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It’s impossible to convert the subjective experience of artistry into an objective number-crunching ranking system. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying. Slate.com recently sifted through Rotten Tomatoes, the popular website that aggregates all the reviews of a film and grades them on a binary “fresh”/”rotten” critical scale, in an attempt to come up with the actors and actresses with the best track records in onscreen greatness. Get this: According to the study, Jennifer Love Hewitt has the worst track record of any movie actress in Hollywood. The conclusion derives from the fact that Hewitt has never starred in a film to earn a “fresh” rating.
When asked to comment, Hewitt released a statement to EW: “Clearly, I need to learn French and go to Paris to make some French films, since those seem to be the favorites of critics. And do they give trophies for this?” That’s a reference to the fact that, according to the study, the Best Actor of the last 25 years is Daniel Auteuil. You have to admit, the study does seem a bit strange: According to the Rotten Tomatoes metrics, the greatest American actor is John Ratzenberger because he’s had voice roles in every single Pixar film. That’s kind of like arguing that Shia LaBeouf is the most popular actor of the last decade because he starred in three Transformerses and one Indiana Jones.
You could argue that it’s just plain inaccurate to judge an actor purely on the quality of the movies they starred in: Anna Faris has starred in a whole assortment of bad movies, but there’s no way you can call her a bad actress; Nicolas Cage has basically only starred in bad movies in the last decade, but he’s almost always interesting. Putting all these other arguments aside, Jennifer Love Hewitt starred in Can’t Hardly Wait, which we can all certainly agree is at least “Fresh.”
PopWatchers, do you think Hewitt is the worst film actress of the last quarter century? Or is the study fundamentally skewed? Should we all learn French and move to Paris? I hear they have a great health care system, and also afternoon naps!
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Personally, I like her. I think she’s as good as Oscar winner Halle Berry. Though I think Halle is gorgeous and an okay acress, I never really thought of her as Oscar winning.
I agree, ST that Hallie is an okay actress. JLH is a much better actress and is Oscar worthy. Jennifer just needs to be in a top-notch dramatic movie and she’ll get an Oscar for sure!
Awww, I love ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’! She was pretty good in that. And her performance in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ wasn’t any worse than Neve Campbell’s in ‘Scream’. She was also really good in her guest appearance on ‘Law & Order: SVU’. I certainly wouldn’t call her the worst actress of the last 25 years.
She guested on Love Bites last Friday. She made joining the Mile High Club seem adorable and fun and not sleezy. That’s a good actress.
Jennifer Aniston is the Worst actress – after five minutes of tossing her hair, what’s left? A cackle, a crinkle, a pretend chuckle and I’m sooo ready to turn and run!
TRUE. And her films are almost uniformly terrible. Her watchable films are generally watchable due to other elements (like “She’s the One” and “Bruce Almighty”).
Agree!
Disagree.
Plus the fact that her look hasn’t changed since NEVER!
You all just clearly hate Aniston and can’t be subjective about it.
Heartbreakers was good.
Agree, Ray Liotta and Jason Lee were awesome though..
Yes, it was.
I love this movie. I’m actually surprised it didn’t perform better. Sigouney Weaver and Ray Liotta were hilarious. JLH was good, not great, but certainly not horrible.
My mother and I saw Heartbreakers again recently and laughed throughout. That’s a very underrated movie and worth watching. I disagree that JLH is the worst actress and the basis for this tally is ridiculous. Heck, Meryl Streep is arguably one of the best actresses of ALL time, much less the past 25 years, and I squirmed in the theater the entire time I watched Mama Mia. That movie was awful.
she’s a terrible dresser, too. she seems like a nice person though.
Oh please. She is WAY better than January Jones, Pamela Anderson, Sean Young and Pia Zadora – and the fact that I can pull 4 out of the hat so quickly indicates that there are probably a lot more.
Katie Holmes is pretty bad,too.
And better than Lindsay Lohan for sure
Yes. January J sucks big time
How can you possibly compare Jennifer Love Hewitt to January Jones or Jennifer Aniston? January Jone is a far superior actress. Just looking at her portrayal of Betty Draper in MADMEN alone is enough to put her in a higher class of acting chops than Jennifer Love Hewitt. And regarding Jennifer Aniston, even if she has stared in movies that are of the by no means Oscar worthy she has still delivered performance after performance that would blow anything Jennifer Love Hewitt has ever done out of the water.
IMO, January is good as Betty because she’s very similar to Betty in real life. Any time she tries to play anything other than the ice queen, she bombs.
Agreed. She certainly is not funny; her stint as an SNL host proved that. She single-handedly almost ruined the new X-Men movie. I couldn’t believe how AWFUL she was! She may be gorgeous, but she certainly does not have any range.
Yeah, I thought this past week the world collectivly decided January Jones the worst actress. Although she’s pretty perfect as Betty Draper.
So she hasn’t had the most successful film or tv track record but to call her the worst actress in 25 years is a bit of an overstatement. I think Megan Fox can’t act at all but just because they plaster her half-naked in a couple of blockbuster movies doesn’t mean she has any acting ability. At least Jennifer has enough of head to try and have a life outside of the spotlight instead of being an attention seeking sleeze (See Katy Perry & the Kardashians).
Wow, to put Katy Perry in the same class as the Kardashians is a low blow. At least she has talent and can actually say she’s famous for something.
What is Katy Perry famous for? Flashing her chest around? She’s not much better than the Kardashians.
I’m not a fan of Katy Perry, but to say she’s not much better than the Kardashians is just stupid. Katy Perry writes her songs and she’s a very popular singer. I’m not a fan of her music, but I’m not going to say she’s famous for nothing. The Kardashians are famous for sex tapes and a bad reality show. I have more respect for Katy Perry than I ever will for the Kardashians.
I think Katy Perry is a role model. She is true to her self and has never gone out and made a sex tape or drunk driving. She’s more real than a lot of celeberaties even if you don’t like her music
really? a role model? personally, i think the term is stupid in the first place because you should not look to other fallible human beings for inspiration on how to live your own life. that’s why people say that someone is not a role model, isn’t it? because they make mistakes like any human being? pushing all that aside, i find it funny that you think that somene who had a costume that had cupcakes on her tatas constitutes being a role model by your definition. one wonders what your defintion is…
Aw, I love Jennifer Love Hewitt. She seems like a sweetheart and if her acting really sucked then she wouldn’t have had such a long run on shows like “Party Of Five” or “Ghost Whisperer”. People need to stop hating on her so much.
Ratzenberger was also in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! He *IS* the greatest!
Don’t forget Superman I and II!
I think JLH is a good TV actor, and should probably stay within that medium.
Well, by their metric, X Men – First Class would count the same for Michael Fassbender, who is supposed to be very good, as January Jones, who is currently everyone’s favorite critical punching bag. I would say the study is flawed.
Ronald Reagan was the worst actor ever. He ruined this country.
I guess you’re forgetting that America was so much better with Carter at the helm. Lines at gas stations, Americans being kidnapped abroad, cold war in full effect. What’s it say that the proudest moment in US history under Carter is winning the gold medal in hockey?
He’s actually a great actor, considering he fooled millions to vote him into office and stay there for a second term. More impressive is that he fooled the world for years into thinking he did not have advanced Alzheimers disease. Now that’s a good actor
She’s made her fair share of crappy movies, but I like her. Can’t Hardly Wait is awesome, and Heartbreakers is pretty good too.
No way! She’s pretty good on tv, and Can’t Hardly Wait is one of my favorite movies EVER. (So he’s sort of tall…with hair? And he wears t-shirts sometimes?)
There are far worse actresses than JLH. I nominate Kristen Stewart.
It’s skewed. Look at “Training Day”–it was not a great movie, but Denzel Washington was great in it and won the Oscar.
They should only count leading roles, for one. If they aren’t starring in the movie, they have absolutely no influence on its quality. Even if they ARE starring, they have darned little, except somebody like Nic Cage, who can make most movies at least interesting to watch.
In that case, Lindsay Lohan or Madonna wins – hands down (and legs apart)