Very bad writing: What do you do when the script sucks ass?

Ever tried reading lines that are just awful? Clichéd, unnatural, illogical, and grammatically incorrect? Did you all of a sudden feel like a really bad actor?

Don't worry, it's not your fault.

Bad scripts are the bane of any good actor's existence. We're dependent on the writer's words, and when those words are lame, it's pretty hard not to look lame yourself.

Case in point: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio -- both excellent actors -- who were forced to speak some abhorrent dialogue in Titanic. Lines like "I'm flying, Jack!" and "I'm the king of the world!" just can't be said convincingly. Kate managed to pull it off fairly well, but Leo's miserably wooden performance almost destroyed his career.

So what do you do when you're stuck having to take your lines from a James Cameron screenplay? You suck it up, find some truth in what you're saying, and commit. Again, if you're afraid of looking stupid, you'll end up looking stupider. And think about what kind of person would say "I'm the king of the world!" Try to figure out what's going on in your character's brain to make him want to say something that asinine. There are reasons for everything people do. Our job is to figure out what those reasons are, and to use them to create believable characters. It isn't our job to rewrite the script -- as much as we sometimes wish we could.