For a “refresh your memory” list of The Best at Playing Bastards in usually minor (but significant) roles here are 35 to consider, or to use as stepping stones to other such IMDb lists. So many of these guys are among my favorite character actors, and as often as not move an otherwise so-so movie into a not-too-bad one, even great on some occasions. But their personas oftentimes are unsettling to watch, which makes them as hirable as they are.
They are – in most cases – borderline dislikeable to watch because they’re so good at being sleazy.
One of my very favorites in that category is Jonathan Banks who was a consummate baddie in an early Eddie Murphy movie.
James Franco
Lucy Liu (although she shocked the shit outta me by being awesome in Lucky Number Slevin, a fun if contrived caper/revenge flick)
Renee Zellwiger
Tom Cruise
There’s undoubtedly a few more, but since I don’t wanna watch them, I don’t wanna think about them either.
I liked Adam Sandler in Spanglish. I liked Ribisi in Private Ryan. Anybody says anything bad about Sandra Bullock, I gotta disagree. Most of the others mentioned I would agree to some extent or another. Jim Belushi is the one I probably can’t take the most - he has enough similarities to his brother to just make it painful to watch. Oh, I mostly love Bill Murray in almost anything except Lost in Translation - I failed to ‘get’ that movie by a factor of about one million.
We’re all trying to forget Andie McDowell. I still don’t understand why she ever had an acting career. You’d think after they had to overdub her in that Tarzan movie the studios would have found someone else.
Since we’re discussing actresses I’m going to add Claire Forlani. She always looks like she doesn’t know what to do with her face and ends up going through a series of odd squints and grimaces before settling on a awkward ill-fitting half-smile. I keep thinking she’s been over-Botoxed but she’s always had that problem and it really puts me off.
Also: Gemma Arterton. I remember watching Prince of Persia and thinking that leads Arterton and Jake Gyllenhall were the wrong class of actor for the film - Gyllenhall because he was way too good for it, and Arterton because she wasn’t good enough. She also phoned in her Bond girl bit but the script there was awful too so she doesn’t get all the blame for that.
Adding Eddie Redmayne. I saw him in a PBS series and noted that his mouth is like this squirmy thing that has been run over and flattened. I couldn’t stand to look at his face. Then he turns up in an acclaimed movie about Stephen Hawking. I’d much rather look at Stephen Hawking’s face.
ETA: Helen Hunt. The Mad About You thread reminded me. Talk about someone who uses extreme facial expressions to mimic acting-- I call it “mugging.”
You guys are all haters and that’s terrible. An actor works his or her life honing their craft and everyone around here talks about how they think such and such an actor sounds like she’s sucking lemons or so and so is an annoying overactor.
That being said, I can’t stand Bridgette Wilson. My son and I watched Mortal Kombat over the weekend and that is one awesome movie ruined only by Wilson’s dull, blank face and lack of physical ability to convey a competent special operations soldier and karate expert who is going to kick the crap out of the cyborg-faced criminal. She is bad and the guy who cast her should feel bad.
Bill Murray, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams (RIP).
I did like Murray in the recent HBO series with Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge); otherwise he registers as “I’m-so-droll-ain’t-I-cool” to me.
I can’t think of a single role I’ve ever liked Crystal in. The last movie I saw him in was some abomination about basketball and Paris.
God bless his soul, but Williams’ frenetic, manic characters made me nervous and tense (I didn’t like his dramatic roles either, probably because I had a knee-jerk reaction to him).
Because I’ve been watching 1980s re-runs:
I hate David Doyle (Charlie’s Angels) and his stupid slurred voice.
Ditto on the annoying voice with Max on Hart to Hart, whom I’m convinced escaped from the Planet of the Apes set.
Doc on The Love Boat: predatory middle-aged man on the hunt for 20-something bimbettes.
Will Farrell used to be funny on SNL, but now it’s like you have to excuse the numerous times he’s not a comic genius and wait for the big payoff, which never comes. Adam Sandler is the same way. They seem to have caught whatever turned Eddie Murphy into shit: they think they have to go beyond their scope and prove themselves as genuine “actors.”
Ooh, this is scary! A minute after posting my hate for Bernie Koppel (Doc) and David Doyle (Bozley) I started a Hart to Hart episode guest starring no other than DOYLE AND KOPPEL together.
I…I thought I was alone… I thought I was the only one who thought Will Ferrell was overrated, annoying, and obnoxious. But you all have shown me that - sniff - I’m not the only one! [broken sob] I feel like Sally Field: you hate him, you really hate him!
Disagree with you slightly about Cruise - the one thing I respect about him as an actor is that he’s willing to occasionally step out of his comfort zone for things like Vanilla Sky. I give the otherwise-awful Keanu Reeves credit as well for playing a male prostitute in My Own Private Idaho and attempting Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing. Given that he was in that with actors like Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, and Brian Blessed, that must have felt like Jonah Hill trying out for the SEALs.
Keifer Sutherland. Like Charlie Sheen his acting apple fell orchards away from the parent tree. He first struck me as a petulant, whiny, angry punk and wasn’t acting so much as merely repeating lines. While that may have worked somewhat in Stand By Me, not so much in Flatliners, the Young Guns crapola, The Vanishing, The Cowboy Way, etc. Admittedly, I can be swayed by bad behavior off screen as well. So there’s that. I know he’s done more with the Bauer stuff but I’d already lost interest and never caught them.
Don Knotts. Of course there’s no fear of him doing a new movie, but anything with him in it I just can’t watch. (Particularly the nightmarishly awful “The Incredible Mr. Limpet,” whose badness just can’t be described.)
Jerry Lewis. Frenetic and manic, and that voice…ugh.
John Belushi. If you want to call him an “actor.” I’m sure I’ll take heat for this, but I never found him the least bit funny.
Of the more modern actors, Scarlett Johanson (sp?). Having a blank, dopey look on your face does not equal acting. Also Neve Campbell, for more or less the same reason. Jack Nicholson bugs me too, but I can’t put my finger on why. And Renee Zellweger, at least with her previous face. She always looked like she was smelling something bad.
Vince Vaughn is at the top of my list. Some of the names mentioned here I really disagree with, not because I think they’re great but because they’re probably better than I give them credit for, even though they’re just not my cup of tea. But Vaughn makes everything he’s in a worse product.
And I hated everything Robin Williams did as a comedic actor or comic, but liked or loved him in all of his straight/dramatic roles.
A lot of mine have already been mentioned, and let me add Keira Knightley. She seems like a sweet person in real life, but I can’t take her onscreen persona (and it’s always the same – another problem I have with her).
I saw a poster for Fellini’s La Strada this morning and now that I’ve recovered, I came here to list: Anthony Quinn. I don’t know how or why, but I saw La Strada when I was a little girl and Anthony Quinn’s character grossed me the fuck OUT. My skin crawls just looking at his face on a movie poster – there’s no way in hell I would willingly watch him in another movie. Fortunately for me, he’s not making any more movies so he’s easy to avoid.
I see those roles as his way of jumping on the couch and screaming “LOOKIT ME! I CAN DO OTHER STUFF!”. I felt his presence strongly in Tropic Thunder and it was like there was unspoken dialogue saying “see, I don’t have to be the cool, handsome guy - I can ACT!”. I still think he was Tom Cruise. But I tend to not watch movies he’s in so I never saw Vanilla Sky (because of the added bonus of Penelope Cruz, whom I also dislike) so maybe I’ve only caught all his “I’m still Tom Cruise pretending to be someone else” roles. I have to add that my true hate of Cruise started with the first Mission Impossible, the Scientology bullshit was just icing on my hate cake.
I disagree on the “great actress” part - I think she’s just the only female actor who has managed to get non-“the love interest”, dramatic roles reliably in their careers. But on getting those roles, it seems like her entire acting ability comes down to swiveling two levers, one for “voice pitch” and another for “drunkeness”. In “Julie & Julia” her voice pitch is a +3, in Dangerous Liaisons it’s a -1. In Death Becomes her, her drunkeness varies between a 1 and a 4.
It’s the voice pitch one that gets me. I can live without watching a whole movie of someone cooing and harping with a shrill, high-pitched voice, just because that’s the only way the actress had to distinguish her character. If you’re a voice actor then sure, it makes sense to use your voice to create a character. If you’re a live action actor though, you should be “acting”.