These examples fit for people who were once big names (often for years), and then faltered, or people who failed to hit the A-List, but nonetheless managed to have decent careers.
Actors:
Orlando Bloom appeared in The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean trilogies and was one of the biggest stars of the early-mid '00s. Since then, his career has suffered several hits, including critical thrashing and Hype Backlash, but he works steadily in highly regarded (if small) productions, for which he is finally starting to receive positive attention from the critics. His career appears to be thriving, but it's doubtful it will reach its former stratospheric heights. By all accounts, this seems to be his intention (he reportedly turned down Jake Gyllenhaal's role in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time).note It seems fairly obvious that the role was written with him in mind and that Gyllenhaal was basically told "act as much like Orlando Bloom as possible." So he isn't wholly out of the loop... He recently came back into prominence with Carnival Row.
Jim Carrey was the big comedian of The '90s. He started off playing supporting or minor roles in movies in The '80s, but after the back-to-back successes of Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber in 1994, his star shot up like a rocket. Unfortunately for him, while his comedic roles brought a major bank, it made him severely typecast as an actor. Attempts at more dramatic fare, such as The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, The Majestic, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, while earning him praise from critics, under-performed if not flopped at the box officenote The Truman Show was the exception due to the trailer downplaying the drama. compared to his broad comedies. Unlike most however, Carrey's status is more self-imposed, making a conscious decision to pursue more serious works rather than just continue with the comedies that made him incredibly popular. After making Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, he repeatedly refused to star in sequels to his comedic works (except for Dumb and Dumber To), likely a wise choice given the critical receptions those films wound up getting. Carrey's highest-profile role in six years, the villain of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), earned many jokes of bringing together two fallen icons of the '90s. It ended up successful enough to warrant a sequel, but as of 2022 Carrey is content to live in semi-retirement as an actor otherwise, dabbling in other artistic media in the meantime.
Chevy Chase was the original breakout star of Saturday Night Live thanks to a winning combination of deadpan humour and slapstick. He was even dubbed "Funniest Man in America" and his status as the original host of the Weekend Update led to a rumour that he would replace Johnny Carson as the host of The Tonight Show. After leaving SNL, he was one of the biggest comedy stars of the 1980s, thanks to the likes of Caddyshack, the Vacation series, Fletch, Spies Like Us and ¡Three Amigos!. He even appeared with Paul Simon in the video for "You Can Call Me Al". In The '90s, however, things went south — his movies began consistently underperforming, and his attempt at a late night talk show was such a disaster that it was cancelled after just six weeks in 1993. As well, his reputation for being difficult to work with was catching up with him; he was even permanently banned from guest-hosting Saturday Night Live in 1997. After years of minor roles, he experienced a Career Resurrection in Community — but that was short-lived due to him feuding with Dan Harmon and complaining about the quality of the show. He recently announced that he's clean and sober and willing to work, but nobody in Hollywood wants to work with him due to his notorious status. (The movie Accepted joked about this with a class called "The Rise and Fall of Chevy Chase".)
Louis C.K. started out as a struggling hack comedian with a few unsuccessful projects under his belt like Pootie Tang, which he wrote and directed, and his HBO show Lucky Louie, which only lasted one season. After going through a well-publicized divorce, he revised his comedy act by using George Carlin's method of writing new material every year and scrapping his old material, in the process making a name for himself as one of the most popular stand-up comedians in the world. He parlayed his success with stand-up into other forms of entertainment, giving well-received performances in films like American Hustle and Blue Jasmine. He also created and starred in Louie, a semi-autobiographical TV show that became popular with both audiences and critics. In 2016 he snagged a leading role in the hugely successful animated film The Secret Life of Pets.
And then that wave of success came to a screeching halt in late 2017 when he was accused of sexually harassing various women, and unlike other men being accused of sexual misconduct around that time (most famously Harvey Weinstein), CK immediately admitted that the allegations were true and apologized. Netflix, FX, and various other companies that were in business with him immediately cut ties. There was a small chance that his honesty would save his career, only for that to fail when his attempts at a comeback ran into controversy with jokes about the transgender community and survivors and victims of the Parkland school shooting. He's since managed to bounce back, self-releasing two stand-up specials, Sincerely and Sorry, both of which were generally well-received and nominated for Grammys (and, in the former's case, won), as well as selling out major venues in the US and internationally, though time will tell how long this comeback will last.
Macaulay Culkin earned his Star-Making Role at just ten years old as Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, and immediately became one of the biggest child actors of The '90s. Grossing over $400 million at the box office, Home Alone was the year's second-highest-grossing film, behind Ghost (1990). The film’s success spawned an entire franchise, with Culkin reprising his role two years later in its direct sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In between the Home Alone films, he starred opposite Anna Chlumsky in 1991’s similarly successful My Girl. Dissatisfied with the similarly squeaky clean kids’ roles his son was offered as a result of these hits, Culkin’s father and manager Kit pulled countless strings to get his son the role of budding sociopath Henry Evans in the 1993 thriller The Good Son. Amidst the film’s Troubled Production, Kit’s bullheadedness towards the filmmakers became notorious throughout Hollywood as a tidbit of gossip and soured other filmmakers’ desire to hire Culkin if they had to contend with his Stage Dad. The film failed to be as profitable as Culkin’s past efforts, and received generally negative reviews from critics. Culkin’s career was then killed in 1994 with three consecutive flops: Getting Even with Dad, The Pagemaster, and Richie Rich. Fed up with his father’s interference and his exhaustive schedule, Culkin temporarily retired from acting at fifteen and is now viewed as one of the codifying examples of a Former Child Star. He later returned to acting in the mid-2000’s, but usually in independent fare. He generally now seems happy living off money he made as a kid and showing up in projects that interest him, along with devoting time to his marriage to Brenda Song (with whom he has a son).
Johnny Depp was THE Turn of the Millennium leading man. Making his debut as Freddy Krueger's first victim and hitting it big time with 21 Jump Street, he spent much of the 1990s starring in critically-acclaimed and/or financially successful films, such as Edward Scissorhands (his first film with Tim Burton), Benny & Joon and Donnie Brasco. However, he wouldn't hit the A-list until the Pirates of the Caribbean series, which turned his Jack Sparrow character into a pop culture icon, catapulted him to the top. Magazine covers of him soon followed, and nearly every film he starred in thereafter turned a major profit for the studios who released them.
However, in the 2010s, starting with Alice in Wonderland (which was critically mauled while being financially successful), Hype Backlash kicked in. Audiences grew tired of Depp's Large Ham tendencies in his roles, and the drug and alcohol abuse that plagued his career since the mid-to-late '80s became an issue again. Studios began to have less patience with him in this regard as his box office receipts took a downturn. In 2011, while Rango and the fourth Pirates movie were hits, The Rum Diary and Dark Shadows, the latter film released the following year, tanked. Then came The Lone Ranger (2013), in which he — despite being Caucasian — played the title role's sidekick Tonto to much controversy (especially as he played him as a Jack Sparrow-style buffoon). The film received poor reviews and became Disney's biggest Box Office Bomb, leading to a studio write-down of $190 million and the end of their long-time relationship with producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Depp's star power faded overnight, with Transcendence and Mortdecai total flops. Although he did receive critical praise for Black Mass, that was a brief respite.
2015 seemed to be the turning point, even though sometime that year, he was cast in secret by Warner Brothers for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was the first film in a five-installment franchise to play Big Bad Gellert Grindelwald. Although his appearance in that specific film amounted to a cameo and they managed to keep it under wraps until the press screening. That May he and now ex-wife Amber Heard were caught trying to sneak their dogs into Australia without the proper biosecurity paperwork to film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales in the country. Heard was charged with perjury because the dogs belonged to her but the two of them ended up signing a non-prosecution deal in which they had to publicly admit they broke the law and pay a substantial fine. During the same production, Depp was often late to work and was often drunk when he did show up. It culminated in him essentially going on a weekend long rampage after having taken eight ecstasy pills during which he managed to do $100,000 of damage to his rental home and severed the tip of his finger off when he got it caught in something when he punched a wall. He had to fly back home to the US to see a specialist which cost the production two precious and expensive weeks. An embarrassed Disney decided at that point to part ways with him as they'd long grown tired of dealing with his drinking and lack of reliability but waited to officially announce their decision until after the movie came out. When it did two years later, it got bad reviews and underperformed at the box office, ending his days as leading man. The Dark Universe in which he was supposed to star as the Invisible Man flopped in its first outing, The Mummy (2017) and was cancelled. Also in 2016 came his divorce from Heard who was granted a domestic violence restraining order. Depp went on a scorched earth legal campaign against her (see below) that ended up blowing up in his face. He tried to paint her as the aggressor but she's remained consistent that she only ever hit back in self-defense and admitted to hitting him once in defense of her sister because she believed he was going to push her down a long staircase.
The first Fantastic Beasts movie in 2016 was a critical and financial success and WB decided to stick by him for the time being. However, by the time the second one, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, came out the Weinstein scandal had hit and they decided to downplay his role in the marketing. When that film got mixed to negative reviews and declined in revenue from the first more than the usual average first to second film drop-off , the situation changed. Depp's take on the character was maligned, especially compared to Colin Farrell's universally beloved take on the character in disguise as someone else. He was accused of playing the character in his normal weird schtick instead of the charismatic and conventionally handsome man he's described as being in both the original books and the scripts. WB also went through a management shake-up in 2019, including a new CEO and parent company in telecom giant AT&T, both of whom have less of a tolerance for #MeToo situations than the old guard. After he lost a risky libel case in November 2020 against a tabloid in the UK court system for calling him a “wife beater” (the judge ruled that 12 of the 14 instances the defendant brought forth met the civil requirements for domestic violence), he was fired from the franchise in the middle of the production of the third installment. His replacement, Mads Mikkelsen, was signed on within three weeks. Mikkelsen's take on the character was seen as a massive step up from Depp's, especially in regards to bringing out the character's charisma and in regards to his chemistry with Jude Law, with them being much more believable together as a couple.
He tried to appeal the ruling but the upper court denied it on the grounds that it was highly unlikely the incredibly thorough and nasty ruling would be successfully appealed. The case also aired out old dirty laundry about his drinking and drug problems and the lack of reliability that come with them, advertising how difficult it is to depend on him and making him impossible to insure. He tried suing Heard directly in the US to mixed results. She was found to have defamed him in an opinion piece she wrote in the Washington Post, where she never mentioned his name and in which she never actually said he abused her. However, the jury also found he defamed her by proxy when his lawyer put out a statement on his behalf saying that her allegations were a hoax and implying that she and her friends staged a scene to frame him for destroying a closet as part of said hoax. The case was eventually settled before the appeals process with her paying him a tenth of what he was awarded at the trial (via her insurer as well) and with her not having to admit culpability or sign an NDA as part of the settlement. It also made public sexual assault allegations that had previously only been disclosed to the judge in the UK trial. Later on, Depp's fans paid to unseal documents that among other things had her suppressed medical records that the US judge considered hearsay, him admitting that she'd never abused him so he didn't have to sit for a psychological evaluation, and his medical records that backed up the nature of her sexual assault claims due to his impotence. It’s unlikely he’ll ever get franchise work ever again due to all of this information making him impossible to be insured, including that he’d lied to Disney and on insurance forms about being sober while working. Disney has been working on a Pirates reboot without him which is being overseen by Craig Mazin but has been delayed by the 2023 WGA and SAG strikes.
His downfall was further cemented by an exposé published by The Hollywood Reporter uncovering dozens of backstage accounts of his deteriorating behavior, involving drug abuse during filming of Dead Men Tell No Tales, failing to show up at a movie festival that billed his appearance (resulting in a film he starred in being pulled without getting a screening), paying his first wife a previously unreported settlement to hush up a voicemail in which he reportedly said the N-word, and a ruthless smear campaign against Heard, at one point attempting to bully Warner Bros. into removing her from Aquaman. The article also revealed that he'd been pushed out of a big budget Harry Houdini miniseries even though executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer had long been his biggest ally and defender in the industry. However, he maintains a lucrative endorsement with Dior for one of their men’s fragrances since these sorts of controversies don’t really seem to stick in the company’s native France. It would be over a year before he booked another project, unsurprisingly a French film, which is called Jeanne du Barry.
The film which carried a hefty budget for a small indie film of about $25 million, only managed to make roughly half that throughout its continental European run and struggled for months to find a distributor in the US. Much like his other productions since about 2015, Depp was a problem on set. He clashed with director and co-star Maïwenn, who claimed he was often late and not invested in the project and that she would (probably) never work with him again. His next project, which he will also direct, is being funded via his own production company likely because he cannot be insured to work on an outside film.
Will Ferrell, after a stint with The Groundlings for several years, first got his big break as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in 1995. There, he performed many of the most memorable impressions of the show's history, namely that of Robert Goulet, George W. Bush and Alex Trebek, and became one of Saturday Night Live's most beloved cast members. During Ferrell's final season at SNL in 2001, he performed as the antagonist in the Cult ClassicZoolander, and two years later had his first starring film role post-SNL in the moderately-received Old School. But his career soon got a huge push later that year, when he was cast as Buddy in the Christmas comedy film Elf, which was highly successful critically and commercially and solidified Ferrell's status as an A-list comedy superstar. He followed the film up a year later with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which became a pop-culture touchstone throughout the mid-2000s. Despite a slip-up in 2005 with The Producers, Kicking & Screaming and Curious George, he soon bounced back with Stranger Than Fiction, Blades of Glory, and The Other Guys. His films continued to draw critical praise and large crowds for the next couple of years (particularly Megamind, The LEGO Movie, and Daddy's Home), and he even reprised his iconic role of Ron Burgundy in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. Unfortunately, he backpedaled hard in 2018 with the critically-panned Box Office BombHolmes & Watson, which drew harsh criticism for its unfunny, dated humor and inept, bungled approach to the source material - culminating in the film winning four Razzie awards, including Worst Picture. Since Holmes & Watson, most of his film appearances were as cameos – with the two films where he had a lead role, Downhill and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, receiving tepid responses. He since has starred alongside Ryan Reynolds in Spirited (2022), and later on had a small but memorable role in Barbie (2023).
Brendan Fraser first got noticed with Encino Man, and then became a star with George of the Jungle and The Mummy (1999). However, many of his movie choices ended up flopping, and doing too many action movies took a toll on his body (Fraser also thinks being the target of a sexual assault case also blackballed him in some circles) Even if he barely stopped, Fraser's career faded from the spotlight - as put by a profile, "He was there on the poster, year after year, and then he wasn't, and it took him turning up in a supporting part in the third season of a premium-cable show, The Affair, for many of us to even realize that he'd been gone." In 2019, however, he received more attention than he got in years through his role as Robotman in Doom Patrol (2019). The DC superhero series was the first of many high-profile projects Fraser signed on to by the following decade's beginning. Among these include a major role in Steven Soderbergh's crime thriller No Sudden Move, the lead role in Darren Aronofsky's drama The Whale (for which he won an Academy Award), and a supporting role in Martin Scorsese's upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon.
Mel Gibson was an A-list superstar and a beloved heartthrob in the '80s and '90s, especially as he successfully branched out into directing. While he'd always been known to have fairly controversial views, he kept them under wraps well enough that audiences were able to ignore them and turn out for his movies in droves. His career peaked in 2004 with The Passion of the Christ, a retelling of Jesus' crucifixion which, despite controversy (especially over its portrayal of Jews), was one of the most successful independent films of all time, financed largely through Gibson's own efforts. Not long after The Passion, however, things changed virtually overnight thanks to the revelation of his racism, anti-Semitism, and Jerkasstreatment of his girlfriend across a number of widely publicized incidents, which only made the controversy over The Passion that much more notable.
Despite all of that, Hollywood was still willing to work with him, but the general public's perception of him diminished. Edge of Darkness (2010) and The Beaver flopped at the box office, and another film, Get the Gringo didn't even get a theatrical release. Warner Bros. gave the greenlight to a project Gibson planned to direct about the Maccabees (which was seen by many as an attempt by Gibson to implicitly atone for his anti-Semitic past); however that project flamed out in pre-production due to Creative Differences, as well as personal differences between Gibson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (the former still hated Jews and the latter was a staunch crusader against anti-Semitism, which became the subject of Eszterhas' autobiography Hotter Than Mel).
For many, he's now a despised joke punchline and virtually persona non grata, to the point where even those who think he's a good actor will stop well short of defending his views and behavior. Even his older hits such as the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series have fallen from the pop culture landscape even as other '80s franchises were rediscovered and put through the Nostalgia Filter. As this article by Bob Chipman noted, the ads for Mad Max: Fury Road went out of their way to downplay any association with Gibson (who had played the title character in the original films), lest he serve as box-office poison merely through association with the series. As for Gibson himself, it's been noted that post-meltdown he's shown a willingness to take on villain roles, something he had never done before, perhaps implying he's embraced the public perception of himself. He did have a major comeback with Hacksaw Ridge, which he directed but didn't star in, and Daddy's Home 2 was an onscreen success story, so he's not quite finished yet. At the same time, a good deal of ink has been spilled by critics wondering why creatives and audiences support someone who hasn't fully repented of/atoned for his past actions.note Gibson in particular has constantly framed his domestic abuse scandal, which was revealed through an audio leak, as an invasion of his privacy.
Burt Reynolds had a meteoric rise to fame that led him to become one of the biggest movie stars in the world during The '70s, being practically synonymous with A-list stardom and hunky sex symbol masculinity. His career took a downward turn in The '80s after a combination of highly publicized marital issues, financial troubles and feuds with other celebrities. This caused him to be seen by studios as a liability, and it wasn't helped that he starred in occasional critical and commercial flops like Stroker Ace and Cop and a Half. He still managed to to work fairly regularly and seemed primed for a Career Resurrection after an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Boogie Nights but it wasn't meant to be. The Crew not only was his last role as a leading man, but also the beginning of a string of critical and commercial failures, including Driven, The Dukes of Hazzard and In the Name of the King, which ended any chance of a return to the A-list. He was still finding plenty of work by the time of his death in 2018, but it was overwhelmingly Direct to Video shlock.
Ryan Reynolds had the fortune/misfortune of coming along when Hollywood had a dearth of young leading males. After getting his big break in the ABC series Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, Reynolds starred in a number of well-regarded comedic roles. However, most of his films from the late '00s and early '10s (with the exception of Buried) received mixed reviews at best. His intended dramatic breakout performance in 2011's Green Lantern (2011) was also a critical and commercial underperformer, and then The Change-Up didn't do well either. 2012's Safe House was a hit but didn't give Reynolds a significant boost because Denzel Washington was the big draw. The bombing of R.I.P.D. and the under-performance of Turbo, on the same weekend no less, seemed to suggest his momentum was trending downward once more. However, with the critical and commercial success of Deadpool (2016), with much praise for his performance as the lead character, this might change most especially when he earned nominations from the Golden Globe Awards, of all things. While it received mixed reviews from critics, Reynolds had another hit with The Hitman's Bodyguard. He continued this successful streak with Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Free Guy. Even better is that in light of the Disney-Fox merger, Reynolds will still be able to play Deadpool while all other X-Men actors are recast, meaning that he'll still have plenty of opportunities to reprise his signature role.
Sandler made his first hit as a cast member for Saturday Night Live for five seasons, at a time when the show was about to head for another Audience-Alienating Era since the infamous season six. After leaving SNL, he made his feature film debuts in Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, both of which were released a year from each other. Despite both film receiving mixed reviews, they both scored modest box office returns. His next film was Bulletproof, which was critically panned and nearly fizzled out his career, but then got a huge push when he became star of The Wedding Singer, which became Sandler's first blockbuster hit. This paved the way for Sandler becoming a Critic-Proof star, with The Waterboy and Big Daddy becoming big hits against a backdrop of otherwise mediocre reception. With the exceptions of Little Nicky, Eight Crazy Nights and Reign Over Me (the latter of which was a rare departure from comedy to drama), Sandler's films managed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars and turn big profits regardless of poor critical reception.
However, by the early 2010's, audiences began to lose interest in Sandler's crass humor, and his films began to underperform. Jack and Jill went on to be regarded as one of the worst films ever produced, and That's My Boy became Sandler's first biggest flop since Eight Crazy Nights. Additionally, studio executives began to grow irritated with how terrible his movies were becoming to the public eye, and his usual friendliness with everyone he works with ended up going downhill one day when Sandler marched into Sony's studio offices demanding that $200 million be set aside for a potential Candy Land movie, a move that ended up sending the film into Development Hell. He did one final attempt to save his floundering career with Pixels, but it instead became one of the most hated films of 2015 and bombed spectacularly, ensuring that audiences were no longer attracted to Sandler's comedy as they were a decade ago. Following this flop, Sandler began to divest himself heavily from Sony and has almost completely disappeared from the silver screen aside from voice parts in the Hotel Transylvania films, and has been relegated to doing films for Netflix. Time will tell if his critically acclaimed perfomance in Uncut Gems will get him out of this rut.
His career behind the camera hasn't worked out well, either. Aside from his own films, most of Sandler's off-screen production ventures, such as The Master of Disguise and Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star, were universally panned and did poorly at the box office, and also helped derail the careers of those who starred in them. All of them were produced through his company, Happy Madison Productions, which has become synonymous with abysmal low-brow humor (but continues to churn out films as part of that Netflix deal).
Arnold Schwarzenegger started out as a low-budget actor with forgettable films like Hercules in New York in his name, but soon found luck when a little-known director named James Cameron tapped him to play the title role in The Terminator. Although the movie received initially mixed reviews, it soon became such a massive pop culture behemoth that its sequel in 1991 grossed seven times its predecessor. He soon scored more action roles throughout the 1980's and 1990's, with major box-office hits like Predator, Total Recall (1990) and True Lies becoming quintessential action flicks of the era. Unfortunately, his stint as Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin didn't fare as well, and it ended up freezing his star power for the rest of the 90's. He made one final stint as T-800 in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines before deciding to take a break from acting and serve as the Governor of California for eight straight years, and then returning to film. His recent films though haven't been particularly successful with even his return to the Terminator series, Terminator Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate, proving to be a commercial disappointment. He even hosted a celebrity season of The Apprentice in 2017 but left after one season. Despite his downturn, he's still thought of highly due to his previous success and even some of his post-comeback films have earned respect due to his acting being noted to have improved considerably since his heyday and his willingness to take more risks and challenge himself.
After supporting roles in film, television and Michael Jackson's "Bad" music video, Wesley Snipes was one of the most sought after black actors of The '90s, proving adept as an action hero, dramatic and comedic actor with the likes of Major League, Mo' Better Blues, King of New York, New Jack City, Jungle Fever, Passenger 57, Demolition Man and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. He really struck gold when he starred in Blade which gave him a signature role and is credited with kick-starting the comic book movie boom. Then, towards The New '10s, his career took a downturn. Not only was he appearing in unsuccessful films, but his career was now being eclipsed by his conviction for tax evasion, for which he spent three years in prison. There was also a damning article covering his prima-donna behaviour on the set of Blade: Trinity which didn't help his reputation at all. Since getting out of prison, he's been confined to Direct-to-DVD features. Marvel later announced that they were rebooting Blade for the Marvel Cinematic Universe without his involvement. He has managed to get the occasional mainstream role like The Expendables 3 or the poorly-received Gallowwalkers. He had a well-received turn in Dolemite Is My Name that led many to speculate that a comeback was imminent (Eddie Murphy even brought him along in Coming 2 America).
David Spade was a notable staff writer turned cast member of Saturday Night Live in The '90s, before leaving like many of his contemporaries to start a film career. Together with fellow SNL alum and close friend Chris Farley, Spade headlined Tommy Boy and Black Sheep (1996). Both films were hits with audiences despite being less well-received by critics, and found even more success on home video. The duo planned to collaborate on a third comedy, but Farley’s overpowering drug addiction created tension which rocked his partnership with Spade. They managed to repair the rift, but Farley’s death permanently kiboshed all plans for that third film. Spade managed to find a measure of success in the following decade on TV with supporting role on the sitcoms Just Shoot Me!, 8 Simple Rules, and Rules of Engagement, and also veered into animation voice-over work with his role as Emperor Kuzco in Disney’s The Emperor's New Groove. His live-action film career, however, was tanked by the failures of Joe Dirt, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, and The Benchwarmers. Spade’s presence on the big screen since then has stayed afloat primarily through his supporting roles in the films of fellow SNL alum and close friend, the aforementioned Adam Sandler.
Bruce Willis became prominent during The '80s with two breakthrough roles: on TV as private investigator David Addison in the popular comedy-drama Moonlighting, and on film as Action Hero John McClane in Die Hard. His willingness to do his own stunts in the latter made him an action star overnight, promptly becoming one of the genre’s most enduring leading men for the following decades. Die Hard kickstarted a franchise comprising multiple sequels, with other action flicks he’s been in including 12 Monkeys, The Fifth Element, Armageddon (1998), Red (2010), The Expendables and its sequel The Expendables 2. He evaded typecasting while proving he could be more than a fighter with roles in comedy (Look Who's Talking, Death Becomes Her, and The Whole Nine Yards) and drama (Pulp Fiction, The Sixth Sense, and Moonrise Kingdom). Then his decline began in 2013 when his most recent and final Die Hard film, A Good Day to Die Hard, not only became the worst-reviewed one of the franchise, but failed to reach the financial gross of its predecessors. His other films of that year, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2, barely scraped by in the box office. His descent into low- or no-budget, poorly received Direct to Video action schlock in The New '10s, which was mitigated in the decade’s initial years with career-best work in Moonrise Kingdom and Looper, sealed its grasp after that year, for that quite aptly described most of his films since then. When he starred in eight such films in 2021, the Golden Raspberry Awards created a special category for that year titled “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie” in jest. On March 30, 2022, however, Willis’s family disclosed that Willis, after being diagnosed with aphasia, which negatively impacted his cognitive abilities to read and speak, had chosen to retire. It then became clear that he'd been struggling with the condition for years, with crew members citing incidents where he outright forgot where he was and what he was doing, much of his output was revealed to have covered medical bills and because the productions didn't strain his mental abilities. Several who mocked the actor’s recent output at once took back their statements in sympathy, with even the Razzies notably rescinding that special “award” after acknowledging it was in very bad taste retrospectively. The publicity after his announcement caused an outpouring of support and goodwill, with fans and critics saying he deserved to be remembered for the classic films he made at his peak rather than those brought on by his later circumstances. Now, Willis is regarded sympathetically and thought of as a very talented actor who made a lot of terrific films before his career was hurt by his condition rather than the washed-up, Steven Seagal-type has-been he'd been written off as before.
Following Avatar and Terminator Salvation, Sam Worthington got a big push as Hollywood's next big Action Hero. The Clash of the Titans remake followed, as well as a number of smaller action movies. Like several others on this list, however, Worthington has taken criticism for playing more or less the same character in most of his roles. For a while there was even a debate if he was going to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger or the next Steven Seagal… and then he simply stopped getting roles at all, aside random episodes as a One-Scene Wonder. The critical and commercial savaging of Wrath of the Titans, which served as the sequel to the remake of Clash, and Man on a Ledge in 2012 was apparently the last straw for Worthington. With news that James Cameron's Avatar sequels entered production and Worthington would reprise his role in them, it might change things in his favor. The massive success of the first one, Avatar: The Way of Water, which got mostly positive reviews and became the highest-grossing film of 2022, indicates he might be getting back on track.
Actresses:
Cameron Diaz got tons of publicity after The Mask became a Top 10 box-office hit. For several years afterwards she was in many critically and/or commercially successful films such as My Best Friend's Wedding, Gangs of New York, There's Something About Mary, and Being John Malkovich, while also branching out into voice acting with the Shrek film series. She is the second actress to earn $20 million for a film, after Julia Roberts. However, starting around 2012, her star power began diminishing as her films became less acclaimed, culminating in 2014 with three critically bashed films – The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and Annie (2014) – with Diaz winning a Razzie Award for the first two. Three years later, Diaz formally announced her temporary retirement from acting before returning in 2022 to star in an action-comedy for Netflix.
In the early '60s, Patty Duke attained star status when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1962 film adaptation of The Miracle Worker. At age 16, she was the youngest person to win an Academy Award at the time, and this led to her starring in The Patty Duke Show, a sitcom where she starred as identical cousins. However, her career took a slight hit when she starred as a drug-addled actress in the 1967 drama Valley of the Dolls. Although a massive commercial success, it received mostly negative reviews. 1970 looked to be a bounce-back year when she won an Emmy for Actress in a Leading Role for the TV movie My Sweet Charlie, but her acceptance speech was rambling and disjointed, which made many wonder whether she was struggling with alcoholism. And then later that year, she was the subject of scandal when she revealed that she was pregnant while she was romantically linked with three men: Michael Tell (whom she was married to for 13 days before having the marriage annulled), Desi Arnaz Jr., and John Astin, whom she eventually married and would adopt her son Seannote In the '90s, Sean took a blood test which determined that Michael Tell was his biological father, but he regards all three men as his fathers.. During the '70s, her career slowed down to bit parts as she focused on raising her sons, and in the 1980s, she served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988. In 1987, she published a memoir, Call Me Anna, in which she revealed that she had bipolar disorder, becoming one of the first celebrities to openly discuss their mental health, which led her to spend the rest of her life raising awareness about mental health. From the 1990s onward, she largely shifted her focus to producing and directing, only occasionally partaking in acting. Her last major role was in a 2015 episode of the Disney sitcom Liv and Maddie, another sitcom about Polar Opposite Twins, in which she starred as the titular twins' identical grandmother and grand-aunt, before she passed away in March 2016.
Faye Dunaway exploded onto the scene with Bonnie and Clyde and a subsequent Oscar nomination. She was hyped up throughout the 60s/70s with hits like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), The Towering Inferno, The Three Musketeers (1973), Chinatown, and Network (for which she won an Oscar). She got singled out by Joan Crawford, who said that she was the only actress of her generation who "has what it takes" to become a star. Prophetic words - as Faye was chosen to play Joan herself in the adaptation of her daughter's tell-all book Mommie Dearest. What was anticipated as a hard-hitting and gritty biopic ended up a hammy unintentional comedy with the portrayal of Joan turned into a deranged cartoon character. Her hopes of winning an Oscar vanished, and the film's reception as a So Bad, It's Good camp classic destroyed the star's reputation - along with stories of her being a massive primadonna on set (rumour has it that the cast and crew found her so horrible they told her there wasn't a wrap party). She all but vanished from leading roles afterwards, with her most notable credits since being Supergirl and Dunston Checks In.
Jennifer Garner initially rose to fame co-starring on the TV show Felicity, later being touted as the next big Action Girl after coming to public attention with Alias. But she turned out to be rather unsuccessful as a movie headliner. Though she had a hit with the romantic comedy13 Going on 30, her big action film debut in Elektra flopped while her follow-up romantic comedies did only marginally better. She seems stuck in small supporting roles nowadays: such as in Juno, Dallas Buyers Club, and Love, Simon. After a career lasting nearly two decades, Sydney Bristow is still by far her most iconic role.
Ginnifer Goodwin received something of a Kate Hudson-esque push, getting numerous romantic comedy roles and magazine covers. But she didn't do a film after Something Borrowed until 2016's Zootopia (a five year gap). She was however chosen as the headliner of ABC's Once Upon a Time which has been a consistent hit with viewers. She appears to be slowing down after giving birth, and has had consistently less screen time in recent years, but remains part of the main cast at least.
Kate Hudson got a huge Star-Making Role as a drugged-out groupie in Almost Famous, even being nominated for an Academy Award. She was immediately given major role after major role in romantic comedies, all of which did middling business and resulted in critics (including Roger Ebert) hemming and hawing over how far she had fallen. Years of magazine covers, bikini shots, and more romantic comedy roles have done little for her career even if that certainly hasn't stopped her from trying. Almost Famous is Hudson's only film that still is fondly remembered today. Nowadays, she's better known for her successful Fabletics athletic wear brand.
Jennifer Lopez practically became an A-list star overnight after her performance in Selena was praised by critics, and she followed it up with several critically acclaimed films such as Out of Sight and The Cell. She also became noteworthy for being one of the few thespians who was able to successfully juggle both a singing and acting career, in 2000 she became the first person to have both the number one album and star in the number one film in the same week. Though some critics were disappointed when she later switched over to starring in middling romantic comedies like The Wedding Planner, Monster-in-Law, and Maid in Manhattan, but her films were still successful box-office wise for the most part, and even the critically mauled Gigli didn't seem to stall her career much. But then she took a four-year break from her film career, and her first film since her break, The Back-Up Plan received worse reviews then any other film she's starred in so far, so while Lopez is still getting work in films (andtelevision), it took 2019's Hustlers for a return to her former A-list status to be considered by The Machine.
Following her Star-Making Role in When Harry Met Sally..., Meg Ryan starred in a string of successful romantic comedies and dramas over the course of The '90s (most notably her three films with Tom Hanks, with Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail both grossing over $100 million at the domestic box office). She very quickly became "America's Sweetheart" as a result. However, Ryan's reported affair with her Proof of Life co-star Russell Crowe (while Ryan was still married to, albeit separated from Dennis Quaid) did serious harm to Ryan's "good girl" image. She gained even more negative publicity when she appear on the UK talk show Parkinson while promoting the erotic thriller (and very much a Playing Against Type role) In the Cut. The interview was awkward and uncomfortable, with host Michael Parkinson later calling her "terrible" while Ryan shot back saying she felt like he was a "disapproving father" towards her with his tone. Not helping were the ill-advised cosmetic procedures, which further diminished her "girl next door" appeal. Following the 2004 boxing drama Against the Ropes (which flopped at the box office and was panned by critics for being a stale Rocky clone), Ryan wouldn't appear in another movie for three years. She would resurface in the independent movie In the Land of Women and direct-to-DVD movies like The Deal and Mom's New Boyfriend. That was already a massive slide from where she'd been previously, but quite possibly the biggest nail in her coffin was her next major theatrically released film, 2008's The Women. Response from critics was overwhelmingly negative, with the film garnering a 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Ryan herself would also be nominated for a Worst Actress Razzie (alongside co-stars Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Debra Messing).
Ryan had been the queen of the '90s, but between problems in her personal life (which would irreparably damage the public's perception of her) and poor choices in roles, she's now disappeared from the Hollywood landscape (literally too, as she's now living in New York). While some of her earlier films are still well liked for nostalgic reasons, it's also clear many of them haven't aged all that well. Ryan herself meanwhile isn't looking to make a comeback anytime soon either, as she's stated in later interviews that she's felt liberated since losing her America's Sweetheart image and generally likes keeping a low profile and living a normal life. Though she has gotten a bit of attention due to her son Jack Quaid's recent high profile success.
Elisabeth Shue had a solid career as a child/teen actress: with prominent roles in The Karate Kid (1984), Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail and the Back to the Future sequels, but really hit the big time with a critically acclaimed performance alongside Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, going against her previously established Girl Next Door image. Though big things were expected, a few high-profile critical and commercial flops, the most infamous being Molly (1999), where her depiction of an autistic woman garnered strong vilification from disability rights groups, didn't really hit the highs that were anticipated of her, thus leaving Shue with a more-or-less solid but unremarkable career since then. She mocked this with a starring role in Hamlet 2, where she played a fictionalized version of herself who quits acting in disillusionment to become a nurse. At the very least, she started regaining a bit of popularity in The New '10s which began after Piranha 3D became a slight hit. She then landed some big roles on television and streaming, first with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation followed by The Boys. She then came back as her Karate Kid character in the sequel series Cobra Kai.
Catherine Zeta-Jones made a major splash with her Fanservice-y role in The Mask of Zorro, and instantly became a household name (internationally, anyway - she had already been fairly well-known for a while in the UK). Unfortunately, before she could get much work, she hooked up with Michael Douglas and practically vanished for years, only making the occasional movie like Chicago (for which she won an Oscar). She doesn't seem to mind her current obscurity, but she could have been as A-List as anybody given enough of a push. However, she recently went public about her struggles with bipolar disorder (as well her husband's cancer diagnosis a few years back) which could be a fair explanation for why she has not worked as much as she used to.
published by The Hollywood Reporter uncovering dozens of backstage accounts of his deteriorating behavior, involving drug abuse during filming of Dead Men Tell No Tales, failing to show up at a movie festival that billed his appearance (resulting in a film he starred in being pulled without getting a screening), paying his first wife a previously unreported settlement to hush up a voicemail in which he reportedly said the N-word, and a ruthless smear campaign against Heard, at one point attempting to bully Warner Bros. into removing her from Aquaman. The article also revealed that he'd been pushed out of a big budget Harry Houdini miniseries even though executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer had long been his biggest ally and defender in the industry. However, he maintains a lucrative endorsement with Dior for one of their men’s fragrances since these sorts of controversies don’t really seem to stick in the company’s native France. It would be over a year before he booked another project, unsurprisingly a French film, which is called Jeanne du Barry .