When Good Actors Do Bad Movies

He has three. With his acting-school sweetheart. Aww. Maybe he's got tax problems...even with his time in The Box, he can't beat the IRS. But, I totally feel your friend's sentiment."Thief" is good, though.

I used to be appalled at what some actors would take for a job, but I've now worked long enough in the business to know that all you see is the end product. You never know how good the script the actor originally read was, how badly it was mangled, either during shooting or editing, or what the actor's bills are or how tongue in cheek they thought they were being.

And some actors just like to act. Maybe they even thought it would be a challenge to deliver a decent performance in a really crappy movie.

Hell, maybe they just have no taste.

Occasionally, you have to check to see if they're blinking "T O R T U R E" at the camera.

I just think of all those British actors like Vincent Price and Peter Cushing that maintained their dignity through hundreds of cheap, hokey movies.

Vincent Price was a brandname, and people hired him wanting Vincent Price. Fred Not-Established Actor has to do what the director tells him to, or he won't get work. If the director wants a caricature, that's what you deliver.

I just think of all those British actors like Vincent Price and Peter Cushing that maintained their dignity through hundreds of cheap, hokey movies.

Vincent Price was a brandname, and people hired him wanting Vincent Price. Fred Not-Established Actor has to do what the director tells him to, or he won't get work. If the director wants a caricature, that's what you deliver.

Also (to be pedantic), not British, but from the South (Georgia, if I remember correctly). Christopher Lee would have been the pick there (though certainly the keeping your dignity in appalling circumstances applies to Price in SPADES).

There is, I believe, a certain "Braugherness" that people pay AB to deliver...he has an ability, rather like Morgan Freeman's, to make really dumb dialogue sound like something that means a whole hell of a lot. But it's true that: a. Frank Pembleton was the icon, not necessarily Braugher.

b. I would probably rate that higher than the industry does because I am a big old fangirl and would be thrilled to hear my name in the Voice, right? And "Please don't be an idiot. Thank you." changed my life. Which is something your Piven-style agent is not going to cop to.

One of the few random facts I know is that Price was a Princeton grad. I saw a picture of him at about 22 in a student Shakespeare production, and oh my god, what a gorgeous young thing he was! In velvet and tights, no less.

I always remind people that Laurence Fucking Olivier did Clash of the Titans.

Don't forget that Michael Caine had to miss picking up his Oscar to film Jaws 4.