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alt title(s): Chewing The Scenery 
So, Nick Nolte, how does it taste?
It's so hard to chew the scenery when he's wearing dentures.
A scene that requires a lead actor to act so damn hard that they're picking bits of masonite out of their teeth for days . To be a true Feed Me, such scenes must occur with such regularity that one suspects that there is a contractually mandated minimum number of opportunities to overact. In a Police Procedural, a Feed Me will often be due to a Perp Sweating or an Exasperated Perp.
Comes from baseless speculation that Vincent D'Onofrio has a clause in his contract for Law And Order: Criminal Intent that reads simply: " Feed me!" Alternatively, perhaps from the scene as seen at left from the 2003 Hulk movie, where Nolte takes it perhaps a bit too literally (but still fitting).
Compare Large Ham (where the actor is like this the entire role), Level Breaker. May manifest in This Is SPARTA moments and Villainous Breakdowns.
Contrast Dull Surprise. Often the “Cheese” in Ham And Cheese.
Examples
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Anime
- Most of the main cast in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann acts like this on a regular basis via Hot Blooded ranting.
- Episode 3 of Mai-Otome Zwei gives us Nina's Big No after Nao is petrified.
- A good portion of that OVA (and the last few episodes of the main series, 22, 24 and 25 in particular) has Tomoe's teeth marks all over it.
- In the same vein, during some of the later episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion the English dub cast did this sort of thing in quite a few scenes, perhaps most in Tiffany Grant's portrayal of Asuka's climactic battle in The End Of Evangelion and when Ritsuko destroys the "Reiquarium", sounding absolutely insane in the English dub while Yuriko Yamaguchi had a much more detached delivery in the original Japanese.
- Dragonball Z's Super Buu brought us such lines as "PROOOOOOODDDUUUUUUUUUCE!!!!" and "FEED ME, YES, EVERYONE FEED ME NOOOOOW!"
Vegeta: People of the Earth. RAISE YOUR HANDS RIGHT NOW OR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIIE!
- Harry Ord, the resident CHAR of Turn A Gundam, wants you to know that you'll feel the wrath of his revenge across the UNIVAAAAAASE!!!
- The whole point of the Giant Robo Anime and its main Charm Point is providing every single character with one of these on a regular basis. There's not a single person in the final episode who can be accused of underacting, even the random redshirts.
- Gaara's Minor Injury Overreaction in Naruto in both Japanese and English:
- Don't forget Itachi's Motive Rant from episode 136 of Shippuden. If you pay attention, you could hear his seiyuu literally GASPING for breath between lines!
- Koutarou Taiga from Gao Gai Gar.
- Light in Death Note whenever he's Kira-ing, and Mikami all the time.
- Baccano!'s psycho hams, Ladd Russo and Graham Spector, end up in a Feed Me war that ends up destroying the scenery. Of course, then there's Claire Stanfield, who's in a category all his own. But he still manages to ham up his philosophy while fighting Graham and Ladd.
- Dantalion is quite fond of taking hamminess beyond the impossible for science!
- TAKE THIS! THE STORM OF MY LOYALTY!!!
- The Fullmetal Alchemist dub has Roy Mustang's famous miniskirt line in episode 13.
- Sidenote: The voice Mustang had then was actually based on his voice actor's first tryout... as Armstrong.
- Actually, that was for Roy's other memetic line. You know, "I LOVE dogs!".
- Excel's dub VA got landed in the hospital for this one.
- Domon Kasshu has acquired the ability to feed me... with the help of KYOOOOJIIII!
- I'M IN DESPAIR! SHOUTING OUT THINGS THAT BUG ME IN OVERDRAMATIC WAYS HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!
- Minori in Toradora, especially near the end of the series.
Minori: Nosebleeds are tears of the heart!
- In Niea_7, Tomoko Kawakami is clearly having the time of her life voicing Karna, tearing through every scene in which she occurs with almost limitless abandon—but especially during the "alien awareness meetings".
Karna: I've been an elite ever since I was born... and I'm so beautiful!
Film
- Kirk's infamous "KHAAAAAAAN!" scream in Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan. In fact, William Shatner has one of these at least every five minutes, in everything he's ever done.
- Alternate Trope Namer: Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, whose Catch Phrase is "Feed Me FEED ME!"
- Morpheus' speech to Zion in The Matrix Reloaded, although he had good reason to shout as the cave had no PA system. Massively undermined by the following rave scene juxtaposed with Keanu Reeves' naked ass.
- Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate. Practically his whole performance, but especially the line "God... is an absentee landlord!"
- Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet, Frank Booth, provides one of the scarier example of this trope.
- Christopher Walken as Max Zorin in A View To A Kill.
- Grendel in 2007's Beowulf, perpetually shrieking and moaning and having difficulty walking.
- King Leonidas in 300. And yes, we know what this is, thank you.
- Blasphemy? Madness? Athens?
- NO!
- Daniel Day-Lewis in every movie he stars in.
- Marlon Brando's cry of "Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" in A Streetcar Named Desire.
- Darth Vader's Big No at the end of Star Wars Episode III.
- Tony Stark was able to feed me IN A CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS!
- Which would imply that Obidiah Stane could do it as well, though only in ritzy environments or top-of-the-line labs...
- Pretty much any time Harvs and Batsy are within a hundred feet of each other in The Dark Knight turns into this. (One expected them to break out the Big No, but NOOOOOO...)
- Well, Harvey did, Batman was just a little late for it.
- Just about any time Harvs or Batsy got pissed off in the second half of the movie.
- What do you believe in, huh? WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?
- Nicolas Cage in The Wicker Man remake. All of it.
- While we're on the topic of Mr Cage, YOU WANT SOME OF THIS?!? *thonk*
- In Serenity, any scene where River has a mental breakdown. Especially when she collapses in the streets of Miranda, screaming a frantic prayer in Chinese.
- Sharon Stone's performance in Casino isn't looked too fondly upon now because it frequently involved this.
- Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick (most notably in his speech about women towards the end, which is made of 100% pure Feed Me). But, hey, what did you expect? It's Jack Nicholson playing the freakin' Devil.
- Charlton Heston's performance in Planet Of The Apes:
- While we're on the topic of Charlton Heston, "You tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You've gotta tell them! Soylent Green is people!"
- Brian Cox in Troy certainly qualifies. Then again, Brian Cox in almost anything. That man is definitely not kosher.
- John Noble chews the scenery while munching on everything remotely edible in The Return of the King.
- When Pink in Pink Floyd The Wall decides that he is a British fascist leader and sings "In the Flesh". Just watch as a rock star (Bob Geldof) playing a rock star (Pink Floyd) during an insane fantasy of being a fascist dictator while in front of an audience of Pink's rock fans during a concert. So Yeah.
- Pretty much Jim Carrey's comedic styling. Which is part of what makes the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas so much fun to watch. Green eggs and ham, indeed.
- Certain bites of James "Jimi" Kinstle's performance as Norman Osborn (a.k.a. The Green Goblin) in the Spider Man fan film The Green Goblin's Last Stand. As may be expected from a classically-trained actor playing a homicidal maniac, this is genuinely frightening at times. That joke about Osborn being scarier without his mask on? It's true here.
- The last two scenes of the second flashback in The Bad And The Beautiful got this from Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner respectively.
- The saving grace of the Daredevil movie was a delightfully over-the-top portrayal of Bullseye by Colin Farrell. He barely speaks and rarely raises his voice, but his snarling, twitching, and whispered ramblings have Feed Me written all over them. He kills people with pencils, peanuts, and paper clips in scenes that cross the line into Comedic Sociopathy. Just about every scene he's in is simultaneously hilarious and disturbing because of his overacting juxtaposed with the sadistic character.
"He made me...miss. I never miss!"
- Your Mileage May Vary as far as "saving grace" goes. This troper thought that the character of Bullseye from the comics was was tailor-made for a Feed Me performance that was completely wasted on Colin Farrell and whoever wrote him to be a quiet hitman in a generic trench coat.
Mike Nelson: That was a logically incompatible statement. Here's another one: Colin Farrell is sober!
- Robin Williams is this trope made flesh.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance in Kindergarten Cop, a film where he spends half his time screaming incomprehensibly at small children.
- GAAAAHHHH!!!!
- SHADDUUUUPPPP!!!!!
- IT'Z NAHT!! A TWOMUR!
- "Stupid! You're so stupid!"
- Happens in Silent Night Deadly Night 2. GARBAGE DAY! Now a staple of memetic mutations.
- Also in Troll 2. The Narm has to be seen to be believed.
- COME TO ME, SON OF JOR-EL! KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!
- WRONG!
- BILLIONS! Once again, the press underestimates me.
- KRRRRYYYYYPTONITE!
- And Cabin Fever has an example of Feed Me in a literal sense, PANCAKES!
- NOOOO...WIIIIREEEE.....HAAAAAANGGGEEERRRRSSSSS!!!!
- "Bring me everyone." "What do you mean "everyone"?" "EVERYONE!"
- SPOOOOOOCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!
- Something wrong, Colonel? You come here to fight a madman, and instead you found...a god!? You still refuse to ACCEPT...my godhood?! KEEP your own god! In fact, this might be a good time to PRAY to Him! For I beheld Satan as he FELL FROM HEAVEN! LIKE LIGHTNING!!!
- Leo Bloom without his blue blanket. And how.
- Adolf Hitler's Villainous Breakdown in the movie Downfall. The actor's scenery-chewing has become a Memetic Mutation thanks to the Gag Subs applied into it. For example, Hitler gets banned from XBox Live.
- Woody Harrelson's DELICIOUS turn as a mad conspiracy theorist in the new 2012 movie practically screams this trope.
- Captain Rhodes in Day Of The Dead:
I'M RUNNIN' THIS MONKEY FARM NOW, FRANKENSTEIN, AND I WANNA KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE DOING WITH MY TIME!!!
- Zadok, the drunken old sea dog in Cthulhu (2007).
"They came out of the sea AND KILLED LOTS OF PEOPLE!"
Live Action TV
- Any scene in Battlestar Galactica where Edward James Olmos ends up having a emotional breakdown in his cabin and starts punching the wall, his ship or Colonel Tigh. Double points if he gets drunk and starts drooling or vomiting on himself. The producers have admitted they put a few too many of these in during the final episodes. The first was heartbreakingly effective for many, but by the end it was like, suck it up man!
- James Marsters as the newly-souled vampire Spike during the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer—especially during the first couple of episodes, with Spike being constantly tortured by his guilty conscience and acting totally bonkers. Especially during the scene where Spike, after a lengthy tragic monologue, drapes himself over a church cross and his skin starts to sizzle.
- Coincidentally, the referred-to scene was also a source of Nightmare Fuel for this droper.
- Pretty much every incarnation of the Master from Doctor Who. Especially the John Simm version; he's so hungry and no amount of scenery will satisfy him. Or food, in "The End of Time".
- And a few of the Doctors as well. Tom, Colin? Yes, I'm looking at you. "Gurning" David Tennant must surely count too ("ALLONS-Y!").
- TELLLLL MEEEEEE YOOOUUUUR NAAAAAAAMMMMEAHHH!!!!!
- This comes after the Monster Of The Week says "We...are...rising!", and The Doctor is mocking it. That doesn't mean he isn't a ham, just not this time.
- In David Tennant's first episode as The Doctor, he gets that line thrown at him, but played straight. His reply is a mocking "I DOOON'T KNOOOOOOOOOOW!"
- Davros DEFINES Feed Me.
- And while we mention Davros, we can't forget the dreaded Daleks.
- "Those words are BLASPHEMY!"
- "I... AM... A human DALEK! I am... YOUR FUTURE!" was said by a Dalek-Ham hybrid in the new series.
- Mark Strickson, who played the fifth Doctor's companion Turlough, chowed down on the scenery on more than one occasion.
- AN INFECTIOOOOON. However, it was made awesome by his willingness to not only slobber on himself, but to take the complete and utter piss out of it by re-enacting it with ever-increasing amounts of bacon at conventions for the next 20 years :D
- The Wire, a one-episode villain was very much this trope. In fact, her catch-phrase was in fact "FEEEEEED MEEEEEEE!"
- Timothy Dalton as the Time Lord narrator in "The End of Time" was literally spraying at the end of the first part.
- The Master in the same story is very hungry and extremely aching to chew on far more stuff than usual. Both figuratively and literally.
- The White Witch in the BBC adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
- "Then how DAAARE you come ALOOONE?!"
- Satoris, the evil cult leader from the MST3K episode, The Final Sacrifice, is very fond of chewing scenery (and spitting it out again.)
- While most people understandably get quite boisterous in a good mood, one hat of the Centauri in Babylon Five, particularly Londo Mollari, is to really ham it up when they're happy, or drunk or (most commonly) both at the same time. They're otherwise quite normal, if a bit eccentric in an Eastern Bloc sort of way.
- Not to mention the half a dozen times Delenn gives a REALLY intense speech to some foe (or the leaders of her government). The first time it's pretty awesome, but the lack of variation each time she gives that speech makes it a little redundant.
- Bruce Boxleitner gets several of these as Commander Sheridan as well, most notably with his over-the-top "No more Nightwatch" speech during "Ceremonies of Light and Dark".
- The most egregious example was Ivanova's challenge to the commander of the Shadow-enhanced destroyer force in "Between the Darkness and the Light": "I am Death incarnate...God sent me..." Completely over the top, and only fueled the fires of the enemy proganda machine.
- Several of the actors in Tomica Hero Rescue Force start to do this later in the series.
- Kelso of That 70s Show easily qualifies. Any time he appears on the scene (regardless of where it is or what else is happening), the focus tends to immediately go to him. It helps that he typically bursts onto the scene Kramer-style, right before saying something COMPLETELY off the wall.
- Speaking of which, Kramer.
- Lionel Tribbey ("LEO!") and Lord John Marbury ("GERALD!") on The West Wing.
- You might want to sit down for this one: Lowly Ensign David Bailey manages to pull off an epic Heroic BSOD in the TOS episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". After staring death in the face for the majority of the episode (complete with Countdown Of Doom), he has a memorable Freak Out scene:
Bailey: What, are you all out of your minds?! End of watch? It's the end of everything! WHAT ARE YOU, ROBOTS?! Wound up, toy soldiers?! Don't you know when you're dying?! Watch and regulations and orders? What do they mean?!?
- Ok, so here's the "are you sitting down" part — William freaking Shatner was on set at the same time. And he looked like the subtle one.
- Counselor Troi had some surprisingly epic Feed Me moments in the Star Trek The Next Generation premiere when she sensed the pain of an imprisoned alien. It doesn't quite come off, as Wil Wheaton notes in his recap:
Troi opens up her mind to find... pain. Lots and lots of pain. Boy, there sure is a lot of pain.'
- I... dropped the SCREW... in the TUNAAAAA! IT WAS ME!! OHH, THE HUMANITY...
- Playing The Thick Of It's resident Magnificent Bastard, Malcolm Tucker, requires Peter Capaldi to act so damn hard his temple veins start throbbing. He says he finds the role "exhausting" and it shows.
- Andy in Weeds, after Nancy drops his banana bread in the season premiere of season 5: "My beautiful loaf. YOU RUIN EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH!"
- In Lost, sometimes Matthew Fox not only overacts, but also pulls the weirdest facial expressions possible, the so-called "Jackfaces" (fine gallery of examples).
Music
- Burly Chassis is the musical equivalent; this troper suspects that after recording "Goldfinger", she needed A Glass Of Chianti to wash down all the soundproofing in the recording booth.
- Not to forget her Distaff Counterpart, Tom Jones.
- Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" is big Feed Me moment for lead singer John Kay. "I SAID GODDAMN! GODDAMN THE PUSHERMAN!"
- Merry Clayton's guest vocal in The Rolling Stones' classic "Gimme Shelter", which was actually rumored to have caused her miscarriage.
- Miyuki Nakajima usually has at least one in each of her Yakai concerts. The second half of this number is an excellent example, as is this one.
- Michael Jackson, cf. "Black or White"'s finale.
- Pretty much every one of VNV Nation's live performances. If you don't believe me, watch this.
- Journey's video for "Separate Ways". The song isn't too hammy. But Steve Perry does the most exaggerated expressions possible.
Video Games
- Any scene featuring Nightmare in Soul Calibur.
- Possibly in an incredibly strange homage to A Streetcar Named Desire, normally nonham Senel from Tales Of Legendia screams "STELLAAAAAAAAAAA" at one point in the game in a very over the top manner.
- Joneleth Irenicus, Big Bad of Baldurs Gate, has less screentime than most Big Bads, but damn does he make up for it.
- I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIGHT!
- The Gravemind eats everything it can find. Including the scenery.
- And it speaks only in poems.
- I thought that was only in iambic pentameter.
- In this particular case, it's trochaic heptameter. (Which actually matters, given Bungie's self-acknowledged obsession with the number seven.)
- Ace Combat 6: "MAAAAATILDAAAAAAAAA!"
- That scene was then MSTed with hilarious results by Unskippable.
- Which was beautifully parodied even more with the plane crash in the opening of Haze, also by the Unskippable lads.
- Kane from Command And Conquer doesn't just chew the scenery - he swallows it whole. Every scene involving him has some of the most awesomely bombastic, larger-than-life acting one could ask for. Hell, in the intro to Kane's Wrath, his pre-battle speech comes complete with explosions, thunder, and earthquakes.
- Honorable mention goes to Red Alert 3 just for having Tim Curry as the Soviet Premier. Oh, and did we also mention that George Takei is the Japanese Emperor? And J.K. Simmons as the American president? The only denser concentration of ham is a purely theoretical double act with William Shatner and BRIAN BLESSED.
- Adding Ric Flair in the mission pack is the icing on this ham-cake.
- The funny thing is, he's actually fairly quiet and charismatic in a completely different way (with one memorable lapse) throughout the original game. Not that anybody's complaining either way.
- Metal Gear Solid 4. The whole thing. Double points for any scene with Liquid Ocelot, who can blow things up by pointing at them dramatically.
- By no means is this limited to the fourth installment:
- "What was she fighting for? What am I fighting for? WHAT ARE YOU FIGHTING FFOOOORR?!?"
- Resident Evil is full of them, with Barry "Jill Sandwich" Burton from the original Play Station version being a prime example.
- "It's Forrest! Oh my
GOD COD!"
- "Just - take - a - look - at - THIS!"
- "Run Jill! He's insane!"
- The Raccoon City Police Chief was another one: "But you're not leaving my town! Everyone's gonna DIE!"
- Wesker. He earns that Magnificent Bastard status with some of the most over-the-top villainous monologues ever.
- Don't you mean "''WESKERRRRR!!""?
- Zero's infamous WHATAMIFIGHTINGFOOOOOOOOOOORRRAAAAGH!!!!. Recently redubbed.
- Practically all of Symphony of the Night. Most known for this one. The dialogue was completely redone in the PSP port included in the Rondo of Blood remake, for better or for worse...
- Sergeant Reznov from Call of Duty: World at War must have gotten really hungry after the events of the level Vendetta, because starting with "Their Land, Their Blood," he can't stop yelling at his men to keep killing Germans wherever they find them. Commissar Markhov, however, manages to outeat even him, as his lack of volume control for his voice, coupled with the fact that half his lines are spoken from a megaphone, ensure that he can be heard all the way over in Berlin.
- Pretty much all of the assassins in No More Heroes at some point.
- The eponymous Kain of the Legacy Of Kain series is able to sustain himself on both blood AND scenery
- Saavedro in Myst III: Exile is prone to this - his despairing cries when you trap him are particularly gnawful.
- Tony Jay in Planescape Torment anyone? "I WILL TEACH YOU MUCH... OF PAIN!"
- Dog gets so much of this in Half-Life 2, without even speaking.
- Xenosaga's Albedo rides the line between this and Large Ham.
- The dremora from the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. FEED ME!
- Even in the World Of Ham that is the Dynasty Warriors series, Lu Bu's reaction when you kill his Love Interest Diao Chan stands out. "Diao Chan! Ohhh, Diao Chan!!"
- One word for Dead Rising fans:
store STORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE!
- KINGDOM HEARTS! FILL ME WITH THE POWER OF DARKNESS!!!
Web Comics
- Sparks in Girl Genius are usually rather normal whenever they're not in The Madness Place — when they are, this trope applies to damn near everything they do.
- Which qualifies it as deconstruction since they chew the scenery due to the equivalent of psychotic breaks from reality.
- Gilgamesh Wulfenbach has now been explicitly referenced as "chewing the furniture"
- Before that, the chapter where Agatha first sees a spark enters "The Madness Place" was known as "Gil Chews the Scenery" from the first Volume
Western Animation
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted's source book for the Infernal Exalted, the Storytelling chapter has a section on how to use them as Card Carrying Villains (their original intent) entitled "This Scenery Looks Delicious." In fact, at one point in the book it's explained how the player of a 'Green Sun Prince' can even receive mechanical benefits from dramatic monologuing under the right circumstances.
Real Life
- Adolf Hitler tended to do this every time he spoke in public. The movies (like the Downfall example above) aren't really that far from the truth this time.
- Somehow, against all logic, BRIAN BLESSED has managed to accomplish this in real life. Observe his performance as guest host of Have I Got News For You, with lines such as "PETROL! WE'RE RUNNING OUT!" and, referring to the beleaguered Prime Minister Brown, '"GORDON'S ALIVE!"
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