Photo: via Pitchfork
Like any love/hate relationship, it has its very polarized ups and downs. And so it goes with actors you once hated and now admire the living hell out of. Some of our hatred can be traced back more than a couple decades (sorry, Ben Affleck), while others we felt fresh fury for, but the good news is we’ve gotten over our pettiness and slowly built quite an admiration for these actors as they’ve crossed over the hump of loathing to loving to give us some of our favorite roles and hilarious comedies.
In fact, the last 10 years of movies would be stale, pointless junk (as opposed to what it is now: exciting, pointless junk) without these actors we once detested. How’s that for ironic? For the resilience it must take actors who certainly know everyone’s making fun of them to push on and change people’s minds, we say, “Sorry, guys.” Seth Rogen was, once in our minds, a lucky actor slob, but now we see he’s a comedic visionary and our chosen advocate for the legalization of marijuana in our corrupt country when 18 years ago, he was just a freak and a geek. Join us as we celebrate our favorite actors who rose from the depths after being wholly despised, except you, Nic Cage. You’re still too weird for us.
Note: You won’t see any women in here because we love all women, but also we don’t want to genuinely piss you off more than we’re about to.
Love and Loathe: Actors You Thought You Hated And Now You Absolutely Admire
(Facebook Photo: Paramount Pictures)
On a related note: The Most Under-Appreciated TV and Film Actors in Hollywood
Love/Hate Actors
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Jonah Hill
It's been 10 years since Super Bad and nothing but super bad comedies after, save for the jolly roles of Jonah. Whether small parts in underrated comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall or big roles in book adaptations like Money Ball, Jonah has done work to win us over through the past decade. Sure he tried doing the weight loss thing, but he eventually got back to his jolly Jonah goodness, continuing his consistent roles with the recent Todd Phillips flick, War Dogs.
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Seth Rogen
The fact some fat stoner could run the comedy scene seemed infuriating at first, but really, what great comedies have we gotten in the past decade that weren't related to Rogen? Aside from being part of the Freaks & Geeks clan way back when, he's also penned numerous scripts the likes of The Interview, Super Bad, Pineapple Express, and possibly one of the best comedies in the last five years, This Is the End.
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Michael Cera
He always the nerdy kid we couldn't help but love, yet still kind of annoyed the hell out of us. If you saw This Is the End, you instantly fell in love with an inflated Michael Cera.
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Ryan Gosling
Every girl loved The Notebook, and Ryan Gosling was in The Notebook, thus every girl loved Ryan Gosling, ergo we hated him for it. Gosling has been killing it, however, as his recent roles have reinvigorated the movie scene with Drive and the upcoming Blade Runner 2049.
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jared Leto
Ed Norton did to Jared what we would've loved to do in the '90s, but now our hearts have warmed up and embraced the beautiful little guy. His ability to transform in films like Dallas Buyers Club and Suicide Squad have been as engaging as it has impressive. You considered dying your hair green for a split second last year, did you not?
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Ben Affleck
He might've appeared to be Matt Damon's lackey once upon a time, and the one role that was memorable he was an asshole in Dazed & Confused, but now he's Batman for crying out loud. With several hits and few misses in the directing chair, we have to say Affleck has made the widest leap for us.
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Bradley Cooper
Our first encounter with Bradley, like many, was in Wedding Crashers. Man, we hated that guy! But boy were we pumped when Vince laid him out! Turns out, he's just a great actor, and now everybody loves him, even my mother.
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Matthew McConaughey
He knocked it out of the park in Dazed & Confused then went total chick-flick boyfriend. We were totally over our love of David Wooderson, that was, until he revived himself with Lincoln Lawyer, Dallas Buyers Club and basically every movie since. We can't decide what's better, Interstellar or him reprising his role as Wooderson in the Butch Walker music video.
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Mark Wahlberg
Wahlberg terrified us in Fear (1996), helped crap out a bad reboot in Planet of the Apes (2001), then joined the Shyamalan circus in The Happening (2008). But since then, it's been either purely badass Wahlberg or hilariously badass Wahlberg in movies like Ted and Daddy's Home, both of which garnered deserving sequels. So what if he's doing Transformer movies; better him than Shia.
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Steve Buscemi
Let's be honest: Steve creeped the hell out of us with his lipstick role in Billy Madison and his even creepier role two years later in Con Air. But once we got a taste of Buscemi running Boardwalk Empire, all bets were off. Let us not forget he's one of the best things Tarantino has had to offer.
