Which actor/actress has the most *overrated* looks in history?

Julia Roberts?

Don't get me wrong. I'd have sex with her if I could, but she's not THAT good looking. Doesn't she resemble a horse?

hands down

couple others:
Pamela Anderson ('though her time has passed it seems)
Sarah Jessica Parker

Without her makeup and she was downright ugly. But I wonder if the National Midnite Star altered them to make her look that way.

All the women in that show look like rather badly worn women in their 40s - are they supposed to?

Did you see the tvguide cover with her a few weeks ago?

I'm a chick and I can't understand what is supposed to be attractive about her or any of her co-stars. They're all hideous.

She just had a baby.....And women are better after 35-40, as we go for what we want.....

:toast:

a sexy looking woman looks like"

She is cross-eyed and horsie-faced. Maybe she and Julia Roberts can play rivals for Mr Ed's affections in the inevitable movie.

If you're going to date a girly looking man why bother dating men at all?

Yuck.

Men: Tom Cruise. Can't act either.

I'm a straight guy, but I think he's kinda cute.

ON EDIT: seems straight guys and lesbians think he's cute. (Rosie whatshername. :)

I'm a straight chick, and think he's okay - certainly not the end-all and be-all of male desireability. I think it's his nose that keeps him from being handsome.

and I'm gay. :D

:toast:

Before MI2, I hated him--his looks, his acting, his wife, his everything.

After MI2, I went....hmm. He was *very* good looking in that. I think the longer hair works on him (and it doesn't work on very many men). I also appreciated that he cast a black actress, which happens so rarely unless she's a music star.

I've grown to like his acting a bit as well. He was great in Magnolia.

horrible, horrible actor and not good looking at all.

He's cutish, don't get me wrong, but he's what? 29? 30? His body looks like he's 11....

Gilbert Grape. The part seemed to fit him.

The only reason he wasn't his usual grostequely overacting self in that movie was because it was so well written and it was so obviously a Depp vehicle.

Let Lenny have a lead role and he will puke all over the movie with his hyper-thesbianism. The only person i've ever who consistently overacts worse than Lenny is Sally Field.

That's a great movie, you're right. But, Lenny wasn't really good in it. He just didn't ruin it.
The Professor

I remember watching it for the first time, and telling my wife, "Oh no, he's gonna' burn the house down."

I am not saying that she has an ugly face, but.....

Never did get why guys thought she was so beautiful.
Kim Bassinger, yes, Cameron Diaz? EH! :shrug:

she's hideous. Ughh...

She hasn't looked as good since.

.

i've seen all these threads about which actor/actress is the ugliest, most overrated, or whatever - and it makes me wonder: why is this (apparently) such a cause for scorn? isn't it a GOOD thing if, in this image-conscious industry, someone can achieve success WITHOUT having a perfect body/face? after all, great looks are a huge advantage. so if an actor/actress can become a star without that advantage, that suggests to me that maybe their success is based on something less superficial. maybe it's talent. maybe it's hard work. maybe it's grit. or maybe it's luck. whatever that factor is - it is something that can give hope to the rest of us, ordinary people who also weren't born with perfect faces and bodies.

when some people see a less-than-beautiful actress (for example) in a romantic role in a movie, they seem to think: ugh, how awful, get her out of here. me, i think: gee, that's terrific that the movies might depict something a little closer to real life.

there are way too many beautiful people on screen, hogging the show. i say, let there be more ugly or ordinary-looking people in the movies.

ON EDIT: Upon a little thought, you are absolutely correct.

But, still, I'm just playing along.

While I will say that, ultimately, there is nothing you can do about your looks (I should know), I am SO SICK of hearing how BEAUTIFUL half the actresses in the world are, as if that's their biggest contribution to a film. Also, most women in the world would be as "beautiful" as actresses if they had millions to spend on facials, haircuts, etc. That's what physical beauty has become--what you can fake and what you can afford.

I am especially sick of hearing anything at all about Jennifer Aniston. Particularly because a number of her films hinge on how 'beautiful' and 'wantable' she is. :shrug:

But I think Julia Roberts is very beautiful. She has a wide mouth, but it has worked to her advantage--smiling is attractive, laughing is attractive--and she has terrific eyes and that great mole/birthmark thingie. She is not cookie cutter beautiful, like so many Hollywood actresses. She's lovely.

I still J. Lo is hot. Though she can't really act or sing or well at least she looks hot.

not so very thrilled with his acting. Although most people think my husband looks like Jim Carrey.....Yuck!!!!!:puke:

Hollywuss excludes people if they don't look good enough or if the public decides they don't look good enough. Even right down to the teeth; if they're not perfect then you're out.

'nuff said.

The chicks
Julia Roberts
Yep. I always throught she was way, way overrated both as an actress and as a 'beauty.' Then I saw "Noting Hill" and both views changed, and I also thought she was great in "Erin Brocavich." Still, I'd agree that she's overrated in terms of her looks, which is the whole focus of this thread.

Jennifer Lopez
I think she's pretty pretty - perhaps I should admit having tended to have a high degree of attraction to certain Hispanic women (and, also Asian women, African-heritage women, Polynesian women, Native-American women, Caucasian women, any other women that I may have inadvertently left out, and mixtures thereof). Anyway, her babeliness aside, I think she's overrated in everything that she does more than in the way she looks. But, yeah, given the degree of gushing that goes on about her looks, perhaps she isn't beautiful enough to meet the standard that the gushers set. Not to sound Mr Blackwell here - I'm not saying she's not beautiful, or that physical beauty (a nebulous concept, even toward its endpoints) is even important, but that's just the context of this thread, merely looking at these people as 2-D representations of attempts at some impossible-to-define ideal.

Pamela Anderson
Maybe she's a more worthwhile person than her interviews would suggest but, though her body's spectacular, I don't find her particularly attractive. Even forgetting the kind of unattractive feeling that she projects (I hate to use the word 'slut' but, come on, that's the image that she so carefully cultivates) she's just too dependent on makeup to paint a becoming picture, and the end result is strangely unbecoming. Sure, if I was naked in a room with her (and adequately protected) I'd undoubtedly be blown away by her beauty but, apart from the fact that love (and lust) is blind, Little Forrest has different criteria for beauty. Yeah, I've seen those pictures of her without her makeup and, though the tabloids inevitably pick the most unflattering frame if it suits their point, it's not a pretty sight......I'd guess primarily because of her hard-living ways and the abuse she puts her body through. She's still young and yet she's aged beyond belief thanks to the party-girl life. She'd probably look a lot better after a good, long break from it all. Come, we go camping in the redwoods, naked.....

Sarah Jessica Parker
I guess I never 'got' her alleged beauty, either. She's maybe not classically beautiful, whatever that is - heck, for all I know, she's the very definition of classic beauty. Anyway, again comparing the way her looks affect me to the gushing over her perfection, I'd say that she's generally overrated. That's not to say that she does not look good or has beauty. And, again, if she got tired of Mr Broderick and split with him to move in with me (hey! it could happen!), and she was a good person, I sure wouldn't put up a fight.

Cameron Diaz
Kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's not so much the Pez-dispenser mouth that many find so attractive (ditto Julia Roberts) it's just something else. Heck, I've seen many women with wide mouths who I think are stunningly beautiful - I hereby retract the Pez-dispenser description, actually, in their memory. Plus she looks way skinnier now than she did before, though not as afflicted as Lara Flynn Boyle in that picture that was posted here a while back. Maybe that's her optimal weight, though, and she's healthy. Whatever, though I think she's attractive and cute (and almost a dead ringer for one of my very first loves), I'd have to say that she's overrated, too.

Jennifer Anniston
Same with this one. A few years ago, when everyone was raving about her hair, I failed to see what was so special about either her hair or her storied face. I didn't even see "Friends" until last year and I have to say that she's not what I would call beautiful - well, I don't know: maybe the pieces aren't but, put it all together, and she does look appealing and has a beauty about her. Usual disclaimers about 'what is beauty' and 'does the physical even matter' applying here, of course. I agree that she kind of has a mannish quality about her face, sort of strange because she's so petite, but part of her real beauty, I think, is that she looks more realistically beautiful than do many of our modern ideals of perfect beauty. What some might consider 'flawed' physical beauty can be the most alluring kind of all. Regardless, I'd have to say that she's overrated - again, as with most of these people, that's as much or far more a function of people hyping them as immensely beautiful than it is a reflection on their actual physical appeal. If I saw Jennifer A. walking down the street I'd go "whoa.....what a babe!," but having the entire celebrity-dazzled media tell me that she's a veritable goddess kind of sets up unrealistic expectations.


The dudes
Here it gets harder for me (no, not that way, you buncha perverts!) because the physical-attraction thing's MIA (or, at least, tuckeed so far back in the recesses of my psyche that I may never find it even if I looked for it), but I can still recognize male beauty, I think.

Brad Pitt
I can see how people find him so appealing, physically, in body and in his face. I think he's good-looking, and he seems like a cool dude (and down-to-earth) but, again, he's been sold as this almost-impossible-to-realize ideal of male perfection and I don't know that anyone could live up to that. His features don't add up to 'attractive,' I think but - like his wife and others above - the overall package has appeal, enhanced by his smile. Sure, overrated, but still a good-looking guy.

Tom Cruise
Almost the same story, except that I think he adds up to less in the looks department. Vastly overrated back in the '80s, for sure, but hardly and ugly little dude. Tell you one thing, though, if I were female the guy from "Top Gun" that I'd have been squealing over would have been Val Kilmer rather than Tom Cruise. Well, maybe not 'sqealing'.......

Leonardo diCaprio
Overrated to the max, as both an actor and as a 'hunk.' Bleh. Actively annoys me to see him on screen. I'm not quite sure what it is about him, but he's just immeasurably irritating to me.

Ben Affleck
I never saw "Good Will Hunting," somehow (hope to rememdy that one of these days), so perhaps I missed his best acting turn yet. But from what evidence I have seen he seems rather overrated as an actor - in the sense that, even if he got bad reviews for it he's still overrated by virtue of the fact that they even let him still make films - and kind of a non-event as a physical specimen. I guess he's good looking, but I'd hope that nobody defines that unattainable male ideal by his face.

Finally, I agree with dfong63 - I don't think any of these people can be called 'ugly' in terms of looks (they're still all probably above-average on the scale if you could define a scale of handsomeness/beauty) but it is a good thing that people who are not flawless in their looks can achieve success in an industry noted for its superficiality. Sure, it's still not a very open door in that respect, but it is interesting that some of the men and women presented to us as physical ideals are arguably outstripped by some of the people that we see in our everyday lives.

Still, I don't know how many 'ordinary-looking' people make it big in movies and TV these days (certianly more men than women, I'd bet). The bottom line is that physical looks do not comprise real beauty or, at least, are not the totality of it.

EDIT: fixed about eight million of the most egregious spelling mistakes....the rest I apologize for

but also I would add Catherine Zeta Jones and Colin Farrell (sp?) - attractive in a stricly physical way, but wayyyyy overrated and personalities make them hideous.

I'd only tolerate your adding Catherine Zeta Jones to the list with the beefing-up of your admission of her attractiveness to something more along the lines of "yes, although she is stunningly beautiful and needs to ditch the wonderful Mr Douglas and immediately live in sin with the even-more-wonderful Mr Gump, I find her personality somewhat grating...." :-)

Ahhhhh....Katerina......



Okay.....maybe she's ever so slightly overrated, simply because the pundits of the world's media have been justifiably bowled over by her radiance, but it's still not by much. :P

Found these quotes on a fan site:

http://www.zeta-jones-fan.com/

Some interesting perspectives on 'beauty' here.





Zeta-Jones insists that she's anything but. "I've got a broken nose," she recently told the Dallas Morning News. "Freckles. I have broken capillaries around my eyes, and my neck's funny from an operation."

"I was teased because I had a really flat-looking nose and before I got braces my teeth used to stick out a bit."

"I don't think I am esthetically beautiful. I am just photogenic."

"When I'm doing push-ups at the L.A. gyms, there are all these women whose fake boobs are already touching the floor. I have so much farther to go."

"I think I came out of the womb loving makeup."

"The world is full of beautiful women. But I know what I do have is talent, and I want to be here for the long run. I'm not obsessed with myself, and I try not to rely on any kind of beauty. That's why I try to put a certain oomph into my performances, some fun and physicality. And right now, I'm not going to be cast as a wallflower anytime soon, but I can do it and someday I'd like to try."

About her topless pictures: "Who cares? Let's get it out there, while it lasts. At 70, I'll be throwing them over my shoulders. They'll become a wrap - put some fox fur on the ends, or something."

"If I turn up at a premiere with my <breasts> hanging out, I'm doing it for a reason: I'm promoting my work."

...The sex symbol says she likes to surf the Web, including checking out some of the electronic shrines dedicated to her. However, she says, "I don't go into the triple-X sites. I'm certainly not going to pay money to see myself naked, when I can just go into the bathroom and whip it off, for free."

"Older men come on to me all the time, and I'm really happy about that. I really like them. Older men know more about life and what's going on. I'm probably the only person on the beach who sees a hard-bodied guy and goes, 'Oh, put it away, will you?' Beautiful boys are far too interested in making themselves look beautiful. They don't want any competition. At the beach, I'm more likely to be attracted to a guy no one else notices, sitting far off, under an umbrella reading a book"

"I could just see myself having a lot of money, but doing rubbish, being just sexy and pretty for the rest of my life, and I didn't want that."

"I look for someone I can laugh with, a real mate. I'd rather have a great discussion than stare at an exquisite jawbone."

"I like women to look like women. I hated grunge. No one's more feminist than me, but you don't have to look as if you don't give a - you know. You can be smart, bright, and attractive aesthetically to others - and to yourself."

"I wanted to be an actress and I was becoming a ‘tabloid babe’."

"I haven't heard it in a long time, I must say. There used to be a time when I would walk down the street and everyone would shout "perfick". At first it would be (smiles through gritted teeth and gives a little friendly wave), then, after a while, I really felt like saying, "Look, piss off." You'd get these men in trucks pulling up next to the car and saying, "You're looking perfick again today, love." And it's like, "Oh shut up." It was such a big programme that the public sort of had me and the character living in one big beautiful bubble, which kind of pissed me off because, of course, I'm not like that."

"My looks may be the first thing you see of me - and I can use that -- but I can use what's inside of me now."

I admire Catherine's going to the extreme for modesty's sake, but she's very pretty. Like Halle Berry and Angelina Jolie, she's not my favorite type, but I don't think she's one of the most overrated. I actually dislike Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, and Nicole Kidman's personalities more. Catherine has some charm.

As far as Jennifer Aniston is concerned, her down to earthness is appealing. I definitely think she pretty.

Cameron Diaz is inconsistent, but when she's on TV, she looks very good.

I find Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra, Julia Roberts, Angela Bassett, Penelope Cruz, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Bo Derek, and Julianne Moore to be among the most overrated.

like Julia Roberts - I can't see any beauty for the aura of "something tremendously irritating thing that I can't explain." But, as they say, "To each his own!"....

Where is the beauty in that face? I keep trying to find it, but coming up empty. Is that what "exotic"-looking means?

when younger, she looked like the kid in your class who "was born with a hole in their heart"

She's not even a good actor, either.

Gawd I hate that damn laugh of hers. It's in every single trailer of every single movie she's ever made. It's as though she has it written into every script just so she can do it. Is that supposed to be endearing?

That girl next door look? Only if you're next door to a barn.

Never could understand the fascination with her. She's okay. But not a goddess in my opinion.

I think she's downright ugly.