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In Hollywood, stardom is a fickle thing.
Even the best actors experience fallow periods. Today’s vibrant actors are often out of work tomorrow.
But sometimes, if you’re lucky, a game-changing project comes along.
Robert Downey Jr. is one of the most famous actors who nearly wiped out his acting career, only to rise back to the top. But there are countless other names, including Keanu Reeves, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brendan Fraser.
Sometimes actors disappear from the screen completely during times of recession. Indiana Jones star Ke Hui Quan is an example of someone the industry has turned its back on for decades.
Other times, performers just keep working and put their energy into poor projects that don’t take advantage of their great talent.
Here are 19 actors whose careers took a turn for the worse, and the movies that saved them.
Lauren Bacall – Murder on the Orient Express
A legend of Hollywood’s golden age, Bacall’s career was hampered by a variety of factors, including her reputation for being difficult to work with in middle age, and she disappeared from screens completely for eight years from 1966 to 1974. . It was Sidney Lumet’s Poirot film Murder on the Orient Express that gave Bacall a second wind, and later in life she went on to star in acclaimed films such as Misery and Birth. Achieved new success.
Jamie Lee Curtis – Halloween
Curtis was one of the industry’s premier “scream queens” in the ’70s and ’80s, thanks to her roles in films like “Halloween” and “The Fog.” However, over the years, roles dried up, and Curtis even briefly retired from acting in the 1990s. However, with the 2018 Legacy sequel Halloween, the actor was thrust back into the spotlight and into the mainstream, eventually winning an Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
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Scream, Queen: Jamie Lee Curtis and Andi Matichak in 2018’s Halloween (Universal)
Robert De Niro – A unique handbook
De Niro, widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time, fell into a rut in the 2000s, and his name became almost synonymous with low-quality, low-effort box office success. He received some of the best reviews in decades for his role opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in David O. It earned him his first Oscar nomination since “Fear”. Since then, despite some strange clumsiness, De Niro has gone on to greater heights, and his work in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon ranks among his best. It ranks alongside acting.
Hopeful Playbook – Trailer
Robert Downey Jr – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Downey Jr.’s struggles with addiction and erratic behavior on set were so notorious that he could barely afford insurance in the early 2000s. But thanks to a role in director Shane Black’s seminal 2005 comedy, the humble new star was able to rebuild his reputation, and his role in the Iron Man series earned him a spot among Hollywood’s biggest and most He became one of the most profitable actors.
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Kiss of Death: Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (Warner Bros.)
Colin Farrell – In Bruges
Although Colin Farrell found success early in his career, he struggled to establish himself as a big-name actor, instead building a reputation as a scandal-plagued Hollywood hotshot. That changed with the release of Martin McDonagh’s raucous crime comedy In Bruges, which reached the creative heights Farrell would become accustomed to in the years since. “Being in Bruges was a huge turning point for me personally, creatively and in all things jazz,” Farrell later said.
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Brendan Fraser – Whale
Once a bona fide leading man, Fraser has seen his acting career ruined by depressing forces beyond his control, and has barely appeared on screen over the past decade. But in recent years he has begun a much-celebrated comeback, with his physically transformed and Oscar-winning role in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whales establishing him once again as a major force on the scene. established.
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Please Call Me Ishmael: Brendan Fraser (A24) in ‘The Whale’
Hugh Grant – Paddington 2
In the 1990s, Grant’s stellar career overcame high-profile sex scandals and Mickey Blue Eyes humiliation. But as the years went by, he wandered down a dead end of mediocrity, calling up roles in by-the-numbers movies like Rewritten, before beginning to rebuild his reputation as a erudite older star. While he was first teased with the 2016 feel-good opera drama Florence Foster Jenkins, it was the acclaimed children’s film Paddington 2 that truly relaunched his career. , and secured him a surprise BAFTA nomination in 2018.
Michael Keaton – Birdman
This daring “one-take” film casts Keaton as a spiraling actor with some eerie similarities to himself, taking on the challenge of an ambitious stage adaptation of Raymond Carver’s story. The Best Picture winner sparked a career renaissance for former Beetlejuice maverick Keaton, who went on to star in everything from big-money blockbusters (Spider-Man: Homecoming) to Emmy-winners (Dope Sick). I ended up playing the lead role.
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Still Drinking (Beetle) Juice: Michael Keaton in “Birdman” (Fox Searchlight)
Matthew McConaughey – Lincoln Lawyer
Few actors have undergone as dramatic a reinvention as Matthew McConaughey, the widely despised romantic comedy star who pivoted to “respectable” acting during an era known as the “McConnaissance.” But projects like Dallas Buyers Club and Interstellar were preceded by The Lincoln Lawyer, a decent legal thriller that confirmed McConaughey’s chops as a believable dramatic lead. there were.
Leslie Nielsen – Airplane!
The Zucker brothers’ 1980 anarchic comedy Airplane! This film didn’t save Nielsen’s career, it completely reinvented it. By then, Nielsen was a drama veteran, having starred in the awful-looking disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure. What a plane! His deadpan talent was recognized and a career as a master of comedy was born.
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Don’t Call Me Shirley: Leslie Nielsen co-stars with Julie Haggerty and Peter Graves in Airplane (Paramount)
Ke Huy Quan – Everything at once, everywhere
One of Hollywood’s true “forgotten men,” Quan struggled to maintain his profile in front of the cameras after finding fame as a child actor in Indiana Jones and The Temple of the Dead. After doing so, he saw his career collapse after turning to stunt choreography. He returns to the fold in 2022 thanks to genre-bending awards from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, earning Quan a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. In the short time since the release of this film, he has landed several big projects, including a lead role in the series “American Born Chinese” and a supporting role in the Marvel movie “Loki.”
Keanu Reeves – John Wick
Despite appearing in some of the most enduring films of the 1990s, The Matrix, Speed and Point Break, Reeves saw his stock plummet in the 2000s due to a series of commercial failures. The actor, whose line phrasing has often been the subject of unfair ridicule, returned to the top with his role in the 2014 thriller John Wick. Three sequels later, Reeves is now one of the industry’s biggest and most respected on-screen talents.
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Neo Beginning: Keanu Reeves “John Wick” (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool
For years, Hollywood seemed to be trying to make Ryan Reynolds a reality, but to no avail. In blockbusters like Green Lantern and RIPD, the Canadian actor failed to make an impression. His fortunes improved in 2016 when he was cast as the foul-mouthed, childish Deadpool in Marvel’s R-rated film adaptation. With this role, he quickly transformed into one of mainstream cinema’s go-to leads in witty popular films.
Edward G. Robinson – Hole in the Head
The McCarthyist blacklisting of the 1950s ruined the careers of many great actors, including old Hollywood legend Edward G. Robinson. After a period in the wilderness, taking bit roles in various productions, Robinson eventually returned to the scene with the 1959 comedy A Hole in the Head, which ushered in a new era for the diminutive actor.
Mickey Rourke – Sin City
Once a rough-and-tumble leader, Rourke saw his stardom waning in the 1990s and early 2000s, but a role in the stylized comic book version of Sin City brought it back. . Within two years, his career took off again and he won an Oscar for The Wrestler. Since then, his profile has declined again, but his career resurgence has been remarkable.
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Sin You Be Gone: Rourke appeared in 2005’s “Sin City” (Rico Torres/Paramount)
Winona Ryder – Black Swan
Ryder was a glamorous on-screen presence whose brilliance in 1990s hits (including “Scissorhands,” “Reality Bites,” and “Age of Innocence”) led to negative tabloid coverage in the early 21st century. I saw it disappear because of this. But while a strong supporting role in the dark ballet drama “Black Swan” helped turn things around, Ryder’s subsequent role in Netflix’s “Stranger Things” cemented his name once again. I grabbed it.
John Travolta – Pulp Fiction
The “Grease” singing and dancing star had a flat career throughout the ’80s — until director Quentin Tarantino told him, “You’re the one I want,” and his second feature, “Pulp.” It was until he was cast in “Fiction.” Travolta’s portrayal of unstable gangster Vincent Vega reinvigorated his career and earned him a surprise Oscar nomination.
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Mare Palpa: Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction (Miramax)
Reese Witherspoon – Wild
Witherspoon was kind of bound to be depressed at some point. Witherspoon made it big at a young age, winning an Academy Award in her 20s (for 2005’s Walk the Line). However, after winning the Oscar, things did not go well and the actor experienced a series of failures. That continues until the 2014 Oscar nominee “Wild.” This moving back-to-nature drama earned Witherspoon some of the best reviews of her career. Since then, the story has changed, and Witherspoon is at the top of her own media empire with a net worth of over $400 million.
Renée Zellweger – Bridget Jones’ Baby
In the early 1990s, Zellweger was on top of the world. While “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Chicago” made her a household name, “Cold Mountain” earned her her first Oscar. However, due to poor prospects, it went into complete hiatus from 2010. This was the third film that brought Bridget Jones’ career out of hibernation. Her welcome return to her most famous role launched a number of other strong projects, including 2019’s Judy, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actor.
