Being famous doesn’t always mean being good on camera. Plenty of big names have delivered performances that were stiff, awkward, wildly over-the-top, or just plain hard to watch. Some kept getting leading roles anyway, while others quickly figured out that acting probably wasn’t their thing. A few even became more famous for their bad performances than their good ones.
Tommy Wiseau
Tommy Wiseau’s performance in The Room is basically legendary at this point. His line delivery is bizarre, his reactions rarely match what’s happening, and even simple conversations feel strangely unnatural. It’s terrible acting, but it’s also a huge part of why people are still watching the movie today.
Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal somehow made a long action career out of barely showing emotion. He tends to mumble his lines and brings the same low-energy delivery to just about every character. Even his fight scenes can look like he’d rather be somewhere else.
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton was everywhere in the 2000s, so naturally Hollywood tried putting her in movies too. House of Wax didn’t give her much to do, and The Hottie & the Nottie definitely didn’t help her acting reputation. Her flat, monotone delivery made most of her performances pretty hard to take seriously.
Pauly Shore
For a stretch in the ’90s, Shore’s surfer-slacker persona was basically his entire career. Encino Man and Bio-Dome gave him plenty of room to do the same voice, mannerisms, and dumb-guy routine without showing much range. It worked for his fans, but anyone who found the character annoying was in for a very long movie.
Tom Green
There’s overacting, and then there’s whatever is happening in Freddy Got Fingered. Green’s aggressive, bizarre comedy style made subtlety pretty much impossible, and plenty of critics found the whole thing unbearable. The movie has gained some defenders over the years, but his performance definitely isn’t for everyone.
Hulk Hogan
Turns out being great at playing Hulk Hogan didn’t mean Hogan could convincingly play other people. Hollywood tried him as everything from an action hero to a babysitter, with movies like Mr. Nanny doing him few favors. His huge wrestling personality always seemed to overpower whatever character he was supposed to be playing.
Jamie Kennedy
Things looked promising when Kennedy became one of the most memorable supporting characters in Scream. Leading a comedy proved much harder, especially with Son of the Mask asking him to follow Jim Carrey’s famously wild performance. He simply didn’t have the same energy or screen presence to make it work.
Shaquille O’Neal
On the basketball court, Shaq has enough personality for an entire team, but much of that disappeared once he had to read scripted dialogue in movies like Kazaam. He’s since become pretty willing to laugh along with everyone else about his acting career.
Madonna
Madonna’s massive music career gave her plenty of chances to try her hand at acting. Unfortunately, movies like Swept Away earned brutal reviews and became some of the biggest low points in her film career. Despite a few better-received roles, her many Razzie nominations have been hard to ignore.
Quentin Tarantino
Put Tarantino behind the camera and he can get incredible work out of his cast. Put him in front of it and you might end up with his Australian accent in Django Unchained. That brief appearance is a pretty good argument for letting someone else handle the acting.
Jean-Claude Van Damme
High kicks, splits, and elaborate fight scenes? No problem. Emotional dialogue was a tougher sell, and movies like Bloodsport wisely spent far more time showing off Van Damme’s martial arts abilities. He became an action icon without ever needing anyone to mistake him for a great dramatic actor.
Jaden Smith
It’s hard enough to carry a blockbuster as an adult, let alone when you’re still a teenager. After Earth put Smith at the center of the movie, and his stiff, awkward performance became one of its most criticized parts. He was young at the time, but the role clearly asked more of him than he was ready to give.
Taylor Lautner
Becoming a Twilight heartthrob happened much faster than establishing himself as a respected actor. Lautner tried making the jump to action star with Abduction, but critics found him much less convincing when he had to carry the whole movie.
Jessica Alba
For someone who was everywhere in the 2000s, Alba never built the strongest reputation for her performances. Her work as Susan Storm in Fantastic Four was often criticized as bland, while The Love Guru became an even bigger low point. Eventually, building The Honest Company proved a lot more successful than trying to win over movie critics.
Tara Reid
American Pie looked like the beginning of a much bigger movie career for Reid. Instead, she eventually found herself battling flying sharks in the Sharknado series, where awkward performances were practically part of the fun. It was quite the journey from late-’90s rising star to cult disaster-movie regular.
Neil Breen
Trying to explain a Neil Breen performance to someone who hasn’t seen one is almost impossible. His movies combine stiff line readings, strange dialogue, and complete seriousness, all while Breen usually handles several jobs behind the camera too. The amateur quality is so distinctive that it’s helped him build an entire cult following.
Cara Delevingne
A model jumping into acting isn’t unusual, but Delevingne struggled to make either Paper Towns or Suicide Squad feel like a breakthrough. Critics questioned her believability, and Enchantress became especially easy to mock. Trying wildly different roles hasn’t completely shaken that early reputation.
Jessica Simpson
Hollywood gave Simpson a shot at acting while she was one of the biggest pop-culture names of the 2000s. Critics singled out her Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard, and Employee of the Month and Blonde Ambition weren’t much kinder to her reputation. After a short run of movies, she moved on from acting almost entirely.
Katie Holmes
TV stardom came easily with Dawson’s Creek, but the transition to movies was much rougher. A Razzie nomination followed Batman Begins, and poorly received projects like Mad Money and Jack and Jill didn’t improve things. Holmes wasn’t always the biggest problem in those movies, but she rarely came out looking like their saving grace either.
Jennifer Lopez
Few filmographies bounce between respected performances and notorious disasters quite this dramatically. Lopez has shown she can act, but Gigli, Monster-in-Law, and a long string of Razzie nominations have followed her career too. Depending on which movie you watch first, you could come away with two completely different opinions of her.
Justin Timberlake
Some actors are at their best when they aren’t being asked to carry the whole movie, and Timberlake may be one of them. He worked well as part of The Social Network ensemble, while bigger roles made his limited range more obvious. Comedy, romance, sci-fi… it can sometimes feel like you’re getting the same performance with a different wardrobe.
Dolph Lundgren
Being huge, intimidating, and good at fighting made Lundgren an easy choice for ’80s action movies. His actual acting was usually much less convincing. Luckily, movies like Rocky IV mostly needed him to look like someone you absolutely wouldn’t want to fight.
Chuck Norris
Nobody was buying a ticket to a Chuck Norris movie for the dramatic scenes. His martial arts skills did most of the heavy lifting, while his line delivery could be pretty stiff. Most of his movies were smart enough to keep him busy fighting people instead.
Sylvester Stallone
Rocky showed that Stallone could give a great performance when he had the right material. Plenty of his later action movies relied much more on his tough-guy image than his acting skills. The results could get pretty stiff when there wasn’t a boxing match or explosion to keep things moving.
Kevin Costner
Costner has plenty of classics, but he’s also been criticized for being unusually flat on screen. Even when his character is in serious trouble, his delivery can stay remarkably calm. That style works in some movies and makes others feel like he’s barely reacting at all.
Mike Tyson
Tyson is entertaining on screen largely because he’s Mike Tyson. His most memorable movie appearances have usually leaned into that fact rather than asking him to disappear into a character. Keeping the roles short and self-aware tends to work best.
Chris Tucker
Tucker’s huge personality made him hilarious when the role actually fit him. The downside was that nearly every character came with the same high-pitched yelling and nonstop energy. If that particular style wasn’t working for you, there wasn’t much escaping it.
Kevin James
Playing the lovable, bumbling everyman has worked extremely well for James. The problem is that movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Zookeeper don’t require him to move very far beyond that character. After a while, it can feel like the same guy has simply wandered onto a different movie set.
David Spade
Sarcastic one-liners are where Spade is most comfortable, and most of his characters reflect that. When he’s asked to carry a movie, that dry persona can start feeling pretty limited. He’s usually much better bouncing off someone else than trying to be the whole show.
Dennis Rodman
Hollywood saw one of basketball’s wildest personalities and apparently figured that meant movie star. Double Team paired Rodman with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and subtle acting was definitely not on the menu.
