4. Spike Lee
Preferred Acting Style: Just Sort Of Shrug Through It Spike Lee's performance in his best ever movie,
Do The Right Thing, makes sense given the tone of the movie: he gives a realistic, understated and rather natural performance - or, at least, that's what it looked like back at the time. In the wake of his turn in that movie, though, it's come to a lot of people's attention that Spike Lee might not be a great actor, and there's a sort of half-assed feeling to a bunch of his performances that's unappealing. So whereas that worked in
Do The Right Thing, it doesn't really work anywhere else. I wouldn't say Spike Lee ever really feels like an actor, but only as a natural mouthpiece for the director - which is him. Normally it's possible to kind of take a deep breathe and accept that he's up there on the screen, but occasionally his self-casting proves disastrous - witness
Malcolm X, for example, where he casts himself as Malcolm's childhood buddy. It's horrible to watch.