# The worst role an actor/actress has on their resume? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 11, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259 "2015-06-11T15:38:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/41 "2015-06-12T11:47:59Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > What about the more recent masterpiece from auteur Adam Sandler _Jack and Jill_ which starred Al Pacino. His bio on IMDB begins\*\* > > And then this: > > [Worst Supporting Actor](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810913/awards) I’m just reading that page and it’s kind of horrifying: a whole page of nominations and awards for being a terrible, terrible film…and an award for “Top Box Office Films”. What is _wrong_ with people? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/42 "2015-06-12T12:10:32Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m just reading that page and it’s kind of horrifying: a whole page of nominations and awards for being a terrible, terrible film…and an award for “Top Box Office Films”. I don’t understand that page. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER came out that year, and made a bigger profit thanks to a bigger box-office gross; FAST FIVE, likewise; and BRIDESMAIDS, too; plus HORRIBLE BOSSES; why pass over those for this? (Heck, TRANSFORMERS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON cracked the billion-dollar mark that year, and looks to be a less bad movie than JACK AND JILL, so – huh?) ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/43 "2015-06-12T13:19:55Z")
Bela Lugosi, Plan 9 from outer space. He was only in a few scenes since he died while it was being made. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/44 "2015-06-12T13:34:13Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Watching Sean Penn in **I Am Sam** was a painful experience, turned into an impossible one after **Tropic Thunder**. He went full retard in\*\* I Am Sam\*\*? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/45 "2015-06-12T13:48:21Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Halle Berry - do I even have to name the role. > > Catwoman Lead role in what may have been a comic book franchise movie? It’s not hard to figure out why she took it. Turned out to be a dog, but she may not have known that DC does not grok female superheroes at all. Or maybe she thought their cluelessness wouldn’t translate into the movie. But it’s hard to see it as a total misjudgement, unlike most of the films being nominated here. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/46 "2015-06-12T13:50:40Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Christopher Plummer as the Emperor of the Universe in [Starcrash.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079946/) > > It is a cheesy, low-budget Italian ripoff of _Star Wars_, and Plummer is obviously just phoning it in for a quick paycheck. > > And yet he still gives a better performance than the rest of the cast combined. > > According to imdb, he filmed all his scenes in a single day, and got paid $30,000 (in 1978 dollars) for that one day’s work. As a capitalist, I heartily approve. Beat me to it. His “by God, I am going to give them a PERFORMANCE” performance is one of the wonderful things about that film. Am I right in remembering that he never actually appears in a scene with anyone else - he’s always on the “holographic link” or some such? Obviously shot on a black set for later compositing? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/47 "2015-06-12T13:56:25Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Halle Berry - do I even have to name the role. _Monster’s Ball_, of course. You’re completely right. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/48 "2015-06-12T14:01:54Z")
Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield in the eponymous live/animated film. Gah. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/49 "2015-06-12T14:15:35Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield in the eponymous live/animated film. Gah. Murray has spoken at length about how much he hated that film, and consider: he ended up rewriting the script because the original one was so much worse. The mind boggles. (Also, wasn’t there a joke in _Zombieland_ about him regretting _Garfield_?) ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/50 "2015-06-12T14:25:59Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Watching Sean Penn in **I Am Sam** was a painful experience, turned into an impossible one after **Tropic Thunder**. I don’t think this qualifies given he was nominated for a damn Oscar for it. I came to say Raul Julia in Street Fighter, but since that was taken, how about Raul Julia in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank? ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/51 "2015-06-12T14:39:01Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > I don’t think this qualifies given he was nominated for a damn Oscar for it. > > I came to say Raul Julia in Street Fighter, but since that was taken, how about Raul Julia in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank? [QUOTE=Dale Sams] I’d think the best answers would be like Welles in “Transformers”, Raul Julia in “Overdrawn at the Memory bank” (though admittedly that was one of the films where I wanted the Bots to shut up so I could hear) Denzel Washington in “Carbon Copy”, stuff like that… [/QUOTE] Sorry 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/52 "2015-06-12T15:57:39Z")
[Sir Laurence Olivier](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000059/?ref_=nv_sr_1) took a series of “make the check out to CASH” roles in the 1970s and 80s. Clash of the Titans Inchon The Jazz Singer The Boys from Brazil That last one is especially notable because it starred Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele which IMHO, beats\*\* Boyo Jim’s\*\* nomination of _Paint Your Wagon_ for double-plus ungoodness. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/53 "2015-06-12T16:14:14Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield in the eponymous live/animated film. Gah. An actor doing a job for the check, based on a “comic” strip developed from scratch to be a paycheck, by an “artist” so cynical he studied marketing more than art in launching the strip… and promptly hired a boiler room of drones to churn the stuff out… following rigid “amusing but not too funny” guidelines. Sounds about right. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/54 "2015-06-12T16:48:06Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > [Sir Laurence Olivier](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000059/?ref_=nv_sr_1) took a series of “make the check out to CASH” roles in the 1970s and 80s. > > Clash of the Titans > Inchon > The Jazz Singer > The Boys from Brazil > > That last one is especially notable because it starred Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele which IMHO, beats\*\* Boyo Jim’s\*\* nomination of _Paint Your Wagon_ for double-plus ungoodness. Must be a generational thing. And _Paint Your Wagon_ gets more points because there was a whole scene on the Simpsons with Bart and Homer being horrified by it. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/55 "2015-06-12T17:43:48Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > [Sir Laurence Olivier](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000059/?ref_=nv_sr_1) took a series of “make the check out to CASH” roles in the 1970s and 80s. > > Clash of the Titans > Inchon > The Jazz Singer > The Boys from Brazil > > That last one is especially notable because it starred Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele which IMHO, beats\*\* Boyo Jim’s\*\* nomination of _Paint Your Wagon_ for double-plus ungoodness. At the time Olivier was honest about taking all kinds of roles so he could leave a large estate to his family after he died ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/56 "2015-06-12T17:49:03Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe both for [_Virtuosity_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114857/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_31) “Virtuosity” was not the best movie but how did either Washington or Crowe ill-choose their roles? Denzel Washington played a cop chasing a bad guy, hardly a risky role or something he can’t do. Crowe played the villain, which seems well within his scope of capabilities. Both men did very well with what they were given. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/57 "2015-06-12T18:51:52Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > What about the more recent masterpiece from auteur Adam Sandler _Jack and Jill_ which starred Al Pacino. His bio on IMDB begins\*\* > > And then this: > > [Worst Supporting Actor](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810913/awards) > [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m just reading that page and it’s kind of horrifying: a whole page of nominations and awards for being a terrible, terrible film…and an award for “Top Box Office Films”. What is _wrong_ with people? From ASCAP - Who licences music for use in Film and TV. I bet Jack and Jill was the top gross for films using all ASCAP artists. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/58 "2015-06-12T19:39:59Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Paul Newman took out an ad disavowing his “work” in [The Silver Chalice (1954) Official Trailer - Paul Newman, Jack Palance Biblical Epic Movie HD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkueAHXEQtw) Isn’t that an early role and counted out by the OP? > [@Gyrate](#): > > Murray has spoken at length about how much he hated that film, and consider: he ended up rewriting the script because the original one was so much worse. The mind boggles. (Also, wasn’t there a joke in _Zombieland_ about him regretting _Garfield_?) Yes, there is. > [@](#): > > Tallahassee: You think you might pull through? > > Bill Murray: No. > > Columbus: If it means anything now, I am so sorry. It was just instinctive. > > Bill Murray: It was my bad. I was never a very good practical joker. > > Little Rock: So do you have any regrets? > > Bill Murray: “Garfield,” maybe. They all nod, knowing that movie sucked. He even did a second one. Hey, he needs money, too. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/59 "2015-06-12T19:58:56Z")
A page and a half and no one has mentioned Bruce Willis and _Hudson Hawk_? Of course, that was Willis’ own project, so I don’t know if it counts. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259/60 "2015-06-12T20:03:56Z")
> [@oft\_wears\_hats](#): > > A page and a half and no one has mentioned Bruce Willis and _Hudson Hawk_? Of course, that was Willis’ own project, so I don’t know if it counts. I see why that movie failed, but not because it was all that bad. Just strange. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-role-an-actor-actress-has-on-their-resume/722259.md?page=4)