I'm sure I'll have a few people who want to flame me after this, but.....

Some of the biggest names in Hollywood, in my opinion are very overrated actors.

For example, Christopher Walken. I've never been very impressed with him, but can you tell me how to differentiate between his characters from movies like "click", "catch me if you can", "man of the year", "joe dirt" and "blast from the past"? To me, they are all the exact same person.

The same with Michael Caine (although I think Cane is a better actor than Walken). Cane has a slew of characters that are indistinguishable from the next: "the prestige", "batman begins", "quills", "miss congeniality", and "dirty rotten scoundrels".

I like actors who make me forget they have been in a dozen other movies....Edward Norton comes to mind. You can watch "Fight Club", "American History X", "The Italian Job" and "The Illusionist" all right in a row and you would probably never realize the main character was the same actor.

Anyway, just wanted to start a rant that hopefully will spur some good conversation.

Bump due to the forum issue thing.

I have to agree with you, but not 100%. I don't think they're overrated, just not very versatile.

Look at Sean Connery. AMAZING actor imho, and he plays very well in all his movies. He does however always play similar characters. The same for Morgan Freeman.

Other names of versatile actors that come to mind are Johnny Depp. Respect to that guy. I will second your Edward Norton as well, and include Matt Damon. The motivation for Matt Damon, of whom I was never a fan, is Blood Diamond. He played that very very well.

I think Sean Connery has only played similar characters very early and very late in his career. I agree with Moran Freeman - although he has had some varied characters (watch Unleashed (aka Danny the Dog))

Johnny Depp is very versatile - I agree. I haven't seen Blood Diamond yet - but it will be mailed to me today from Netflix - so I'll reserve judgment on Matt Damon until then...so far, I'm not too impressed with him....but he is 1000 times better than Ben Affleck.

How about Nicholas Cage and Bruce Willis. Especially Bruce Willis is a very versatily actor. I think almost every single movie I have seen with him, he played a very good role. And he does it well.

How about the women though? Why are we (coincidentally I'm sure) only mentioning actors?

There are a couple of actors who have surprised me with how good they are; Mark Whalberg, Leonardo Dicaprio are the main ones that come to mind. Leo in particular; I'm not a fan of his, and will never see a movie because he's in it, but he usually ends up being incredible (except for in Titanic - dunno why). Russell Crowe constantly brings in good performances. Also Brad Pitt, although, like Leo, I will never see a movie just for him, he usually turns out a perfect performance (12 Monkeys, Se7en, Ocean's 11).

I've never been impressed with Tom Cruise, even before he went insane. Jack Nicholson's good, but he's always Jack first and the character second.

I'm not a Nicolas Cage fan, so I'll refrain from commenting on him.

mennufer hit the nail on the head with Mark Whalberg. Wow...look how Marky Mark grew up!

And Leonardo DiCappuccino. I do NOT like him at all, but am always pleasantly surprised by his performances.

Jack Nicholson...perfect description mennufer.

I'm right there with you on Norton. The first time I ever took notice of him was in a film people tend to forget...Primal Fear. I can usually sniff out the plot of a movie within 15 minutes of it starting, but his portrayl of Aaron Stampler in that movie had me fooled. I never saw it coming and in hind sight it was as obvious as can be. He was the only good thing in an otherwise ordinary movie.

I had to vote every entry up on this page. Every single post was right on the mark. I could not have said anything better myself.

I want to add something. I saw Brothers Grimm. I did not know it was Matt Damon and Heath Ledger until I saw the credits at the end.

ok...one of the best and least known actors in hollywood...

William H. Macy

I'll be back later. I agree with Icepigs, to an extent.

There are a lot of actors/actresses like that. Some are over-rated. Some are not so much good actors as being good at behaving themselves.

Some might be good actors who never get the chance to prove themselves, they are typecast into a certain role and have a hard time breaking out of it.

Most of them.
It seems like all you have to do is be in one hit, and then you're automatically cast in everything. There are tons of good actors being frozen out of good parts because the same couple of people get cast over and over again. It bores me.

I have to EDIT and add this (it always cracks me up):

good one...there i go giving you credit for someone elses talent...upvote!

I think everyone has some very good points here.

The big question though is what makes someone a good actor? When they can succesfully play many different parts, or when they can play REALLY well, but only certain parts? I wouldn't be able to do either, so that's a starting argument for why I'm not an actor...

I don't care how versatile they are, I still enjoy anything with Connery or Walken in it.

I've always thought of Michael Caine as the same guy. In "Children of Men" he played with it a little. This was his different role. He, in my estimation, goes where his agent says.

While I agree tha Walken is the same in every film, I think he fits nicely into the roles he plays. It's good to get a bunch of really strange parts when you are a really strange person.

Samuel L Jackson used to be a pretty good actor, but now everything he is in involves him playing the badass, take-no-s**t mother f**ker that came about with Pulp Fiction.

Also DeCaprio... I hate that guy. Really don't dig on him, but everytime I see him in a movie I have to give him credit. He really does have some talent.

For me there's a difference between actors who aren't that versatile and those who are just in too damn many movies. Tom Hanks is a great actor, but in the last several years he's just been in too many movies to really digest them all without getting sick of him first. I can no longer watch him and think of the character in the movie's story, but "oh, that's Tom Hanks playing so-and-so." He's at a level now where he could (and should) put a couple years between roles and/or play some smaller parts in movies.

Oh, and Walken is kind of a one-note guy...but his monologue about the watch in Pulp Fiction (and his performance in The Deer Hunter) are pure gold.

Kevin

Most overrated EVER: Julia Roberts. Every time I see another movie starring Julia Roberts, I think to my self "Well, Julia Roberts will be playing the part of Julia Roberts. Again."

Agreed.

I wanna slap her in her ugly face.