaney, Emil Jannings, Walter Huston. I think it might have something to do with the way roles changed over the decades. Or not; just an idle thought.
(Obviously, the above is all highly subjective, but it’s definitely my sense that in the majority of the great old movies, the heaviest lifting was done by the women.)
Umm, no, it doesn’t. (See? I can do needless condescension, too.)
Crappy actress + director husband = roles in husband’s work (Pidgeon)
Crappy actress + wealthy husband = financing for actresses’ roles (Zadora)
I understand why you would disagree if you enjoy Pidgeon’s work, however.
Dude, you’re the one who drew a connection; all I did was point out there are plenty of examples that disprove that. And condescension is never needless.