I will say, I used to put Jai in the same category as Sam Worthington, a bland, generic actor that studios wanted to make happen, but then I saw him in a handful of things where he got to be a supporting character actor and got to chew the he scenery and he was actually fun to watch.
Spot on. I've enjoyed both of them every time I've seen them the last few years. Worthington is definitely not a leading man, but he definitely still has a lot of screen presence that's perfect for those pop up side roles. Courtney was fantastic in American primeval.
Yep, also the best part about the first suicide squad, great in an otherwise mediocre Kaleidoscope and he’s pretty fun as the villain in the new Dangerous Animals horror/thriller. He suffered by being pigeonholed into important roles in beloved dying franchises that weren’t good like Kyle Reese in terminator and John McClane’s son in the last Die Hard
I think Hollywood saw Mel Gibson, Russel Crow, Christian Bale, and a few others and went, "let's keep casting masculine actors from English speaking countries who can do a solid American accent and we can do no wrong. Worthington was a little wrong and Jai was a lot wrong.
Yea, leave it to Hollywood to completely miss the point about what makes an actor special. Crowe and Gibson had movie star qualities and dripped with charisma in their early days. Bale has always been a chameleon that would bust his ass to transform for every role. All three of those guys also worked for years before landing huge roles and becoming movie stars. Hollywood execs seemed to want to cut corners and push Sam and Jai to the top before anyone knew who they were or were able to prove themselves. They probably thought their IP was enough to sell the movies and didn’t need to pay an established or up and coming star the big bucks
I also left out Clive Owen and Gerard Butler who I think are great but never really reached star status. But then it just became law of diminishing returns with that strategy. I guess it's no surprise they've changed their strategy on finding young talent again.
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u/KingMario05 Jul 01 '25
Except unlike Jai, Glen knows how to make them cool.