The impression I get is that by the time you’re ready to appear in a Star Trek movie, your career has pretty much tanked.
Interesting. I had not heard that about Lucy, nor seen it reported anywhere (the miscarriage thing). I do know that she’s in a movie set for release within the next month or so. Something called Boogeyman. Don’t know anything about it, especially whether it’s good or not. Caveat emptor.
In defense of Renee–one of my favorite people in the world–she too had a baby shortly after Xena wrapped, and I think she preferred taking time off to jumping right back in. She’s still working, though–I saw the aforementioned short movie, “One Weekend A Month,” and she did a bang up job in her part. It’s playing at the Sundance Festival this month, if anyone’s curious. (They’re going to show some of their films online this year, if you can’t make it to Utah. Do a Google search for Sundance and you’ll probably find a link.)
For what it’s worth, Renee seemed perfectly happy at the “OWAM” premiere, so I don’t think she’s suffering or anything. I know I’d like to see her in more work, but you got to let people do their own thing.
That’s something to keep in mind when you’re categorizing people this way. Some of these folks didn’t just get dumped along the side of the road–they made a choice not to pursue “superstardom.” It’s not what everyone wants. Maybe because they got an eyeful of what that status entails and said, “no fucking way.”
Case in point: Edward Norton, who was mentioned eariler, is one of my favorite actors. If you don’t think he’s doing great or important work, just check out Spike Lee’s 25th Hour from a few years ago. Brilliant movie, great performance by Norton. It may not be the sort of thing that gets your face on fawning TV shows 24 hours a day, but there are–or should be–other priorities in life.
Ooh. If Norton and Depp ever co-headlined a movie, I’d pull a Star Wars and camp outside the movie theatre for months to be the first to see it.
Mary Stuart Masterson. I’ve never seen her turn in a lousy performance even when she was in less-than-great movies. Quite the realist, she said in an interview aobut 10 years ago: “I get offered to audition for the projets that Jodie Foster turns down, after the two girls ahead of me have already passed on them.”
Critics have always liked her, she did consistent work, she’s pretty hot, and after Fried Green Tomatoes I thought she’d finally break into the Big Time. Then things just sort of petered out… A TV series that didn’t quite make it…
And I ditto the previous post about Jennifer Jason Leigh. You can always count on a fantastic performance out of that woman. Rarely will I go and see a film because of who is in it, but Leigh is someone for whom I make an exception because her performances are always worth the price of admission.
And I’d like to add Lili Taylor. I understand why she hasn’t become a “superstar” (she doesn’t fit Hollywoods traditional "beauty"model though I find her plenty applealing), but da-damn, her performances just rock! She and Patricia Clarkson both brighten my entire week just by appearing on the screen for just a split second.
Me too. If I could buy stock in an actor’s career, I’d load up on Tina Fey futures. She is just getting started.
Denzel Washington isn’t A-list to you??? What does he have to do, win an Oscar or something? :dubious:
Denis Quaid, as much as I loved him in The Big Easy, does not still have to chance to be A-list. Too bad, cause he was a cutie.
My nomination goes to Mark Hamill. How could he be in Star Wars and not turn that into a huge career?
The last role I remember him doing is Dwight Eisenhower for a D-Day movie. The one notice I read liked him in that. Without all that hair, he had the right combination of toughness and softness that Ike had.
I also saw Selleck in a small move called “The Love Letter” that also starred Speilburg’s wife, Kate Capshaw. He played a fireman, although they couldn’t afford his moustache and it stayed home. I suspect that huge upper lip he’s got was probably a damper on his career. Otherwise, he was fine (the movie’s only average, however).
As for <b>David Rasche</b>, I picked up in the five buck bin at Wal-Mart a copy of “The Big Tease”, a “Spinal Tap”-like mockmentary about a gay Scottish hairdresser who flies to L.A. to participate in the world hairstyling competition. Rasche plays a German hairdresser, and he had bulked out so much I spent most of the movie wondering why this big blonde guy looked so familiar. It’s a decent, odd film, well worth the five bucks.
The Corey’s.
Corey Feldman & Corey Haim.
They were everywhere in the 80’s and no where to be seen now.
Lucy Lawless had a small part in ** EuroTrip** as a Dominatrix. Quite funny.
Karen Allen was excellent in Indiana Jones & the raiders of the lost ark and then she disappeared.
Denzel Washington’s last five pictures:
The Manchurian Candidate
Man on Fire
Out of Time
Antoine Fisher
John Q
The five films before that:
Training Day
Remember the Titans
The Hurricane
The Bone Collector
The Siege
All starring roles, and they all pretty much tanked at the box office. He turned in some good performances, but if he’s still on the ‘A’ list, I doubt he will be for long.
Maybe we need the perspective from the end of an actor’s life. Even though I put Jimmy Stewart in my list of “superstars,” really, he didn’t have hit after hit and his career really did tank (more or less after the excellent "Flight of The Phoenix), to an extent.
Hell, I turn on TV and see Stewart movies I’ve never heard of. In (?) 40 years or so, he made maybe four or five classics, two or three pretty darn goods, and the rest was filler.
So maybe when Denzel is 85, he will have five classics that we will remember, with all the rest as filler…
Just ruminating…
Sir Rhosis
Richard E. Grant
He seems to have settled into bit-player-for-Robert Altman-mode in the last few years. While that’s certainly a respectable place to be, I was always expecting him to hit it big in a Gary Oldman or Daniel Day-Lewis kind of way. It seems that he peaked in his Withnail and How to Get Ahead in Advertising days. Maybe he needs to hook up with Bruce Robinson again.
Apologies in advance for the hijack:
Hey, Eats_Crayons, have you seen The Machinist yet? Another fine (if small) performance by JJL. Would you be surprised to learn that she plays a prostitute in this film? :rolleyes:
The reviews I’ve read all talk about how much weight Christian Bale lost for the title role, but us Jennifer Jason Leigh fans aren’t impressed. We still remember The Best Little Girl in the World.
Box office figures (U.S. only) added to the quote below:
His career U.S. gross is $1,283,760,554. Some of the films you listed didn’t do well, but it is hard to see how 75,000,000 and 115,000,000 can be considered “tanking.”
Yeah, and standing next to Bale you realize how short she really is (particularly when his skinny bod makes him look extra tall).
I saw her in an interview for Single White Female (a movie I haven’t seen because, though I seek out Leigh movies, I actively avoid Bridget Fonda) and she was a little… “odd”. Kinda like she gets a wee bit too much into a part. It was a creepy and somewhat uncomfortable interview.
The first person I thought of when I read the thread title was Brad Renfro . Cute as a button, Oscar-worthy performance in his first role (in The Client), stayed away from the usual teeny bopper magazines and then… well, not much. He’s been in a few straight-to-video movies and has gotten arrested a handful of times. No one told him that the downward spiral comes after the rise to fame.
Brynda: I don’t know… Aside from a couple of them, they look pretty mediocre to me. “A” list stars command 20 million dollar salaries or more. I wonder how many of those films lost money?
It looks like me makes in excess of $10,000,000 per movie, and he’s one of the most respected movie stars out there. He’s not going anyplace.
Terry O’Quinn has always been my favorite overlooked talent that can’t seem to make it to household name status. I’m hoping his role on the Lost series will finally earn him the big time…
Diane Franklin.
After Last American Virgin and *Better Off Dead * I thought for sure she’d be huge. I thought she was great!
Christian Slater just did a movie called Pursued. I like Christian Slater, think he’s cute, like the older movies he was in, but every time I read the back of this thing at work, I just laauuuuuugh.