Guy Pearce Dislikes His “Memento” Performance

Australian actor Guy Pearce has surprisingly revealed he kind of dislikes his performance in Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough 2000 thriller “Memento”.

Pearce, who recently landed an Oscar nomination for his work in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” has been acting since the late 1980s, starting out on Aussie soap “Neighbours” before going on to films like “The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert”.

He really broke through in 1997’s “L.A. Confidential” before having more mixed success – some flops like the remake of “The Time Machine,” and hits like Nolan’s non-linear narrative mystery noir.

Speaking with The Times, Pearce says he’s rewatched the film and felt his acting in the role wasn’t great:

“I’m having an existential crisis. I watched ‘Memento’ the other day and I’m still depressed. I’m s– in that movie. I’d never thought that before, but I did this Q&A of ‘Memento’ earlier this month and decided to actually watch the film again.

But while it was playing, I realized I hate what I did. And so all this stuff about an exec at Warners being why I’ve not worked with Chris again? It came crashing down. I know why I didn’t work with Chris again — it’s because I’m no good in ‘Memento.'”

He’s referring to a story from the other month which made the rounds where he revealed an unnamed executive at Warner Bros. Pictures is not a fan of his and essentially blacklisted him from appearing in further films at the studio.

In “Memento,” Guy Pearce played Leonard Shelby, a man with short-term memory loss. He gave one reason why he didn’t like his performance – he thinks his approach didn’t work: “I was trying to do a flippant attitude, but it was all wrong.” Pearce also gives his work in the film a five out of ten.

Pearce can now be seen in “The Brutalist” which is currently in cinemas in the United States and hits digital later this month – just a few days before the Oscars. He’ll be seen later this year in Netflix’s “The Woman in Cabin 10” series and David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” film.

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