Ben Kingsley Paycheck is the phrase used to describe the act of any famous actor or performer with a mostly stellar résumé accepting a role in a horrible movie for no other discernible reason than money. Such acts are classified under this title when there is no possible way that the actor/actress, looking at the script before filming, could have thought the film in question would ever be successful, but still accepted their role in it. The phrase stems from the Uwe Boll box office bomb, Bloodrayne, where Ben Kingsley played the main villain, Kagan, in the most disinterested manner imaginable. This is a widespread occurrence in the Tiradesverse.
Examples in the Tiradesverse[edit | edit source]
- Tony Todd in Murder-Set-Pieces
- Clancy Brown in A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
- Michael Clarke Duncan in The Legend of Chun-Li
- Forrest Whitaker in Battlefield Earth
- Jurgen Prochnow in House of the Dead
- Dennis Hopper and Bob Hoskins in Super Mario Bros.
- Cary Elwes in Saw 3D
- James Remar in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
- Frances Conroy in The Wicker Man (2006) AND Catwoman
- Ellen Burstyn in The Wicker Man
- Nathan Lane in The Nutcracker in 3D
- The entire cast of Highlander 2
- Tully Blanchard and Sherri Martel for the Heroes of Wrestling PPV
- John Turturro in Nutcracker and the first three Transformers films
- Also from Transformers, Jon Voight
- Tom Kenny in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon
- John Malkovich, Leonard Nimoy, Keith Szarabajka, and Frances McDormand in Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Monster Magnet in Torque
- Dennis Hopper and Yuji Okumoto in The Crow: Wicked Prayer
- Michael Madsen from Bloodrayne
- Art Bell (on a video) in I Know Who Killed Me
- Jean Reno in Godzilla (1998)
- Garrett Morris in Santa with Muscles
- John Goodman, John DiMaggio, Ken Watanabe, Kelsey Grammer and Stanley Tucci in Transformers: Age of Extinction
- Malcolm McDowell and Carrie-Ann Moss in Silent Hill: Revelation 3D
- Dakota Fanning and Christopher Heyerdahl in the Twilight sequels
- Mickey Rourke in Double Team
- Tim Robbins in Howard the Duck
- Chow Yun Fat and Ernie Hudson in Dragonball: Evolution
- Terence Stamp in Elektra
- Jeffrey Combs and Andrew Divoff in Faust: Love of the Damned
- Juliett Lewis and Molly Ringwald in Jem and the Holograms
- Will Smith in After Earth
- Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson in The Spirit
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