I was watching Bedazzled, and I remembered how much I really liked Brendan Fraser in that role when I generally hold him in pretty low regard.
What actors/actresses can you think of that you generally dislike, but who played in a specific role and you loved him/her?
Here is another:
George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou?
Demdude
Robin Williams in birdcage. Can’t stand him in his standup rountine. Loved him in the movie.
Dave Straub
Reese Witherspoon in Election.
I don’t dislike her overall — I definitely think she’s a cutie — but I don’t think she’s much of an actress. But in that movie, she’s right on the mark. Pick Flick!
Mr Furious
Also, Clooney in “Out of Sight”.
Actually, pretty much everyone in “Out of Sight” except for Albert Brooks. I have yet to ever enjoy Brooks.
Joel
Mickey Rourke in “Sin City”.
dagon
easy:
disclaimer: hating on actresses is tough, primarily because they generally get roles based on the fantasy aspect of their physicality; the ability to look doe eyed, gamine or otherwise ‘muse-worthy’. that said,
actresses: jada pinkett-smith in the ‘matrix’ sequels–i loath!!! her as a human being (has anyone ever seen her interviewed?)
julia roberts in ‘mary reilly’. she has chops, but a more overrated actress/personality you are not likely to find.
actors: tom cruise in (surprisingly) ‘interview with the vampire’ and ‘rainman’. he carried those flicks. if you don’t believe me, ask dustin hoffman.
scott speedman in ‘my life without me’–see it and if you even know who he is, you’ll understand.
paul walker in ‘joy ride’. nuff said!
ethan hawke in ‘gattaca’ and ‘before sunet’. i’m trying REALLY hard to hate that guy after ‘reality bites’, but he keeps on making it hard.
peace
Basilisk
Richard Gere in Chicago as Billy Flynn. I can’t stand the man, and have never liked any of his performances, but this one is so spot on that I am in awe. BTW, I am a criminal defense attorney.
Gregory Markle
Add Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai” to the list. Before I saw the damned thing, I was able to convince myself that Cruise cast as the last of the samurai was easily the stupidest idea I’d ever heard of. My first viewing absolutely mesmerized me and now that I’ve watched it about 10 times I’m convinced it ranks in or near the top ten movies I’ve ever seen.
RW
This isn’t close: Sean Penn in “Mystic River”
One of the best acting performances, ever. That is is/was a Saddam appeaser, aside.
John Cole
Ricky-
Do you hold Sean Penn in low regard as a person or as an actor. I am betting it is the former, rather than the latter, because I think Sean Penn is one of the best actors in Hollywood.
Jeff2
He wasn’t in it very long, but even though i can’t stand Alec Baldwin, I thought he was great in “Glengary Glen Ross”. He was pretty good in “Ghosts of Mississippi” too, although why they got some guy from Long Island to play the part of a Southern DA is beyond me, since the accent was pretty bad.
As an aside, I also think he’s hilarious when he’s on Saturday Night Live. His DeNiro impression is great and i think he’s hilarious in those skits where he, Will Ferrell, and some other guy sit at a bar talking about “BILL BRATZKY”.
John Cole
RE: Alec and SNL
And the Schweddi Balls/NPR skit.
My favorite SNL hosts are John Goodman and Christopher Walken. I think Walken should host every year.
Walt Powell
John:
I find your lack of faith in the cowbell….disturbing.
Christopher Walken should host SNL every other month.
Mr Furious
“jada pinkett-smith … has anyone ever seen her interviewed?”
Good God, yes! She was on Oprah a few weeks back on back to back episodes (along with the Williams sisters) as some kind of “expert/guest/who the hell knows why” and it was the highest of high comedy to watch her.
“Mmm.”
“That’s right.”
“Ohh oh.”
“I been there.”
She just sat there nodding and grunting and emphatically commenting and interupting everyone. A loudmouth know-it-all like I’ve never seen before. My wife and I were in stitches making fun of her.
Good stuff.
Mike
Val Kilmer in “Tombstone.” I hate that precious blowhard, but every time I hear “it appeahs the strain was more than he could beyah…” in that godawful parody of a Southern accent, I just about fall over laughing. Too cool for school.
Chris Galdieri
Gwyneth Paltrow usually leaves me cold but she was incredible in SHALLOW HAL. She does some amazing work in this film — she’s got the mannerisms and shyness of a very obese person who’s uncomfortable with herself utterly internalized, and because we (through Jack Black’s eyes) see her as Gwyneth Paltrow, not an anonymous obese person, we empathize with her instead of looking away of thinking there’s something funny about it. There’s a scene early on when a chair she’s sitting in collapses and the way she plays the aftermath is just heartbreaking.
farmgirl
Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.
(I loved Ace Ventura, but his typical over-the-top schtick gets old fast when it shows up in movie after movie…)
RW
John,
I hold Penn in low regard as a person. I think he could be one of the top 3 living actors, today. To think that he’s the guy who played Spicoli after watching his performance in Mystic River shows his range has no bounds. No way Dustin Hoffman or Di niro has that range, any more.
And I agree with Jeff, above….Alec Baldwin is a greatly underrated actor and his SNL stuff is el primo.
And, I also got a fevah….and the only prescription is more cowbell. I gotta have more cowbell, baby.
And Mike is right on Kilmer, as well, as he deserved an award for stealing the screen in Tombstone. I thought he was good in Top Gun, as well, playing the heel, and I know nothing about him as a person.
Also, Tim Robbins & Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham deserve an honor. They were fabulous in the greatest baseball movie of all time, IMO.
Slartibartfast
George Clooney AND Mark Wahlberg AND Ice Cube in Three Kings. Clooney was still Clooney (When is he not? I still hold this against him: he’s never a different guy in any of his movies), but it was a good match to the part. Excellent job in casting these guys to the roles, or adapting the screenplay to the actors without hosing up the story.
Dodd
Keanu Reeves in The Replacements (truth is, awful though he generally is, I’ve never had a bad time at a Reeves flick – thought Matrix III and The Watcher came close).
I’ll second Jim Carrey in the Truman Show; that film made me re-evaluate the man’s entire oeuvre. The same goes for Brad Pitt in Fight Club – I really, really wanted to maintain my (very comfortable) belief that he was just a no-talent pretty boy but that and 12 Monkeys disabused me.
I can’t say anything about Tim Robbins because, however big a twit he may be personally, he’s a great actor. And Brendan Frasier is quite a good comic actor, though I had to watch a couple of his movies more than once to get over my prejudice. I really like Blast From The Past, for instance.
Slartibartfast
I still think the prize for acting range goes to Edward Norton. How a skinny, pale, sickly guy in Primal Fear (where he transforms himself into something remarkably different in the movie) and Rounders (pretty forgettable film, otherwise) can foist himself off as a raging, muscular skinhead (American History X)…just baffles me.
dagon
sir furious:
“jada pinkett-smith … has anyone ever seen her interviewed?”
Good God, yes! She was on Oprah a few weeks back on back to back episodes (along with the Williams sisters) as some kind of “expert/guest/who the hell knows why” and it was the highest of high comedy to watch her.
–yup! i didn’t see that one but i’ve caught her on a number of forums on BET and elsewhere talking about black female empowerment, motherhood and generally lording her expertise on virtually everything. on one of the forums, sister solijah had to tell her to ‘shut up’ because she was trying to dominate the conversation and not let anyone else speak. even that did not work.
it’s actually pretty mind-boggling isn’t it?
peace
timekeeper
Same actor as Dodd, but a different movie. Keanu Reeves in “Speed”; his limited range (IMNSHO) was perfect for the role. He was okay in the Matrix (didn’t see the sequels), but I’ve disliked every other movie in which he has starred (and I have seen).
RW
Slartibartfast, did you see Norton in “The Score”? Played a semi-retard….excellent heel, too.
I don’t think he could pull off Spicoli, though.
M. Scott Eiland
“I still think the prize for acting range goes to Edward Norton.”
Norton is the best actor of his generation–it’s no contest.
Lee
I think Joaquin Phoenix and Jeff Daniels are two of the better actors around (Daniels played a great Geo. Washington–and loved ‘dumb and dumber’). Sean Penn has always been good, but hollywood seems rather short on talent these days. if i see one more movie with the re-treads of ’70s’ show guy or Nicole kidman…
over it
Madonna and Antonio Bandaras in ‘Evita’.
I despise both of them both professionally and personally….but that movie was amazing. I was not only impressed by the acting…but by the singing as well. Hard to pull off..so I give them both props.
I still think that they are both skeazy though.
James Earl Scruggs
John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. And Cher movies. She must actually be able to act, because I hate her public persona in every way, but she tends to be good in movies. Everything from Travolta except PF blows.
Laura M. Hagan
Leonardo diCaprio in “Catch Me If You Can.” Can’t stand even being in the room with “Titanic” on, because I loathe him and his baby face, but I loved “Catch Me,” and he carried it.
Dave Munger
Alec Baldwin as “The Shadow” and as Kevin Bacon’s friend in the movie where Kevin Bacon married that chick and they had a baby. Mainly dislike him as a person, but generally as an actor as well, although I think he makes a pretty good oily phony.
Couldn’t find anything to like about Garth Brooks until I saw him on SNL, he’s very nearly as good as Walken as a host. Never realized Patrick Stewart was a good actor either, until I saw him as the proprietor of the erotic bakery. “May I remind you sir, this is an *erotic* bakery?”