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10 Actors Who Are Masters At Swearing

There’s an art to cursing. When done well, it can provide dialogue with added emphasis, intensity, aggression, or rebelliousness. Pop culture seems to have transitioned relatively quickly from foul language being seen as taboo and worthy of censorship to its use being seen as an effective tool and worthy of praise for its level of creativity. There are certain writers and directors that seem to throw caution regarding censorship to the wind and become known for their expletive-heavy films. But the performers who we get to see and hear using this colorful language possess the voices that we typically associate with our favorite movie curse words, and scenes that employ said curse words. Those who exercise this theatrical muscle the best are unsurprisingly some of the most widely appreciated performers in the business.

3) Melissa McCarthy

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Bridesmaids

Possibly the funniest comedic movie star at the moment, Melissa McCarthy has demonstrated that she’s at her best when she is completely unrestrained, whether it’s by the generic codes of TV sitcom styles, censorship for the sake of a PG-13 rating, or narrative tightness. That is to say, watching her riff for minutes on end in the comedy equivalent of a show-stopping number is pure bliss, and the crasser she is, the better.

Her improvisational work in movies like The Heat is so rapid and relentless that her use of crass language isn’t always so much the crux of the conversation as much as it is a placeholder, a way of continuing her speech with fluidity as she waits for the next absurd thing to say. It makes for a sort of punk attitude that McCarthy exudes, and explains why she seems at her best when playing characters who are rough, or at least rough around the edges, like in Bridesmaids or This is 40. And it’s in the latter where she’s at her best; although she barely appears in the movie, she was so unbelievably funny that they had to stick her long parents’ meeting rant in during the credits because it was too good to go unseen.

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