Despite his lasting and abiding contributions to film in many genres, Sean Connery has made some of the objectively worst films ever made, simply because he was getting paid for it.
This despite being honored with a Knighthood for his contributions to film, Kennedy Center Honors, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, a BAFTA Fellowship, 2 Golden Globes, a Cecile B. DeMille Award, and AFI and European Film Awards Lifetime Achievement Awards.
(Connery, holding his Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for The Untouchables.).
Connery once explained why he appeared in the utterly terrible, but financially successful film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. “It was for the paycheck, dear boy.”
(Yet another in a long line of terribly disappointing film adaptations of Alan Moore’s comics and graphic novels. Connery played Alan Quartemain.)
In fact, Connery is somewhat notorious for taking parts in three films so bad they are counted on most critics’ worst films of all time lists towards the end of his career, simply for the paycheck.
He might as well be the Ed Wood of bad acting, despite his MANY well deserved honors, given the abominable films and horrible portrayals that littered his later life. He worked exclusively for money, and had give up any pretense of the art that had brought him so many accolades. Or, more precisely, he probably looked at all his accolades, and placed a cash value on them.
He appeared in Highlander II: The Quickening, generally considered the worst sequel ever made, and one of the worst films of all time for the paycheck, for instance. He actually gave this one as respectable a performance as the script allowed. Unfortunately it was, well, one of the worst films in history, because it was rife with problems beyond his control. There are some questions as to whether he knew what he was getting into, though, so some suggest he didn’t intentionally set his sights on just getting paid to make an utterly abominable film. The argument is, there just wasn’t much he could do to save it.
(Connery as Ramirez in Highlander II: The Quickening. He did a pretty fair job in the first film, now a cult classic that had inspired a major franchise. Some say he was trying hard in this one, too. I’m not sure of that, though.)
He doesn’t have that excuse for Sir Billi, though, an animated film from 2012 he came out of retirement to make. You’ve probably never heard of it, because it is so godawful, and made a grand total of $15,838 at the box office. Again he did it for the paycheck. It is also on many critics lists as one of the worst films of all time.
Connery might have been a touch senile by thus moment, though. He’d been dealing with that disease by many accounts at this late stage of his life.
(Sir Billi. Its box office take was less than the value of nearly any used car that isn’t an utter lemon. Connery got paid, though.)
Finally, he appeared in the 1998 adaptation of the British TV series The Avengers. If you hadn’t guessed, he did so for the paycheck and it is also on the list of the worst films of all time. His performance is stunningly, staggeringly bad. The film is utterly horrendous. He was paid handsomely, though.
He was probably not dealing with senility or a misunderstanding of how poor a film this one was, though. So there really was no excuse for it or the poor performance he put in. He played a pastiche of the dumbest elements of a Bond villain, and was both young enough and mentally healthy enough to know it.
(The Avengers. Connery’s August de Wynter is a mad scientist, in a spy film. There’s no way he misunderstood how bad this film was before he took it nor how bad his acting would be - it was set in the genre that made him famous and for which he is best remembered. He simply didn’t care.)
So Connery is the poster boy for a great actor making films he more or less knew would be terrible simply for the money.