Actors are hated for all kinds of reasons. Often, their controversial personal lives infringe on any audience goodwill. Other times, they can become so over-exposed that everyone just kind of gets sick of them. And every actor has given at least one bad performance; some actors, however, give that one bad performance that everyone will see. There are those actors whose great roles are undermined by significantly bad ones, and cinemagoers take note. Actors develop a reputation for all kinds of things and, before they know it, become one of the many performers to lose respect based on poor choices.
The fact is, most of the people in this list endure hate based on their personal lives rather than on their acting abilities. But, taking them on their skills alone, it’s difficult to make a case against any of them. There are many underrated actors working in this industry, but it’s not often that a big star will be applauded for underrated acting abilities. The big stars, not coincidentally, are also the ones that receive the most hate from movie fans. They may receive hate based on their off-screen selves, high-profile bad performances or the fact that they’re generally annoying, but I’m here to argue that these guys deserve a little bit more respect, based on some of their better acting roles.
Keira Knightley
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When he was just starting out, Paul Newman took out an ad in a Hollywood trade paper apologising for his own performance in 1954′s The Silver Chalice. Thirty years later, he was an Oscar winner. He wrote that apology early in his career, before he aged into a movie star, improving his skills from a terrible low into eventual monumental highs. Somehow, around the time she was (creepily) getting off with Orlando Bloom and generally being wooden for the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, Keira Knightley was only 17. Owing to the feeling that she’s been around forever, it’s easy to forget Knightley still hasn’t left her 20s. She’s one of the most hated women in show business (a bad actor whose beauty has bought her into big movies, goes the standard argument), but one who unfairly receives little recognition for some of her better acting gigs.
Just take into account Knightley’s work with Joe Wright, for one thing, the triple threat of Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and Anna Karenina all offering Knightley variations on strong-willed but vulnerable women, and all of which she knocks out of the park. Then there was her blistering, Fassbender-spanking turn in A Dangerous Method last year, her animalistic depiction of a mentally unhinged woman dividing critics but ultimately proving Knightley was willing to take risks and look potentially ridiculous in the process. Her vast improvement since Curse of the Black Pearl suggests she could have more to come. After all, she is only 27 – take a look at Tom Hardy basically failing to act at the same age, in comparison to his status today as one of the best and most versatile performers in the business. Basically, Knightley is still too young to be written off.
Nicolas Cage
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Nicolas Cage has become one of the internet’s finest jokes. Making acting into his own personal form of primal scream therapy, Cage’s agonising expressions on screen are so meme-worthy, it exemplifies what the format was invented for. Insaning his way through both blockbusters and weirdo arthouse projects, Cage is, for all intents and purposes, a ridiculous actor. He may also be a deep-fried genius. There’s simply no other actor quite like Cage and, outrageous as he often is, he can make even the most atrocious film watchable, merely for possessing the skill of being Nicolas Cage. Would the Wicker Man remake be a cult Bad Film were it not for the sight of Cage rampaging around an island like some escaped lunatic, beating up women and dressing up as a bear like it’s completely acceptable?
To put it in basic terms, the crazier Cage is, the more entertaining he is; if he’s derided, it’s because his acting style is all of his own mad creation (he calls this style ‘Nouveau Shamanic‘. I’m not even making that up). And if you’re not a fan of madman Cage, there have also been a few performances from the man that have seen praise from ‘serious’ film lovers. His Best Actor Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, for one, is entirely justified; rarely has alcoholism looked so raw, real and downright upsetting. It’s also easy to forget Cage put in some great turns in Adaptation, Matchstick Men and Bad Lieutenant, buried as they have been under a career-load of mania and ludicrous wigs.
Tom Cruise
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One word: Scientology. Rarely has association with a religion (read: cult) damaged a movie star’s reputation so harshly, but Cruise’s ties to L. Ron have left him one of the most ridiculed men in Hollywood. Alongside that, a common accusation that acting range has eluded Cruise all his career ensures he remains one of Tinseltown’s most hated actors.
But while he does often revert to default, there are some performances in the Cruise back catalogue that are simply remarkable. Not remarkable in the Legend sense of “oh look, it’s Tom Cruise as an elf”, but Magnolia remarkable. Collateral remarkable. Or how about his one-two of Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July back in the ’80s? Those roles prove that Cruise is at his best when he’s playing damaged or sinister, with Magnolia’s Frank T.J. Mackey combining both and remaining not just Cruise’s crowning achievement, but one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s finest character creations. Admittedly, it’s uncertain we’ll see Cruise inhabiting any roles as dark as the aforementioned again – he’s been doing his samey Everyman thing for the best part of a decade now, and that doesn’t look likely to stop – but he would be wise to go back there. Embracing the dark side has always given Cruise his best justification for being a superstar actor.
Matthew McConaughey
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This one’s a bit of a cheat, considering how much of a turnaround last year was for Matthew McConaughey. But even as he heads towards what looks like an inevitable 2014 Oscar nom for The Dallas Buyer’s Club, the Ronsealed Texan still carries a mock-worthy stereotype with him. It’s largely because of his utterly confusing wilderness period, in which he shunned the auteurs looking to work with him (Linklater, Spielberg, Sayles among them) in favour of rom-com hell, forming a caricature of himself that all the arthouse projects in the world may never shake. He’s the guy that chases chicks and mercilessly drawls awful dialogue. He’s the guy that plays the bongos, for fun. He’s the guy that has ‘must be shirtless, where possible’ in his contract. Even McConaughey’s blistering performance in Killer Joe finds room for a scene in which he prowls around a trailer park fully starkers.
But what a performance. Bonkers and full of menace, Killer Joe showed off a classic McConaughey unseen since Dazed and Confused. And just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he quickly followed Joe with Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, wherein he portrayed an egotistical strip club proprietor and guitar-plucking entrepreneur. It was a self-deprecating display that had Supporting Actor Oscar buzz early on, but which never quite made it, presumably because voters were still angry that McConaughey had spent the past decade ruining date night at the movies. Expect McConaughey to get Oscar recognition, maybe even a win next year (biopic about terminal illness + unhealthy physical transformation = awards gold), cementing him as a fine performer that once made some terrible decisions.
Jude Law
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All men are jealous of Jude Law. There, I said it. Oh, but he comes across as smug and superior, with a hairline perishing faster than the Happisburgh coastline? Well, maybe, but he’s also rich, successful and your girlfriend fancies him more than she’ll ever fancy you. That’s reason enough for some people to hate Jude Law, but the man also seems to attract malice due to the onset of ageing, his well-publicised hair loss both aggravating admirers and comforting haters with the knowledge that even the most beautiful will be slowly ravaged by time. It doesn’t help that he gave some middling performances in his early years either, which earned him the tag of pretty boy making it big despite limited acting abilities. But Law, like most actors (sorry Robert De Niro), has thankfully improved with age.
While his arrogant, debonair portrayal of Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley still remains his finest hour, Law has of late settled comfortably into the role of character actor, making the transition from often awkward leading man to dependable supporting player. As Sherlock Holmes’ amiable Dr. Watson, Contagion’s sleazy Alan Krumwiede and Anna Karenina’s tortured Karenin, Law has shown more subtlety and scope in the last few years than he ever did as a top-billed player. Getting relegated to supporting slots as a result of being withered by time will be the best thing that ever happened to Jude Law’s career.
Source.
(Busty Asian Beauties?)
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