13 Incredible Performances By Otherwise Terrible Actors

2. Sylvester Stallone - Cop Land

Sylvester Stallone is another actor whose career has mostly been defined by limitations and chiefly because of the genres he's found himself pigeon-holed in. Thanks to his physicality and his suitability to rougher characters, he's been rather lumbered with action material that hasn't always offered a chance to stretch his acting abilities.

There have been occasions where he's been able to add emotional authenticity - as in Rocky and the first Rambo - but as time went on that was hammered out of his franchise performances and his stand-alones. Eventually, there was an idea of a Stallone performance and that's precisely what he was hired for.

But Cop Land stands apart from all of that one-dimensional fare, thanks in part to an excellent script but mostly thanks to Stallone's vulnerable, broken performance. He's not the invulenrable superman of his other action films, instead he's a shuffling hulk, soulful and wounded by lost potential, and his underdog victory is delightful to watch.

You also have to give an honourable mention to Creed, in which he plays an ageing Rocky with the same sort of pathos. But, arguably, there's no way that performance could have happened without what he learned from Cop Land.