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Terrence Stamp in Superman 2 (1980)
Keanu Reeves in The Gift (2000)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: Reeves plays a wife-beating redneck with admirable gusto and a deeply hokey Southern accent. Sam Raimi loves to let his performers run wild…
Why We Love It: “Messin' with the devil's gawn git you buuuurned!” purrs Reeves, in an instantly quotable encounter with Cate Blanchett.
Jon Voight in Anaconda (1997)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: Voight does his level best to steal the show with an array of remarkable facial expressions. See above.
Why We Love It: Some of his gurning really is quite out there. What’s he aiming for here, we wonder?
Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs Of New York (2002)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: An Oscar-nommed turn it might be, but there’s more than a whiff of ham about the way Day-Lewis chomps his way through his dialogue, squinting, snarling and twiddling his moustache as he does so.
Why We Love It: It’s tremendous fun, and more than a little unnerving.
Raul Julia in Street Fighter (1994)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: It’s a videogame adaptation, so we can expect the performance to be broad, but still… this is pretty epic stuff from Raul Julia!
Why We Love It: Because he gets to shout lines like the following: “You still refuse to accept... my godhood?! Keep your own God! In fact, this might be a good time to pray to Him! For I beheld Satan as he fell from heaven! LIKE LIGHTNING!"
Nic Cage in Face / Off (1997)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: One of Cage’s finest performances, in a film that demands the kind of wild-eyed silliness that our hero is such a natural at.
Why We Love It: For once, Cage is channelling his wild-man energy in the right direction. “I’d like to take his face… off!”
John Travolta in Face / Off (1997)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: It takes a special kind of performer to out-ham Nic Cage… John Travolta is every inch that performer.
Why We Love It: We’re basically watching John Travolta play Nic Cage as John Travolta. What could be more fun?
Sean Connery in The Avengers (1998)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: If you’re playing a super-villain with designs on controlling the world’s weather, there’s only one way you can really play it. Big.
Why We Love It: Only Connery could make a moustache-twiddling villain in a giant cuddly bear suit more ridiculous. Bravo!
Frank Langella in Masters Of The Universe (1987)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: Langella is on fine form as chief villain, Skeletor. Indeed, it’s hard to think of another performance in which the actor is so evidently enjoying himself!
Why We Love It: Zod might be persuasive when he instructs people to kneel, but he doesn’t have anything on Skeletor…
Pierce Brosnan in Taffin (1988)
The Scenery-Chewing Performance: A second mention for this one in a week, but Brosnan really does re-write the actor’s manual in this one, delivering his lines in ways noone else would even consider an option!
Why We Love It: It’s ham acting at its most gleeful. Don’t like it? Then maybe you shouldn’t be living heeeeeeeere!
