On Beyond Shatner: Consistently hammy actors & actresses

Miranda Richardson? Your mama.

I actually can’t think of a single actor who has just consistently been hammy.

Cage

Nehemiah Persoff

Jared Leto

Angelina Jolie (the worst - so sly about it)

Charlton Heston

Kirk Douglas

G

If Al Pacino's a ham then he is a GLORIOUS, PRIZE-WINNING ONE!

R4, agree about Heston. Always a big ham.

Vincent Price.

Oh I LOVE an actor who plays big.

Jeanette Nolan, John McIntire

Lisa Minnelli

Cybill Sheperd

Robert Wagner

Cheryl's Pussy

Jim Carrey but he does it so well.

[quote] Vincent Price.

He was just flamboyant.

[quote] Lisa Minnelli

It's Liza. With a Z.

Not LIsa with an s.

"Cuz Lisa with an s goes "sss" not "zzz".

If. you. need. to. dictate. a. note. into. Siri. talking. like. Shatner. improves. accuracy.

I don’t understand the question and I refuse to answer it.

Deborah Kerr

Anne Baxter

Ginger Rogers

Joan Crawford (but not consistently)

Most good actors are going to go ham at some point, especially depending on the director. It's much easier to tone down a performance than to turn it up a notch. Also, realism is not always the aim with all performances. As has been said, if you want realism go to the E.R.

Rod Steiger

Mostly great actors who, otherwise, gave a few hammy performances:

Robin Williams in Patch Adams, Dead Poet's Atrocity

Sally Field in Steel Magnolias, Not Without My Daughter and Soapdish (though it actually kind worked in Soapdish).

They're making a sequel to Soapdish that takes place on a lesbian soap opera.

It's called Soapfish.

People who think Cage is hammy are basing that opinion off of a couple of movies from 20+ years ago. He's a very capable actor and can be subtle.

Laurence Fishburne is a better example of an actor who is consistently hammy. Every performance is BIG. He even managed to chew scenery when he played buttoned-down Jack Crawford in the Hannibal series.

They're making a sequel to Soapdish that takes place in a soap opera in the Vatican.

It's called Popedish.

Beside my bed I keep my… dope dish

Channing Tatum, roddy macdowell, james stewart, laurence Olivier,

Strongly disagree about David Tennant. His recent Macbeth was terrific. He can ham it up when he sees the occasion, but he's a fine actor when being serious.

Kay Dennings - she always hams it up and overplays the (same) character.

Sally Kirkland.

She may have been nominated for an Oscar once but Jesus. Watch her “Roseanne” appearances. She stresses all the wrong syllables and acts with her hands.

And the. There was her stint playing Helen Lawson on the “Valley of the Dolls” late night cable soap…

Angela Bassett owns this thread.

William Campbell

Sylvia Miles owns this thread.

Deborah Kerr?

(I don't think she was hammy.)

Awwwwwww, R10, they are two of my favorite actors ever.

Absolutely love them.

My pick: The great Henry Hull. How I ADORE that man; every time I see his name in the opening credits, or see him while flipping channels, I am compelled to stop and watch. His magnificent scenery chewing is on a level few ever reach, but like Pacino, Hull was also a magnificent actor.

Agnes Moorehead. It was in character on Bewitched, but in some of her old movies she was extremely hammy (Dark Passage, Dragon Seed).

Anne Fucking Baxter

Peter Fucking Ustinov

Larry Fucking Olivier

Anne Baxter seemed to get hammier a few years after she won her Oscar for The Razor's Edge. As a younger actress, she really wasn't very hammy at all.

Ustinov---if he was hammy, I'll take it. Same with Charles Laughton. Olivier--sometimes, but he could be so great sometimes (Wuthering Heights, Carrie, Spartacus, The Entertainer, Henry V, Richard III).

R36 I guess Henry Hull was a great actor, I didn't really think he was a ham, per se--it was just his acting style and his voice that got on my nerves sometimes. One of my favorite moments of his was at the end of the movie, Jesse James (1939) when he eulogizes Jesse saying "He was one of the doggonedest, gawl-dingedest, dad-blamedest buckaroos that ever rode across these United States of America!" (I had to look that up.)

McIntire and his wife, Jeannette Nolan, were talented, but I think their tendency to overact or overplay things did hold tham back. Sometimes she was great, as Mrs. Lagana in The Big Heat, for example.

Hilarious you should mention Anne Baxter, R38, because she actually guest stars with Henry Hull in one of my favorite Wagon Train episodes, "The Kitty Angel Story."

With special assistance from Kathleen Freeman, MAGNIFICENT scenery chewing is ON the menu!

R36 Sorry, I meant Mrs. Nolan played Mrs. Duncan in The Big Heat.

Don’t you dare . . .

Susan Hayward

Annette Bening

KAAAAAAAAAAAHN!!!!

Jack Black is always dialed up to 11. Tough to take. And he’s getting worse.

The hammiest ham who ever hammed is Fiona Shaw.

Her performance in "Black Dahlia" might as well have had cloves stuck in it.

Agree on Jack Black, although his teenage girl in the Jumanji movie was less hammy. I think a lot of the older actors mentioned here come from a theatrical background- they tend to be hammy. Johnny Depp in fantasy roles is hammy. Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls, Nick Cage in fantasy roles, Cate Blanchett in the latter part of her career, Jared Leto in fantasy roles, Angela Bassett in the latter part of her career.

Susan Hayward got pretty hammy when she got older

Eleanor Powell.

Geraldine page.bher trip to bountiful is unwatchable.

At his worst, Brando could be really hammy

Ralph Fiennes has had his moments, especially in The English Patient.

Vincent D'Onofrio

[quote]r49 Susan Hayward got pretty hammy when she got older

Whatever do you mean??

Jared Leto was unbelievably hammy in Blade Runner 2049. The director should have told him to take it down a few notches.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers or whatever his name is.

R56, he was also hammy as hell in House of Gucci

Roseanne Barr (well, she was) - maybe comedians as actors are given a wider berth (ha!)

Agree about Brando in some of his performances: "STELLLLLLLLLA!!!!!" or Apocalypse Now

James Dean was a big ol' mo hamball

Rosalind Russell

Robin Williams got away with it because he was that good

Susan Lucci, honeybaked Ham queen

Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robin Williams are the trifecta of hammy.

Agree about Fiona Shaw on Black Dahlia, though Olivia de Havilland being approached by bees is a close second (or Olivia de Havilland stuck in an elevator, or Olivia de Havilland during the civil war, or Olivia de Havilland in most movies).

Yes, but de Havilland gave what is arguably one of if the five best performances by an actress in “The Heiress”—maybe she always needed Henry James, William Wyler, and Ralph Richardson to challenge her. The part seems deceptively simple, and Cherry Jones was remarkable in it onstage—but it defeated Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jessica Chastain. I’d haved to see Wendy Hiller and Basil Rathbone in the original Broadway production.

[quote] Olivia de Havilland being approached by bees is a close second (or Olivia de Havilland stuck in an elevator, or Olivia de Havilland during the civil war, or Olivia de Havilland in most movies).

YOU

WRETCHED

IDIOT

SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!

it defeated Jennifer Jason Leigh

That's a low bar.

Scene-hogging Miriam Hopkins. From the beginning of her career (mugging and stinking up TROUBLE IN PARADISE) to the end:

Unbelievably bad as Robert Redford's mother in THE CHASE (66)

Alan Rickman could be wonderful (as in Truly, Madly, Deeply), but he could also be hilariously hammy, as in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Faye!

Michael Sheen, in his earlier roles, or with directors who didn’t tell him to tone it down a bit.

Lionel Barrymore

Martin Short. Acts for the back row of the theatre even when he’s on tv in a close up.

R65:

In Alan Rickman's defense, Kevin Costner was so awful and miscast in Robin Hood that AR (and Morgan Freeman) had to overcompensate.

R50 Did you mean Elanotr Parker?

R50 Eleanor Parker

Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland were both often hammy. It was great when they weren't, like Olivia in GWTW or in Hold Back the Dawn, where she played a schoolteacher from Azuza. Or Joan in The Women, or her Hitchcock films.

Despite being born in Japan, both of them moved to California Saratoga, California, at a very young age (age 3 and age 1, I believe) and grew up there. But from the airs they both put on in interviews, you'd never think so.

Many stage actors are hammy on film. They had to play big on the stage and couldn't/wouldn't tone it down for film. Frederic March for example. Ugh.

R74 Did you think Fredric March was hammy in The Best Years of Our Lives? (I didn't.) Or A Star is Born? Or Executive Suite? (I didn't.)

Orson Welles could ham it up

Derek Jacobi. It's quite amusing seeing him playing Hamlet and giving his speech to the actors that they shouldn't "saw the air" and so on, when that's exactly what he has been doing during his whole performance. Nor is he much more temperate when he plays King Claudius in other productions.

--Which makes me think of Richard Burton as Hamlet--even more ranting of a performance than Jacobi's.

R71 - yes Eleanor Parker.

As an aside, can I just say that while certain actors have a definite style, like Nic Cage for example, and they can be very hammy, there are others who have a distinctive style who I never think of as hammy, like Christopher Walken.

I think it's called being eccentric. Vincent D'Onofrio is another one.

David Tennant wins this thread.

He’s constantly baring his teeth.

That's the Brooke Adams style.

D'onofrio is a big ol' jambon

Sometimes Olivia Colman can be a little much, but she reined it in to play Elizabeth II and was marvelous.

The role of Queen Anne let her play very big, but even though it was over-the-top, she was very effective.

William Conrad was my favorite kind of hammy actor. Porky.

Jack Klugman, especially in "Quincy, M.E."

I don't know if Joan Fontaine was "hammy," but in every performance she gave she looked as if every eye and mouth movement was practiced in front of the mirror the night before appearing on set.

r87, I agree with you except that she's wonderful in "Rebecca." She really transcends herself in that performance.

Or as we used to call it, "the set."

Whichever of you bitches voted for ME can kiss my ass and plant a tree for Israel at the same time.

I’m glad to see Rosalind Russell got off easy. I love her and in drama she could be subtle.

R87, I agree. I wouldn’t call it ham, and I’m sure it had a lot to do with that style of acting that was big in the 40s.

Of course there’s that Grande Dame thing Olivia and Joan both got from their mother. I love Olivia de Havilland, but have you ever read her Oscar speeches? Sheesh.

Angelina Jolie. The woman cannot ever be subtle

Nathan Lane

I always feel sorry for the three lead actresses in "The Bad Seed." They were at the time mostly stage actresses and they went right from doing the play to making the movie, and the director did not help them tone down the effects they had honed on stage, so they needed direction to tone it down, but the director did not help them. Henry Jones, who plays the nasty handyman, comes off much better because he had appeared in films before and was more familiar with toning down his performance.

All things considered, I'm surprised Nancy Kelly is as moving as she is, even though she's projecting far too broadly for the camera.

Most extremely seasoned stage actors were or are always too big for the camera: Laurence Olivier, Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Zero Mostel, Patti LuPone. I'm always impressed by the ones who can shuttle back and forth fairly easily from stage to screen like Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon.

R95. I agree about the staginess ad melodramatic quality of the acting in The Bad Seed, but if you look at it is patterned on Greek tragedy, the hyper-reality of the performances can work. Heckart is given only two scenes (albeit juicy ones) and she summons the intensity of emotions of that poor, poor soul (she won a Golden Globe). Nancy Kelly has the most screen time, so moves radically from conversational naturalism to the hysteria of her breakdown when she realizes Rhoda has set him on fire—the knocking on the table is effective. And Patty McCormick succeeds in playing the child version of the always self-justifying narcissistic —who can only fool her mother for so long. In some ways, the most naturalistic performance is Evelyn Varden’s Monica, in part because her character is always performing. Even her performance belies its origins onstage. But I showed the film to a class of college honors studies (none of whom knew the family) and the women in the class were particularly moved by Kelly’s Christine—they somehow identified with the mother’s dilemma. I can still watch it every time TCM shows it.

Kate McKinnon

Alec Baldwin

Lauren Hutton.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is the 1986 miniseries Sins, for its outrageous story, glorious costumes and sets, and also for the fabulously hammy acting in almost every scene. At 5:20:00 Lauren even manages that rare feat of out-hamboneing Joan Collins.

[quote]r93 Angelina Jolie. The woman cannot ever be subtle

I think she's a really gifted actress. Her GIA made me cry, and she's also very good and naturalistic in CHANGELING.

Maybe she's over the top in other stuff. I think the only other thing I've seen her in is MR. & MRS. SMITH, where she was very sexy.

I can't seem to find it now, but a while back (mid‐2010s, perhaps?), DL had a thread titled something along the lines of "Actors who you can tell are acting" or "Actors who are clearly just acting."

As soon as I saw the title, I IMMEDIATELY thought of Anne Hathaway (or AnnE as she was known on DL back then).

I clicked on the thread to contribute... only to see that the VERY FIRST REPLY was "AnnE."

LOL!!

Kisses to anyone who is somehow able to find that thread, btw.

Was Anna Magnani a braying, uncontrolled ham, or simply embodying Italian exuberance in all its unrestrained glory?

Viveca Lindfors was a fairly unassuming film actor in the 1950s, but from the 1970s onward she was totally OTT (i.e. WELCOME TO L.A.)

[quote]Was Anna Magnani a braying, uncontrolled ham, or simply embodying Italian exuberance in all its unrestrained glory?

In her English speaking/Hollywood films she was somewhat a fish out of water and she seemed to be overcompensating, acting wise, by being more showy (and more "ITALIAN") than in the films she made back home, where she was far more subtle. To get her greatness one must watch her European films.

R74 Yep.