10 embarrassing performances from iconic actors that should be deleted from history
All actors go into every performance with the best of intentions, but sometimes, there can be a serious failure on everyone’s part to read the room.
The list of thespians who made it from the beginning to the end of their careers without giving one questionable, misplaced, disastrous, or ill-judged performance is one of the slimmest in Hollywood, and there are no guarantees that even the strongest material will yield the best results.
On the other hand, it’s never a good look for anyone when the people involved in a movie – whether it’s the actors, writers, producers, or anyone else – is forced to issue an apology for dropping the ball when it’s already too late and the offending article has taken its place in history.
Even the best in the business are prone to the odd misstep, and the following ten actors have each reached the pinnacle of the industry. However, the thread that unites them all is that they’ve embarrassed themselves onscreen at least once, and the world would be a much better place if their contributions were completely wiped from the memory banks.
10 embarrassing performances from iconic actors:
Emma Stone (Aloha, Cameron Crowe, 2015)
It’s not that Emma Stone was actively awful in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha, although nobody in their right mind would consider it to be among her finest performances when it could very generously be described as passable at best.
Nor is it the fact the romantic comedy is comfortably the worst movie of Crowe’s career, or even that it lost a lot of money after bombing at the box office. Instead, what makes Stone’s turn so embarrassing is that everybody involved in Aloha apologised for it after the fact, despite nobody thinking at any stage during pre-production, shooting, editing, promotion, or release that it maybe wasn’t the best idea.
Stone, the blonde-haired redhead born and raised in Arizona, was cast as Allison Ng, a character of Hawaiian and Chinese descent. Crowe called it a “misguided casting choice,” the actor “learned on a macro level about the insane history of whitewashing,” and she was even called out for it at the Golden Globes. With that in mind, Stone would be happy were Aloha quietly erased from the history books.
Johnny Depp (Mortdecai, David Koepp, 2015)
One of the reasons why Johnny Depp became so popular in the 1990s is that he was viewed as the rebellious outsider, a hugely talented heartthrob who had no interest in pandering to the cheap seats, chasing the money, or becoming that most dreaded of things: an A-list movie star.
When Pirates of the Caribbean transformed into exactly that and made him the highest-paid star in Hollywood, he bought into his hype a little too much. What followed was a drastic fall from grace, and even if it wasn’t for his legal troubles, making so many shitty films in quick succession ensured it was destined to happen anyway.
There’s no other way to put it: Mortdecai is the cinematic equivalent of watching Depp enjoying the smell of his own farts onscreen. Seemingly made entirely for his own amusement, he mugs and pratfalls his way through a nauseatingly smug caper that carries the overpowering stench of self-indulgence.
Al Pacino (Gigli, Martin Brest, 2003)
It would be easy to single out Jack and Jill as the nadir of Al Pacino’s career, but there’s something perversely entertaining that borders on twisted genius about watching him ham it up in the dire Adam Sandler vehicle, and it’s clear that he’s in on the joke.
The same can’t be said of Gigli, even if Pacino got off relatively scot-free from the flaming wreckage the movie left behind after the brunt of the scorn was aimed squarely at stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, leaving poor Martin Brest’s entire legacy lying in tatters at the side of the road.
Christopher Walken pops up for a scene and does his signature weird shtick, but Pacino is just terrible. He claims he’s made so many bad films as an experiment, but knowing about his serious money troubles, that argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on when he bulldozes his way into Gigli and inexplicably gives the worst performance in an already irredeemable trainwreck.
Robert De Niro (Dirty Grandpa, Dan Mazer, 2016)
Robert De Niro hates the publicity that comes with being one of the all-time greats, he despises talking about anything that isn’t his work or Donald Trump, and almost everyone that’s worked with him has marvelled at just how seriously he takes himself and his craft.
All of the above only serves to make it even more head-scratching that De Niro – who does a solid line in deadpan comedy – thought that spending an entire movie tossing out thinly-veiled homophobic barbs, stripping down to his skivvies, and spending the running time of Bad Grandpa making lecherous passes in an attempt to bed Aubrey Plaza was a script worthy of his studious and self-serious gifts.
The veteran knows a thing or two about slumming it in pictures below his station, and while he’s always been terrible at hiding the performances he’s phoning in, there’s something tragic about watching De Niro humiliate himself in such a risible movie.
Jim Carrey (The Number 23, Joel Schumacher, 2007)
A comedic powerhouse and an incredible dramatic actor with the right material, it’s become increasingly clear over the years that Jim Carrey is every bit as eccentric – perhaps even more so – in real life than he is when working out his facial muscles for the cameras.
Joel Schumacher’s thriller has a killer high-concept premise, with Carrey playing a man who lets his life gradually be taken over by the titular number after stumbling upon a book that appears to mirror his real life. The leading man has defended the film despite a savage reception, and the reason why helps explain why he’s about the only person who enjoyed it.
Carrey had developed his own obsession with the number 23 years before he starred in a movie about the same subject, which meant he was already invested. He was about the only one, seeing as his Razzie-nominated performance in arguably the worst film of his career would be better off being buried along with the damned book that set the plot in motion.
Will Smith (After Earth, M Night Shyamalan, 2013)
When nepotism and egomania are allowed to run amok, the results are very rarely anything to write home about. Just ask Will Smith, with the black cloud cast over his bulletproof box office persona by After Earth, entirely of his own making.
M Night Shyamalan’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi is the one and only time Smith has received a story credit on a movie, and he went out of his way to strongarm his son Jaden into playing the lead. Nobody knew that at the time, but when the Oscar winner confessed that it had affected his family dynamic and the failed blockbuster endured as the single biggest regret of his career, it should have been obvious.
Smith became a generation-defining star thanks in large part to his screen presence, charisma, and effortless charm. Deciding that After Earth didn’t need it, he dials his performance all the way back to stoic monotony, and it’s laughable to think he and Shyamalan were planning an entire multimedia universe on the back of such a steaming turd of cinema.
Gary Oldman (Tiptoes, Matthew Bright, 2003)
Gary Oldman plays a character with dwarfism, which is all anybody really needs to know about Tiptoes to figure out why it would be a prime candidate for deletion.
There are plenty of actors who could have played the role, but even though Oldman was a man of traditional proportions who also happened to be more than a decade older than his onscreen twin brother Matthew McConaughey, he got the nod.
Forced perspective isn’t a difficult thing to achieve, but Tiptoes didn’t seem to know that. Oldman is clearly ambling around on his knees or buried in a stunt couch with a pair of fake legs sticking out, making it every bit as cringeworthy as it is tasteless.
Judi Dench (Artemis Fowl, Kenneth Branagh, 2020)
As a legend, icon, and awards-laden dame, Judi Dench is free to do whatever the hell she wants, and nobody is in a position to tell her otherwise. Still, Artemis Fowl was a new low, which is saying something when her last movie before it was Cats.
Even the studio knew it was doomed, with Disney pulling the literary adaptation from cinemas and sending it straight to streaming, where it was only granted a brief stay of execution before being removed from the platform altogether in May 2023, flushing the Mouse House’s $125 million investment right down the drain.
Admittedly, seeing a talent of Dench’s calibre sporting fake ears and looking bored out of her fucking mind playing an 802-year-old elf called Julius Root who oversees a military organisation known as LEPrecon (get it?) is hilarious, but only in a bleak, ‘What are you doing here, Judi Dench?’, kind of way.
Clint Eastwood (Paint Your Wagon, Joshua Logan, 1969)
Being completely unable to carry a tune never stopped Clint Eastwood from fancying himself as a crooner, only for Paint Your Wagon to reiterate that a secondary career as a singer was never going to be on the cards.
Eastwood knew it, too, and he even tried to quit the song-and-dance western after the script underwent so many revisions that it barely resembled the project that attracted his signature to begin with, only for a last-minute intervention from the director to convince him it was worth his time and effort.
Suffice it to say, it wasn’t, and the four-time Oscar-winning icon could only hang his head in shame, lament the single biggest misstep of his acting career, and confess that his initial plan to wash his hands of Paint Your Wagon entirely was probably the smarter choice.
Mickey Rooney (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Blake Edwards, 1961)
It doesn’t matter that Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a ‘Golden Age’ classic anchored by a transcendent Aubrey Hepburn performance or that the title character became an icon in her own right.
The insurmountable obstacle that will face the adaptation of Truman Capote’s novel from now until the end of time is always going to be Mickey Rooney’s Mr Yunioshi. It’s perfectly OK to enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany’s as a work of fiction made in a different time, but try and convince somebody who’s never seen it before to give it a chance and they won’t even give it the time of day.
Rooney was a legend with an incredible career that stretched nine decades and had its fair share of ups and downs, and he even admitted towards the end of his life that he wouldn’t have taken the part if he knew it would offend so many people. It would be an understatement to say it doesn’t hold up through a modern lens, and it’s only going to get worse in the years to come.
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