10 actors nowhere near as good as they think they are
Actors are a peculiar bunch, and they often have an inflated sense of worth.
Acting is not a profession for the shy, as anyone who enters the industry likely has the expectation that they are worth paying attention to. It’s necessary to have that type of confidence when asked to transform into a character, which may be why it is so easy to become starstruck by a renowned actor.
Although there are often reports of which performers are ‘difficult to work with’ or ‘demanding’, it is often the price of working with someone who is a master of their craft. While dealing with a co-star who is taking a method approach to their role might become taxing, no one is going to complain if Daniel Day-Lewis takes an unconventional approach to giving an amazing performance. That being said, that level of forgiveness isn’t afforded to those who don’t have what it takes to put in the hard work.
Marketing and promotion may be a critical part of ensuring that a film has an audience, but actors who take themselves too seriously can be subjected to ridicule if they seem to take over the press campaign, so if an actor doesn’t have the body of work that speaks for itself, it’s better for them to be completely silent.
10 actors who overhype themselves:
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne was one of the many young British actors who seemed to catch on in popularity around the world, but it’s challenging to see why, because while he has been involved with interesting projects, he nearly always drags them down, with his boring, forgettable performances in My Week With Marilyn, Les Misérables, and The Trial of the Chicago 7 all standing out like sore thumbs. Moreover, the Fantastic Beasts franchise that he starred in flew off the rails so quickly that it ended prematurely, despite being planned as a five-film saga.
Redmayne’s Oscar win for The Theory of Everything was immediately followed by Jupiter Ascending, where he turned in an embarrassingly cheesy performance as the main villain, and that he still takes himself incredibly seriously, even if he’s doing another showy antagonist role like that of The Good Nurse, suggests that he has no interest in evolving his acting style beyond the drab.
Ezra Miller
Ezra Miller has somehow managed to keep landing opportunities despite the disturbing allegations levelled against them. What’s most frustrating is that Miller is a one-trick pony who seemingly only knows how to play high-pitched, obnoxious adolescents and moody, gloomy downers; their charms in The Perks of Being a Wallflower became exhausting by the time that The Flash rolled around, and anything that was genuinely unnerving in the former was laughable in their performance in the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
Some actors who begin their careers as teen performers, work hard to be taken seriously as adults, such as Leonardo DiCaprio or Ethan Hawke, but Miller has always felt like a child who is desperately vying to be taken seriously. Perhaps the colossal failure of The Flash is enough to prove to studios that Miller’s presence is an actual determinant in getting people to see a film.
Will Smith
Will Smith falls into the category of performers who are great movie stars, but not necessarily versatile actors. Despite his history of controversies, he is great when he’s asked to play a slick, fast-talking hero like Agent J in Men in Black or Steve Hiller in Independence Day. The issue is that any time he tries to stretch his range, it comes across as a parody of what a prestige film should be, landing Collateral Beauty, Seven Pounds, Concussion, and Emancipation among the most bafflingly self-serious studio dramas of the 21st century.
At the same time, Smith hasn’t found much luck whenever he steps outside of familiar franchises like Bad Boys, where Bright, Suicide Squad, and Focus all seemed to indicate that people weren’t interested in him if he wasn’t doing the same exact thing that he had become famous for in the first place.
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis deserves a tremendous amount of credit for essentially creating the modern scream queen with her performance as Laurie in Halloween, and for her impressive comedy roles in A Fish Called Wanda and True Lies. However, she has reinserted herself into the spotlight with a series of self-congratulatory performances that have become increasingly insufferable.
Coming back for Freakier Friday and the Halloween reboot trilogy showed that there were diminishing returns, even when Curtis was reprising famous roles, and her performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once was instantly recognised as one of the worst Oscar-winning roles in recent memory. Even the initial charm of seeing her give a hammy, larger-than-life performance in Knives Out began to wear off once it was clear from Ella McCay and The Last Showgirl that this was just what she was going to do in every film now.
Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt has had a baffling career because his breakthrough role as Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy worked because he brought a lighter, comic touch to what would be expected from a Marvel film. Instead of taking advantage of his sense-of-humour, Pratt has spent the last decade trying to be taken seriously as a grounded, gritty action hero in everything from Jack Reacher to The Terminal List.
The industry needs more comedies right now than it does more blockbusters, and Pratt seems to gravitate towards the worst of streaming material, like The Electric State and Mercy. Now that the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy is wrapped up, and Star-Lord has not been slated to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, it will be interesting to see if he will be able to do anything that is not voicing animated characters.
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds earned some deserved sympathy because of the first half of his career, where he was often the best part of terrible movies, and the rare great movies he was in, such as Buried and Adventureland, were completely slept on. Deadpool may have finally given him an opportunity to break out with audiences, but the success of the foul-mouthed, R-rated superhero film has caused him to do the same schtick in every subsequent role. The smug, pop-culture-savvy action hero with an affinity for one-liners has become derivative thanks to 6 Underground, Free Guy, The Adam Project, and Red Notice.
Reynolds has now lent his name to so many generic streaming films that his brand may have suffered, as non-Deadpool films like If and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard were flops, and when the Deadpool well inevitably runs dry, he will have to prove if he can offer a different flavour.
Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot has a career as a result of smart casting, as she was elevated beyond a forgettable role in the Fast & Furious franchise after she was selected to play Diana Prince in Wonder Woman, where the wide-eyed innocence that Gadot showed within the first halfway-decent installment in the DCEU was initially presumed to be a performative choice, but her subsequent performances suggest that she was genuinely incompetent at showing any range of emotion.
It’s not even that Gadot followed up Wonder Woman with laughably dull performances in Hearts of Stone and Red Notice, but she couldn’t even muster up any energy when she returned to her most famous role in Wonder Woman 1984 and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Although Rachel Zegler took unnecessary flak for her role in the live-action Snow White, Gadot didn’t earn enough criticism for her complete lack of musical abilities, or any abilities for that matter.
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez’s career has been an elaborate vanity project that has felt increasingly desperate because of her refusal to be showered with praise, even if she has rarely chosen challenging material. Although she briefly had a streak of solid romantic comedy roles, it was evident by the time that Gigli and Monster-in-Law bombed that she didn’t necessarily have the ability to elevate any material.
What was most ironic about the disastrous pseudo-documentary This is Me… Now: A Love Story is that Lopez films herself having a breakdown after losing the Golden Globe for her performance in Hustlers. While recognition that she wouldn’t be honoured at a fake award ceremony, only to be snubbed by her peers with the Oscar nominations, should have been a sign to her that she didn’t need to make another self-indulgent project that begged people to take her seriously.
Jared Leto
Jared Leto is an actor who works best in the smallest possible doses; while he can be effectively deployed for bit roles in films like Fight Club and American Psycho, every part that required him to go full method has been an embarrassment. His Oscar win for Dallas Buyers Club would now be considered an offensive decision to cast a straight actor as a trans character, but it’s that legacy which led him to buy his own hype and give one of the most disastrous performances of all-time as the Joker in Suicide Squad.
If the ironic appreciation that Morbius got for its hilarious incompetence may have deceived Leto into thinking that he had earned cult fandom, the complete disregard that audiences showed for Tron: Ares might finally prove to studios that his name is essentially box office poison.
Vin Diesel
Vin Diesel would be a first-round pick for any discussions about the most overrated actors if it weren’t for the fact that what he’s doing might not technically be acting. Given the increasingly ridiculous statements Diesel has made, where he compared himself to Fellini and framed The Fast and the Furious franchise to contemporary The Lord of the Rings, it’s possible that he might actually believe that he is Dominic Toretto.
The strange appeal that the Fast & Furious franchise has had is that Diesel is the only member of the cast who doesn’t seem to be in on the joke and has only spoken about his ambitions for the saga with utmost sincerity. Although he has promised that there will be a supposed ‘final’ entry in the saga many times now, it’s become apparent that he is desperate to cling on to the only role that has ever made him relevant.
