Holy shit, Gary Oldman is awesome. Jimmy Kimmel featured a video of him last night making an impassioned request that athletes stop trying to act. He does a brilliant job of screaming expletives and legitimizing why he himself does not try to play basketball.
It’s difficult to disagree with his sentiment about acting athletes, particularly when you think about Shaq in Kazaam. But you’d all be completely lying to yourselves if you didn’t think this was awesome when you were younger.
He completely redefines “itty bitty living space.” And I have to take contention with Oldman claiming that athletes don’t have good vocabularies. Shaq says “avaricious” in this clip, which is one of the better uses of Webster’s Dictionary I’ve ever heard in rap. After watching Oldman rail on every athlete turned thespian, I remembered a lot of performances that contradict his claim.
What would Space Jam be without Michael Jordan? The man had to interact with cartoons for an entire movie! I realize Oldman is a high-caliber actor, but he has never been faced with this challenge. Plus, the Monstars are collectively a much more intimidating foe than Harvey Dent. Imagine if they had kidnapped Oldman’s kid in The Dark Knight. Things wouldn’t have ended up so rosy.
Even Spike Lee appreciates the acting prowess of NBA players, pitting Ray Allen against Denzel Washington in He Got Game. If Washington is his dad in the movie, some of the acting genes must have been passed down. In this clip, Allen has the capability to both exacerbate the tension of the one-on-one game, while actually being great at basketball. Not to mention Denzel is actually pretty damn good too, probably where all of Oldman’s jealous angst came from.
And must I even begin to mention Kareem Abdul-Jabaar in Airplane? The man is a comedic goldmine with impeccable timing. There’s no chance anyone could rock the co-pilot role like Kareem did.
So while I see where Gary Oldman’s argument stems from, I also think he just secretly wishes he had some athletic abilities. It’s a shame that he’s always in contention for parts with other basketball players. Metta World Peace would have made a mean Dracula.
That being said, who are some of your favorite athletes turned actors? Comment away!
Comments (0)
Be the first to comment!