10 Respected Actors Who Completely Hammed It Up To Play Flamboyant Villains

8. Geoffrey Rush As Captain Barbossa - Pirates of the Caribbean Series

It's entirely appropriate that the villain in the movie adaptation of a pirate-themed Disneyland ride is altogether completely ludicrous. And Geoffrey Rush - the Oscar-winning Shine actor best associated with subtler supporting character work in the likes of The King's Speech and Munich - happily obliges, serving up the Pirates of the Caribbean's dastardly Hector Barbossa series with a generous helping of yarrrr! Throughout the four Pirates films, Rush manages to make Johnny Depp's camptastic Captain Jack Sparrow seem almost underwhelming in comparison, as he cackles at the moon that by night turns him into a nocturnal skeleton-ghost thing. And Rush's ham-mania only increases as the series goes on - by the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides, Rush has given up the ghost of trying to make Barbossa into a three-dimensional, sympathetic baddie and has instead just allowed the natural transformation into pantomime villain take place.