Actresses Who Are In Desperate Need Of Acting Classes

Hollywood is littered with talented actresses. From Tilda Swinton's incredible ability to play three different characters in one flick to Meryl Streep's unbelievable number of Academy Award nominations, women have become serious contenders in a once-male-dominated industry.  

Unfortunately, not everyone has the lasting power of Streep or the chameleon-like abilities of Swinton. While this is sometimes due to a lack of sharpened skills, it can also be boiled down to industry stereotypes. As feminist film theorist, Laura Mulvey put it in her now-famous essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, women are "the bearer of meaning and not the maker of meaning," in movies, suggesting that actresses aren't placed in roles to further a scene — but to be observed for the patriarchal viewer. While times have certainly changed, a lot of actresses find themselves pigeonholed in roles that end up haunting their entire careers. 

Other ladies that now dominate the big screen could also be lacking since they come from different backgrounds of fame. Some are singers, some are models, some may even just be socialites, but the message is the same: they're not exactly cut out for Tinseltown. While some stars have made a successful transition into the world of acting (yas, Gaga, yas!), others leave a lot to be desired. Here are some actresses who should seriously consider getting a new manager — or at least use their hard-earned dollars to invest in an acting class or two.  

As of this writing, Jessica Alba seems primarily focused on a new industry — her successful clean beauty line, Honest Beauty. We can't help but wonder: did it have something to do with her sinking acting career?

In 2018, the brunette was hit with some disappointing stats. According to ET Canada, Alba was subject to a survey on GoCompare.com, which uses the average Metacritic score for actors in its ranking system. The verdict? She's the worst actor in the last 20 years. Having starred in 35 movies during that time frame, the Sin City starlet has "an average score of 39 out of 100, with almost 60 percent of her films having negative reviews." Yikes! 

But is Alba to blame? In a candid interview with PopSugar, the beauty brand owner dished, "They couldn't figure out my ethnicity. ... They were like, 'You're not Latin enough to play a Latina, and you're not Caucasian enough to play the leading lady, and so you're going to be the 'exotic' one.' Whatever that was." So, would acting classes have helped Alba much if she was consistently typecast into empty, eye candy roles? As Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty wrote in his scathing review for Mechanic: Resurrection, "The whole joyless enterprise is an excuse to put Alba in a turquoise bikini." When it came down to it, maybe Alba was simply sick of playing the same character.

Shooting to fame as a child star thanks to her leading role in The Parent Trap, Lindsay Lohan was once considered a talented actress — until she grew up. Becoming more well-known as a tabloid regular than for her acting chops, it seemed that as the redhead got older, the roles she chose eerily echoed her fading career in Hollywood. Starring in a slew of bad movies, Lohan was nominated for multiple Razzie Awards –  even winning two of them for the same movie. Other flicks, such as Liz & Dick, which saw the Bronx native playing Elizabeth Taylor, were met with mockery, like from The Telegraph, which dubbed her portrayal of the famed actress as "hilariously bad." 

Another problem to arise? Line memorization was apparently the part of acting class Lohan skipped. Per The Daily Beast, when Lohan was cast in a David Mamet play in the West End, she was graced with audience laughter when she blanked on her lines on stage. Cringe. The outlet did note, however, that Lohan "remained charming throughout," so that's... something? 

At the end of the day, the failed-beach club owner still has a sliver of hope. "I know that I'm a damn good actress ... I want the respect that I had when I was doing great movies," Lohan declared to Vanity Fair in 2010, while swearing off her then-apparent preference for the party scene. It seems The Academy wasn't buying it.

Milla Jovovich is a horror and sci-fi darling. Shooting to fame starring in The Fifth Element, the Ukranian-born beauty then gained notoriety playing Alice in the Resident Evil series. However, did she rise to the A-list on her acting chops alone? As it turns out, Jovovich's hubby is Paul W.S. Anderson — the director behind the post-apocalyptic franchise. Hmm, could that have had something to do with her landing the role?

It seems that the brunette is at least aware she's been labeled as a one-trick-pony. Speaking to The Georgia Straight, Jovovich declared, "Pigeonhole me, please ... When we started, I was a hot chick with a gun and now I am an old chick with a gun."

Since retiring the role of Alice, the model-turned-actress starred in Hellboy, which was met to comically bad reviews. This led the starlet to offer up her own two cents on Instagram. "All my raddest films have been slammed by critics. It's f**king hilarious. Dazed and Confused? Seriously? Classic movie. The Fifth Element! You would have thought that was the worst movie ever made if you read the reviews in like '98. Zoolander? Slammed. Joan of Arc? Disaster. Resident Evil? Let's not even go there. Anyway, every one of those films is now a cult classic. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. And this will be too." Sorry, Milla, but audiences didn't seem to agree.

Poor Jennifer Love Hewitt received quite the unfortunate acting title back in 2011 that, well, stuck with her career. According to a joint effort between Slate and Rotten Tomatoes, Hewitt was labeled the "worst actress of the last 25 years." As the site wrote, "Hewitt has the rare distinction of never having made a single 'fresh' (above 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) film. Her average score of 18.9 owes to such duds as Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (7 percent), I Know What You Did Last Summer (35 percent), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (7 percent), and both Garfield movies (15 percent and 11 percent, respectively)."

Matters didn't get any better in 2016 when the so-called "worst-reviewed" actress in Hollywood had a brief stint on CBS's Criminal Minds — much to the dismay of a few die-hard fans, who actually went so far as to petition to get Hewitt off the show. The petition stated, "We can only stand so many more episodes of this Lifetime Movie-style acting." As of this writing, the nasty online plea is closed, and only ever garnered 42 supporters, but still... ouch! 

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Criminal Minds showrunner Erica Messer said that Hewitt was written off the show so she could give birth to her second child and "time off to be a full-time mom." But don't tell those 42 petition signees. Just let them have this. 

Once an It-girl thanks to starring in a slew of late '90s teen comedies, Tara Reid hasn't been able to prove that she can take on anything more serious. Known for playing the adorable Vicky in American Pie, the blue-eyed actress didn't know what to do with her newfound fame. Opening up to The Mirror years later, Reid explained,  "At the time of American Pie my career was so high, it was blasting and then it dropped. All of a sudden you go from one extreme to the other."

It didn't help that the starlet's life at the time mirrored the raunchy flicks she starred in, either. Quickly becoming known as a party girl, Reid seemed to be too busy doing shots — and we don't mean the kind in front of the camera — to hit up some apparently much needed acting classes. 

Getting nominated for a bunch of Razzie Awards certainly didn't do wonders for the socialite's reputation, but as it turned out, one flick did so bad, it actually reignited her career. 2013's Sharknado was so horrendous, it became a cult classic. Even Reid is surprised by the fan worship of the flick that turned into a franchise. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, the actress admitted, "It's amazing to me what happened with this little film. It still blows my mind away. It really does."

Okay, we get it. Paris Hilton isn't really an actress. The socialite-turned-businesswoman did, however, have a brief stint on the silver screen. The starlet's biggest Tinseltown claim-to-fame was for the remake of House of Wax, a slasher which saw Hilton utilizing her vocal chops for a healthy dose of screaming. The Hollywood Reporter (via People) was ruthless with their review, dubbing the heiress "so bad she steals the show."

You'd think Hilton would have taken the hint and pull the plug on becoming an actress, but nevertheless, she kept trying. Her next role — presumably with no acting classes in between — was in The Hottie & the Nottie, a flick so bad, it still sits at number four on IMDb's Bottom 100 list. As for the critics? They weren't friendlier this time around, either. "We'll always have Paris ... thanks to a zombified performance worthy of George Romero in this limp-d**k of a comedy," wrote longtime Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers, who gave the movie a piddly half star out of four.

At the end of the day, at least The Simple Life alum knows how to take a joke. When House of Wax came out, producer Joel Silver hilariously printed "See Paris Die" t-shirts as a part of the marketing campaign. When Fox News asked the heiress about it, she simply said, "At first, I wasn't too keen on the idea, but, um, whatever. I can laugh at myself."

Madonna should probably stick to doing what she does best — singing. Why? The "Lucky Star" crooner has collected a whopping 9 Razzies. The worst part? She knows people are judging her, too. 

After starring in Evita, Madge spoke to The Los Angeles Times, admitting, "When I was chosen to make the movie I knew I wasn't Andrew Lloyd Webber's first choice. I don't think he was particularly thrilled with my singing abilities. I knew I was going in with odds against me. That's an awkward position to be in. You feel everyone's waiting for you to stumble." Although it was her only role that was ever well-received, critic Roger Ebert cleverly pointed out that the flick was "almost entirely music," meaning Madonna was probably more so in her comfort-zone considering her background as a singer.

While the critics haven't been overly friendly, fellow celebs haven't sung much praise for the popstar's acting chops, either. In an interview with Andy Cohen, actress and singer Patti LuPone had some thoughts on Madge's Evita performance. "Madonna is a movie killer," LuPone sassily quipped, adding," She's dead behind the eyes, she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be in film or on stage ... she is not an actress." Maybe LuPone could offer some pro bono acting classes?

There's no denying Megan Fox was typecast pretty early on in her career. Skyrocketing to fame seemingly overnight thanks to Michael Bay's Transformers, the Tennessee native was suddenly Hollywood's fave new eye candy. Her co-star, Shia LaBeouf, even told The Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog (via Today), "This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America."

It didn't help that critics were also confused about her acting chops, too. In 2009, the Jennifer's Body star was met with some peculiar survey results. Per Reuters, a poll on Moviefone.com ranked the actress the "year's sexiest female sctress." You'd think this was a compliment, but she was also awarded "the actress who gave the worst performance of 2009." Just like that, it appeared the blue-eyed beauty simply wasn't taken seriously. 

Fox didn't do much to help her case, either. She famously acknowledged that maybe taking a few acting classes wouldn't hurt, telling Entertainment Weekly (via NBC) that she was "terrible" in the first Transformers. When asked if she thought she was a good actress, she admitted, "I think I could be. If I really buckle down, I think one day I could be a very good actress." Oh, Megan. 

Demi Moore wasn't always seen as a bad actress. In fact, she was a Hollywood icon for what seemed like years. Climbing the Tinseltown ladder in the '80s, Moore became a bonafide star by the early '90s with the success of romantic-drama, Ghost. The flick solidified her star power, as it was a box office delight, earning $500 million worldwide from a budget of a mere $22 million.

However, it turns out that as quickly as Hollywood gives, it can also take away. In only a few years, Moore released a string of flops, each seemingly worse than the last. When the disastrous The Scarlet Letter came out, critics still had hope for the starlet's potential. Empire noted, "For all the talent on display, this is a waste of a movie." Striptease became a Razzie favorite, and 1997's G.I. Jane was a waste of Moore shaving her head — as it still saw the celeb take home an award for Worst Actress. 

With the raven-haired starlet seemingly having no direction, fans didn't know what to think, either. As a senior executive for G.I. Jane told Newsweek magazine (via The Telegraph), "We don't know what to do. People just don't want to see her."

When Kate Hudson appeared on the silver screen as Penny Lane in Almost Famous, it was impossible not to compare her to her legendary actress mom, Goldie Hawn. And according to famed film critic, Roger Ebert, that comparison wasn't exactly a good thing. Reviewing 2004's Raising Helen, he very candidly wrote, "Kate Hudson, who stars, seems to be following in the footsteps of her mother, Goldie Hawn; both have genuine talent, but choose too often to bury themselves in commercial formulas." Ouch.

Hudson did land a string of mid-2000s rom-coms that simply didn't hold up. As Buzzfeed News detailed in an editorial, "Increasingly, Almost Famous felt like a fluke: a role in which Hudson played some version of herself, and never found another one where she could pull off quite the same trick."

Some suspect this slew of light-hearted snoozefests may not just be Hudson's doing, however. The Alliance of Women Film Journalists, for example, awarded the star the special mention of "Actress Most in Need of a New Agent." Wait, do agents teach acting classes now? Nevertheless, it looks like the Bride Wars starlet ditched whoever it was that was helping her, and pivoted into another successful career — as the head of activewear brand, Fabletics.

January Jones shot to A-list fame playing the ice queen Betty Draper on AMC's Mad Men — instantly becoming a fave on the show. Suddenly, as she started pivoting onto the big screen, fans began to wonder if her stiff persona was just a trait of hers – not her character's. After she starred as Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class, entertainment site Complex wrote, "The physically hot Mad Men star plays a character who's authoritative and dominant in the comic book series with robotic vapidity ... Jones downgrades the character into X-Men's version of an Austin Powers Fembot." Harsh? Absolutely. 

As it turns out, audiences weren't the only one feeling a chill from Jones. Jared Gilmore, who played Betty Draper's son in Mad Men, left his role in the pursuit of other endeavors — yet took the time to offer up some advice for his replacement. Speaking to TV Guide, he dished, "Be careful around January [Jones]. She's not as approachable as the others."

At the end of the day, maybe her unapproachable demeanor has something to do with lack of experience. Even the blue-eyed beauty admitted that she'd never taken an acting class when she first arrived in Los Angeles. In an interview with GQ, she revealed, "The fact is, I had zero credits when I arrived ... I had never worked and had no training."