Stage fright: the Hollywood stars who bombed on Broadway

Earlier this week, producers announced that Denzel Washington would return to Broadway in Eugene O’Neill’s barroom heartbreaker The Iceman Cometh next March, in a revival directed by George C Wolfe. Washington’s first Broadway outing was in 1988’s Checkmates and although Washington’s second turn, as Brutus in Julius Caesar, generated tepid reviews, he has since become a heavy hitter, winning a Tony for Fences in 2010 and warm notices for A Raisin in the Sun in 2014.

But some celebrities haven’t gained the same applause. Here are ten Hollywood luminaries and pop sensations who made lesser appearances on the Great White Way.

Bruce Willis, Misery, 2015

The action star got out of bed, but only barely, to make his Broadway debut in a stage adaptation of the Stephen King chiller. Apparently fed his lines through an earpiece, he gave a drowsy performance as Paul Sheldon, an injured writer tended to by Laurie Metcalf’s psychotic fan. Entertainment Weekly wrote, “Willis plays Paul with a flatness and passivity that feels too inert, even for a character who is bedbound.”

Al Pacino, China Doll, 2015

In this David Mamet two-hander, Pacino played a besieged billionaire who bullies his cowed assistant. Rumors swirled that the lines had given him trouble and his performance seemed to stagger from one line to the next (or, if you believe the gossip, from one teleprompter nudge to the next). The New York Times wrote, “Mr Pacino’s lurching, stammering performance is not easy to follow in terms of content, character or subtext.”

Keira Knightley, Thérèse Raquin, 2015

While Knightley had won deserved raves on the London stage, her performance of a murderous, adulterous, ghost-haunted Parisian undone by guilt at her husband’s drowning was something less than scintillating. Though she looked fetching in the period costumes, her Thérèse was constrained and oddly interior, as though waiting for a close-up that never arrived. Deadline called her “a sexless bore.”

Emilia Clarke, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 2013

On Game of Thrones, Clarke is Mother of Dragons. In her Broadway debut, as the winsome chancer Holly Golightly, she was upstaged by a cat. While most critics reserved their ire for the adaptation and direction, Clarke came in for her share of disparagement, with the Financial Times writing: “Clarke is affected but not affecting, and a Breakfast without a fetching Holly isn’t much of a meal.”

Shia LaBeouf, Orphans, 2013

A volatile actor cast in a volatile role in Lyle Kressler’s play about bereft brothers, LaBeouf never actually made his Broadway debut. During rehearsals, conflicts with the play’s star, Alec Baldwin, and its director, Daniel Sullivan, ended with LaBeouf’s departure. (Ben Foster eventually replaced him.) Maybe he was still hankering for a chance to appear on Broadway, because the next year LaBeouf was arrested for disrupting a performance of Cabaret.

Katie Holmes, Dead Accounts, 2012

Holmes, a charming presence in television and film, was a less than lively addition to Theresa Rebeck’s play about an ethics-skirting moneyman’s retreats to his family home in Ohio. Most of the critics vented their spleen on the script, but a few faulted Holmes for lack of nuance, with the New York Post observing, “she’s got one note – shrill, impatient – and yells it at top volume, making a vein bulge in her slender neck.”

Ricky Martin, Evita, 2012

Martin seemed far more comfortable livin’ his vida loca than appearin’ on Broadway when he played a cheerful Che in the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s bio-musical Evita. Some critics praised his smoothness and charm, but several faulted his meekness. Damningly, the New York Times called him “thin voiced, polite, vaguely charming and forgettable. This Che is a subversive you could bring home to meet the folks.”

Brendan Fraser, Elling, 2010

The lovably lunkheaded star of The Mummy appeared alongside Denis O’Hare in this comedy about two mentally ill Norwegian men. Fraser played a filthy, girl-crazy virgin in this adaptation of an Oscar-nominated film from 2002. Few critics found the play’s antics amusing and AM New York wrote: “It has been poorly chosen as a star vehicle for Brendan Fraser, who is making a horrifically bad Broadway debut.” The play closed nine days after opening.

Julia Roberts, Three Days of Rain, 2006

Not even Roberts’ natural shine could lighten her reviews for this time-hopping Richard Greenberg play about family and loss. Starring opposite Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper, she moved a New York Times critic to write: “She’s stiff with self-consciousness (especially in the first act), only glancingly acquainted with the two characters she plays and so deeply, disturbingly beautiful that you don’t want to let her out of your sight”.

Madonna, Speed-the-Plow, 1988

Back when she was still a brunette, Madonna’s blond ambitions landed her in this David Mamet show, playing a secretary capable of more than just a coffee order. Some reviews were kind, others much less so, with The Daily News quipping, “Being vacant on the stage requires more effort than it does in real life.” Maybe the play’s to blame? More recently, Jeremy Piven exited a lackluster Broadway revival, citing mercury poisoning from sushi overconsumption.

• This article was amended on 23 August 2017. It was originally stated that Denzel Washington’s first Broadway appearance was in Julius Caesar but it was in Checkmates. This has now been changed.