Awful Performances By Hollywood's Best Actors

No one is perfect, and even the most talented among us are forced to face their own fallibility from time to time — including Hollywood's biggest and brightest stars. No matter how many Oscars they might have in their display case, every single actor on the planet will give a bad performance sooner or later. It's just the law of averages. Perhaps a critically beloved actress ends up choosing a truly lousy screenplay; maybe a respected star suffers through a particularly bad day on the set. Whatever the reason, even the best actors have offered up some truly awful performances that will live forever in Hollywood infamy. We still love these stars, of course, but we're not above offering a reminder of those misguided misfires by taking a look at some of the all-time worst. With that in mind, here's a not-so-fond tribute to some awful performances by Hollywood's best actors.

Make a list of the greatest all-time actors, and you've got to include Marlon Brando, who revolutionized Hollywood by introducing method acting to the mainstream. He's dropped some of the most famous movie lines in cinematic history — "The horror, the horror," "I'm gonna' make him an offer he can't refuse," "Stella!" — and won Oscars for "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather." But near the end of his career, Brando could be guilty of phoning it in, and nowhere is that more evident than "The Island of Doctor Moreau."

Anyone familiar with the behind-the-scenes story of "Apocalypse Now" knows that Brando was incredibly difficult to work with. Worse still, when he showed up for "Doctor Moreau," he was still reeling from the loss of his daughter, Cheyenne. Brando also admitted to being bored on set, and this all combined to create the perfect storm. He covered his face in pancake makeup. Then he started wearing an ice bucket on his head for no reason. He also decided his character needed to have a dwarf constantly by his side, a move that would later inspire Mini-Me of the "Austin Powers" films. None of it made any sense for the character of Doctor Moreau, but nobody could stop Brando.

Worse still, the script was constantly being rewritten, and Brando was having trouble keeping up. According to Sabotage Times, the situation was remedied by giving the actor an earpiece and having someone feed him his lines. Check out the excellent Val Kilmer documentary "Val" for his first-hand footage of the chaotic set — and disappointment that rather than acting opposite his hero, Kilmer would be working opposite a double. The antennae, meanwhile, allegedly kept on receiving signals from nearby police radios, and Brando had a hard time distinguishing his actual lines from police chatter—resulting in a mess of a performance that signaled the Brando of old was gone for good.

Cate Blanchett is one of the greatest actresses to grace a movie screen. She's basically a chameleon, a woman who completely disappears into her roles, morphing into figures like Bob Dylan, Queen Elizabeth, and Katharine Hepburn — a performance that won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She won the big one for "Blue Jasmine," wowed critics with "Carol," and hammed it up to everyone's delight in "Thor: Ragnarok."

But hey, nobody's perfect — something she learned with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Playing the semi-psychic Soviet Irina Spalko, Blanchett just comes off as silly and forgettable in a role that Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described as "a one-note villain ... with an accent that conjures up Rocky and Bullwinkle more than the desired red menace."

Granted, this is an Indiana Jones movie, so nobody's looking for realism. But Indy's bad guys need to generate some sort of emotion from moviegoers other than "meh." Belloq evoked contempt, Toht evoked fear, and Mola Ram evoked so much disgust that Steven Spielberg had to create an entirely new rating. Irina Spalko, on the other hand, evokes little more than a shoulder shrug. If any other actress had played the part, nobody would care as much, but this is Cate Blanchett, and she's capable of so much more.

Jesse Eisenberg wowed everyone when he played Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network," and while we can argue all day about the accuracy of David Fincher's film, there's no denying Eisenberg gave a powerhouse of a performance. He was even nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

In addition to playing the social media mogul, Eisenberg has left his mark on movies like "The Double," "Roger Dodger," "The End of the Tour," and "The Squid and the Whale." But every great actor has their cinematic kryptonite, and in Eisenberg's case, that's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." The curly-haired star won a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie for his performance as Lex Luthor, a role that was probably better suited for someone older and more menacing. Honestly, Eisenberg is the worst Luthor of all time, especially when compared to the likes of Gene Hackman and Michael Rosenbaum.

Eisenberg was just too loud and manic to play the Man of Steel's archenemy, and honestly, he would've done a far better job as the Riddler or the Joker. Putting a new spin on a classic character was a risky move on Eisenberg's part, and sadly, it just didn't pay off.

At this point, it's safe to say that anyone still making fun of Kristen Stewart clearly hasn't watched any of her movies since 2008. Once the butt of endless jokes, Stewart has won critical acclaim for films like "Into the Wild" and "Camp X-Ray," impressed audiences in "Personal Shopper," and walked away with pretty much every award in the film festival world for her work in "Clouds of Sils Maria." In 2022, she earned her first Oscar nomination as Princess Diana in "Spencer."

But despite her performances in "Adventureland," "Still Alice," and "American Ultra" (which some feel is an underrated movie), Stewart might never completely shake the shadow of the "Twilight" films. Spend a few minutes on YouTube, and you'll find countless videos skewering her performance as Bella Swan. And in fairness, she is pretty rotten in this undead franchise, coming off as flat, monotone, and decidedly non-human. In fact, Stewart was nominated for Razzies on two separate occasions before "winning" in 2012 for the double whammy of "Breaking Dawn—Part 2" and "Snow White and the Huntsman."

Honestly, though, it's difficult for any actor — even the best in the business — to do good work with a horrible script, especially if that screenplay is based on subpar source material. And after the vampire franchise was finally staked in the heart, Stewart went on to prove that she was far more talented than she appeared in the Stephenie Meyer series (the same can be said for Robert Pattinson, most prominently earning praise for his take on Batman). Still, as far as vampire films go, Stewart's performance in "Twilight" is bloody awful.

Let's be honest. It's been a long, long time since anyone called Johnny Depp a great actor. Sure, he won some praise for his performance as Whitey Bulger in "Black Mass," but for the most part, he's been wearing silly disguises, using ridiculous accents, and slumming it in movies like "Yoga Hosers," "Dark Shadows," and "Alice Through the Looking Glass." And of course, his very public court battles haven't helped.

And that's a real shame because once upon a time, Depp was a living, breathing masterclass in playing weirdos and screwballs. The guy who played in "Tusk" is the same actor who wowed critics and audiences alike with performances in "Ed Wood," "Edward Scissorhands," and the original "Pirates of the Caribbean." He even occasionally toned things down for solid performances in more realistic films like "Donnie Brasco" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"

So really, "Mortdecai" perfectly sums up what's become of Depp's once-impressive career. The worst-reviewed movie in a checkered filmography, it finds him playing a mustachioed art thief on the hunt for a painting that might lead to Nazi treasure. And in unfortunate Depp fashion, it's a performance based solely on physical tics, funny voices, and absolutely no substance.

As film critic Peter Sobczynski put it, Depp's performance was "on the level of a below-average knock-knock joke." The folks who run the Razzies agree, as he was nominated for Worst Actor (losing out to Jamie Dornan for "Fifty Shades of Grey"). And domestic audiences weren't impressed either, as "Mortdecai" grossed just $7.6 million at home against a $60 million budget. That's a pretty long way to fall after starring in the 21st highest-grossing movie of all time.

In the first half of the 1980s, Eddie Murphy was the hottest star on TV, dominating "Saturday Night Live" with hilarious characters like Velvet Jones, Buckwheat, and Mr. Robinson. Then he became a major movie star, headlining classic comedies of the '80s and '90s including "Beverly Hills Cop," "Trading Places," "Coming to America," and "The Nutty Professor." After some box-office bombs such as "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" and "I Spy," Eddie Murphy was back on top of Hollywood in 2006, earning plaudits for his rare dramatic turn as a tragic '60s R&B singer in the 2006 movie adaptation of the musical "Dreamgirls." Murphy received his first ever Academy Award nomination, and he was predicted by Oscars pundits and experts to triumphantly take home a statuette. But then "Norbit" came along, apparently derailing everything. 

Oscar voting was in full swing in early 2007 when "Norbit" was opening in theaters, blanketing Los Angeles in billboards and other advertisements that depicted Murphy as an obese woman in a neglige, pinning down a meek man also played by Murphy. At a time when Murphy's team was trying to convince voters he was an Oscar-worthy actor, the "Norbit" campaign felt like an anti "For Your Consideration" ad. 

Murphy starred in "Norbit" as the titular character, a nerdy doormat who falls into an abusive relationship (played for laughs) with a mean woman named Rasputia Latimore. With the aid of prosthetics and a cringe-inducing fake accent, Murphy also portrayed Chinese orphanage caretaker Mr. Wong, and, with makeup, wigs, and a fat suit, played Raputia, too. Critics hated the fart joke-heavy "Norbit," a film with a 9 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's also entirely possible that Academy Award voters, seeing "Norbit" everywhere, thought twice about checking the box for Murphy. Alan Arkin ultimately won Best Supporting Actor for "Little Miss Sunshine" over Murphy.

Most A-list actors work very hard on their craft, preparing and executing efficiently to ensure a quality performance that does justice to the script and their character. But it can be a slippery slope — try too hard at a role, particularly one that's already larger than life, and their work can quickly become campy. 

Perhaps the perfect example of this is Faye Dunaway, who made a series of bad decisions with the salacious biopic-meets-exposé "Mommie Dearest." In a film based on the parent-attacking memoir by Christina Crawford (the daughter of Hollywood legend Joan Crawford), Dunaway, an icon of boundary-pushing, definitive '70s American films like "Network," "Bonnie and Clyde," and "Chinatown," went completely over the top. 

There is so subtly whatsoever in the performance, all shrieks and shouted monologues. Clearly, she was trying to show just how much of a cruel monster Christina Crawford claimed her mother to be, but she lays it on so thick that it's laughable. "Mommie Dearest" has become a cult classic, but in the worst way — snorted at by generations of filmgoers as an inadvertent comedy. Viewers will find it hard to not want to imitate every histrionic line Dunaway-as-Crawford screams at her children, particularly her most famous: "No! Wire! Hangers! Ever!"

After building up a legendary career as one of the most respected actors of his generation, Robert De Niro — star of searing masterpieces like "Taxi Driver," "The Godfather: Part II," "The Deer Hunter," and "Raging Bull" — has spent most of the new millennium playing grumpy old men. 

This strategy may have worked out commercially with "Meet the Parents" and its sequels, but not so much with "The Big Wedding," "Everybody's Fine," "The War with Grandpa," or "Dirty Grandpa," a critical dud with a tired premise. De Niro, so frequently the orchestrator of singular roles with singular talent and detail, has been reduced to portraying the cliched lusty old man who wants to party hard and make Viagra jokes, tricking his buttoned-up grandson into taking him to Daytona Beach for spring break festivities. He is, in other words, exactly what the title says he is: a dirty grandpa. 

Flavorwire's Jason Bailey called the movie "the absolute nadir of late-period Robert De Niro, which is really saying something," while critic Richard Crouse said its "the kind of film that, one day, De Niro's great-grandchildren will watch and wonder what all the fuss about him was."

"Theodore Rex" is a movie so strange, misbegotten, and largely forgotten that it feels like a fake movie you'd see in a real one making fun of the entertainment industry. But no, Whoopi Goldberg really did star in a gritty police movie about a human and a dinosaur, paired up as detectives trying to solve a crime in a world where people and talking dinosaurs co-exist. 

Because the movie featured dinosaurs that looked like the ones on ABC's Jim Henson Television co-production "Dinosaurs," "Theodore Rex" was marketed as a family movie, even though it's not child-friendly. It also never made it to theaters; after spending a not-insubstantial $35 million, New Line Cinema dumped "Theodore Rex" direct to video in 1995 following miserable test screenings.

Whoopi Goldberg played the human half of the detective duo in "Theodore Rex." Her performance as a futuristic police officer, acting opposite a pretend dinosaur, does not rank with her iconic, crowd-pleasing work in "The Color Purple," "Ghost," "Sister Act," or "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Goldberg seems alternately bored, annoyed, anxious, and wooden, and with good reason. After trying to back out of a promise to star in the movie, producers sued Goldberg in 1993, and after much legal wrangling, the actor was essentially forced by the courts to act in "Theodore Rex." Looking at her performance all these years later, it sure seems like she was determined to put in as little effort as humanly possible.

By 1999, Hollywood's obsession with adapting old TV shows into hugely budgeted movies was nearing its end, and the final nail in the coffin may have been this big screen adaptation of the quirky, largely forgotten 1965-69 sci-fi Western "The Wild Wild West." 

The $170 million summer tentpole starred the usually bankable movie Will Smith and reliably compelling Kevin Kline as James West and Artemus Gordon, respectively, two post-Civil War era federal agents tasked with rescuing President Grant from bitter ex-Confederate scientist Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) who employs a number of steampunk doomsday machines, including a gigantic robotic spider. Branagh, the renowned British actor and filmmaker regarded as the modern era's most influential and passionate interpreter of the plays of William Shakespeare, portrayed Dr. Loveless with none of the grace, nuance, and depth he brought to his work in "Henry V" or "Hamlet," acting instead like a sputtering, over-the-top madman with a preposterous Southern accent that's more Foghorn Leghorn than Robert E. Lee. Branagh is an Academy Award winner, as are Kline and Smith, for "A Fish Called Wanda" and "King Richard." But all that gold didn't help them here.

Both actors struggle to be their usual charming, entertaining selves in "Wild Wild West," a preposterous mess of a movie that tries to be a comedy, Western, sci-fi epic, dramatic period piece, romance, and action flick all at once. Smith and Kline took home the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple, while the film itself won Worst Screenplay and Worst Picture of the year.