2. M. Night Shyamalan
Preferred Acting Style: Speak Slowly So They Know It's Dramatic M. Night Shyamalan isn't a bad enough actor to warrant my calling him a "bad actor," but he still isn't good enough to warrant his self-casting in small parts that he wouldn't have gotten if he wasn't the one calling the shots. That's to say, M. Night Shyamalan has a nasty habit of hiring himself to play the odd role here in their in his massively inconsistent canon of movies, and every single time he shows up, everyone in the audience groans. I'm not sure whether the guy is a frustrated actor, but we've seen him doing something in pretty much every film. Does he think that we like seeing him pop in his movies like movie-goers did with Hitchcock or something? The difference is, of course, is that Hitchcock never opened his mouth and had the dignity to appear for a few seconds in the corner of the frame, walking some dogs, or backflipping over a gate (okay, not that one). In
Signs, Shyamalan plays a small but relatively crucial part - but why did he have to cast himself? What's the point? Shouldn't a director always opt to cast the best person for the job? That's not Shyamalan: he sticks out like a sore thumb.