Actresses Who Are In Desperate Need Of Acting Classes

Hollywood is littered with talented actresses. From Tilda Swinton's incredible ability to play three different characters in one flick to Meryl Streep's unbelievable number of Academy Award nominations, women have become serious contenders in a once-male-dominated industry.  

Unfortunately, not everyone has the lasting power of Streep or the chameleon-like abilities of Swinton. While this is sometimes due to a lack of sharpened skills, it can also be boiled down to industry stereotypes. As feminist film theorist, Laura Mulvey put it in her now-famous essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, women are "the bearer of meaning and not the maker of meaning," in movies, suggesting that actresses aren't placed in roles to further a scene — but to be observed for the patriarchal viewer. While times have certainly changed, a lot of actresses find themselves pigeonholed in roles that end up haunting their entire careers. 

Other ladies that now dominate the big screen could also be lacking since they come from different backgrounds of fame. Some are singers, some are models, some may even just be socialites, but the message is the same: they're not exactly cut out for Tinseltown. While some stars have made a successful transition into the world of acting (yas, Gaga, yas!), others leave a lot to be desired. Here are some actresses who should seriously consider getting a new manager — or at least use their hard-earned dollars to invest in an acting class or two.  

Shooting to fame as a child star thanks to her leading role in The Parent Trap, Lindsay Lohan was once considered a talented actress — until she grew up. Becoming more well-known as a tabloid regular than for her acting chops, it seemed that as the redhead got older, the roles she chose eerily echoed her fading career in Hollywood. Starring in a slew of bad movies, Lohan was nominated for multiple Razzie Awards –  even winning two of them for the same movie. Other flicks, such as Liz & Dick, which saw the Bronx native playing Elizabeth Taylor, were met with mockery, like from The Telegraph, which dubbed her portrayal of the famed actress as "hilariously bad." 

Another problem to arise? Line memorization was apparently the part of acting class Lohan skipped. Per The Daily Beast, when Lohan was cast in a David Mamet play in the West End, she was graced with audience laughter when she blanked on her lines on stage. Cringe. The outlet did note, however, that Lohan "remained charming throughout," so that's... something? 

At the end of the day, the failed-beach club owner still has a sliver of hope. "I know that I'm a damn good actress ... I want the respect that I had when I was doing great movies," Lohan declared to Vanity Fair in 2010, while swearing off her then-apparent preference for the party scene. It seems The Academy wasn't buying it.

Poor Jennifer Love Hewitt received quite the unfortunate acting title back in 2011 that, well, stuck with her career. According to a joint effort between Slate and Rotten Tomatoes, Hewitt was labeled the "worst actress of the last 25 years." As the site wrote, "Hewitt has the rare distinction of never having made a single 'fresh' (above 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) film. Her average score of 18.9 owes to such duds as Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (7 percent), I Know What You Did Last Summer (35 percent), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (7 percent), and both Garfield movies (15 percent and 11 percent, respectively)."

Matters didn't get any better in 2016 when the so-called "worst-reviewed" actress in Hollywood had a brief stint on CBS's Criminal Minds — much to the dismay of a few die-hard fans, who actually went so far as to petition to get Hewitt off the show. The petition stated, "We can only stand so many more episodes of this Lifetime Movie-style acting." As of this writing, the nasty online plea is closed, and only ever garnered 42 supporters, but still... ouch! 

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Criminal Minds showrunner Erica Messer said that Hewitt was written off the show so she could give birth to her second child and "time off to be a full-time mom." But don't tell those 42 petition signees. Just let them have this. 

Okay, we get it. Paris Hilton isn't really an actress. The socialite-turned-businesswoman did, however, have a brief stint on the silver screen. The starlet's biggest Tinseltown claim-to-fame was for the remake of House of Wax, a slasher which saw Hilton utilizing her vocal chops for a healthy dose of screaming. The Hollywood Reporter (via People) was ruthless with their review, dubbing the heiress "so bad she steals the show."

You'd think Hilton would have taken the hint and pull the plug on becoming an actress, but nevertheless, she kept trying. Her next role — presumably with no acting classes in between — was in The Hottie & the Nottie, a flick so bad, it still sits at number four on IMDb's Bottom 100 list. As for the critics? They weren't friendlier this time around, either. "We'll always have Paris ... thanks to a zombified performance worthy of George Romero in this limp-d**k of a comedy," wrote longtime Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers, who gave the movie a piddly half star out of four.

At the end of the day, at least The Simple Life alum knows how to take a joke. When House of Wax came out, producer Joel Silver hilariously printed "See Paris Die" t-shirts as a part of the marketing campaign. When Fox News asked the heiress about it, she simply said, "At first, I wasn't too keen on the idea, but, um, whatever. I can laugh at myself."

There's no denying Megan Fox was typecast pretty early on in her career. Skyrocketing to fame seemingly overnight thanks to Michael Bay's Transformers, the Tennessee native was suddenly Hollywood's fave new eye candy. Her co-star, Shia LaBeouf, even told The Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog (via Today), "This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America."

It didn't help that critics were also confused about her acting chops, too. In 2009, the Jennifer's Body star was met with some peculiar survey results. Per Reuters, a poll on Moviefone.com ranked the actress the "year's sexiest female sctress." You'd think this was a compliment, but she was also awarded "the actress who gave the worst performance of 2009." Just like that, it appeared the blue-eyed beauty simply wasn't taken seriously. 

Fox didn't do much to help her case, either. She famously acknowledged that maybe taking a few acting classes wouldn't hurt, telling Entertainment Weekly (via NBC) that she was "terrible" in the first Transformers. When asked if she thought she was a good actress, she admitted, "I think I could be. If I really buckle down, I think one day I could be a very good actress." Oh, Megan. 

When Kate Hudson appeared on the silver screen as Penny Lane in Almost Famous, it was impossible not to compare her to her legendary actress mom, Goldie Hawn. And according to famed film critic, Roger Ebert, that comparison wasn't exactly a good thing. Reviewing 2004's Raising Helen, he very candidly wrote, "Kate Hudson, who stars, seems to be following in the footsteps of her mother, Goldie Hawn; both have genuine talent, but choose too often to bury themselves in commercial formulas." Ouch.

Hudson did land a string of mid-2000s rom-coms that simply didn't hold up. As Buzzfeed News detailed in an editorial, "Increasingly, Almost Famous felt like a fluke: a role in which Hudson played some version of herself, and never found another one where she could pull off quite the same trick."

Some suspect this slew of light-hearted snoozefests may not just be Hudson's doing, however. The Alliance of Women Film Journalists, for example, awarded the star the special mention of "Actress Most in Need of a New Agent." Wait, do agents teach acting classes now? Nevertheless, it looks like the Bride Wars starlet ditched whoever it was that was helping her, and pivoted into another successful career — as the head of activewear brand, Fabletics.