15 Truly Terrible Villainous Performances From Awesome Actors
12. Sharlto Copley - Old Boy
South African actor Sharlto Copley, whether it's District 9, Elysium, Hardcore Henry or even a weaker film like Free Fire, nearly always improves a film with his presence. There is one enormous exception.
It's not like 2013's unwanted Old Boy remake did anything right in particular, but Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and Samuel L Jackson escaped with their dignity intact. In contrast, Copley gives one of the worst performances by a good actor... ever, to be honest. Sure, the character was under-written and his revenge plot made no sense, but Copley turned an already forgettable villain into one of the worst in recent memory.
He's hammy, unconvincing, whiny and comes across like an angry child throwing a huge temper tantrum instead of a sadistic criminal carrying out a sick revenge plan. He's anything but menacing, yet he's also too embarrassing to watch to be funny, so this performance fails even as unintentional comedy. Worst of all, he murders a British accent so badly he puts Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins to shame.
Considering that this character was based on Lee Woo-Jin, a truly incredible film villain, there was no excuse for this character to be so awful.