Yeah, I defended Hurt earlier, but his Rochester was ridiculous.
I’m not a fan of Hurt, and didn’t like him in Dune, but his character, Duke Leto Harkonen, doesn’t last too long anyway. Maybe the makeup artists could fashion a smile for him or at least lend him a wig to provide some variety since he always basically plays the same person in every movie.
My favorite William Hurt is as Harlan in I Love You to Death. I generally don’t like him, but thought he was perfect here. Granted, not a dramatic role.
Yeah, someone with Asperger’s wouldn’t be able to easily fake tears on queue like that. But him doing that wasn’t so much because he was an evil manipulator, he just didn’t get Holly Hunter’s outrage over it because to him News was not so different from most other areas of TV as being intrinsically artificial. He genuinely did tear up during that woman’s story, but because they only had one camera they didn’t catch it. So he just did it again for an edited-in cutaway, and he saw no issue with that at all.
I’m guessing that either
a) the OP never saw Kiss of the Spider Woman, in which case they should watch it before complaining about his acting; or
b) saw it, but didn’t realize that was William Hurt, in which case, well, their point has been pretty well refuted, no?
And I think this is the answer. Dude made one not-too-terrible character* almost 30 years ago, and this is why he keeps getting roles.
*I’ve actually never made it past the first half hour of the film, but it does seem to be trotted out a lot as a non-wooden Hurt role, so I’ll just roll with that. Frankly, I do have to give the guy props for taking a gay role in the mid-eighties; that was a pretty gutsy move for the time.
He is very good in Dark City, but then again, almost all the characters in that movie are supposed to by somewhat lifeless, going through the motions types.
I don’t fault him for having a niche. You have a part that calls for a character with a bit of gravitas, he seems like a good actor to have on board.
Fixed that for you:
Dance until your feet hurt. Sing until your lungs hurt. Act, unless you’re William Hurt.
I found him so smolderingly hot in Dark City I spent the whole movie praying he’d get a love scene with someone. And believe me, I was just as surprised as most of this thread must be – seriously, him??!! But it’s true. Maybe it was that trenchcoat he was wearing or something, but he was really bringing it in that movie.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOSH
it was a Modern Family reference