Hollywood Hype Machine / Examples That Did Hold Up

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• Meryl Streep burst onto the scene very quickly in The '70s with a One-Scene Wonder role in Julia that led to Robert De Niro recommending her for The Deer Hunter – which got her an Oscar nomination. Her second – for Kramer vs. Kramer - she won. Another Oscar came for Sophie's Choice but Hype Backlash set in during The '90s. Meryl herself grew tired of Oscar Bait roles and longed to go against type and do more comedies – which had varying degrees of success. But she came back to prominence with The Bridges of Madison County, confirming that she was here to stay. The Devil Wears Prada proved that her star power was as bright as ever by the 2000s, introducing her to new audiences and grossing $326 million worldwide, a record for her by that point and notching her yet another Oscar nomination. Fans and critics alike view Mamma Mia! as a real turning point for her as well; when it grossed over $600 million worldwide, they remarked that "the greatest American actress has now become a movie star". Throughout the years she has alternated between critic-pleasing and commercially viable fare, continuing to prove her versatility. With 21 Oscar nominations (and three wins) to her name, she's essentially the standard against which all young actresses are measured.
• Angelina Jolie. Years of indie-cred roles in Gia, Hackers, and other films paid off with a big push from Girl, Interrupted in 1999, which won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and resulted in a near-endless push that got her big roles in such films as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). When the latter got her together with Brad Pitt, the "Brangelina" media juggernaut was born. Clearly a major success story for everyone involved, as her films do generally well (though she stopped making them so quickly and focused on her home life and activist work), and the magazines get to make money off of her image (proof that being tabloid-bait isn't always a bad thing – only if that's all you're known for). Ironically, Jolie has stated on several occasions that she wants to give up acting for her growing family.
• Brad Pitt. He first gained recognition in 1991 with a small yet noteworthy role in Thelma & Louise, mostly due to his toned, hunky bod. Although he risked being pigeonholed as a sex symbol, he avoided that pitfall by accepting more varied roles in films like 1995's Se7en and 12 Monkeys. These films and others before them displayed Pitt's wide range as a serious actor, with 12 Monkeys even netting him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He would carry this critical boost through the rest of the 90's into the 2000's with a defining role as Tyler Durden in Fight Club, while blockbusters like Ocean's Eleven and its sequels reaffirmed he could draw audiences and profits. Like Angelina Jolie, he would benefit highly when Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) became a big box office success and a cultural milestone by introducing the world to the "Brangelina" phenomenon. Pitt would also co-found his own production company, Plan B Entertainment, which produced – among other films – the 2013 Best Picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave. Amidst this, he would continue to act in many hit films (and get nominated for more acting Oscars in others) before winning for Best Supporting Actor in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
• Tom Cruise got a big push in The '80s, and tons of film roles. Virtually every one proved to be a success. Obviously, he kept on being famous and having huge box office smashes until he royally screwed up and went crazy in the mid-2000s, with the infamous couch-jumping incident on The Oprah Winfrey Show being the telltale sign of his downfall. Twenty years? A pretty good run. However, he gritted through the slump, learned to rein in his more controversial views, and earned back public good will to remain a successful A-Lister^note it helps that he's well-liked by casts and crews for being personable and dedicated to his work, so the industry was willing to tolerate his acting out for a few years, as he pokes fun at himself with humorous roles, and tries to fit back into the "romantic Action Hero" archetype once again, with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol coming out to rave reviews and Oblivion (2013), Edge of Tomorrow and Jack Reacher also being modest hits. With the continued success of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation solidifying both the franchise's continued bankability and Cruise's return to stardom, the future is looking bright, as in spite of missteps like The Mummy (2017), Cruise still scores big hits such as Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Top Gun: Maverick, the latter of which becoming his first film to gross over a billion dollars.
• Nicole Kidman received a big push after earning critical praise for her role in To Die For, and her career has held up pretty well since then. Though her career didn't really take off until Tom Cruise dumped her and she won an Oscar for her leading role in 2002's The Hours. Kidman has sustained a prosperous career since then, balancing critically acclaimed arthouse fare (Lion, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Boy Erased) with popular blockbuster hits (Paddington (2014), Aquaman (2018)). She has also branched out into television as well with Big Little Lies, and won Emmys for her work in that series.
• Hulk Hogan: Began this way in late 1980/early 1981 as an extension of his arrogant heel character in the WWF, when he bragged endlessly on TV about being the "next big thing" in movies and wrestling. In an era before Entertainment Tonight and the Internet (TMZ.com wasn't even a twinkle in anyone's eye, for instance), it was possible for on-screen announcers to roll their eyes and be skeptical about Hogan's "supposed" connections with Sylvester Stallone and that he had been cast as a professional wrestler named "Thunderlips" in Rocky III, and successfully pull off their skepticism that he was actually going to be in the movie and be the next big thing because of it. Of course, that all came to pass, Rocky III was a huge box-office hit (in part because of Hogan)… and although Hogan's acting career wasn't exactly a major success, his wrestling career would become legendary.
• John Cena rose quickly through the ranks of the WWE, and became Champion within three years of his debut. He released a successful rap album, and started his film career with various action films that mostly catered to his physique and fighting prowess. Unlike many others, he has made it clear that wrestling is his main passion, hence why he hasn't gone into films full time. Things began changing around The New '10s - as John is now in his 40s, he has taken more breaks from his WWE schedule and enjoyed more success with roles in films like Trainwreck, Bumblebee and Blockers. He was later cast as Peacemaker in the DC Extended Universe film The Suicide Squad, which unexpectedly led to an eponymous HBO Max series being greenlit in September 2020 - nearly an entire year before the film's August 2021 release date. His performance was well-received in both projects.
• Heath Ledger started out as this in a big way, to the point where they even made a joke about it in Josie and the Pussycats. However, the reclusive Ledger went back to having a low profile until Brokeback Mountain established him as an actor to truly be taken seriously. Sadly, he promptly experienced the greatest career surge of all – a premature death. The Dark Knight helped establish his legacy, and at the very least, he will be more remembered for his latest work than for being a Teen Idol.
• Leonardo DiCaprio did some very well-received work in indie films (notably the mentally disabled brother in What's Eating Gilbert Grape alongside Johnny Depp) before being cast as the romantic, Bishōnen male lead in Titanic. Starring in the highest-grossing film (before inflation) of the 20th century will turn anyone into a star. Even when Titanic wound up getting hit hard with Hype Backlash, DiCaprio's career and reputation managed to come out completely intact, thanks to his work with Martin Scorsese, winning an Oscar for Best Actor in The Revenant, and ability to take on different roles.
• Kate Winslet got her big break in Titanic too and thus attracted the hype machine. Luckily she already had some cred before Titanic with an Oscar nomination for Sense and Sensibility. She chose her projects well over the years, making her a critical darling and netting Oscar nominations for Little Children, Iris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Steve Jobs and The Reader (which she won for). She opted to stay away from big-budget studio releases save for Contagion (2011) and the Divergent franchise, and these days is considered one of the best actresses of her generation.
• Sandra Bullock got her big push from Speed much like Keanu Reeves did. However, she has had much better luck channeling that into a long-lasting career. There was initial worry as the "Chick Flick" movement slowed down in the late '90s and she vanished for a while, but with a long string of more recent hit movies running through the Turn of the Millennium, including the two biggest hits of her career (one of which won her an Oscar) in 2009, there's no doubt about her place on the A-List.
• Julia Roberts got her huge push with Pretty Woman in 1990, and Hollywood got behind her as they rarely ever do for a female star not known for nudity. Twenty years later, she's still a bankable A-list star, though with less "legit" cred as she sticks to more mainstream, pedestrian "chick flicks" than serious films. Still, films like Erin Brockovich gave her some critical acclaim (and in Erin's case, a Best Actress Oscar).
• Gwyneth Paltrow got a huge amount of hype right from around Se7en and several high-profile romances with major Hollywood hunks (including Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck). Unlike most flash-in-the-pan hotties with famous boyfriends, she proved her acting chops and won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, had several hits (enough to offset the occasional bombs – and she was in her fair share, enough to derail almost any career), and has managed to become a legitimate star in her own right. Her movies are rarely blockbusters (Iron Man notwithstanding), but she has artistic cred and enough of a name to get almost any role (it's unlikely anyone regrets her being on Glee, especially after she won an Emmy). Although it should be noted that she is now more famous for her infamous "lifestyle brand" website "Goop" than she is for her acting roles.
• Reese Witherspoon certainly worked out well. After being a fairly run-of-the-mill actress in the early '90s, she all of a sudden got this massive push, first with the critically acclaimed Election and then commercial success with the Legally Blonde series and various Chick Flicks. She effectively became the next Julia Roberts, and even got an Oscar for her trouble (for Walk the Line). A second Oscar nomination later came her way with her work in Wild, while she also branched out into voice-over work (with Monsters vs. Aliens and the Sing films) and into television (with Big Little Lies, The Morning Show, and Little Fires Everywhere).
• Madonna. Coinciding with a huge breakout in the early to mid-1980s music scene, she soon sought to capitalize in film as well, and it seemed to work at first, with her first starring role in Desperately Seeking Susan proving very well with critics and audiences. Although her acting career quickly fell flat with Shanghai Surprise (which would cost her her marriage with future mega-star Sean Penn), her music career got even stronger, and she would become the biggest-selling female music artist of all time.
• Robert Downey Jr. has been a Zig Zag with the Hype Machine. Starting off as a member of the Brat Pack in the '80s, Downey got his big break in the late '80s/early '90s which culminated with him getting an Oscar nomination for his role as Charlie Chaplin in the biopic Chaplin. Unfortunately he had a real-life downward spiral which led to drug abuses and arrests. After achieving sobriety in the mid-2000s, Downey returned to acting in the indie scene before finally accomplishing his Career Resurrection in 2008 with his starring role in Iron Man. He has since then taken off and hasn't looked back, continuing to return as Tony Stark in later films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following his departure from the MCU, he received raves and an Academy Award for his supporting performance as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer.
• Ben Affleck is an example of both failure and success in the Hype Machine. After Good Will Hunting and Armageddon (1998), there was a period from 1998 through 2003 in which he was the biggest star in Hollywood. Then came Daredevil, Gigli, and the entire Bennifer saga, which derailed his career so badly that he wouldn't do any movies at all in 2005. He became a Hollywood punchline in the mid-'00s. However, he was able to quickly bounce back with "legit cred" in 2006 and after, not only as an actor in films like Hollywoodland and State of Play, but also as a director with the critically acclaimed crime dramas Gone Baby Gone and The Town. He was comfortably married with kids to Jennifer Garner, and he mostly stays out of the tabloid limelight. In 2012 he topped himself by directing and starring in Argo, which went over big with critics and audiences and won three Academy Awards - although he wasn't nominated either for acting or directing, he still received one for Best Picture (this Oscar is awarded to a film's producers, which in this case included Affleck himself). In recent years, his acting career has also improved with turns in his own work, being cast in David Fincher's Gone Girl and, most notably, being cast as Batman in the DC Extended Universe. Further praised performances in The Way Back (2020) and Air (2023) – the latter of which he also directed – have also done good in rebuilding his esteem among moviegoers.
• In recent years, Melissa McCarthy has become a seemingly unstoppable draw for audiences in television and movies alike. For a while, she was usually known for various supporting roles (such as her character Sookie on Gilmore Girls), but after garnering an Academy Award nomination for her much-lauded role in Bridesmaids, she continued her streak of box-office successes with Identity Thief and The Heat. Her proverbial Midas touch hasn't been lost in her television work, either. She won an Emmy for her role on Mike & Molly, and she's been Emmy-nominated for guest-hosting Saturday Night Live not once, but twice. Having starred in hits such as Spy and gotten praise (plus another Oscar nom) for a dramatic turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, it's safe to say that she'll be around to stay for quite some time.
• Matthew McConaughey was called the "next Brad Pitt" after A Time to Kill and Lone Star (1996), subsequently got a ton of new major roles. People covers soon followed, and he was expected to become the next A-list star. What happened next was a major string of box-office disappointments and minor roles throughout the '00s, and he became instead known for appearing shirtless in "Celebrity Beach Body" specials, showing up in Direct to Video indie films, and starring as the romantic male lead in Chick Flicks. Not quite what was expected. It was only in the early '10s when he had a Career Resurrection as a "mature" leading man, with his acclaimed performances in The Lincoln Lawyer, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, Mud and Dallas Buyers Club. And with winning an Oscar for Best Actor for the latter film and starring in Christopher Nolan's film, Interstellar, there's a good chance that he's returning to the limelight. The so-called "McConaissance", however, seemingly left as quickly as it came, as all of his films ever since 2015, aside from The Gentlemen, have been critical and/or commercial failures. McConaughey, though, remains popular as a Celebrity Voice Actor with Sing, its sequel (which became some of his biggest commercial successes), Kubo and the Two Strings, and the animated series Agent Elvis.
• Will Smith had a huge one. Starting out as a comedic rap star, of all things, he had a pretty funny sitcom for years with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and had a decently-sized box office hit with the buddy-cop action movie Bad Boys (1995). Then, starting with Independence Day and never stopping, he was showing up in one guaranteed A-List movie every other year. His comedies and action/explosion movies all make huge money (even his bombs make $100 million), and he has earned legit cred from his more artistic or serious movies. His career has slowed in recent years, with no movies at all from 2009 to 2011 (presumably his own choice), but he did have a hit with Men in Black 3 in 2012 and only really stumbled with After Earth, but he's nevertheless still high in demand and could easily come back. His role as Deadshot for 2016 DC Extended Universe film, Suicide Squad (2016), still have some bumps (most of the good things about the film is Margot Robbie's performance as Harley Quinn) but earned more money despite the negative reviews, and his take on the Genie in Aladdin (2019) was well-received no matter if Robin Williams' shadow loomed large over the role. In 2021, he starred as Richard Williams (the father of tennis' Williams sisters) in King Richard, which earned Smith his first Oscar. However, his victory was overshadowed by an incident where he slapped Chris Rock for joking about his wife's hair condition.
• Tom Hanks has had a blockbuster career right from the start, spending much the '80s starring in well-received comedy hits such as Splash and Big, as well as cult classics Bachelor Party, Nothing in Common and The 'Burbs. Although he initially preferred to stick to comedy fare during those years, he got into more serious subject matter just a decade later, which ended up pushing his career to heights he would have never imagined in the '80s. He ended up scoring two Academy Awards for Best Actor in a row for his performances in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, and got nominated for his performance in Saving Private Ryan. Since then, he's mostly stuck to dramatic fare and away from comedic roles, and most of his performances during those years have been accused of being Oscar Bait, but despite that and some slip-ups here and there, his career or reputation hasn't faded one bit.
• Benedict Cumberbatch was not well-known outside of the UK until he played the titular character in BBC's Sherlock which earned him a lot of praise and fans (most of them are girls) and a few years later, he won an Emmy. Because of this, he appeared in several critically acclaimed films such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, 12 Years a Slave and The Imitation Game (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor) and three franchises (The Hobbit, Star Trek Into Darkness and the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he took the title role of Doctor Strange). And since he's listed in Time magazine's "Most Influential People in the World" in 2014, he will be around for a long time.
• Cate Blanchett. In a big way. After her Star-Making Role in Elizabeth earned her widespread critical praise, numerous high profile magazine covers (such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, etc) and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, she was tipped for very big things. Immediately following that she was cast as Galadriel in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy which went on to become the most financially successful movie trilogy of all time, as well as one of the most popular and critically acclaimed. Since then she's barely put a foot wrong in the eyes of, well, near enough everyone. She won her first Oscar (Best Supporting Actress) in 2005 for her role as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (making her the only actor in history to win an Oscar for playing another Oscar-winning actor), and has since gone on to receive five more Oscar nominations for Notes on a Scandal, I'm Not There, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Blue Jasmine and Carol. She won her second Oscar (this time for Best Actress) for Blue Jasmine, and in fact achieved the largest awards sweep for a single movie performance of all time, earning an astonishing 46 individual industry awards for her performance. These days, as one of Hollywood's most acclaimed and profitable actresses (not to mention, "the greatest actress of her generation", as the media is constantly calling her), she is in the very enviable position of being able to pick and choose her movie roles, fitting them around her work in the theatre (her first love) and her role as the mother of four children. Whereas she was often called "the next Meryl Streep" in her earlier career, the young up and coming actresses of this generation sometimes have the honor of being called "the next Cate Blanchett."
• Keira Knightley was predicted as a possible new star with highly praised roles in Pirates of the Caribbean. A lot of the blockbusters she headlined were hit and miss, but she became a critical darling with an Oscar nomination for Pride & Prejudice (2005). She tried to resist typecasting in period films at first, but eventually embraced it and delivered very well-received performances in Atonement, Anna Karenina, The Duchess, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and eventually a second Oscar nomination for The Imitation Game. She has also successfully made the transition to the stage, with praised appearances on the West End and Broadway.
• Amy Adams labored for years in small parts on TV shows, direct-to-video films, and other projects. When she was cast in Catch Me If You Can, Steven Spielberg hoped it would be her breakout role and he was devastated when she didn't work for a full year afterwards. But a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the film Junebug got the ball rolling, and she achieved worldwide fame with the blockbuster success of Disney's Enchanted. For a while there was worry that she'd been typecast as Genki Girls and Manic Pixie Dream Girls but she did stay in critics' good graces with projects like Sunshine Cleaning, Julie & Julia and the adaptation of Doubt. Working with David O Russell helped show her range, allowing her to go against type in The Fighter and American Hustle – as well as her drastically villainous turn in The Master and playing Lois Lane in the DC Extended Universe. With six Oscar nominations to her name, Amy Adams is now considered one of the best actresses working in Hollywood. Unfortunately, her career, starting in The New '20s, has started sagging with poorly received films like Hillbilly Elegy, Literature/The Woman in the Window|1018}}, Dear Evan Hansen, and Disenchanted (2022).
• Scarlett Johansson. An indie darling in the late '90s, she was crowned the new "It Girl" in 2003 on the back of her two acclaimed performances in Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring. Her failure to secure an Oscar nomination for either film did a lot to stall her momentum, and her follow-ups were not nearly so well received. Luckily for her, Woody Allen declared her his latest muse and they made three films together, including one of his most popular latter-day films, Match Point. This kept her career on life support until 2010 when she nabbed the role of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in Iron Man 2. The commercial success of this film parlayed over into a multi-picture deal with Marvel Studios, with Johansson reprising the role starting with The Avengers (2012). She would follow this up with critically acclaimed turns in her (2013) and Under the Skin, and another blockbuster smash with Lucy becoming her biggest hit outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and her first film as a solo lead to pass $100 million). While she has had missteps (Ghost in the Shell (2017) was a critical disaster and a Box Office Bomb after being hit with the controversial Race Lift casting, costing Paramount more than 60 million, while Rough Night came and went with little fanfare from both critics and audiences), she has for the most part swiftly leapt back up. 2019 was a landmark year for Johansson; after reprising her role as Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame, which became her (and for a time, the) highest-grossing film of all time, she received tons of critical acclaim for her roles in Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story. She subsequently garnered much attention in major award circuits, including two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively. Her solo Black Widow film, released in 2021 after its 2020 premiere was delayed by COVID-19, broke several pandemic box office records on its first weekend. The film was a bigger hit on the streaming service Disney+ via Premiere Access (albeit at the expense of a significant box office drop upon its second week in theaters).
• Margot Robbie, although somewhat well-known in her native Australia, got international attention after being cast in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, where she turned out to be a surprisingly talented actress in a role that could easily have been written off as mere Ms. Fanservice. Her next high-profile role (after a slight lull with some forgettable films) was Harley Quinn in the financially successful but critically panned Suicide Squad (2016). Despite its reception, her performance was noted to be one of the more enjoyable parts of the movie. She made a quick recovery by garnering critical praise for her performance as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in the Biopic I, Tonya, which got her numerous nominations during the awards season including a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical and an Oscar for Best Actress. For what its worth, she is willing to pursue roles in different genres to avoid typecasting and her willingness to perform her own stunts in Suicide Squad and I, Tonya does sell her as a committed actress. Warner Bros. was also willing to give her considerable creative input on Birds of Prey (which was based on an idea she personally pitched to the studio in 2015), going so far as to bump her up to the producer role and letting her pick the writers and director. In 2019, she had major roles in Bombshell (for which she received another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actress) and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Sharon Tate, a performance that was well received and even earned approval from Tate's sister. Her next outings as Harley Quinn, Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad (a stand-alone sequel), were also well received. She later played the title role in Barbie (2023), which earned glowing acclaim (particularly for her performance) and made over $1 billion dollars to become her highest-grossing film so far. Its immense success fully established her stardom.
• Timothée Chalamet started out in The New '10s with a variety of supporting parts (notably appearing in season two of Homeland and Interstellar) before landing his breakout role in 2017's Call Me by Your Name, which netted him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and made him one of the youngest actors to do so at only 22 years old. Chalamet, since then, has become one of Hollywood's hottest young stars, bolstered by well-received supporting roles in Lady Bird and Little Women (2019), and is now considered to be one of the finest actors of his generation. His three films in 2021 – Dune (wherein he had his first mainstream role as Paul Atreides), The French Dispatch, and Don't Look Up, which he had supporting roles in – further boosted his profile. After he reunited with Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino for Bones & All (which also marked his first producing credit), he sealed his ubiquity with Wonka and Dune: Part Two (the latter of which is doing even better than the first film).
• Jeff Goldblum didn't quite made it to the A-list during his "prime" years of The '80s and The '90s. After a near-decade toiling away in minor, supporting, and ensemble roles, plus one unsuccessful (if cultishly-loved) TV vehicle in Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, 1983's hit dramedy The Big Chill gave him a leg up. While The Fly (1986) proved a bravura Star-Making Role, '80s Hollywood just didn't have a surfeit of leading roles that suited his unconventional looks, unusual speaking cadence, and eccentric intensity on offer (aside from the flop Vibes, and only because Dan Aykroyd quit)^note Geena Davis, his co-star in The Fly and two other films (and for a few years his wife), got a much bigger push – see Examples That Didn't Hold Up, leading into a run of cable, independent, and/or European productions. Then came 1993 and a scene-stealing supporting turn in Jurassic Park. Overnight he became the go-to performer for Motor Mouth and/or Tall, Dark, and Snarky turns, but he remained a supporting player – sometimes to actors getting or just past a full Hype Machine push (Hugh Grant in Nine Months, Will Smith in Independence Day, Eddie Murphy in Holy Man...) — with only two exceptions, Hideaway and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He also became easy to mock, having codified the Gibbering Genius trope. At the Turn of the Millennium he was working consistently, frequently, and happily but rarely as a lead, the most high-profile exceptions being two TV shows (Raines, which was tossed away by the network, and the later seasons of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in which he was stuck in the shadow of original/alternate lead Vincent D'Onofrio).
  
  Then came a twist – all those roles plus his memorable talk show appearances (he's a particular favorite of Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, and James Corden) endeared him to late Generation X-ers and millennials as years passed. In The New '10s – as he entered his sixties – he became an affectionate source of Memetic Mutations, and he cheerfully played up and into his natural eccentricity to please fans. Combined with creatives who'd grown up with his films wanting to work with him (in particular Taika Waititi, who cast him as the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok), by the end of the decade he had his own Disney+ show (The World According to Jeff Goldblum) and fame that many who were chewed up and spat out by the Hype Machine would envy.
• Keanu Reeves, much like Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Affleck, has had both success and failure with the Hype Machine. He first made a splash with the Bill & Ted stoner comedy films. Soon after he got a big push with Point Break (1991) and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and 1994's Speed cemented him as an A-List star. This wave of success reached its apex with the release of The Matrix in 1999; Reeves became probably the biggest star in the world, only for that to vanish as quickly as it came. The highly-anticipated Matrix sequels left a bad taste in both audience and critics' mouths, leaving the franchise functionally dead. This, coupled with frequent mockery of Reeves' acting range (or lack thereof), resulted in his stature diminishing as the rest of his films in the '00s were flops or underperformers, reaching a low point with the Troubled Production 47 Ronin in 2013. And then he made a comeback with the John Wick films, making him a household name again in the age of social media (helped along by, as in Jeff Goldblum's case, longstanding affection for his best work – where Goldblum has been dubbed a "Zaddy", Reeves is "The Internet's Boyfriend"). 2019 was humorously dubbed the year of the "Keanussance" between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Always Be My Maybe, Toy Story 4 and Cyberpunk 2077. The heat continued into 2020 with the well-received Bill & Ted Face the Music. While The Matrix Resurrections was divisively received in 2021, John Wick: Chapter 4 quickly restored his esteem in 2023.
• Hugh Grant rose to stardom in 1994 with Four Weddings and a Funeral and starred in many romantic comedies such as Notting Hill, Bridget Jones' Diary, About a Boy, Two Weeks Notice, and Love Actually, known for his boyish looks, charm, and sardonic wit. However, in the late 2000s, his career took a notable hit, partially due to Hype Backlash for his repeated Typecasting and due to his own apathy for acting. Shortly after, he would retire from acting and became an outspoken political activist, though he appeared in small parts in Cloud Atlas and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). However, in 2016, he came out of retirement to star in Florence Foster Jenkins since the opportunity to work with Meryl Streep was too good to pass up, and received lots of praise, with many critics calling it the best role of his career and kickstarting his Career Resurrection. Since then, he's made a new name for himself as a character actor, with an even more well-received and scene-stealing role as the villain in Paddington 2, and landed Emmy nominations for A Very British Scandal and The Undoing, gaining a genuine enjoyment for acting in the process.
• George Clooney rose to fame in television on ER and once he announced his intent to pursue a film career there was a massive amount of excitement and hype behind the prospect of Clooney as a film star. He narrowly avoided having his film career derailed from the very beginning by the notorious Batman & Robin^note which killed or severely derailed the careers of almost all of his costars, which he considers the low point of his career to this day. Thankfully it would barely register as a hiccup as Clooney starred in numerous successful roles that won him great acclaim including From Dusk Till Dawn, The Perfect Storm and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. It would be Ocean's Eleven that truly introduced him to a global audience after grossing $450 million worldwide, fully establishing his film stardom. Since then Clooney's career has taken off and never stopped, and he has consistently remained a popular, critically applauded and bankable A-list star throughout his entire career, something very few other actors can claim. In addition to his acting career he's also expanded into directorial work as well as production and writing, all of which have netted him numerous accolades including six Academy Award nominations, two of which he won for acting in Syriana and co-producing Argo.
• Liam Neeson had a few successful early roles that weren't breakout hits such as Darkman and Suspect. Everything changed with Schindler's List, which catapulted Neeson to worldwide recognition overnight and netted him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In a relatively rare example of an older actor (Neeson was in his 40s) being given a push, Hollywood hyped him up as a "mature" leading man. This led to critically and commercially successful performances in Les Misérables' and Nell before Neeson was cast as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Neeson's performance was widely praised even by critics who didn't like the film itself and the movie smashed box office records, making more than $900 million during its theatrical run and fully establishing Neeson as a leading star. Things continued strong in the 2000s with roles in successful films including Gangs of New York, Love Actually, Kinsey and Batman Begins. Though he seemed to be at a risk of being pigeonholed as a gruff mentor-type figure, he's managed to subvert this by taking a variety of different roles that have proven his versatility and staying power. In a very unlikely twist, Taken marked the successful transition of Neeson to an action star well into his fifties that began long string of action films and thrillers. Critical reception to these have often been mixed, but Neeson's performances have been consistently praised. He's lately expressed a desire to retire from the action genre but his star power doesn't seem to be fading any time soon.
• Robin Williams drew the attention of Hollywood between his at the time skyrocketing comedy career and his extremely well-received role on Mork & Mindy and was given a big push. This initially went very badly with films such as The World According to Garp, Moscow on the Hudson and Club Paradise that were critical and commercial bombs, and for a while it seemed like Williams' film career was dead before it even started. Good Morning, Vietnam was a turning point where he won over both critics and audiences and notched an Academy Award nomination. His film career took off and he was nominated twice more for Academy Awards for his roles in the successful Dead Poets Society and The Fisher King — he balanced these critically applauded roles with crowd-pleasing mainstream successes that included Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the Genie in Aladdin, the latter of which became a massive cultural icon and one of the crowning roles of his career. This streak of success continued despite occasional misfires when he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Good Will Hunting. Unfortunately he started falling out of favor around this time with multiple films that performed poorly with both critics and audiences, including What Dreams May Come, Patch Adams, Jakob the Liar and Bicentennial Man. He rebounded again as he started doing much more serious films in the 2000s that once again reminded everyone of his acting chops including Death to Smoochy, Insomnia, and One Hour Photo. Even as he returned to standup he continued performing in films that proved he was a talented and bankable actor — by the time of his tragic death in 2014 his acting career had highs and lows, but his comedy career was legendary.

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