Best Actresses with the worst agents?

Me.

Lili Taylor. I love her, but who told her The Haunting was a good idea?

I am a big fan of Naomi Watts.

R2 Very few working actors would say no to a leading role in a big-budget studio film. Any agent would have pushed her to do it.

Agents don't control much. And most don't have taste in material. They are there to do paperwork/contracts and discuss offers with their clients. Few have much wisdom or insight and a lot of the grunt work is done by younger agents who have only a few years experience. When they are ready to drop clients, they also push them into atrocious paycheck work to pump one last commission out of them. I think that happens more than people know about.

With Lili Taylor, The Haunting was a great deal for her. Star of a big summer movie. Awesome paycheck that probably was more than she made on the 10-15 movies she did before it combined. Reasonable chance of success even if it didn't turn out great. Movie still made $100 million domestic and was a heaping pile of shit. If it had been a mediocre movie, it would have done double. And that would have set her up for other great deals on studio work (meaning she could have gotten multiple roles that paid $500K or more as a supporting actress even if leading lady roles didn't follow). And at the end of the day, it didn't hurt her career. Nobody questioned her work on the film or thought she had anything to do with the fact the movie was a dumpster fire. She went into it and came out a respected actress. It had an amazing cast. I'm sure you'd be hardpressed to find a critic who had any issue with the acting. It was a shitty script by an incompetent director (who's previous movie was Speed 2).

My literary agent is useless. I got all my publications myself.

Regarding Lili Taylor, I am a huge fan of the original Haunting and thought the remake actually had the capacity to be quite good. The casting was excellent . But they removed almost all of the psychological undercurrents of the film and just turned it into jump scares. They had Taylor screaming every 2 minutes. Oddly enough I still prefer it to that joke of a Netflix series, which had zilch to do with the Shirley Jackson novel. At least the 1999 remake had some adherence to the book.

I agree on Watts. I think she is a bit more versatile than her fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman.

Love Lili Taylor. I first saw her as a kid in "The Haunting", and as an adult was exposed to her in a variety of movies she's done—she was fantastic in Abel Ferrara's "The Addiction", and she was also great in "Julie Johnson", playing a housewife who falls in love with her friend (played by Courtney Love). Then of course there is the classic "Mystic Pizza", which, though a soapy popcorn drama, is still a great movie, and she is adorable in it.

While Lili is not a mainstream actress with mainstream interests, she is a proven talent, and this more or less ensures her offbeat roles in big-budget movies; I think, like many actors of her breed, she takes roles in things like "The Haunting" or "The Conjuring" because they pay well, and it gives her the freedom to do a string of indie movies after and not have to worry about paying her bills.

While The Haunting turned out to be shit. Lili did great in The Conjuring.

Naomi Watts is seriously underrated, I think she's a phenomenal actress. I absolutely hated Mulholland Drive but she was incredible in it - she was also absolutely insanely good in 21 Grams.

Until Briarpatch came along, I’d have said Rosario Dawson.

Naomi‘s problem is that she’s based in NYC where her kids have been raised and she’s stuck doing small independent movies because nothing else films in New York.

Watts relies on distracting wigs as much as Kidman. She meeds to stop. It ruined her performance in the impossible for me.

The Haunting remake had a lot of issues, but I actually thought the casting all around was pretty good. The first half hour is pretty excellent until it turns into a CGI cheese fest.I don't think it hurt anyone's careers.

Also, keep in mind that, sometimes, actors sign on to early drafts of scripts before studios or directors step in and try to change things. Think about Fatal Attraction. Everyone signed on to make one movie, but when the ending tested poorly, they were all called back to reshoot the ending, which most of them seemed to hate. It's in most of their contracts that, once they sign on, they're on.

Agents have been known to turn down perfectly good projects for their actors if they feel it's beneath them or if they aren't paying enough. An actor might get a script sent to their agent for a brilliant role in a terrific indie movie, but if they're only offering them a few hundred a day, the agent will pass on it without even mentioning it to the actor. Many actors have fired their agents after learning things like this and rightfully so.

Andrew Riseborough

Dependable yet unlikable actress with the best agent : Elisabeth Moss. She just scores project after project, all A-Team. How the hell does she do it? Just watched the first season of Top of the Lake, I have no desire to see this actress ever again.

R17

Scientology.

AND Top of the Lake was supposed to star Anna Paquin.

Scientology? Oh, please. That doesn't guarantee you a career, ask the washed-up or non-famous scientologists

Elisabeth Moss was pretty brilliant in The Invisible Man, so she clearly has talent.

Elisabeth Moss is getting great parts. Her agent deserves a raise.

[Quote] Agents have been known to turn down perfectly good projects for their actors if they feel it's beneath them or if they aren't paying enough. An actor might get a script sent to their agent for a brilliant role in a terrific indie movie, but if they're only offering them a few hundred a day, the agent will pass on it without even mentioning it to the actor.

I wonder if this is applies to Henry Cavill...?

Who is the worst actress with the best agent?

R24 Roney "Blank Eyes " Mara. How she gets any work is beyond me.

Rooney is the fucking worst. She ruined Carol with her complete lack of chemistry with Blanchett. Literally anyone in her age bracket would have been better in that role.

I thought she was great in Carol. A lot of people thought she was, that's why she received an Oscar nomination.

Anne Hathaway

Please can you keep Elizabeth Moss.

We don't want her.

Anne Hathaway. I don't know what the fuck happened. Maybe she just has terrible taste? I know some A-listers can't tell whether a script is good or not, so they just go by the director.