9 Bad Actors Who Have Recently Given Oscar Worthy Performances

4) Dwayne Johnson – Pain & Gain

First, a bit of preamble: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson isn’t necessarily a bad actor. It’s just that he’s spent most of his career to date in films like The Scorpion King, GI Joe: Retaliation, San Andreas and the Fast & Furious movies – all projects that play on his image as an action hero and give him little room to maneuver as an actual, bona fide actor.

In some non-blockbuster movies, Johnson has shown signs of potential – it’s basically only a cameo, but in The Other Guys he’s a scene-stealer – and nowhere has the former Rocky Maivia shone brighter than in Pain & Gain. Meaning in all the places he could have given an Oscar-worthy turn, Johnson did it in a Michael Bay crime-comedy about body-builders.

It’s not just that Pain & Gain allows Johnson to show off a superb comic timing only glimpsed previously – the film also sees Johnson make a naive, pathetic yet still scary figure out of a potentially one-dimensional, coke-addicted ex-con. The film’s tonally all over the place, but Johnson aims straight and true in easily his best dramatic performance so far.