There comes a time in every major actor's career when they attempt to put the lighthearted comedies and inane chick flicks behind them and tackle a more serious role. The kind of role that will get them the one thing that every Hollywood actor craves: free cocaine. And also an Academy Award nomination.

6 The Biopic

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

There is a famous Hollywood rule that we made up for this article that goes like this- if it worked for Gary Busey, there is no reason it won't work for you.

How effective is the biopic in earning Hollywood credibility? Busey actually scored a Best Actor nomination for playing Buddy Holly in the aptly titled The Buddy Holly Story.



Yeah, this guy

This simple formula rarely fails. Pick a deceased (or soon to be deceased) musician, artist or mathematician, make sure they're the sort of person the New York media could conceivably refer to as brilliant, insert a big name actor (or Gary Busey) to play the role; watch movie critics and audiences far and wide go apeshit.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

The best thing about the biopic is that Hollywood is free to embellish the back story as much as they would like. How do you know Ray Charles didn't really walk on the moon? Were you there? No, so shut up and watch the movie. Speaking of Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx took home a Best Actor trophy also for his heroic portrayal of a young Stevie Wonder playing Ray Charles.



Seriously, this fucking guy

For Example:

Prior to 2005, Reese Witherspoon was best known for playing the ditzy lawyer in Legally Blonde or for playing the ditzy ______ in _______. Then came Walk the Line. By simply adopting a southern accent, dying her hair black and not cringing as Joaquin Phoenix spent two hours making Johnny Cash look like the victim of severe head trauma, Witherspoon walked away with her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Other Famous Examples Include:

Robert Downey, Jr. in Chaplin

Bill Paxton in Apollo 13

Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth

Hell, Phoenix got nominated for Best Actor also. Seriously, this shit cannot fail. Unless you make one crucial mistake (foreshadowing alert!).

The Exception That Proves the Rule:

As insane as he may be, you have to admit Russell Crowe is also a pretty shitty musician. Fortunately for him, he's an actor. Up to a few years ago, Crowe got nominated every time he managed to leave the house without hurling a phone at somebody. Hell, it almost seemed like cheating when he took the starring role in the biopic Cinderella Man, in which he played a blue collar boxer who gave America something to root for during the Great Depression.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Crowe's depiction of former heavyweight boxing champ James J. Braddock was almost universally praised. After SAG and Golden Globe nominations, he put on his Oscar crapping diapers and got ready for an Academy Award nomination ... that never came.

Crowe forgot that to get your biopic performance lauded as ingenious, you have to pretend to be someone the Academy has heard associated with the word genius, or at the very least someone they've heard of in the first place. Braddock was a blue collar boxer and a family man. Hell, the guy didn't even have a heroin problem. Crowe might as well have been playing Gandhi.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Astute readers will point out that Ben Kingsley took home an Oscar for playing Gandhi, and that Robert De Niro took home an Oscar for playing a decidedly non-brilliant boxer. But astute readers are about to get served by trick number five ...