Good Actors (Actresses) Careers Sabotaged by Bad Writing, Bad Project Choices.

I've given some thoughts recently about actors and actresses who were actually pretty good at their chosen professions but who were let down by being cast in poorly written (or directed) projects or who simply made bad choices about the projects they chose to appear in.

Some on my list:

Farrah Fawcett- Fawcett's career was probably greatly undermined by her sex symbol image. But she didn't do it any favors by choosing to do some horrible movies like "Saturn 3" and "Somebody Killed Her Husband". However productions like "The Burning Bed" showed what she could do with serious dramatic material if given a chance.

Patrick Swayze- similar to Fawcett, Swayze seemed forever cursed with being "Dirty Dancings Patrick Swayze" And aside from a successful movie or two later in his career made a long line of crap. Ironic one of his first acting jobs in MASH (Blood Brothers) as a slightly injured soldier who found out he had leukemia turned out to be one of his best performances.

Burt Reynolds- Reynolds seldom got a real chance to show off his acting chops in no small part because of some of the projects he agreed to do like "Stroker Ace" due to his loyalty to stuntman/director Hal Needham. But if you go all the way back to "Deliverance" it showed that Reynolds was capable of a great deal more.

yep - editing, directing, writing and all the other variables have to come together for a good performance to make it to the screen.

Burt Reynolds turned down his role in Boogie Nights seven times and hated the experience so much that he fired his agent after the movie wrapped.

It was his only Oscar nomination (he lost to Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting).

Nothing but love for Burt, but he apparently didn't know a good role even when it was beating down his door.

Burt said he didn't like that role, because it wasn't who he was. However, having heard some of the tales about Burt's younger days, I think that his problem with the role (which he'd never admit) was that it reminded him of some of the more unseemingly parts of his life.

Robin Williams in turn IMO wasted himself on far too many bad parts.

From what I've read about Robin Williams, I think his reputation for improvisation he established on "Mork & Mindy" hurt him when it came to his movie career. I read that Williams was so good at simply making up dialogue for his character as he went on the show that the writers would simply leave huge chunks of a script blank and let Williams do his thing.

Of course doing that for a 22 minute sitcom episode and doing that in a 100+ minute movie are quite different. Which is why to me many of Williams movies seem, well "underwritten".

To me Williams should've definitely tackled more dramatic roles. I was always impressed with his guest starring spots on Homicide: Life on the Street where he played a tourist whose wife is murdered and on Law & Order: SVU where he played a sound engineer whose life was destroyed when his wife and baby died during a botched childbirth.

Robin Williams would have made a hilarious and utterly terrifying Joker.

Spice Williams-Crosby. I am not sure if it was bad decisions, like The Guyver, or she just never took off, but she was a decent actress with a good look who was enjoyable to see in person.

I tend to like Danielle Radcliffe despite the fact he played him who is so fucking lame.

After seeing the hobbit I would have liked to see sean astin have done more over the years. Yes, he is getting a bit large now, but I find he is likable and can act pretty well. I liked him in stranger things too.

As for a Star Trek person I would love to have seen more of Brent Spiner or kate Mulgrew. Especially Kate Mulgrew. She did great in OITNB. She can play vulnerable and powerful pretty well, and on a personal level I really grew to love her as Janeway.

I would have to agree here. He could be pretty dark, and that would have been one hell of a joker. Especially for the joker origen movie they are creating.

I have a feeling with williams it was an environmental thing for him. It is nice to be swept away by a more happy role than something truly demonic or despotic. He may have understood his roles effected him and tried to stay away from the darker ones.

Robin Williams was fully capable of doing a subtle menacing role though. Look at "One Hour Photo".

agree! Great movie - one of his best IMHO.

He played a great villain in Insomnia as well.

George Lazensby quite Bond during the filming of OHMSS because his agent told him the films Easy Rider were the future and that Bond was passe

But I think the most foolish award goes to Christopher Reeves....

That's kind of predicated on the role idea that since actor A did well in a role, actor B would have been able to work just as well. I mean, David Hasselhoff was born the same year as Reeve, do you think that he'd have worked in the Superman movies? So was Mr. T, Peewee Herman, Patrick Swayze, and Louis Walsh. I don't think that any of them could have pulled off the same roles as Reeve. Liam Neeson was also born that year. I'd say that he could do the roles, but they'd be substantially different, and while the films might have been good, I don't know if his version of Supes would have had quite the appeal the Reeve's did.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you that all my family's wealth was lost with Krypton. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long time under Earth's yellow sun. Skills that make me a nightmare for non-super people like you. If you let Lois go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will use my powers to look for you, I will find you, and I will incinerate you with my heat vision."

Garret Wang and Robert Beltran

Not sure you can keep Swayze in there as he had more hits than misses both before and after Dirty Dancing, showcasing a range of characters.

his greatest role was dancing with Chris Farley on SNL.

na... roadhouse...

that movie could have won for best mustache AND best mullet

Only thing I remember about Roadhouse was how smoking hot Kelly Lynch was.

Black Dog was a bad movie though it had an action sequence (where Swayze destroys three other tractor-trailer rigs with his own) that rivals anything Michael Bay or Tony Scott might've ever imagined.

and Roadhouse featured the late Jeff Healey performing in a bar!

Got to see him a lot during the early days, often opening for the likes of Eugene Ripper at the Horseshoe Tavern.



as for Swayze;

Looks like a pretty good run between the two Dirty Dancing pics...

• 1989 Road House James Dalton
• 1989 Next of Kin Truman Gates
• 1990 Ghost Sam Wheat
• 1991 Point Break Bodhi
• 1992 The Player Himself Uncredited
• 1992 City of Joy Max Lowe
• 1993 Father Hood Jack Charles
• 1995 Tall Tale Pecos Bill Alternate title: Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill
• 1995 To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar Vida Boheme
• 1995 Three Wishes Jack McCloud
• 1998 Black Dog Jack Crews
• 1998 Letters from a Killer Race Darnell
• 2000 Forever Lulu Ben Clifton
• 2001 Green Dragon Gunner Sergeant Jim Lance
• 2001 Donnie Darko Jim Cunningham
• 2002 Waking Up in Reno Roy Kirkendall
• 2003 One Last Dance Travis MacPhearson Also producer
• 2003 11:14 Frank

He may not always have been the lead, but there are a lot of solid performances in a variety of good movies here.

Swayze had a pretty good run. These five films in which he was the lead are very well-known (and a couple I'd call classics):

Red Dawn
Road House
Dirty Dancing
Point Break
Ghost

And he was in many others that had some degree of success or another.

An early film of Swayze's that I liked is Uncommon Valor:

Don't know if I would called either Red Dawn or Road House "classics". Red Dawns is known mainly because of how it made liberal critics go absolutely berserk.

I was thinking that Dirty Dancing and Ghost were the classics, although Red Dawn is my favorite of the bunch.

Yes, Red Dawn is right-wing wank material. Prolly why I like it.

Swayze's TV series he made while he was dying was well-received and might have continued if he had lived.

Oh puhlease! Maybe some critic snobs were all bothered back then, but the violence was probably more of an issue for it.

His role in Red Dawn was well done. I also liked him in point break and ghost more than in roadhouse and dirty dancing.