Bad actors who still manage to draw well at the box office

[ripdog]

Keanu is the worst of them. Aside from the Bill and Ted movies and his role in Parenthood, watching him makes me cringe. Maybe The Matrix was ok, but I'm really stretching my standards. Can anybody add to this list?

[marbles]

Agree wholeheartedly with Keanu. You'd also have to include Jim Carrey in such a list. Time to put that one-trick pony out to pasture!

All Singers and models (unless their naked)
Choose from any of the music stars who have attempted to be actors:
Mick Jaeger
Tupac
Ice Cube
Ice Tea
Madonna
Whitney Houston
Maria carey
vanilla Ice

Any supermodel who appears in a movie with clothes on and who have speaking parts, with the exception of the bond women.

Adam Sandler

[IrishHand]

This thread is pretty easy to answer. A harder question is:

Which actor that currently commands $10M+ per movie is actually a top actor?

Other than DeNiro and Pacino, I'm not sure who there is. Wait - Harrison Ford gets here too.

The reality tends to be more that popular actors make all the bucks (as they should in a market-driven industry), and that their popularity is directly related to how attractive they are. Tom Cruise is an above-average actor at best, and yet commands the crazy dollar. Schwartznegger is a horrendous actor, yet also commands the crazy dollar.

Guys that I consider great actors make comparatively little simply because they aren't attractive enough to generate widespread appeal (Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, etc).

Irish

[bernie]

it's good to see that other's think keanu sucks....before i read your post, he was the first one to come to my mind. and that was instantaneous. he photographs well, but has all the acting ability of a pet rock. he always sounds like he's struggling with lines....even the easy ones like 'hello'. and when he's involved in a serious scene? i think the stunt man could do better...

there are others, but i cant seem to get around the obvious one...

b

[bernie]

good vote....

he does have his moments in some movies...but its usually the same character...

though i do like many of the movies he directs much better, and wedding singer was pretty good...

[Boris]

Julia Roberts.

Robert DeNiro for the last 3 years.

Nicolas Cage is definitely cashing in on good work done earlyier in his career.

[HDPM]

Kevin Costner. Not bad in movies where he plays kind of dumb goofy guys who speak with no inflection at all.

[B-Man]

While Pacino and De Niro are the best, hands down, Spacey and Freeman are excellent, and Denzel Washington is not far behind. I think Gene Hackman belongs in this category, too.

Ever seen Boogie Nights? Many of the supporting cast in that movie were outstanding (Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman (is that his name? I always get mixed up)). That is one of my favorite DVDs (and not just because Heather Graham gets naked).

[Boris]

I would add Stanley Tucci to the list of really great actors that don't command top dollar.

[IrishHand]

Aye - Boogie Nights contains some outstanding acting - including the aforementioned nekidness, which still ranks as my favorite mainstream movie nekidness. My main problem with that movie is that it's phenomenal for the first hour and a half, then really...slows....down...... I can watch the first 1/2 over and over again - the rest, I have little use for. Still - a very good movie for the most part.

[B-Man]

The scene in which they try to rob the rich drug addict, and "Sister Christian" is playing in the background, is classic.

Best lines:

"I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth. That's just me. That's just something that I enjoy."

and

"What can you expect when you're on top? You know? It's like Napoleon. When he was the king, you know, people were just constantly trying to conquer him, you know, in the Roman Empire. So, it's history repeating itself all over again."

John Travolta has used his performances in Pulp fiction and get shorty to get big money for dog pictures for the past 10 years

[John Cole]

A friend who saw Titanic with his ex-wife said that after the scene in which Winslett and DiCaprio make love, his wife whispers to him, "You know, she's never had sex with a man before." His response, "She still hasn't."

Probably why she's the ex-wife.

John

[ripdog]

Another actor that I like who doesn't get top billing is Steve Buscemi. His role in Fargo was pretty funny, at least until he got run through the chipper.

[2005]

I think there are some other names that need to be onthe list of great actors who don't really command the big bucks. I think for a while, Ed Norton was on the list, but he seems to have moved up. Giovanni Ribisi is an excellent actor. Steve Buscemi was a good mention. I also like Benicio Del Toro and Kevin Pollack.

Gavin

[eMarkM]

Omigod, you wanna hear bad acting, get a load of these--from his "performance" in Dracula:

Horrible English Accent (http://lavender.fortunecity.com/godfather/285/sounds/dracula/bdfear.wav)
Ugh this is horrendous (http://lavender.fortunecity.com/godfather/285/sounds/dracula/bdbegun.wav)
How does this guy get work? (http://lavender.fortunecity.com/godfather/285/sounds/dracula/dash.wav)

[The_Baron]

Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Denzel Washington (Though he may well be making the UberBuck now)
Geoffrey Rush
Gene Hackman
Kevin Spacey
Julianne Moore

Probably quite a few more... unfortunately talent and dollar value aren't often equivalent.

The Baron

[andyfox]

For me, Ben Stiller. I find him very unfunny too.

I like his directing though.

[andyfox]

I went to movieactors.com which lists super stars for every decade from the 1930s to the 1990s. From that list, j'accuse the following of not being able to act much:

Humphrey Bogart
Charles Bronson
Sandra Bullock
Gary Cooper
Clint Eastwood
Errol Flynn
Clark Gable
Goldie Hawn
Bob Hope
Rock Hudson
Ali MacGraw
Liza Minnelli
Marilyn Monroe
Demi Moore
Ryan O’Neal
Keanu Reeves
Burt Reynolds
Adam Sandler
Arnold
Ben Stiller
John Wayne

I know I'll get some flack for some of these, maybe most especially Bogart, but I found him stiff and unconvincing, even (blasphemy, I know) in The African Queen.

[ripdog]

I like Ben Stiller for some reason. His movies aren't the cream of the crop (The Royal Tenenbaughms was a big disappointment), but there's something about him that I like. His dad is fawking hilarious, though. I saw Ben Stiller in a flick called Permanent Midnight where he plays a heroin addict. I seem to recall that it was pretty good. Anyway, a few more actors who irk me:

Ben Affleck (neck and neck with Keanu)
Sandra Bullock
The Olson Twins
Wynona Ryder
Cher

[Bill Murphy]

That butterfly thing. That Elvis thing. That baseball thing. Those post-apocalypse things. Christ on a crutch. Stallone doesn't draw well now either, but how could he? Cage has headed due south since LLV.

Arnie is unspeakable to watch but he can draw like Davinci. Seagal will likely always have a built in audience, as will all the rappers. Ice Cube's aight, Tupac had potential, the rest suck.

[baggins]

how anybody could possibly not like 'The Royal Tenenbaums' is beyond me. i wept through most of the movie. every time i saw it...