9 Amazing Performances By Actors Who Stopped Giving A Damn

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was this close to being an unwatchable mess. Then along came a hero -- who happened to be playing a villain -- to carry the hot mess of a script on his back while completely disregarding the suggested tone of the movie. That hero was Alan Rickman.

Between Kevin Costner's wavering English accent, charmless secondary characters, and bombardment of intrusive subplots (including the always-looming threat of rape), Robin Hood needed someone to hold the audience's hand and assure them it was okay to take the movie as a bit of fun. Rickman's extraordinarily hammy turn as the Sheriff of Nottingham did just that.

It's as if Rickman watched Costner's bored, brooding orations from the sidelines on the first day of filming and decided, then and there, that he'd have to single-handedly make up for the star's lifeless portrayal. Or, at the very least, he was going to have some damn fun making an awful movie.

Rickman's lines are delivered with the kind of sashaying menace that makes you forget how terrible the dialogue actually is, instead drawing you in with campy readings that put the entire cast of Batman & Robin to shame. Somehow, some way, it works.