If you’ve ever wondered what the hell Al Pacino was doing in Jack and Jill, the official term is: slumming it. Urban Dictionary has a very serious definition of this movie industry practice, described as ‘when a mid-to-high-profile actor, actress, or (less frequently) director accepts a project considered far enough beneath them to raise questions about their integrity’. Hey, sometimes actors need to make a buck like the rest of us, so Moviepilot brings you our Top 10 celebs caught in the slumming act!

Liam Neeson sunk your Battleship

! I love Liam Neeson and I’m convinced that his choice of roles in recent times have to do with the fact that he’s still shattered from his wife’s death and will take any job offer just to keep busy. Here he is as Admiral Shane in Peter Berg’s Transformers-at sea extravaganza. Thankfully we’ll see him back as Ra’s Al Ghul in this summer’s The Dark Knight Rises. Now let’s pretend that Taken 2 isn’t actually happening…


Oh look, Ralph Fiennes starred in a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez. Why, Ralph Fiennes, why?? Maid in Manhattan is an insult to Schindler’s List, The English Patient and Lord Voldemort himself!


And now, for a double whammy, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes together again in the masterpieces that were Clash and Wrath of the Titans! ‘Come on brother, let’s have some fun like we’re young gods again.’ Movie gold right there, but we’d expect nothing less from two robe-wearing Oscar nominees…


Anthony Hopkins had to wear a gold eye patch for his role as Norse god Odin, King of Asgard, in Thor (and the upcoming Thor: The Dark World

). While eye patches are generally a sign of badassery, Hopkins had a few embarrassing issues with his piece, as he told WENN:

The only problem was I had moments of anxiety because I had no three-dimensional vision. I felt very embarrassed to be guided onto the set because I’m not that old, but because I couldn’t see.

You’re above this, Hannibal!


Yes, that’s Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman doing the hula in Adam Sandler’s Just Go With It! Granted, Kidman was hilarious as Jennifer Aniston’s bitchy rival Devlin, but this was certainly a departure from her usual mature fare.


This just makes me want to cry. What happened to you, Al Pacino? Looks like another case of celebs succumbing to The Sandler. You were in The Godfather, for crying out loud! They even gave you an Oscar for Scent of a Woman, but there’s no hooaah-ing your way out of this shit barrel.


Just like Pacino, Robert De Niro has made a lot of nonsense in his old age. Long gone are Travis Bickle and Raging Bull. De Niro post-1999 is all about Analyze This and Analyze That and Meet the Parents and the Fockers. We’re watching YOU, old man, and we’re not loving what we’re seeing…


This doesn’t really count, because Samuel L. Jackson apparently went into Snakes on a Plane with eyes wide open:

I did a movie like this because it’s the kind of movie I’d go to see on a Saturday afternoon with my friends. And we couldn’t wait for it to come out so we could go and yell at the screen, and reach around and touch somebody on the neck and they’d go AHHHH! [BigFanBoy.com]

Okay, we believe him. Moving on.


I’m all for romantic comedies, but I still can’t understand how or why P.S. I Love You ever got made. And worse, why Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank would accept to star in such utter sappy crap! What is it with actors pulling a Nic Cage after they win an Oscar? Normally, you make crap films in your early career so you don’t starve, not after you’ve won an Oscar and have your pick of the crop…


You may know Kathy Bates as the nice lady who teaches Leo DiCaprio to be a high-society gentleman in Titanic, but Bates is an actress in her own right with an Oscar under her belt for the 1990 Stephen King adaptation, Misery. That said, she’s also a working actress who’s taken whatever she could get throughout the years just to stay in the game and make up for never being ‘pretty enough’. This includes P.S. I Love You, and the cringe-worthy Failure To Launch. Surely the title should have been some indication…


And finally, the award for collective slumming goes to the entire cast of New Year’s Eve. Hey look, there’s Robert De Niro and Hilary Swank again. And Michelle Pfeiffer, and Halle Berry, along with every other actor, ever. I saw this movie on a trans-Atlantic flight and it was like eating sugar with a spoon. I’m still mad that opportunistic director Garry Marshall single-handedly ruined the format made popular by Love Actually with this and the equally syrupy Valentine’s Day. But more importantly, did Katherine Heigl get a bigger payday than De Niro?