15 Truly Terrible Villainous Performances From Awesome Actors

15. Mads Mikkelsen - Doctor Strange

Mads Mikkelsen is a fantastic actor who excels in particular at playing villains, so casting him as Doctor Strange's main villain seemed like a goldmine despite Marvel's poor track record with villains. Unfortunately this apparently perfect bit of casting went horribly wrong and Kaecilius was one of the MCU's very worst villains.

An evil wizard with a ponytail and dark eyes, this antagonist spends the film walking around slowly without menace, charisma or backstory of any kind. It is a more or less a nothing role and one of the most thankless parts imaginable, but one would expect an actor of Mikkelsen's caliber to be able to breathe life into such uninspired material.

Curiously, Mikkelsen doesn't try at all and is terrible in the part. Gone is the brooding intensity and dramatic depth that made Le Chiffre and his take on Hannibal Lecter so memorable; instead Mikkelsen takes subtlety to the wrong extreme. He is a complete blank in this part and does nothing look ahead in a vaguely stern manner. Instead of coming across as a legitimate threat, he looks like a parent telling off their kid for being naughty. Just awful.