Surprise! It’s a brand-new, non-Seagal Film Pigs Podcast! In a welcome break from the Summer of Seagal, former Film Pig Andy Kamenetzky (@KamBrothers, iTunes) joins Todd and Skelton for a riveting discussion about actors who phone it in. Plus, movie news, courtroom drama, bizarre line readings, fun and games, and oh so much more! (And yes, Todd is insisting on finishing our Seagal trilogy this summer, but Andy very wisely refused to participate.)
This time, on a very special episode of The Film Pigs Podcast:
- Intro
- Movie News
- Host Stephen Skelton presents this episode’s theme: Actors Who Phone It In
- Movie Jail
- The Nic Cage Memorial Bizarre Line Reading
- Film Pigs Tribunal: Phoning It In Edition!
- The Bottom 5
- A Moment of Positivity
- Outro
The gold standard of phoning it in has to be (who else?) Bruce Willis in COP OUT.
The naked contempt he has for the script, the director and his co-star just radiates out of him.
A part of me can’t blame him for being miserable, since it’s a complete pile of shit. But still, he agreed to it and cashed the check. Might as well be a fucking professional.
Smith has told a lot of stories about what a nightmare it was to work with Willis, but apparently they had to do some reshoots and the Bruce that showed up for that was as happy, genial and co-operative as could be.
From what I heard the head of the studio may have made a phone call to Mr. Willis and set him straight on a few things.
He could teach a Master Class in it.
Sam Jackson is the worst. He has been phoning it in 99% of the time since THE PHANTOM MESS and he appears in about a hundred movies per year. By sheer volume he is the worst.
Speaking of Marvel actors, Natalie Portman’s performance in THOR was an especially egregious example of phoning it in. You can tell she didn’t believe or understand one word of the science her character had to deliver.
Jackson, of course. But unlike Willis, Jackson can be a ton of fun when phoning it in. He’s practically turned it into an art form.
Portman in the Thor movies always felt to me like they never quite got the Foster/Thor relationship right and that she and Hemsworth just didn’t have great chemistry together rather than her phoning it in. The Thor/Sif bond feels much stronger in the movies.
Kat Dennings would have been a better love interest for Thor.
At least she has a likeablility and sense of humour that Portman has never had onscreen.