Hollywood Hype Machine / Actors That Didnt Hold Up

• Tim Allen. With his pre-teenage life marred by the loss of his father, and his adult years disfigured by drug use, Allen managed to make a name of himself in the stand-up circuit, both on television and record, so that his life can go on the right track. He never conceived himself to be an actor, having stated at one point that he could only act based on "personal experience," but he eventually found his big break when he became the star of the ABC sitcom Home Improvement, which became one of the highest-rated sitcoms of The '90s. A chart-topping book from him soon followed, his first major film role, The Santa Clause, became the 4th highest-grossing domestic release of 1994, and then he voiced Buzz Lightyear in a little animated project known as Toy Story, which became a pop-culture behemoth overnight. Hollywood soon began courting him for more film roles, but he turned down most of them due to his limited acting experience. Consequently, the only studio he received film roles from was Disney, who produced both The Santa Clause and Home Improvement and whom Allen had a close relationship with. During that time, he starred in the films Jungle 2 Jungle and For Richer or Poorer, whose theatrical runs were overshadowed by Allen's highly-publicized DUI arrest in Michigan, with his troubled past having caught up with him. After Home Improvement was cancelled in 1999, he seemed to be heading back on the road to stardom, starring in Galaxy Quest and reprising his role as Buzz in Toy Story 2, but quickly fell back into recession after starring in a few more forgettable film roles after that. Except for the Toy Story franchise, his only notable success on TV was the sitcom Last Man Standing, which aired for nine seasons.
• Christopher Atkins was pushed in the early '80s as a new, teenage Hollywood hunk, only for studios' efforts at turning him into a star to go nowhere. He headlined The Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields and The Pirate Movie with Kristy McNichol (each mentioned in Actresses), both of which were torn to shreds by critics and audiences (though The Blue Lagoon performed fine financially). He tried moving towards television with a recurring role on Dallas which only lasted one season. Further efforts at reestablishing his film career failed after A Night in Heaven and Listen to Me did, which netted him Golden Raspberry Awards. Since that decade, his screen career has been rather spotty at best.
• Scott Baio made his screen debut as the title role in Bugsy Malone, before going on to play Fonzie's cousin Chachi Arcola in the sitcom Happy Days: with his character becoming so popular he headlined his own spin-off, Joanie Loves Chachi, alongside Erin Moran as Joanie Cunningham. While his film career attempts went nowhere following the horribly reviewed Zapped! (1982), Baio's television career continued thriving with Charles in Charge and Diagnosis: Murder. But starting in the 2000s, Baio receded into reality TV and cameos (besides his recurring role in Arrested Development). Baio tried nabbing a comeback with the sitcom See Dad Run, but low ratings and reception killed those hopes. He's become notorious lately for many controversies, notably spreading conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, being accused by Charles in Charge co-star Nicole Eggert of sexual assault and for his outspoken conservative political views.
• Zach Braff had much expected from him after the massive success and popularity of Garden State and Scrubs. Then, The Last Kiss, which he got near-total creative control over in an attempt to create another Garden State, fared so terribly with critics and audiences alike that Braff practically disappeared for a couple of years following the cancellation of Scrubs. A comeback attempt with Wish I Was Here, which he had to rely on Kickstarter to get the necessary funding, didn't turn out so well when it underperformed in 2014.
• Edward Burns was heavily hyped as being a future voice in independent film after starring and directing in the acclaimed The Brothers McMullen in 1995. However, several attempts at trying to recapture the success of that film and his follow-up She's the One, combined with attempts to break into acting (despite those talents not being as good as his directing skills) and a botched effort at making his ex-girlfriend a star, failed to catch on as his hype died out fast. Although still around, most of his films (starring or directing), like A Sound of Thunder and the One Missed Call remake, were critical and financial failures that either go Direct to Video or, if lucky, barely get enough of a theatrical release.
• Kirk Cameron became a Teen Idol overnight with his role in The '80s sitcom Growing Pains, with its massive success propelling his lucky streak. During the peak of his fame, he was paid a salary of $50,000 per week for starring on the show and made the cover of many magazines. Midway through production of the series, however, Cameron, an atheist in his early teenage years, became a born-again Christian, and objecting to what he viewed as some of the show's more objectionable content, assumed greater control behind the scenes, sometimes even cutting whole storylines, which many felt contributed to its decline in quality. Regardless of his rising sanctimony, the show managed to last all the way until 1992. He failed to grab much success during and after Growing Pains, suffering a huge flop in 1989 with Listen to Me opposite Christopher Atkins, while his follow-up sitcom Kirk was cancelled after two seasons in 1997. He retreated to Christian media post-The '90s plus his other gig as an evangelical minister, before making Saving Christmas in 2014. That dud got unanimously awful reviews for the shoddy quality of its filmmaking and its excessive shilling of Cameron's Christian beliefs, with its many dishonors including a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a position on the IMDb's Bottom 100 list. He tried playing the victim card in response to the bad reception, declaring himself a target of "anti-Christian" critics and urging others across various forms of media to watch it and prove them wrong. This failed when the few people who were convinced to see the film gave it just as bad (if not worse) reviews, which led Cameron to further double down on his assumed victimhood while dismissing the barrage of negativity. The incident made him a laughingstock to everybody outside of his Christian Right demographic, while some within it began giving him a wide berth. Saving Christmas has now garnered notoriety as one of the worst films ever made, killing his career for good.
• After a few minor roles, Dana Carvey got his big break in 1986 with Tough Guys, where he managed to hold his own alongside Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster. Shortly thereafter, he joined Saturday Night Live, and was one of the people to help reverse its declining popularity and make it "must-see TV" once again. After his success in the Wayne's World movies, it seemed like he was destined for great things. However, his work afterwards was a story of disappointment and missed opportunities. His first movie after Wayne's World 2 was the critical flop Clean Slate, a pattern that would continue for The Road to Wellville and Trapped In Paradise. In 1995, he turned down a role in Bad Boys (1995) because he felt overwhelmed by fatherhood. 1996 gave him an opportunity at a return to form with his own eponymous sketch show. However, Carvey made the ill-advised decision to try out raunchier, edgier material, despite The Dana Carvey Show airing during primetime. While it notably launched the careers of Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert (The Ambiguously Gay Duo first appeared on the show), ratings declined and it was cancelled after only seven episodes. Carvey attempted a comeback in 2002 with The Master of Disguise, but it failed in its intended purpose after being unanimously panned by critics. Since then, he has mostly retired from the screen and stuck to stand-up.
• Justin Chatwin had an unremarkable start in the early 2000s with two-bit roles (most infamously in the widely hated Box Office Bomb Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, notorious for its 0% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes) before being cast as Robbie Ferrier in War of the Worlds (2005). The film’s success gave Chatwin exposure to a wider audience, and he was cast as the lead in the supernatural thriller The Invisible two years later. Although that film wasn’t as successful at the box office and received negative reviews from critics, its failure paled in comparison to his next attempt at a headliner: Dragonball Evolution. He was cast as Son Goku in the American adaptation of the popular Japanese franchise, which already attracted near-universal scorn for its Race Lift of the source material’s Asian-based lead even in 2009. It was unanimously reviled by critics, audiences, and Dragon Ball fans alike, and unlike Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Chatwin didn’t even have the small mercy of not being the film’s face. He retreated into direct-to-video fare afterwards, with his biggest projects since being a recurring role on the Showtime comedy-drama Shameless (US) and a lead role on the Netflix sci-fi series Another Life (2019) – the latter of which was cancelled after just two seasons.
• ABC threw Eddie Cibrian in every single "beefcake Latin Lothario" role they could think of for a three-year period, including Ugly Betty and the failed Football Wives pilot, even though nobody was interested in him and the Ugly Betty fan reaction when he was paired up with Betty's sister was 'anyone but him'. ABC eventually gave up and after the mess of his personal life involving his affair and eventual tabloid-ready marriage with LeAnn Rimes was dredged up (we also have him to blame for his ex-wife and mistress becoming Real Housewives regulars) and a quick season of CSI: Miami where he did nothing memorable, he was poison, and his derided role in The Playboy Club assured his star burned out quickly; everything he's done since then has been C-level cable network work, and his 2014 VH1 reality series with his wife saw substandard ratings which should make sure he never sees a major television role again.
• Stephen Collins made a name of himself beginning with his critically-praised role in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the cult series Tales of the Gold Monkey, but he wouldn't hit the big time until seventeen years later when he was cast as the Reverend Eric Camden in the television drama 7th Heaven, which became the highest-rated program of The WB for much of the network's existence and caused studios left and right to offer Collins roles in various films and shows. However, none of these roles offered Collins the star power he had with 7th Heaven, and thus the spotlight began turning away from him, especially following the cancellation of 7th Heaven after just one season on The CW. Since then, Collins tried to find suitable roles and avoid being cast as Eric Camden again, to little success. He made several appearances in the ABC series Private Practice and Scandal, but all that became overshadowed by his highly-publicized divorce with Faye Grant and the nasty proceedings that followed. And then came TMZ leaking an audiotape of Collins admitting to Grant during a private therapy session that he had molested several children decades prior. Role-Ending Misdemeanor doesn't even begin to describe the immediate fallout from the scandal, with his character in Scandal getting killed off, Collins resigning from his position at the Screen Actors Guild board, getting fired from the production of Ted 2, and multiple stations and networks yanking reruns of 7th Heaven from their schedules. With the scandal causing such a negative domino effect, it's a safe bet to say Collins may never be able to repair his career.
• Andy Comeau appeared in several music videos before nabbing his first big role, starring alongside Joe Pesci in 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag. However, its massive failure failed to establish his stardom while also damaging Pesci's. With his film career DOA, he retreated towards an unremarkable career on television besides his recurring role on the fourth season of House.
• Gaelan Connell already had a handful of roles as a child actor in the 2000s before he was cast as the male lead in the 2009 teen musical dramedy Bandslam, starring opposite rising Disney Channel starlets Vanessa Hudgens and Alyson Michalka. But while it got fairly decent reviews, it was an immense Box Office Bomb whose failure was attributed to a bad marketing campaign. His co-stars ascended to further success, but his acting career afterwards comprised of nothing big besides the live-action Cartoon Network series Level Up. He since has gone to directing, filming a few commercials and independent projects.
• There was at one point in the late 2000s when there were three movies made in an attempt at turning Dane Cook into a movie star, beginning with Employee of the Month and continuing with Good Luck Chuck. The last film, My Best Friend's Girl, ended up a flop, and showed that success as a comedian doesn't always translate into a successful acting career. Since then, Cook has mostly done stand-up and supporting roles in both films and TV.
• Bud Cort got moderate buzz early in The '70s after Robert Altman cast him in M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud, with Cort playing the titular role in the latter. Following those, he played the title male lead in Harold and Maude. Though not a major success upon release, it later became a Cult Classic and is now considered one of the best films of the decade. But in 1979, Cort's trajectory was unfortunately halted when he was involved in a horrific car accident on the Hollywood Freeway that severely disfigured him. He was out of commission for many years and, upon returning to work, struggled to land a sizable role. While he eventually became a respected character actor, he didn't hit the heights of his '70s heyday and hasn't starred in a project since 2015.
• Jai Courtney was this in the mid-2010s where a lot of people joked that he was Hollywood's next attempt at a big white male-lead after their attempt to make Sam Worthington a big leading star fell apart a few years earlier. During the mid-2010s, Courtney popped up in several leading or major blockbuster roles in A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), two of the Divergent films (2014-2015), Terminator Genisys (2015), and Suicide Squad (2016). Since then, his films have been a lot more spread out, and not as high-profile. Suicide Squad being the only role people truly praised him for in his role as Captain Boomerang, which he returned to play the character five years later for The Suicide Squad.
• Eddie Deezen became synonymous with the image of a Stereotypical Nerd with his screen debut in three 1978 films (Grease, Laserblast, and I Wanna Hold Your Hand), after first getting known for his work in stand-up comedy. He promptly forged a career out of playing similar geeky characters in various films (Midnight Madness, Zapped! (1982), WarGames, etc.), but his live-action career sputtered out after starring in the Leslie Nielsen-led spoof Spy Hard in 1996. Deezen promptly turned to voice work in animation, with his recognizable cadence lending itself well towards several projects (like Dexter's Laboratory as Mandark). But in The New '20s, his career has gotten snuffed out after countless public misdemeanors (stalking a waitress and writing derogatory posts on Facebook about her, attacking a police officer, breaking and entering into a nursing facility, etc.).
• Andy Dick got his start in sketch comedy with The Ben Stiller Show, which was well-reviewed despite getting axed after one season. He established his comic career with sitcoms such as NewsRadio and Less Than Perfect, plus a supporting gig in film. However, he's also infamous for very… off-color behavior. He has grappled with drug and alcohol abuse over the years, leading to many failed attempts at sobriety. Though that alone isn't bad enough to destroy his career, he has also been charged time and again with, among other lewd and/or criminal acts, DUIs, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, sexual battery, misconduct, assault, etc. While his misbehavior was barely tolerated in his heyday, Dick now is persona non grata in the aftermath of #MeToo and the crackdown against sexual harassment in Hollywood. The fact he still continues to be arrested for such crimes doesn't help.
• Stephen Dorff had an unremarkable beginning to his acting career in The '80s and The '90s, working in small parts on film and television. He then became better known among audiences when he was cast as the main villain Deacon Frost in Blade, with its box office success indicating future good luck. Unfortunately, he appeared in many big flops afterwards (Cecil B. Demented, FeardotCom, Alone in the Dark, etc.) which ground his hype into mulch. Dorff nearly snagged a comeback with a critically acclaimed lead role in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which left as quickly as it came following further failures like Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star and Immortals.
• David Faustino got his big break as a child actor playing Bud Bundy on Married... with Children, but never got similar levels of success after its conclusion. Faustino, to his credit, is at ease poking fun at himself for his place (or lack of) in Hollywood, like lampooning his status as a Former Child Star in the web series Star-ving alongside Corin Nemec. His live-action career has hit the skids, although he has found a niche as a voice actor in animation like playing Mako on The Legend of Korra.
• James Franco had a slower climb to the top than most, with noted roles in the short-lived Freaks and Geeks and the Spider-Man Trilogy. His push didn't really pick up until his Academy Award-nominated performance 127 Hours and being named the Sexiest Man Alive in 2009. For the next three or so years, he headlined a lot of big films – some did well and others less so. He took a step back from acting to focus on his education, and has leaned more towards becoming a producer and director in addition to acting. Things seemed to be going well for him when he won a Golden Globe for his role as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist, but almost immediately afterwards, accusations of sexual misconduct (most of them from several of his former acting students) were thrown at him, which probably contributed to him not getting an Oscar nomination for the film. Following the scandal, he hasn't starred in a screen project since 2019.
• Edward Furlong got his big break with his role as John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day when an agent approached him in a Boys Club, despite him not having any interest in acting beforehand. While starring in the biggest movie of 1991 kickstarted a productive career, it ultimately fell on both poor role choices and a very troubled life. He has starred in a lot of films since then - around 40 since 1991 - although a lot of them are lesser known. During the filming of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, he began dating the adult woman who served as his tutor while he was out of school. They remained together for years, despite his guardians attempting to have her prosecuted for statutory rape. He was also known for his drug problems in his teens and 20s, but is allegedly clean now.
• Vincent Gallo's career in film first started as an actor, but it really took off on the independent circuit in The '90s beginning with Buffalo '66. His directorial debut, which he also starred in, wrote, and composed, was a big hit with critics who praised Gallo as a jack-of-all-trades. A lot was anticipated from Gallo's follow-up The Brown Bunny before it premiered at Cannes in 2003, only for its primarily negative reception to kill any goodwill he could've had as an actor or a director. Though Gallo generally didn't take the poor response well, a particularly damning statement from the late Roger Ebert, who called The Brown Bunny the worst film ever to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, riled him so rancorously that the two fell into a verbal dispute, with Gallo hitting below the belt by immaturely mocking Ebert's weight and wishing he would get colon cancer (which was harsher in retrospect, after Ebert was later actually diagnosed with cancer, albeit of his thyroid and salivary glands), while Ebert stood by his criticism. The film also became an infamous Box Office Bomb, grossing a measly $1 million against a budget of $10 million. He didn't make another movie for seven years, which never received wide distribution following its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. In the years since, Gallo's acting career has also hit the gutter aside from playing the lead in Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola in 2009.
• Gil Gerard had been acting throughout The '70s before landing the role of Captain William “Buck” Rogers in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Inspired by the success of Star Wars two years prior, the series pilot was retooled as a theatrical release in 1979. It grossed nearly $22 million on a $3.5 million budget, igniting interest in the series before it aired on television months later. The series lasted for two years and seasons, but Gerard had a hard time getting work after its conclusion since nobody could see him as anything other than Buck Rogers. The bulk of his filmography afterwards has comprised of direct-to-video and/or TV movies, besides a minor role in The Nice Guys.
• Thomas Gibson had a promising start to his acting career when he played as a villainous rival in Ron Howard's Far and Away. Later on, he got his breakthrough TV role in Chicago Hope and showed his comedy chops in Dharma & Greg, which gave him two Golden Globe nominations. He was at his peek when he played the role of Aaron Hotchner in Criminal Minds. Unfortunately, he got into an on-set altercation with one of the writers which got him fired from the show. That incident damaged his career and reputation, which never recovered.
• Tom Green did stand-up comedy in the early stages of his career before he was given his own self-titled Variety Show in 1994. The Tom Green Show soon became notorious for its usage and blend of surreal and shock humor, along with its recurrent implementation of the Candid Camera Prank (which became a potent influence on similar shows such as Jackass). This didn't stop him from becoming popular with younger audiences, and in fact led him to get roles in hit movies like Charlie's Angels (2000). He also was temporarily married to his Charlie's Angels co-star Drew Barrymore for a year. In 2001, Green used the clout he earned to star in, co-write, and direct his passion project, Freddy Got Fingered. It, though, was released to a widely negative response, became a Box Office Bomb, and went on to win five Razzie Awards including Worst Picture, practically killing his career, aside from the equally reviled Stealing Harvard the following year.
• Armie Hammer has suffered repeated disappointments, including one legendary bomb. After several years of TV roles he got a breakthrough part (or parts) in The Social Network. All of Hammer's subsequent projects - Mirror, Mirror, J. Edgar and The Lone Ranger (2013) - have flopped critically and financially. He's still getting high-profile roles, including the The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) remake... but it failed to light the world on fire. It's only in 2017 where he received a lot of critical praise in Call Me by Your Name. In 2021, his career ground to a halt when he was accused of sexual abuse, not to mention cannibalistic fantasies.
• Might come as a surprise, but Kadeem Hardison was actually fairly popular in the early '90s (at least in the black community). It was assumed (perhaps naively) that he was going to become a huge breakout star after A Different World ended. Needless to say, for whatever reason that never happened. It might be a case of both Critical Dissonance and Pop-Culture Isolation. Same could be said for Jasmine Guy and Lisa Bonet.
  • This actually happens to a lot of up and coming black actors, who ended up with mediocre or stalled careers after a fairly huge beginning. Examples include Nia Long, Larenz Tate, Bokeem Woodbine, Derek Luke, and Sean Patrick Thomas. Basically, let's just say every black "it" actor/actress that's not Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, or Denzel Washington has faced this. Again, a mix of Pop-Culture Isolation, industry politics, and arguably racism play a part.
• Jon Heder became a sensation in 2004 when he starred as the title character in Napoleon Dynamite. Premiering at that year’s Sundance Film Festival, it became a surprise hit with youth of the zeitgeist once it gained a wide release during the summer. Filmed on a miniscule budget of $400,000, it surpassed expectations to gross over $46 million during its theatrical release and seemingly established Heder as an up and coming star in comedy. Unfortunately, his star power fell not long after with the 2006 flops The Benchwarmers and School for Scoundrels. Besides Blades of Glory the following year (and its success was primarily because Will Ferrell was his co-star), most of his films since then have received limited releases or otherwise gone straight-to-video. He has recently branched out into voice-over work, while he now is viewed as a One-Hit Wonder for Napoleon Dynamite.
• Much was expected from Freddie Highmore after his roles in Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (both of which paired him with megastar Johnny Depp). However, a series of flops (such as Arthur and the Invisibles, Astro Boy, and August Rush) and criticisms that his acting talent never improved past his earlier successes derailed his chances of a successful career in his teenage and adult years. An attempt to do an edgier role in The Art of Getting By resulted in awful reviews and low box office, signaling an end to his career as a leading man on the big screen. But the small screen turned out to be a much more fruitful frontier for him anyway, first with Bates Motel and second with The Good Doctor.
• Emile Hirsch was a rising star who had built up much acclaim from films such as Into the Wild and Alpha Dog. Then the failure of Speed Racer (an attempt to turn him into a big star) more or less led his hype to dry up, as he would not appear in another lead role until the 2011 flop The Darkest Hour. Though he still has the occasional supporting role (most recently in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Hirsch's time seems to have passed. Also not helping his case was his 2015 assault conviction.
• C. Thomas Howell was a notable Teen Idol in The '80s, starring in many hits like The Outsiders and Red Dawn. However, Howell blew it all with 1986's Soul Man. Although a box office success, it garnered controversy because he spent the bulk of the film in blackface which, in the '80s and beyond, was extremely taboo for obvious reasons. Since then, he has appeared in a bunch of B-movies and TV shows.
• Kevin James rose to become the next top comedy star with the popularity of The King of Queens and the success of Hitch marking high notes in his career. Then, just two months after the cancellation of Queens, he co-starred with longtime partner Adam Sandler in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, which critics everywhere tore apart for alleged gay stereotyping. He bounced back a couple years later with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which was also panned but became the highest-grossing film released in January, only to take another downturn in the next two years with Grown Ups and Zookeeper, both of which received bad reviews and did mediocre business at the box-office. After yet another Sandler-James collaboration, Pixels, bombed critically and financially, he decided to go straight back to television in the CBS sitcom Kevin Can Wait. That series got canned after its second season due to CBS attempting to make it more like The King of Queens: going as far as to fire Erinn Hayes, kill off her character, and replace her with Queens co-star Leah Remini, a decision met with largely unfavorable reactions.
• Blake Jenner got a huge push after winning the second season of The Glee Project, which landed him a role in Season 4 of Glee as Ryder Lynn. That show's popularity made Jenner a recognizable face and led to more high-profile parts in Everybody Wants Some!! and The Edge of Seventeen. Then, he was afflicted by scandal when his ex-wife Melissa Benoist, whom he met on the set of Glee, disclosed a few years following their divorce that he had been physically and emotionally abusive during their marriage. His career quickly tanked following this revelation, with Richard Linklater replacing Jenner as the lead in the director's planned adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along with Paul Mescal. Meanwhile, projects he already filmed were buried quietly or given only a token limited release.
• Sam J. Jones had kind of a similar story to "one and done James Bond" George Lazenby. Jones had the chance of a lifetime with Flash Gordon (1980), but his own attitude undermined his potential career. He was, though, able to find success elsewhere, while still occasionally accepting acting jobs, most notably cameoing as himself in Ted and its sequel, whose titular character and his best friend are portrayed as die-hard Flash Gordon fans.
• Jamie Kennedy became a horror icon after starring as the Genre Savvy Randy Meeks in Scream (1996), returning for its first two sequels. But he struggled to continue a decent career afterwards in the early 2000s, before it was killed for good with the failures of Son of the Mask and Kickin' It Old School. He hasn't appeared in a major film since then, while television bore no success beyond a role in the final two seasons of Ghost Whisperer. After a career spanning several decades, Randy remains his best-known role.
• Taylor Kitsch has had a rough time with this trope. He first rose to prominence in 2006 with his role in the NBC series Friday Night Lights, which was a critical darling despite never having massive ratings. He gained more exposure when he played Gambit in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was a moderate box office success despite receiving mixed reviews. Kitsch's portrayal in particular was considered one of the film's saving graces, with many critics and comics fans calling him its Ensemble Dark Horse. Unfortunately, his career after Friday Night Lights ended in 2011 has been very rough. 2012 notoriously proved to be a disastrous year with three high-profile disasters in Battleship, Savages, and John Carter, the last of which was one of the biggest box-office disasters in recent memory. He does have an advantage in that he wasn't blamed for any of the failures, with John Carter's attributed to a very poor marketing campaign and an enormously bloated budget, and the fact that critics and audiences already know how well he can act. He was cast for the second season of True Detective but earned mixed reception for his performance, although it didn't help that the second season wasn't as praised as the first.
• Shia LaBeouf - who ironically didn't get the hype machine from Disney like his contemporaries, has had the most post-Disney success. While being featured in several big blockbusters in a supporting role (such as I, Robot and Constantine) helped to establish his cred, it was his relationship with Steven Spielberg that pushed him over the edge. Through Spielberg, LaBeouf got cast as the lead in the Transformers Film Series and one of the leads of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This already started polarizing him among fans of the franchises, who felt such a young actor was basically getting handed roles on a silver platter without having put in his dues to earn them, especially in contrast to fellow Transformers star Megan Fox who had to fight tooth and nail for roles that didn't just revolve around her being Ms. Fanservice. Then over time, LaBeouf developed a negative reputation when he started to publically slam the movies he was part of. Though unlike most, LaBeouf's falling off ended up being his own decision after revealing he hates the studio system. Then he was found to be plagiarizing a Daniel Clowes comic for a short film that he premiered at a festival and was reviled for months (to the point where he wore a paper bag over his head), though the backlash eventually died down. He later got a supporting role in David Ayer's World War II film Fury (2014) and this seemed like it was supposed to be his transition from brainless action star to Oscar Bait material. It didn't work, given that the movie didn't make much of a splash or had any lasting traction. His star only further faded when it was revealed his bizarre Method Acting on the set had him doing such things as cutting his face, pulling out a tooth, and refusing to bathe, the latter making him smell so bad he got kicked out of the cast accommodations. While he has worked steadily since he doesn't appear to be eager to get back up to his former heights of fame, but it's a bit doubtful he could even if he tried at this point. If anything, he moved onto a niche role as a performance artist starring in bizarro stage acts and public one-man theater shows. Things did seem to get better in 2019, with his writing debut in Honey Boy and his performance in The Peanut Butter Falcon, but his newfound success was shot down after allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-girlfriend FKA twigs. This resulted in his Oscars campaign for Pieces of a Woman getting cancelled, as well as Marvel dropping him for consideration as Iceman in their rebooted X-Men franchise. He's announcing that he will attend counseling and take a hiatus, so time will tell.
• Lorenzo Lamas tried becoming a star in The '80s. Though his film hopes quickly died after his Razzie-nominated role in Body Rock, he established himself decently on television with a role on the Prime Time Soap Falcon Crest alongside Jane Wyman. It was a hit lasting nine seasons, with Lamas starring for its entire run. Lamas had a slight measure of success in the following decades with his lead role in the '90s action series Renegade and a short stint on the daytime Soap Opera The Bold and the Beautiful between 2004 and 2006, but his acting career after the latter has fizzled out.
• Martin Lawrence was one of the fastest rising comedic stars of The '90s. His sitcom Martin was incredibly popular, and then in 1995, he starred along with Will Smith in Bad Boys (1995), which was the Star-Making Role for both actors.^note For more emphasis on how far he's fallen, he was billed ahead of Will Smith. Unfortunately, real-life drug issues and a sexual harassment suit would stain his career. On the film side, while Smith went on to star in other smash hits, such as Men in Black and Independence Day, Lawrence stuck with acting in comedies that only produced lukewarm responses (the first Big Momma's House and Wild Hogs arguably being exceptions).
• Josh Lucas co-starred in films like American Psycho and A Beautiful Mind before he had his breakthrough in 2003 with two blockbusters: the Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama and the Ang Lee-directed comic book adaptation Hulk. He played Witherspoon’s estranged ex-husband in the former and played one of the villains in the latter. Hollywood began pushing him as their next, big leading man and gave him major roles in four films: Stealth, An Unfinished Life, Glory Road and Poseidon. However, each one underperformed to varying degrees at the box office while also garnering a negative to mixed reception. Lucas has thereafter turned back to supporting roles, in which capacity he has maintained a steady career.
• In the early 2000s, Eli Marienthal was getting a push as a child star following his One-Scene Wonder role as Stifler's younger brother in American Pie. He was the voice of Hogarth in The Iron Giant and given a major role in The Country Bears. Both films bombed at the box office, though the former became a Cult Classic on home video. He was tested out as the star of his own sitcom Tucker, which lasted just one season. His role as the love interest in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen alongside Lindsay Lohan (see Actresses) was commercially successful but trashed by critics, and he retired from acting shortly afterwards.
• Australian actor Julian McMahon came to national attention for his Mr. Fanservice roles on Charmed and Nip/Tuck, and got something of a push – even being considered as a potential James Bond. His turn as Doctor Doom in the blockbuster Fantastic Four (2005) was critically panned, but the movie was a success. His attempt at headlining a project alongside Sandra Bullock in Premonition was a critical disappointment, and he didn't make another film after Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer bombed. He has stuck mainly to TV and smaller roles since Nip/Tuck ended its run. However, he did get a role as the Big Bad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe webseries Runaways.
• T.J. Miller was a rising comedian in The New '10s whose potential staying power was quickly destroyed by one Role-Ending Misdemeanor after another. He started out in the prior decade doing stand-up and improv comedy, before making his film debut with a role in 2008's Cloverfield (having starred on a short-lived sitcom, Carpoolers, the year before). By the 2010s, Miller was everywhere ranging from television on the popular HBO sitcom Silicon Valley to film. His extensive credits comprises animation (How to Train Your Dragon, Big Hero 6) to live-action hits (including She's Out of My League, Our Idiot Brother, Deadpool, Office Christmas Party, Ready Player One, etc.). Even the occasional dud like Transformers: Age of Extinction (which got very negative reviews from critics despite being a box office smash) or The Emoji Movie couldn't seemingly bring him down. However, he was impacted by a number of scandals in the months before the releases of Ready Player One and Deadpool 2 in 2018. Not only was he named in the sexual abuse allegations that arose following the Weinstein effect, he also, in order, was accused of transphobia by a former friend and bullying his Silicon Valley co-stars on-set (which explains his departure from the show in 2017), had a vicious altercation with an Uber driver in 2016 come to light, and ultimately culminated in him phoning in a fake bomb threat at Penn Station during a tantrum, a move which got him booted off the train and very fortunately didn't lead to mass death. Miller had his lines for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World re-dubbed and was confirmed by Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds to not be coming back for Deadpool & Wolverine. He hasn't been in any screen projects since 2020, after Underwater and The Stand-In bombed.
• Sasha Mitchell's screen career first took off with his role as James Beaumont in the final two seasons of the Prime Time Soap Dallas, but he became far more recognizable upon being cast as cousin Cody Lambert on the sitcom Step by Step. Outside of TV, Mitchell proved himself as an action star with the Direct to Video Kickboxer sequels (replacing original lead Jean-Claude Van Damme). However, he hasn't acted in anything as prolific after that slight burst in The '90s.
• Dudley Moore was already a comedy star in his native United Kingdom as part of a wildly popular double act with Peter Cook in The '60s, but as that partnership dissolved in The '70s he struck out on his own and to Hollywood. A movie-stealing turn in Foul Play led to a lead in 10 (1979), and while Bo Derek (see Actresses on her) was the focus of the marketing campaign, his career promptly skyrocketed as well. While Wholly Moses! was a disappointment (despite a strong opening weekend), the straight-up star vehicle Arthur (1981) was THE comedy of 1981 and even saw him nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. He was promptly being offered projects left and right. Alas, an attempt to branch out into drama led to the Follow-Up Failure Six Weeks and was followed by a run of five star vehicles, mostly romantic comedies — one was even titled Romantic Comedy — trying to recapture his Arthur heat, over 1983-84 that were modest successes at best and Box Office Bombs at worst. Trying to branch out with Santa Claus: The Movie and Like Father, Like Son did him no favors; the latter film was a minor hit, but that was more due to the presence of Kirk Cameron (amidst his Growing Pains-hype phase) than his. Arthur 2: On the Rocks put the coffin in the ground with only one leading man vehicle since (Crazy People). In The '90s he found more success in his other career as a jazz and classical pianist than as an actor, but a disastrous marriage to his Arthur 2 co-star Brogan Lane (who was abusive) and health issues (above all progressive supranuclear palsy, diagnosed in 1999) permanently derailed him professionally, and he died in 2002.
• Mike Myers was one of the bigger stars of Saturday Night Live at the turn of The '90s, especially after a movie based on the Wayne's World sketches he toplined was a hit. The sequel and So I Married an Axe Murderer weren't as successful, but a few years after those he struck gold with the first Austin Powers film and his two highly quotable characters in it. Though not a box-office blockbuster, it proved so successful on the video market that the 1999 sequel was. His star rose even higher after he voiced the title character in Shrek. However, he developed a reputation for being egotistical and tough to work with, walked out of a planned movie adaptation of the SNL "Sprockets" sketches, and the Austin Powers sequels were met with frostier critical reactions (primarily due to vulgarity and Sequelitis) than the original had. A Star-Derailing Role came with his critically roasted turn as The Cat in the Hat in 2003, which was so terrible that Dr. Seuss' estate has prohibited any more live-action adaptations of his works, and it was his last live-action leading role for five years. In the interim he continued with the Shrek franchise, but that went into decline with the third installment. 2008's The Love Guru was intended as a comeback vehicle but bombed spectacularly. With the Shrek saga closing out quietly in 2010, and no leading roles in the pipeline, early hopes that he would be the second coming of Peter Sellers have proven unfounded. In the summer of 2017, ABC relaunched The Gong Show with "English presenter" Tommy Maitland, who just happens to be Myers under heavy makeup and a Scottish accent (though of course the network is denying that). Following a cameo in Bohemian Rhapsody, he starred in and executive produced The Pentaverate, a comedy series for Netflix, with him playing multiple characters over six episodes. Time will tell if it helps Myers' career, but the initial reaction to the show has not been promising. There are also rumors that a fourth Austin Powers movie might be in the works.
• Corin Nemec became a household name playing the titular protagonist in Parker Lewis Can't Lose, making him a Teen Idol in The '90s. He maintained a solid career for the rest of the decade and in the first years of the next one, notably with roles in The Stand (1994) and Stargate SG-1. The latter was the last major project he had a role in as he has now been reduced to made-for-TV B-movies. Various health concerns, notably suffering critical injuries and enduring extensive surgeries on-set of one of those movies, has impacted his ability to work too.
• Shaquille O'Neal got a big hype push during his hugely successful NBA career when he announced his intent to break into acting. This had disastrous results due to Shaq's limited acting range and choices of roles. Blue Chips came out in 1994 to mixed reviews and performed poorly at the box office, followed by the universally panned box-office bomb Kazaam. Things went from bad to worse with Steel. Shaq was notably the first high profile actor to portray a black superhero but the film was such a critical and commercial disaster that it (along with other high profile failures like Batman & Robin) killed the superhero genre for nearly a decade. Being the star of it was the deathblow to Shaq's aspiring acting career. He's had plenty of success in other fields but his acting credits mostly include cameos and joke scenes these days.
• The Sixth Sense got the then-eleven-year-old Haley Joel Osment an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1999, making him the hottest child actor since Macaulay Culkin. Unfortunately, his first film role afterward was as the saintly hero of Pay It Forward, a failed piece of Oscar Bait that became a target of mockery instead. He had one more chance to prove himself as a star with A.I.: Artificial Intelligence the following summer, but that film proved to be a divisive box-office underperformer. Afterward he did several films' worth of voiceover work for Disney and Secondhand Lions; his highest-profile gig since then is as the voice of Sora in the Kingdom Hearts video game franchise.
• Back in the early '90s, Luke Perry was given a huge PR push to be the next big movie star. After his breakout role on Beverly Hills, 90210, Perry appeared in films such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 8 Seconds, and The Fifth Element. With his brooding intensity, Perry was hyped up as the second coming of James Dean. But soon after 90210 ended in 2000, he fell off the radar. Come the 2010s however, Perry would enjoy a resurgence with his role as Fred Andrews on Riverdale and a supporting role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood until his untimely death in 2019.
• Alex Pettyfer was being given an A-list push as the star of several young adult adaptations in the 2000s - starting with Stormbreaker and then as a Teen Idol with Beastly and I Am Number Four. He ended up reportedly destroying his reputation in Hollywood with his partying antics, and the films he was in flopped. Magic Mike did well, but he didn't return for the sequel.
• Freddie Prinze Jr. became known in the mid-'90s when he starred in the slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe and his own future wife Sarah Michelle Gellar (who’s also mentioned in Actresses). Despite receiving mixed reviews, the horror film was a profitable hit with audiences. Its success resulted in a sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, being made with Prinze reprising his role, which was still a box office hit despite receiving even worse reviews than the first one nor matching its financial gross. His next starring role after that film was as the male lead in She's All That opposite Rachael Leigh Cook (also mentioned in Actresses), which made him a sex symbol and THE go-to guy for leading men in teen romantic comedies overnight. Prinze enjoyed a comfortable run as a romantic lead for the next few years, until it came to a swift end in 2001 when Summer Catch failed to match the financial success of his past films while also being torn to shreds by critics. He got a temporary reprieve when he played Fred in the live-action adaptation of Scooby-Doo (2002) and its 2004 sequel Monsters Unleashed (reuniting him with Gellar, who played Daphne in those films), but promptly squandered the tiny amount of credibility he regained when he headlined his own eponymous sitcom, Freddie, which was widely criticized as a shoddily-made vanity project. Besides a recurring role in season 8 of 24 ^note which he has no fond memories of, having butted heads with lead actor Kiefer Sutherland out of exasperation with the latter’s alleged unprofessional behavior, he has mainly stuck to voice-over work in animation, most notably with an acclaimed turn as Kanan Jarrus in Star Wars Rebels.
• During the late 2000s, Matt Prokop began to make a name for himself as a teen idol with the aid of Disney. He first appeared in an episode of Hannah Montana and then more prominently as Jimmie Zara in High School Musical 3: Senior Year. This was followed by Prokop's appearance as Brendan Fraser's son in the film Furry Vengeance. Then in 2011, Prokop played the male lead in the Disney Channel TV movie Geek Charming alongside Modern Family star Sarah Hyland. Prokop later guest starred on Modern Family during its third season as Hyland's love interest. However, after four years of dating, Prokop and Hyland split. It was soon revealed that Hyland had gotten a three-year long restraining order against Prokop, claiming that he'd been physically and verbally abusive towards her during their relationship. Hyland ultimately managed to secure a permanent restraining order against Prokop, meaning that he was no longer able to have any contact with her at all. The revelation of Prokop's domestic abuse all but killed his future acting prospects. He hasn't appeared in any film or TV projects since 2013 with his last on-screen acting credit being in 2013's April Apocalypse.
• After appearing in a number of well-regarded supporting appearances in various films and TV shows, Brandon Routh got a massive push when he was cast in the role made famous by Christopher Reeve in Superman Returns in 2006. His Star-Making Role ended up being a dead end when the film received mixed reviews, general viewer apathy, and (despite making $400 million at the box office) negative profit due to prior production costs. This was made all the worse because there were actually repeated attempts at making a sequel and he was contractually obligated to clear his schedule whenever each attempt started up, meaning he couldn't pursue any big projects. Routh then disappeared for two years before landing a pair of cameo roles in a couple of films (Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and a guest spot on the third season of Chuck, all of which failed to make much impact with audiences. His intended comeback in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, based on a bestselling comic series, also flopped at the box office ($4 million against a $20 million budget). Barring a major hit, it seems like he'll be stuck making small indie projects for quite some time. He did get a major role in Arrow as Ray Palmer aka The Atom and reprised the role as a main cast member of the spin-off Legends of Tomorrow, so playing another superhero doesn't hurt at least.
• Antonio Sabato Jr. initially became famous as a model before moving towards acting, which started out fine in The '90s with a starring role on General Hospital. Further parts in shows such as Melrose Place and The Bold and the Beautiful followed, although he never became a major star. However, his popularity mostly dissipated when he, while talking at the 2016 Republican National Convention (already controversial in itself among Hollywood circles), publicly stated both his support for Donald Trump and his belief that then-president Barack Obama was a Muslim. This killed his career overnight when he lost all of his representation and got fired from many projects being filmed, while those that were finished were suspended pending distribution.
• Rob Schneider got his start through stand-up comedy, which paved his path towards sketch comedy when he was hired as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live late in The '80s. He was soon upgraded to the cast at the dawn of The '90s, providing several of that era’s prominent impersonations and recurring bits. He also met many major comedians such as Adam Sandler and David Spade during his tenure, with whom he would often collaborate in the future. Schneider left SNL in 1994 with hopes of becoming a movie star, frequently popping up in many of Sandler’s films. Unfortunately for him, his own efforts as the lead begot a string of steadily worsening failures. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, The Animal, and The Hot Chick made enough of a profit despite each film receiving worse reviews than the last, but the sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo became such a reviled disaster that he never headlined a live-action film solo again. It actually incited a noteworthy war of words when Schneider scolded Los Angeles Times film critic Patrick Goldstein for giving the film a bad review, proclaiming he had no authority to do so because he hadn’t won a Pulitzer Prize. Pulitzer-winning film critic Roger Ebert promptly stepped in and gave his two cents about the matter, bluntly telling Schneider, “[his] movie sucks”. Subsequently, he “won” a Razzie award for Worst Actor for his performance in European Gigolo. He then starred as part of the ensemble for The Benchwarmers alongside the aforementioned Jon Heder, which ground his career further into the dirt. Schneider’s screen presence has been barely sustained since by being part of the ensemble in Sandler’s films, while he has now acquired more notoriety for his conservative views, Islamophobia, and anti-vaccine stance. His most-recent projects are limited to ones he finances himself and conservative Christian media. His daughter, singer Elle King, has acquired more recognition in recent years.
• Dougray Scott got a lot of hype after his role as Prince Charming in Ever After and soon became the front-runner for roles such as Wolverine in the X-Men Film Series and James Bond. But after Mission: Impossible II went over schedule, he was forced to give up the Wolverine role to a little-known Australian actor named Hugh Jackman. While Jackman became a huge star, Scott's career fell into a tailspin as he's spent much of his career toiling away in TV movies, short-lived TV series (plus a single season on Desperate Housewives, just as the show was beginning its long descent in ratings and buzz) and little-seen movies (his possible low point being the 2011 film Love's Kitchen, which grossed just £121 at the UK box office). He managed to land a role in Batwoman (2019), but that was hit by many production problems and damaging accusations about his onset behavior, something which he strongly disputes.
• Tom Everett Scott was working sporadically in television before he made his film debut in 1996's That Thing You Do! Notable for also being the directorial debut of Tom Hanks, the film was a mild success and appeared to place the actor on the road to future stardom. Scott's next lead role, unfortunately, was in 1997's An American Werewolf in Paris, the reviled sequel to the hit '80s horror film An American Werewolf in London. Its failure snuffed his good fortunes for the rest of the decade, with the few successes he had (like the Acclaimed Flop One True Thing) being brought down by far bigger failures (Dead Man on Campus, The Love Letter, etc.). He later went on to star in films like Boiler Room and La La Land, but usually in bit parts.
• Steven Seagal is a classic story of an actor who worked his way up the ladder, had a brief time as a big star, overreached himself, and sunk into obscurity, becoming a punchline to countless jokes about washed-up celebrities. He started work in movies as a stunt coordinator and martial arts instructor (including on Never Say Never Again, where he infamously broke Sean Connery's wrist during a spar), but made the transition to actor when one of his aikido students, superstar talent agent Michael Ovitz, arranged for him to demonstrate his martial arts skills on the Warner Bros. lot. Warner Bros. decided to take a chance on him, and in 1988, he wrote and starred in Above the Law (1988), which was a commercial success despite mixed reviews. His next two movies, Hard to Kill and Marked for Death, both opened at #1 at the box office, and while the former was a critical flop, the latter received good reviews. 1991 saw the release of Out for Justice, his third straight number one box office opening. To promote the movie, he hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live... and is still widely considered to be the worst host in the show's history, which many consider in retrospect to be a portent of things to come. While he was a niche actor up to this point, his appearance in the critically acclaimed blockbuster Under Siege allowed him to break out to general audiences and compete with A-list action heroes. Seagal used his newfound clout to make an environmentally conscious movie called On Deadly Ground, which was his directorial debut. The movie was a critical and commercial flop, and the following year's Under Siege 2: Dark Territory was a box office disappointment and received poor reviews. While 1996's Executive Decision was a success, it didn't do much for his career, and stories of prima-donna behavior on set began to adversely affect his reputation. Still, he would continue to appear in high-budget action movies, but after The Glimmer Man and Fire Down Below both flopped and his original multi-picture contract with Warner Bros. ended, his next major role was in a 1998 direct-to-video movie titled The Patriot (1998). In 2001, he seemed slated for a comeback after Exit Wounds, but the disappointing performance of Half Past Dead would push him off the big screen for good. Aside from Machete, he's been stuck in direct-to-DVD movies and Reality TV and has become notorious for his considerable physical decline and the poor quality of his fight scenes which try to cover up that fact and his own blatant disinterest with limited success. It doesn't help that he's since been Overshadowed by Controversy, due to being hit with allegations of sexual misconduct and his apologia for authoritarian leaders like Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin (not to mention participating in propaganda to support the invasion of Ukraine for the latter). These days, he's widely regarded as a joke with even his earlier hits now praised more for their directors and supporting cast.
• Tom Selleck was supposed to be one of the biggest action stars in Hollywood thanks to his starring role in Magnum, P.I., one of the most successful action shows of the '80s. However, he preferred to play against type when it came to movies. His first breakthrough film role was Three Men and a Baby, which got decent reviews and was the biggest box office hit of 1987. After Magnum P.I. was cancelled, Selleck decided to take his action personality to film with An Innocent Man and Quigley Down Under. Although neither were box office hits, they went on to become cult classics, and Selleck would continue to build up his film career throughout the '90s while still being a television favorite (notably, in a recurring role on Friends during its zenith as Monica's on-again-off-again boyfriend Richard.) And then came 1999's The Love Letter, which despite Selleck being in a supporting role got poor reviews and failed to turn a profit. Not helping matters was when Selleck decided to show up on Rosie O'Donnell's talk show to promote the movie only to be confronted by O'Donnell over his appearance on a recent National Rifle Association advertisement, a move that O'Donnell received heavy criticism for and forced her to apologize. Even though the moment didn't harm Selleck as much, the failure of The Love Letter did, as he would only appear in three more films, with nothing since 2010. His TV career was also flagging simultaneously, eventually culminating in the romantic comedy Killers, which bombed and killed Selleck's film prospects for good. These days he's starring on the CBS cop show Blue Bloods, which has aired for 14 seasons.
• Pauly Shore (the son of The Comedy Store co-founders Mitzi and Sammy Shore) followed in his folks' stand-up comedy footsteps (and cultivated his onstage persona "the Weasel", a spaced-out, Californian stoner/surfer dude) before becoming an MTV VJ in 1989, a position he retained for five years. He starred in the comedy Encino Man during this period, which was a slight box office hit despite receiving mostly negative reviews. Shore tried turning himself into a comedic movie star with four consecutive films per year from Son in Law to Bio-Dome, but each was greeted with worse reviews than the last. After Bio-Dome (which since earned a not-undeserved reputation as one of the worst films ever made) and his short-lived self-titled sitcom were ravaged, he retreated to stand-up comedy: where he's found a decent living. Shore's quick rise and fall on the screen, though, has made him the butt of jokes and a walking punchline. What little work he gets outside of stand-up is usually limited to voice work in animation.
• Jussie Smollett got his start as a child actor with films like The Mighty Ducks and North, before appearing with his real-life siblings (including sister Jurnee) on the short-lived On Our Own. He took a hiatus for over a decade before returning back to prominence in The New '10s, gaining newfound exposure with his role as Jamal Lyon on Empire. Smollett collaborated with series creator Lee Daniels to shape the character based on their shared experiences as homosexual African-American men. It was successful while Smollett, who got notable praise for his performance, later attained roles in blockbusters like Alien: Covenant and Marshall. In January 2019, Smollett allegedly claimed to authorities that he had been physically assaulted by two men in what was very quickly designated a hate crime. Inconsistent details in the story, however, were reported by police, and the resulting investigation revealed that the attack was staged by Smollett himself, with the help of two work acquaintances who he paid to rough him up while using racist and homophobic language. The hoax killed his hype overnight as he was suspended from his Empire role before being fired, just as it came to light that he was caught in a pay dispute with FOX. Getting convicted on five of six charges of disorderly conduct in December 2021, before being sentenced to 150 days in jail, plus having to pay restitution and further fines, has left his career and reputation in ruins.
• Daniel Stern. While he wasn't much of a big name to begin with, he had supporting roles in smaller fare in the early 1980s, but then he changed when he co-starred in the 1982 comedy-drama Diner, a film that was largely applauded by critics that it gave Stern a shed of light to being the next young comedy star in Hollywood (to the point where the producers of the Back to the Future series offered him the role of Biff Tannen, which he unfortunately turned down), and years later he narrated the hit sitcom The Wonder Years, which would last over six seasons. His biggest career pushes came with Home Alone and City Slickers, which grossed over $100 million at the box office and renewed Hollywood producers' attention.
  
  His newfound success, however, did not last long. While he tried to look for main roles in films, he still was degraded to the supporting role he had played in many of his works, and his works after City Slickers suffered heavily as a result. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ended up grossing less than its predecessor, Rookie of the Year (which he also directed) wasn't much of a hit, and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold nearly flopped^note it was presumably made because main star, producer, and writer Billy Crystal suffered a severe Small Name, Big Ego case after the first film was released. After these snags, he was finally given a starring role in the two comedy movies Bushwhacked and Celtic Pride (which he intended to be Star Making Roles for him), both of which fared so badly with critics that they were massive box office flops that literally obliterated all the hype Stern had built for his entire career. Since then, he's only made television appearances and direct-to-video movies, including turning down offers to reprise his role in the third and fourth Home Alone movies, and his comeback attempt in Whip It was a box office disaster, despite being applauded for his role. He was cast in a supporting role alongside Miranda Cosgrove in the NBC sitcom Girlfriend in a Coma, but the series didn't go ahead. However, he did get cast in Manhattan, which was a critical success despite low ratings throughout its two seasons.
• Nick Swardson was already a familiar supporting player in comedy (notably with his role on Reno 911!), before creating his own sketch series titled Pretend Time on Comedy Central and nabbing his first leading man role in the film Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star. Both projects were unanimously panned, with Bucky Larson becoming a big Box Office Bomb while Comedy Central cancelled Pretend Time after two seasons. He promptly receded back into supporting roles after those two failures.
• Chris Tucker was actually considered to be "the next Eddie Murphy" after Friday and the first Rush Hour movie in the mid-late '90s. Unfortunately, Tucker wasn't much motivated to branch out and capitalize immediately; he had become born-again during that time, and declined to reprise his role in Next Friday due to its raunchy content. Tucker has only appeared in a handful of movies since 1998, two of which were the sequels to Rush Hour (Tucker was apparently paid $20 million for Rush Hour 2). Tucker has seemed to be more passionate about his charity work, buddying up with the late Michael Jackson, and his stand-up. Rumor has it he was offered the same type roles over and over again, and turned them down out of frustration. Since the Rush Hour trilogy ended, he has only appeared in three theatrical films: Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016), and Air (2023), all in supporting roles.
• During the 1980s, Hollywood tried to sell Ken Wahl as sort of an Average Joe who could play bad boys and reluctant heroes in action movies. His first acting job was in the lead role in the 1979 film The Wanderers. Although the film wasn’t initially a financial success, Wahl got good reviews from some prominent critics. He was able to parlay that into a lengthy series of starring roles in smaller films, and co-starring roles in bigger films such as 1981's Fort Apache, The Bronx and 1982's Jinxed opposite Bette Midler. The latter film, was Wahl not only was slammed by critics and bombed at the box office, making less than $3 million against its $13 million budget, but Wahl clashed relentlessly on-set with Midler. In 1987, Wahl was cast as in the lead role of Vinnie Terranova in the CBS crime show Wiseguy. By the time that Wahl left the series after third season, he had received an Emmy nomination for best lead actor in a dramatic series, had won a Golden Globe in the same category, and had an additional Golden Globe nomination from the year before. Wahl's next feature film was 1991's The Taking of Beverly Hills, which ultimately got a small release and no advertising, and made no money until it was released on VHS a few years later. A similar fate befell 1994's The Favor, a movie that he had actually shot in 1990 with a then-unknown Brad Pitt. In 1992, Wahl was at the home of a woman he was seeing when he slipped and fell down a marble staircase. He suffered a broken neck and damaged spinal column. The surgery to repair it went poorly, and he was left with a permanent injury. As a result of the ongoing pain, Wahl became addicted to alcohol and then drugs. Wahl's final acting job was in a 1996 Wiseguy reunion TV movie for ABC. Wahl said in his biography that he was barely able to finish the 16 day shoot, and when it was over, he knew he had to retire.
• Billy Warlock's career began when he made his debut with a small part in Halloween II (1981), which he parlayed into supporting runs on the television series Happy Days and Days of Our Lives. He landed his first leading role as Eddie Kramer on Baywatch near the end of the decade, remaining a part of the cast for its first two seasons before leaving at the beginning of season 3. Warlock joined the casts of many soap operas (General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, One Life to Live, etc.), but couldn't extend success beyond those before retiring in 2011.
• Damon Wayans started off The '80s with bit parts in movies and TV series as well as a run as a featured player on Saturday Night Live, which infamously ended after he portrayed a bit role as a Camp Gay type. But as The '90s began, he was finally put on the map when he was one of the cast members of the sketch comedy show In Living Color!. Becoming one of the breakout stars from the series, Wayans left after three seasons to begin his movie career. His first films, The Last Boy Scout and Mo' Money, were all modest box office successes. Then came Blankman, who blanked out with both critics and audiences. After another base hit with Major Payne, Wayans attempted to break into the A-list with three pictures in 1996: Celtic Pride, The Great White Hype, and Bulletproof. All three films bombed critically and commercially, leading Wayans to go back to TV with very little success for the rest of the decade. After a dramatic turn in Bamboozled, which would go on to be a Cult Classic, Wayans found success on TV once again with My Wife and Kids, lasting five seasons. During his time on the show, Wayans would take one more crack headlining a motion picture with Marci X. The movie would flop with critics and audiences, permanently ending his movie career for good. After doing nothing noteworthy for the rest of the 2000s-into-the 2010s, Wayans would go back to television once more, playing Roger Murtaugh on the TV adaptation of Lethal Weapon. While it lasted three seasons, it was notable for its Troubled Production, with Wayans clashing with his co-star Clayne Crawford. Wayans would leave the series shortly before it got cancelled.
• Justin Whalin started out as a child actor on various shows like General Hospital, before he played Andy Barclay in Child's Play 3 (replacing original actor Alex Vincent temporarily). He later portrayed Jimmy Olsen in Season 2 of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and stayed onboard until that show's conclusion. He got plenty of hype from the popularity of that series, which vanished after starring in the notorious Dungeons & Dragons (2000) alongside Thora Birch and Zoe McLellan (see Actresses). Following numerous botched efforts to rebuild his career from that huge flop, Whalin quit acting in 2009 and is now a teacher.
• Wil Wheaton gained a lot of praise as a kid in The '80s, especially with his breakthrough performance in the critically acclaimed Stand by Me. He was subsequently cast as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, only for the character to become one of the series' most polarizing to the point of being The Scrappy. While he's continued acting since then (notably playing a parody of himself on The Big Bang Theory), his career has never hit the heights of his '80s heyday.

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