8 Amazing Performances By Actors Who Stopped Giving A Damn

The following actors were somehow able to take care of business and put some amazing performances on film while being as lackadaisical about their roles as someone can be while still having a pulse

So I am Gareth here from WhatCulture.com and here are 8 amazing performances by actors who stopped giving a damn

8. Edward Norton – The Italian Job Contractual obligations don't always create on-screen magic

But in the case of Edward Norton and his behind-the-scenes battles with Paramount over his required involvement in the Italian job

it cemented the fact that Norton is a consummate professional who's nearly impervious to giving a bad performance

Norton wanted nothing to do with the remake of The Italian Job, but since he'd signed a three-picture deal before making his on-screen debut in Primal Fear

Paramount threatened to sue him for millions of dollars if he refused to make the movie

After much back and forth between the actor and the studio, Norton eventually caved and

agreed to participate. Though he was reportedly very businesslike and amiable during filming

he actually refused to promote the movie afterwards. You can almost feel the behind

the scenes disdain seeping out of the screen whenever Norton is present, which imbues his

slimy villain with a natural sense of mischief. He doesn't ever come off as detached, though it's

likely his natural charisma that simply doesn't allow that to happen. The Italian job may rank

just outside of Norton's top 10 performances, but considering the circumstances, it's hard to

imagine anyone else coming in and playing the character of Steve Frizzelli any better

7. Jackie Chan Rush Hour Rush Hour is another installment in the odd couple buddy cop action

movie genre, this time bringing together goofy martial arts legend Jackie Chan and even goofier

comedic sidekick Chris Tucker. Now, it wasn't exactly an Oscar-worthy performance from either

of them, and in fact doesn't rank anywhere near the top 10 from Chan's filmography either

But it was the first time most audiences outside of Hong Kong were introduced to Chan's combination

of top-notch stunt work and silly and occasionally subversive comedy. But for Chan, it was a

disheartening experience. In his words, I have reasons to do each film. I have something to say

Unlike Rush Hour, there was no reason in making it. You just give me the money and I'm fine

I dislike Rush Hour the most. Chan thought the stunt work was uninspired

and the fight choreography was too Americanized And yet anyone watching the movie without prior knowledge of the action star previous work would be wowed by scenes where Chan effortlessly scales a 15 wall

and drops hundreds of feet, with the use of wires of course, onto a makeshift slide

It's a reminder that even when he's just going through the motions, Jackie Chan is one of the most underrated action stars of all time

Number 6. Alan Rickman, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves Robin Hood Prince of Thieves was this close to being an unwatchable mess

Then along came a hero who happened to be playing a villain to carry the hot mess of a script on his back

while completely disregarding the suggested tone of the movie. That hero was Alan Rickman

Between Kevin Costner's wavering English accent, charmless secondary characters, and bombardment of intrusive subplots

Robin Hood needed someone to hold the audience's hand and assure them it was okay to take the movie as a bit of fun

Rickman's extraordinarily hammy turn as the Sheriff of Nottingham did just that

It's as if Rickman watched Costner's bored, brooding orations from the sidelines on the first day of filming

and decided there and then that he'd have to single-handedly make up for the star's lifeless portrayal

Or at the very least, he was going to have some damn fun making an awful movie

Rickman's lines are delivered with the kind of sashaying menace that makes you forget how terrible the dialogue actually is

instead drawing you in with campy readings that put the entire cast of Batman and Robin to shame

Somehow, someway, it just works. 5. Awesome Wells The Transformers The Movie

No, not the live-action Transformers, my friends. The original animated version from 1986, which features less robotic testicles

and astonishingly voice work from one of the greatest actor-directors of all time, Orson Welles

This Transformers flick also includes some wonderful performances from Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, and Judd Nelson. Even weighed against this respectable ensemble though

Welles stands out as Unicron, a man-eating super planet. The fact that he manages to do this while

not appearing to remotely care about or even understand what the role was makes it all that

more impressive. During production, Wells apparently told his biographer the following, You know what I did this morning? I play the voice of a toy. I play a planet. Some terrible

robot toys from Japan that change from one thing to another. I menace somebody called something or

other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy whoever it is is thwarted and I tear myself

apart on the screen Those are not the words of someone heavily invested in his role are they Number 4 Alec Guinness Star Wars It always a hard pill to swallow when one of the most essential actors from one of the most revered movie franchises in movie history

says that he abhors said franchise. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with the late Alec Guinness

who played mystical mentor and Auram badass Obi-Wan Kenobi. The experience of working with George Lucas is one he was happy to be done with once he

wrapped on Return of the Jedi. Guinness reportedly despised the dialogue, and expressed while on set

that old Georgie didn't have a firm enough grasp on the characters he was writing for

As he put it, apart from the money I regret having embarked on the films

I like them well enough, but it's not an acting job. The dialogue, which is lamentable

keeps being changed and only slightly improved, and I find myself old and out of touch with the

young. A letter Guinness wrote to a friend during production reinforced his dismissal of the

material. As he wrote, new rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper. None of

it makes my character clear or even bearable. Despite his contempt of the material, Guinness

provided a performance that Star Wars fans hold close to their hearts to this day, and even non-Star

Wars fans can admire. And he still managed to walk away with an Academy Award nomination for

best supporting actor after utterly detesting every word that tumbled out of his wise old space

wizard mouth. What a legend! 3. Marlon Brando's Superman As Marlon Brando approached the end of his career, the genius method actor who diligently crafted

legendary performances in The Wild One and On the Waterfront started to, well, get a touch lazy

let's say. For instance, rather than coming to the set of The Godfather with his lines memorized

he requested the use of cue cards, which had to be carefully placed around set

sometimes on the chests of other actors in the scene, so as not to be seen in the finished shot

But at least in that case, Brando seemed to be invested in his character and the film itself

The same can't be said for his portrayal of Jor-El in the original Superman movie

According to his co-star Terrence Stamp, who plays General Zod, when Brando first arrived on set, he asked him if the script was any good

Stamp, bewildered, asked Brando if he'd read it yet, To which he replied, no, I was worried it might be poop

This anecdote proves two things. Number one, Marlon Brando, one of the greatest dramatic actors of all time

casually used the word poop in conversation. And number two, he didn't even have to read through the script

to deliver the second best performance in Superman just behind Gene Hackman definitive portrayal of Lex Luthor 2 Robert Shaw Jaws By his own admission Robert Shaw didn take his profession too seriously According to one story

Robert Shaw actually drank himself into a blackout while he was filming the famous

SS Indianapolis monologue in the classic That Was Jaws. He'd convinced Steven Spielberg that

he should be a bit tipsy for the scene, since his character had been hitting the bottle

and unsurprisingly, not much work got done that day. When he wasn't drinking, Shaw was humiliating his co-star Richard Dreyfuss

He'd spray him with a fire hose, or convince him to jump off frighteningly tall things for a few hundred bucks

A couple of years after he finished Jaws, Shaw was asked about his penchant for boozing

to which he responded, Can you imagine being a movie star and having to take it seriously without a drink

And indeed, it seems like this loosey-goosey approach Shaw took in bringing fisherman-slash-sharkbait Quint to life

probably helped make the best version of this character. Number 1. Marlon Brando Apocalypse Now

Apparently this entire list could have been called together using nothing but examples from the back half of Marlon Brando's filmography

By now, the on-set animosity between Brando and Francis Ford Coppola is one of Hollywood's worst-kept secrets

The tension was so thick between actor and director that an entire documentary was made about their behind-the-scenes antics

Playing the integral role of Colonel Kurtz, A lean and savage green beret, Brando showed up on set monstrously overweight and wholly unprepared

As was his MO around this time in his career, he didn't bother to read the source material

couldn't memorize his lines, and supposedly halted filming on numerous occasions to discuss the script

In spite of all this, Coppola and Brando found a way to churn out a legendary performance

The process became simple. Dress Brando in black, shoot him in shadowy lighting

and just let one of the world's greatest actors improvise until there was enough material to use

Easy as that, really. Essentially, Marlon's role was fleshed out on the fly

with the camera pointed at him until he didn't want to monologue anymore. That is a special kind of laziness right there

And that's our list. Know of any other amazing performances by actors who stopped giving a damn

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I have been Gareth from WhatCulture.com. Cheers for watching today, and hopefully we'll see you again very, very soon

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