Ah yes, bad actors. We all know a few, we’ve all seen a couple of their movies and we all wonder why they have a million dollar paycheck while we spend our days slaving away at a medium wage job. None of the people in this list have won Oscars – or at least not that they’ve earned. While they may have had some commercial successes in their career, none of them will go down in history as a great actor, either.
Let’s take a look at some of the worst male actors we’ve seen on the silver screen.
Jaden Smith
Let’s be honest: this kid is so bad at acting, he actually managed
to ruin his father’s career. Considering how big Will Smith was in
the 90’s, that’s probably the biggest feat of anyone on this
list.
David Spade
Imagine being a comedy actor who can’t land a joke. David Spade is
the acting equivalent of that awkward friend you have in the group
whose jokes can flat-out murder an entire conversation. We all know a
guy like that – Hollywood has David Spade.
Nicolas Cage
There was a time when Nicolas Cage was considered an A-list actor,
but those days are long gone. We know he has the potential to be one
of the greats from his earlier works, but lately it seems like he’s
been going for bad roles in bad movies that have only reached
mediocre financial successes. He is going to play Tiger King’s Joe
Exotic for a TV show in the future though, so that might redeem him.
Jason Statham
Like most actors on this list, Jason has the problem that he is
unable to play any character that isn’t Jason Statham. Granted, he
plays Jason Statham like no one else can, but that’s pretty much
where the limits of his acting lie.
Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson used to be in every comedy some years back, but it seems
like his career has currently been reduced to making Oreo commercials
and becoming a meme. While that’s not a bad place to end, he
probably would’ve managed to do better if he had acting chops
beyond playing the goofy guy in the goofy comedy.
Rob Schneider
We can’t blame all the bad jokes in Hollywood on David Spade, so
let’s call it half-and-half and give Rob Schneider the other ones.
Along with David Spade, he’s one of the “Adam Sandler group of
friends that Adam Sandler keeps employed because he makes his own
movies now” members, meaning that you’ll almost never see him
play in a movie where his – limited, but very much existing –
acting chops come out.
Hayden Christensen
Granted, most of the acting in the Star Wars prequel trilogy wasn’t
good because of how the movies and dialogues were written. Even stars
like Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee
and Natalie Portman (and even the ever amazing Ian McDarmid) had some
cringeworthy lines in the prequels. Hayden, on the other hand, didn’t
have the talent or acting experience to pull himself out of that
hole, and it showed in every scene of episodes II and III.
Steven Seagal
Stevan Seagal usually stars in movies where he plays Steven Seagal,
but with less facial expressions. The only reason why he had a career
is because there was a period in our history where we cared more
about over-the-top action than we did acting chops.
Adam Sandler
Might as well get it over with and add Adam to the list. Now, he has
made movies where he played a more serious character and he actually
had some decent acting range. He’s by no means a bad actor, he just
decided he’d do bad comedy movies and hire the worst comedy actors
in Hollywood to play in them, making him directly responsible for
nearly half the people on this list.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Well, there’s a reason they barely gave this guy lines in the first Terminator movie. Or the second one. From the third one on, he had more of an actual “acting” role – and all of those movies were considered to be commercial failures. I’m not saying there’s a connection here, but maybe we just need Arnold to play a silent, wooden robot sent from the future who will stop at nothing to murder a woman. And maybe he doesn’t need to be more than that.
