Best and Worst : The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

From film to television, which performers constantly herald as brilliant, do you find grossly overrated and why.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Daniel Day-Lewis

seems to be considered the gold standard of acting for many around here(?) and while he's good he's not THAT good as while he's got a good presence in the right role (i.e. Gangs of New York primarily) i don't think his overall presence is as great as many of the big name actors which makes them overall better in my mind. plus, like i always say a person needs to land in good movies to be remembered long term and that's another area Day-Lewis lacks.

i am sure there is some others who are overrated but he's the first one that comes to mind in more recent memory.

p.s. the same with Streep on the female side of things... she seems to be considered THE go-to person how people are measured in acting from the female side of things but there is plenty of actresses that got her beat overall if you ask me with their presence etc. another female that's liked quite a bit around IMDb from what i have noticed but i don't see the appeal at all is Cate Blanchett as her overall presence is too dry for my tastes as she lacks that charm/charisma etc that many other females got her easily beat. so for someone with a decent name Blanchett is one of the most overrated actresses out there as i like Streep more than her and Streep is overpraised a bit too much at the very least.

----------
My Top 100-ish Movies of All-Time! = http://goo.gl/EYFYdz
----------

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I think m-slovak79 is right that Day-Lewis and Streep are currently considered the paragons, rightly or wrongly.

My overrated list are all for the same reason. They all need to tone it down a bit. On the rare occasions they do, they can be very effective. Yelling and pulling grotesque faces is not acting in my book, unless you are playing someone who is actually demented (like Keira Knightley in "A Dangerous Method"). Nor is incoherent mumbling.

Marlon Brando
Al Pacino
Jack Nicholson
Robert Downey Jnr
Robert De Niro (all too often, though he can be effective when he is not "acting").

On the other hand, some actors can be too bland for me. For years I confused Jude Law and Ewan McGregor. Good actors but lack charisma.

My choice for supreme actor is Gary Oldman. He can play all types of part and usually steals every scene without striving to do so. He can make himself almost unrecognizable without my thinking "the make-up department has done a great/lousy job". I suppose he is not good-looking enough to be a super-star, but that fact has probably prolonged his top-flight career.

Another actor who I admire for his subtlety and depth is Colin Firth, but he does not have the range of Oldman. He is irredeemably middle/upper class and cerebral.

Christian Bale is another who is very versatile and maturing towards greatness.

For women it has got to be Helen Mirren. Streep can be impressive but I always watch and think "that's Meryl doing her thing". To me, actors should become invisible in their role. There is time to analyse, and maybe praise, their performance once the movie is over.

Notice I have only discussed contemporary actors. I think it is dangerous to discuss actors of past eras as audience perceptions are constantly changing. Now we are so "wise" to tropes that actors do not need to spell them out as in the past. When the first movie was shown of a locomotive heading for the audience, some viewers ran away screaming. George Pal's special effects in the 1950s took people's breath away. Now we still admire his ingenuity, but a ten-year-old child would not be fooled. Same for acting. What was good acting in its day may look absurd now, but we are not really in a position to judge.

An interesting feature of recent decades has been the stream of British actors taking all sorts of roles. Brits were always the go-to if you needed someone to portray dignity, authority or pomposity. So Day-Lewis playing Lincoln was right in that tradition. But now I am watching run-of-the-mill US films and come across Brits playing factory-hands, cowboys, rednecks, and quintessentially American types when there must be thousands of American actors who would relish the part and have more authentic accents. Why?




Re: The Most Overrated 'Great' Actors of All Time

John Wayne.

Not that great an actor. Was a known bigot. Never understood why he is still so revered.

Re: The Most Overrated 'Great' Actors of All Time


John Wayne ... was a known bigot.


He was type-cast as a racist bigot in "The Searchers", about the only film of his I really like.

Re: The Most Overrated 'Great' Actors of All Time

I assume the OP was referring to "great actors" rather than "great film-stars". I am not sure even his biggest fans would ever claim he was a great actor, but he was undeniably a massive "star". There is a difference.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I'll go with Dustin Hoffman. Good actor, sometimes great, but does he really have more than 7 "much better than the majority of his competition" performances in his filmography?

Nothing against him. He's a cool guy, apparently. I loved seeing him on stage with Eminem at The House of Blues before Em got real famous.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I want to frame the discussion as best as I can. I don't have a list of actresses per se I can call on. but two male actors I can give criticism for past/present are Marlon Brando and Jesse Eisenberg.

Marlon Brando,

is consistently ranked as a great actor, but the cost of his performances on production and the prima donna exploits he caused on set, makes me wonder, was he really worth it? His choice of roles were questionable as time passed as well as his lack of care in his appearance and professional conduct made casting him a big "huh"? to me. Im sure his performance in Streetcar named desire was enough to give him a little fame, but everything after that became more and more trying for directors,producers, and other actors around him. Which has been talked about over the years....(ie..Apocalypse Now) Just a wanna be James Dean I guess, oops I said it.

Jesse Eisenberg

I really shouldn't be so tough on Jesse cause he needs work just like every young actor out there struggling in LA and I certainly wouldn't put his acting in the brilliant category but he gets good work and has been working consistently for the past 7 years at least so he must be doing something right, but I have never watched a performance by Jesse and thought that was really funny or wow that was engaging, or wow great performance or that character was cool. He always seems to be playing the same character in every movie, like a smarmy sarcastic know it all. I don't get it. I mean he gets hired for a reason I guess, I just don't see it. Its weird to cause its like most his performances desire to be funny and serious so they end up not being either, which means his performances have difficulty picking an emotion, which is crucial for a good actor.

I hope I wasn't to critical but those are two examples of actors who's work frustrates me and feels overrated.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I too find Eisenberg irritating, but I do not think anyone has ever suggested he is one of "The Greats", so he is not relevant here.

I agree about Brando, though. (So does Maria Schneider).

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Daniel-Day Lewis: My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer, Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, Lincoln
Marlon Brando: A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, On the Waterfront, The Fugitive Kind, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, Apocalypse Now
Robert De Niro: The Godfather: Part II, Taxi Driver, Novecento, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Once Upon a Time in America, Angel Heart, Goodfellas, Awakenings, Cape Fear, A Bronx Tale, Casino, Heat
Al Pacino: The Godfather, Serpico, The Godfather: Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, Glengarry Glen Ross, Carlito's Way, Heat, Insomnia

These films could not exist without the work of these actors and these performances are objectively some of the best of all time. Everyone likes different things in acting, but I don't think it's a matter opinion anymore when such a vast part of cinema is built upon their work.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time


Johnny Depp:
Pirates of the Caribbean (just the 1st one. Depp's still good in the other's but they get repetitive)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I think Depp's best roles are in "The Ninth Gate" (1999, directed by Polanski) and "Dead Man" (1995, directed by Jarmusch). I imagine those two directors would not take any crap from him. But now he is a megastar he probably intimidates Hollywood hack directors.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

absolutely tom hanks

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Tom Cruise. He's Tom Cruise in every movie, except "Tropic Thunder" where he was Tom Cruise in a fat suit.








http://gradez.tumblr.com/
http://insanetrainlyrics.tumblr.com/

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Absolutely, although I have enjoyed some of his movies, it's usually despite him, not because of him. He plays the same character for every role, and that 'emotional' outburst he has in every movie is cringe worthy.

Re: The Most Overrated 'Great' Actors of All Time

Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise

Re: The Most Overrated 'Great' Actors of All Time

Jack Nicholson
Tom Hanks
Matt Damon
Leonardo DiCaprio

None have half or an ounce of the versatility Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian have. Although I like Jack and think he makes better choices than what has become of De Niro and Leo has some range but most are severely overrated or over-hyped.





Nothing is as it seems so I wouldn't judge by what you think you see.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Tom Hardy and Montgomery Clift. I'm probably get flak for the latter especially by Britt if she comes back especially here. However, I do love the song The Right Profile by The Clash.

DR. DOAK BITCH!
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com:443/data.filmboards/images/upload/UFHT7.jpg

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Johnny Depp. The only kind of role he can play well is an eccentric version of something. He's an eccentric director in Ed Wood. He's an eccentric pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean. He's an eccentric chocolate factory owner in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. when he tries to leave those roles, he can't pull it off. Black Mass, anyone?

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Disagree...

Blow
Deadman
Secret Window
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
The Ninth Gate

IMO

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I'll have to check some of those out. Maybe it's just that ever since Pirates of the Caribbean started, basically all he's done is play eccentric characters, and then he just happened to do a really terrible job in Black Mass.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Yeah, he doesn't act as so much like to role play -- like donning a costume for Halloween.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Well, I think Depp's best work was in the 90s with Gilbert Grape, Benny and Joon, Ed Wood, Donnie Brasco, Sleepy Hollow, and I'd add the first PotC Movie.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I'll agree he was good in Ed Wood and Pirates of the Caribbean, though I don't think there's anything really impressive with his performance as Jack Sparrow. Just being extremely eccentric and goofy isn't all that hard.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Good Lord, there are so many! Again, subjective
Kirk Douglas
Marlon Brando
Colin Farrell
Viola Davis
Halle Berry
Noah Wylie
Bradley Whitford
Katherine Hepburn
Sarah Miles
Anne Bancroft
Vera Miles
Robert De Niro
Sissy Spacek
Tommy Lee Jones

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

hmmmmm....Colin Firth is an Oscar winner but I never really felt like he had much range.

For someone with 5 Bafta nominations and 4 Oscars, George Clooney is charming but also lacks range. I think he stretched himself as far as he could go with Up in the Air and then got nominated again??

Sylvester Stallone almost won an Oscar last year which would have been really dumb

Was Warren Beatty ever that good of an actor? I haven't seen Reds or Bonnie and Clyde but I saw Bugsy, Dick Tracy, Bullworth, Shampoo, and I feel like he knows he's acting...

Fred Astaire feels dated as an actor although I can understand why you still love him on screen

I think Richard Burton overdid it some of the time.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

Agree on Beatty he's no actor but a good director.



Nothing is as it seems so I wouldn't judge by what you think you see.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

This may be a little controversial but I find Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy overrated.

Re: The Most Overrated 'Great' Actors of All Time

Leonardo DiCaprio

Don't know why everyone's so infatuated with this guy.

Re: The Most Overrated "Great" Actors of All Time

I thought Steve Buscemi was a great actor when I saw him Reservoir Dogs, then I saw the exact same character in another movie and then every movie hes ever been in.

Steve Buscemi is the best actor for playing Steve Buscemi
Top