I mean, there’s a few staples of modern day (well 80’s) comedy classics in there. Not exactly groundbreaking, but thats a damn solid list. Hell, the Vacation movies (the first one and Christmas) are pretty much 80’s gold standards.
I was gonna quibble about how established Clooney and Edwards careers were pre ER, but they had solid TV and movie resumes. Nothing big obviously, but Clooney certainly was not an unknown name in TV land and holy hell, how did I forget that Anthony Edwards was Goose from Top Gun?!? I…I…I feel so ashamed. Compared to them Wyle’s resume was a barren wasteland (though he was in A Few Good Men, which I had also forgotten) Of course, he was much younger.
Seconded on Julianna Margulies and David Caruso. Though they are better examples of actors who disappeared and then came roaring back when they got into their comfort zones on TV. Caruso was just so not a leading man in the movies (solid supporting role in the otherwise forgettable Proof of Life), but you get him on TV where he gets to ham it up a bit and its successful enough.
Margulies’ character on ER annoyed the hell out of me and I didn’t think much of her as an actress at all. Then she showed up on The Sopranos all sexed up and seductive and whoa. Add a pretty solid recurring character on Scrubs and I completely 180’ed on her. And all this was before she landed The Good Wife (which I haven’t seen but seemingly everyone likes well enough). Amazing what a good fleshed out character can do to an opinion of an actor’s ability.
Think it was a little of column A and a little of column B. He did have a few leading man roles (Ivan Reitman’s Evolution) comes to mind, but that basically a parody of The X-Files itself. He’s a pretty limited actor range wise so without the right script he’s out of his element. He really has only two modes: Bland/Smart-Ass and Bland/Angry. I say this as a huge X-Files fan as well.
From what I remember, most of the characters were allowed to change and mature as the series turned more into Alda’s vision of the show. Linville’s character remained a buffoon. I guess after a point an actor would get sick of it.
Just stopping into thank ThelmaLou for quoting me in the OP. Makes me wanna scuff my toe and say “aw shucks”.
He wasn’t a failure on film, but his anticipated draw as a movie star never really materialized. The Vacation movies gave him the best chance to play Chevy Chase instead of characters they tried to force him into. Many of his movies were hits, but minor ones. Many of those movies have become recurring favorites on video. He doesn’t lack in talent (or didn’t), but he didn’t achieve the booming success predicted after he left SNL. And don’t get me wrong, I like his comedy, and most of his movies.
A lot of it, IIRC, had to do with his drug abuse before and after leaving SNL.
Wow! Mike Nelson on the bridge of the Enterprise? :eek: The mind boggles!
Interesting that he should have taken a similar role in the original Battlestar Galactica.
And the fact he’s a tremendous asshole. You can be a dick in Hollywood as long as you got the box office numbers to back it up. But hell even major stars like Clooney, Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise are known to be friendly/polite. I don’t know if you can get away with being a dick on set for too long before the good scripts start drying up.
Heh. Has anyone ever had a good word to say about Chevy Chase as a person?
Good question. Has anyone ever said he was not a disruptive jackass?
Bill Murray was ready to beat the shit out of him when he guest hosted SNL. It almost happened while they were getting ready to go on the air.
What generally happens is an actor gets a hit series and thinks “Finally, my career is taking off. I need to make my move now and take my career to the next level while I’m hot.”
The problem is that for most of them, they don’t realize that being a regular on a hit series will be the peak of the career. The last thing they should be doing is rushing off in search of some illusionary higher peak.
Well, he did have all the experience on the Satellite of Love.
And Bill Murray pretty much lives in his own contented bubble where he can be weird and awkward and everyone will love him, so you know Chevy must have done something extra special.
In that vein, favorite Bill Murray story: On the set of The Royal Tenenbaums, his job was basically Gene Hackman wrangler. He had run interference between Gene and Wes Anderson because Hackman was on the verge of strangling Anderson on numerous occasions. Something about that always tickled my fancy.
Unless he has been a total idiot he should be set for life because of ER. He hardly left early. He was on the show for 11 years. And returned after he left for a few story arcs. He was one of the highest paid people on TV making 400k per episode on an ensemble show. He rode that horse pretty far. He left to spend more time with his family. I’d say it went pretty well for him and he’s still working.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but didn’t David Duchovny try out to host the Late Late Show after Craig Kilborn left? That would have been different.
I think a lot of these people are working, but you just don’t notice. Laura Innes was on a show called (I think) Awake, but it was canceled quickly. Duchovny has done OK with Californication.
As far as Star Trek actors immediately vanishing after their series ended: Leonard Nimoy did two or three seasons of Mission: Impossible - basically replacing Martin Landau - after The Original Series went off the air.
Yeah actually looking at Duchovny’s career timing, it doesn’t look like he left the X-Files for a movie career as he only had 1 starring role (Evolution) and a very nice cameo in Zoolander. He really only left the series for about a year or so. Maybe he realized that Chris Carter had kind of lost control of the story and tried to get out while he could. And he has done ok with *Californication *(how much of that is actually acting is debatable).
Fun note: Perusing through the IMDB trivia section, it seems that Duchovny was offered a role in *Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. * I can’t even begin to imagine what that would have been like.
Complete hijack, but:
They’re about to adapt About A Boy for TV. It occurs to me that a younger David Duchovny would’ve been good for the lead (the Hugh Grant role).
Actor’s continually undervalue that TV puts them in people’s homes every week. The big screen has the prestige and critical acclaim, but TV is a star-maker. Most of these actors mistimed their pivot or shouldn’t have pivoted in the first place.