The Worst One-Note Actors

They grind out the same performance again and again
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 7, 2009 6:00 PM CDT

"It’s a sad time to be a cinephile," laments Branwyn Lancourt, who heaps particular scorn on "one-note wonders"—actors who give the same performance in every film. He lays out the 5 worst offenders for Faster Times:

  • Kristen Stewart. Her acting is nothing more than a "shoe-gaze-y collection of tweaky tics, starting with the lower lip jut/furrowed brow combo, accompanied by the jittery Vietnam vet shoulder scrunch and ending with an open-mouthed sharp intake of air."
  • Will Ferrell. The "genius" of Anchorman aside, Ferrell has shown us the same absurdist man-child comic persona in every single film.

  • Jennifer Aniston. "Aniston’s work is hackneyed, uninspired and totally irrelevant." Every film "feels like a sadistically extended throw-away episodes of Friends.”
  • Michael Cera. The ultimate one-note performer. All he's got to offer is that same deer-in-the-headlights gaze and nervous stutter.
  • Ben Stiller. Stiller used to be funny, exhibiting a unique silliness. But his last 10 movies have been "inconsequential drek—when Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey are surpassing you in the depth department, you know something’s amiss."

(More film stories.)

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