I came here to nominate Melanie Griffith. Damn you, Chefguy!!
I guess I’ll settle for Bill Paxton. I’ve always surmised Melanie Griffith was incredible on the casting couch. What’s Paxton’s got?
I’m still waiting for proof Kirsten Dunst can portray anyone else.
Every time actors like Orlando Bloom in **The Kingdom of Heaven ** or Colin Farrell in Alexander pull out their epic voice to say shit like, “The AAAHHHHrmy I see before me.” I just cringe.
I saw Hayden Christensen in Factory Girl last night and remembered how horribly wooden I thought he and Natalie Portman (who I usually adore) were in Star Wars. He didn’t do much for me in this film, either.
I read the OP as being about the revelation that some people really can’t act. People who get high profile projects, good scripts, good directors and still can’t act.
No one ever though that Pia Zadora or Steven Seagal are good actors.
For me, a great actor is believable in a wide range of roles. Edward Norton manages this, as do John Goodman, Cate Blanchett and some others.
Good actors are people like De Niro, Streep and their likes. Talented, but no chameleons.
The there are actors that people perceive as good, but are only smart, which is why I brought up Harrison Ford.
Ford was very lucky to be cast as an action hero in two of the biggest movie franchises ever. He’s since carefully picked parts that are perfectly suited to his very limited acting ability. He’s as wooden as Keanu and it’s only becuase he’s a box office magnet he gets enough scripts, so he can pick parts where he acts woodenly and grumpy.
I can’t find a single credit of his, where the part doesn’t call for “strong, silent, grumpy”, but I haven’t seen all of them. Of his 35 entries in IMDb since '77, I’ve missed 5, so maybe I’m unfair.
An SNL Inside the Actors Studio sketch where Kate Hudson did a dead on impersonation of her.
No gag reflex?
And Salton Sea.
We’ll need to include nearly all SNL cast members, past and present in this flogging. Steve Martin made a couple of good flicks, and Eddy Murphy made one or two, but that’s about it. Oh, and The Blues Brothers was passable.
The OP was a counterpoint to the OMG they can act thread which I dinna read. There are an amazing number of actrons hard at work being extraordinarily feeble. Charlie Tan, right on.
Lemme add the Ms. Natalie Portman to my list. It is nothing personal against the young lass, but how can she get a job fumbling theay she does? I prefer frozen Tilapia.
As a fan of bad film, if I were into rules I would ask that obviously not real actors get a pass.
Rowdy Roddy Piper is not to be included in this thread.
She came to mind for me as well—I have trouble understanding her appeal both as an actress and as a fanboy sex symbol. She certainly isn’t ugly, merely unremarkable, and the best performance I’ve seen her give was as a 12-year-old in The Professional (that’s Léon, for my international and pretentious cinéphile American friends).
In the spirit of the thread, one of my “wow, they really can’t act” moments came while watching Scarlett Johansson in Match Point. Although I enjoyed Lost in Translation, Charlotte’s performance badly stunk up every frame she occupied in Match Point, and she was especially grimace-inducing in a scene where she was supposed to be tipsy while talking to Jonathan Rhys Meyers in a bar. I was disappointed later when
Rhys Meyers murders her by shooting her point-blank with a shotgun
and Woody opted to have it occur discreetly off-camera; by that point I would’ve really enjoyed watching it, preferably in extreme close-up and in slow motion.
My fiancee and her friend complained to the theatre manager about that turd and got their money back.
I complained and was handed a plunger.
And Thunderheart. He was amazing in that role, although he looks about as convincingly American Indian as Tom Laughlin.
Most of my choices have been named, so I’ll have to go with Bill Paxton. He’s an OK actor, but to me, he’s just been playing Biff from Weird Science for the past twenty-odd years. Oh, look, Biff’s a cocky marine now. Now Biff’s a used car salesman. Now Biff has to borrow your car to go chase tornadoes (and personally, I thought Helen Hunt deserved an Academy Award for not puking on the camera every time Biff showed interest in her).
Bill Paxton in that flick where young pseudo liberals had folks out to dinner (cite, I say, cite yourself!) justified his existence. 'part from that, I don’t know if he has a defense.
I liked Bill Paxton in “Frailty,” which he also directed. He pulled off craaaaazy religious dude quite well.
Oh, wait. Maybe I’m confusing him with polygamist Bill Henrickson.
Also, have to give Kevin Costner some more credit. He was quite good in that flick where whatshername’s husband actually fell down the well and died, and for three years they all thought he had ran off with his secretary. Can’t think of the movie’s name.
Agree about Harrison Ford. His movies are good, for the most part, but he really can’t act. Plus, he runs like his pants are about to fall down. 
Sir Rhosis
How could this thread possibly get to 70+ posts with no mention of Ben Affleck? What a crappy actor. He was in a completely forgettable film called Bounce opposite Gwyneth Paltrow that might have been decent if there hadn’t been this Grand Canyon-sized chasm in acting ability between the two leads. As long as she was talking, you believed the story. As soon as he opened his mouth, the whole scene fell flat.
I think it would have been a better film with a lesser actress in Gwyneth’s place because she might not have highlighted what a wooden actor Affleck is.
(I know there are a few misguided individuals around here who inexplicably don’t care for Ms. Paltrow, but I think she’s one of the greatest actresses of this generation. And I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers, either.)
Affleck’s okay in Kevin Smith’s films, but that’s about the limit of his talent, IMHO.
Sir Rhosis: The Upside of Anger.
“We Shouldn’t Be in Pictures” from “Forbidden Hollywood”
My mom was Tippi Hedren
And in her film debut
The birdies pecked her head in
Now I’m a birdbrain too.
Ok, as much as it pains me to admit it, gotta add Madonna here. The only movie she rocked was EVITA, and it was because she was basically playing herself.
Ben Affleck acted very well in Goodwill Hunting. But one could probably argue he was playing himself there as well.
He might not have had to stretch much from your description here, but I thought he was pretty good in Witness. That seemed to call for a little more than the Indiana Jones movies.