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| source// 20th Century Fox |
You have to feel bad for bad actors. Not for very long, mind you, because they probably have more money and a better social life than you do. But still, there’s not another profession in the world where people throw verbal grenades at someone for doing a poor (or even mediocre) job like they do when an actor craps the bed in a role.
And it’s incredibly easy to point to any actor working today and list at least one terrible performance they’ve given in their career. Everyone has off days, after all.
But it’s almost impossible to say that any particular actor has nothing but terrible performances. At some point, you just figure the law of averages dictates they’ll eventually have an on day. But some of them just never do.
They never do.
It honestly takes a weird kind of talent to never once give a solid performance in a movie, especially if you’re granted more than a handful of opportunities. Just the different combinations of directors, scripts, tones, and casts would make it difficult for anyone to be terrible more than a few times in a row. These actors managed to buck trends, however, finding a way to do an awful job 100 percent of the time.
8. Ashton Kutcher
“Hey, at least you tried.” That was the best anyone could muster have his unfortunate turn in the first Steve Jobs biopic. He got the look down – somewhat – but his second major attempt at a serious role – after the sublimely awful Butterfly Effect – fell flatter than the Macintosh TV.
And although Kutcher was able to coast off his boyish good looks and dim-witted charm for eight seasons as Kelso in That 70s Show, that dopey schtick was already wearing thin on the big screen by the time he added a slight stoner tinge to the caricature in Dude, Where’s My Car?
A dozen half-hearted romantic comedies later, Kutcher was quickly burning through the goodwill he earned on television and on his way to becoming one of Hollywood’s least bankable stars. Then he tried to reinvigorate the ol’ film career with a stubbornly bland portrayal of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Very few people could force themselves to care, however, and he quickly fell back into a comfortable, safe role on Two And A Half Men.
7. Taylor Lautner
Say what you want about the acting talents of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, but at least those Twilight stars have turned in at least one respectable performance each (Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire and Adventureland, respectively).
Taylor Lautner, on the other hand, is one of those suspiciously inept actors that Hollywood tried to force on audiences, hoping they’d be so entranced by his six-pack that they forgot he was also responsible for the stiffest line readings since that porn parody of Crossroads. Fans who hopped onboard Team Jacob weren’t doing so because they thought he was the next Daniel-Day Lewis. They were doing it because he had pecs the size of Daniel-Day Lewis’ head.
Taylor “Teen Wolf” Lautner has yet to turn out a solid performance, and his lone highlight, Sharkboy And Lavagirl, stands out because he managed to at least look mediocre for once, rather than his succumbing to his usual level of terribleness.
6. 50 Cent
In the realm of rappers-turned-actors, Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, aka The Guy Who Got Shot 9 Times And Has Thus Earned The Right To Not Shut The Hell Up About It, hasn’t exactly achieved Will Smith level of credibility in Hollywood. Hell, he hasn’t earned a Jazzy Jeff level of credibility in Hollywood.
Even in his big screen debut, where he was literally just playing himself, 50 looked about as comfortable as your average colonoscopy patient. He’s loosened up a fair amount in the intervening decade, though now he looks way too relaxed on screen, like a colonoscopy patient coming out of anesthesia. Seriously, the guy makes Bruce Willis look absolutely full of zest in 2011’s abysmal Setup.
If nothing else, though, you have to at least respect 50’s dedication to the craft. as the dude even out-slimmed Christian Bale with his dramatic weight loss for a role as a football player battling cancer in Things Fall Apart. He dropped more than 50 pounds for the part, a decision which he likely regretted when the movie flopped hard and critics completely disregarded it.
5. Chris Klein
Chris Klein appears forever regulated to roles that require nothing more of him than his boyish good looks and cheesy smile, which is good, because those are the only two Special Skills listed on Klein’s resume.
There is literally no limit to how terrible Chris Klein will make your movie if you miscast him as any character intended to be played by a legitimate actor.
Even when the script is excellent and the cast around him shines – no, especially when those are the circumstances – Klein acts like a thirty-something auditioning for the high school play. His finest performance came in his film debut, where he played a dim-witted, sweet-natured jock in Alexander Payne’s Election.
While that performance was far from amazing, it would only get worse from there. Three American Pies and one Rollerball later, Klein isn’t at the top of any casting agent’s list. This certainly didn’t help:
4. Megan Fox
The plain truth is that Megan Fox has never gotten a role because of her acting abilities. She is, however, a renowned hottie, and renowned hotties get put in all kinds of crap because they have lovely boobs and/or butts and/or cheek bones. Fox happens to have all three and, thusly, she kind of dominated movie screens for a few years.
Now, that above statement might come off as incredibly sexist if it wasn’t so accurate. But seriously, just as Chris Klein keeps getting roles in romantic comedies because he has great hair, dimples, and biceps, Fox is riding the Good Looks Train right into Bland Performance-ville (don’t Google Map that city, by the way – it’s not there).
She’s helped ruined most of your childhood by this stage in her career, doing her part to take the air out of both Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She attempted to showcase her sense of humour with bit roles in This Is 40 and How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, but it seems her funny side was firmly hidden deep under her cleavage in both of those instances.
Oddly enough, the only decent performance Fox has turned in ever is as the quirky pharmaceutical rep/temp replacement for Zooey Deschanel in the fifth season of New Girl.
3. Jared Padalecki
Any fans of the hit WB show Supernatural – who tend to be more rabid than most – are already lighting their torches and searching for their autographed pitchforks at the mere mention of one of the Winchester brothers on this list.
But this isn’t about his acting on Supernatural… even if his performance as Sam Winchester could be best described as “shaky.” No, Padalecki endeared himself just fine to fans of WB’s programming block (including his breakout role of teenage heartthrob Dean on Gilmore Girls).
It’s his rare venture into feature-length films that earns him a spot on this list. Whether he’s showing up for just a couple of scenes (Flight of the Phoenix) or carrying the load (the Friday the 13th remake), Padalecki exudes all the naturalness of a petrified log. You could spray-paint a mop into a brunette and swap it out with Padalecki mid-scene, and not even his parents would notice.
He’s given equally stilted performances in soulless horror movies and super-cheesy family films alike. And every time, the movie just becomes another exhibit in the people’s evidence that Padalecki needs to stick to the small screen.
2. Jennifer Love Hewitt
Throughout the 90s, it was nearly impossible to find a movie that didn’t feature Jennifer Love Hewitt in at least an ancillary role. Between the teen comedies and slasher flicks, she was pretty much everywhere you turned your head. She was even in your closet… probably.
And although it’s a bit of a dangerous tactic to use Rotten Tomatoes as a barometer for any actor’s career trajectory, it is a bit telling that not a single one of Hewitt’s films has garnered more than a 53% rating. Are a few of those movies a tad underrated by critics? Absolutely. Are any of them underrated because of Jennifer’s performance? Not a chance.
In fact, she was given the distinction of The Worst-Reviewed Actress since 1985 using the site’s complicated metrics. It’s the first award for acting she’s ever really deserved.
She’s brought her cutesy demeanor and vacant eyes to all varieties of awful portrayals, from her nostalgia-wrecking turn as Audrey Hepburn in a made-for-television biopic to her role as Pantsuit Wearing Kewpie in the buddy rom-com The Tuxedo, where she was out-acted by Jackie Chan.
1. Daniel Baldwin
Let’s try an exercise: Close your eyes and think of your favourite Daniel Baldwin movie. Guess what? That’s not a Daniel Baldwin movie! It’s an Alec Baldwin movie. Or a Stephen Baldwin movie, or maybe even a Billy Baldwin movie. But it’s definitely not a Daniel Baldwin movie, because that’s just… not a thing.
But then, besides Alec, none of the Baldwin Brothers have really blown up to the level that everyone assumed they would in the early 90s. But hey, at least Billy had Backdraft and Stephen had The Usual Suspects (and BioDome, for you weirdos out there).
Daniel, on the other hand, has appeared in over 100 movies, and not a single one of his performances is notable enough to mention here. And if you think that means his acting is simply underrated… just stop. Stop making excuses for Daniel Baldwin.
Which other rubbish actors haven’t even managed to accidentally star in a good movie? Shout out any more in the comments.
