Michelle Forbes was supposed to play the lead in a new action series called Global Frequency, based on the comics written by Warren Ellis. The WB had ordered the pilot, and it was filmed, but they never picked it up. This would have been a great show and an amazing opportunity for Forbes, but apparently it was very expensive to produce. Hopefully we’ll end up seeing it one day–at least the pilot, if not a whole season. I’m sure it would do well in this age of Alias and 24.
Forbes played Miranda Zero, a cool, intelligent, sardonic dark-haired babe who leads a network of 1,000 deep cover agents around the world, activating whoever has talents best-suited to deal with the latest crisis. When things get bad, the agents would receive a phone call saying “Hello, you’re on the Global Frequency,” and they’d swing into action. With that set-up, the show would have had a new cast every week (except for Forbes’ character and the punky female communications specialist Aleph), and it would have been completely different each time.
Does Michael Madsen qualify? Looked his output up on IMDB and the only post Reservoir Dogs films I recognised were Donny Brasco and Mulholland Falls. After that scary turn in RD, you’d have thought he’d be snapped up as a psycho-for-hire or even another Robert Mitchum style heavy, but it doesn’t seem to have happened. Maybe he didn’t want to be typecast.
Also surely one of the earliest examples: Elliot Gould. Had a great early 70s (MASH, The Long Goodbye) and then apparently rumours of insanity meant that he got refused for big parts thereafter. Still has an impressive list of films, but… mostly small stuff or cameos. Shame cos he had (has TBH) a quirky screen persona that was very engaging.
Richard is currently “honing his craft” playing an aging rock star in a series of adverts for a certain chain of catalogue stores here in the UK. Alongside Julia Sahwala (Saffy from Ab Fab), an actor I always thought would have a better career than she does.
Funnily enough, we were discussing her former Press Gang co-star Dexter Fletcher (Band of Brothers, most recently) as an actor we feel should be bigger than he is.
He played the villain Budd in the Kill Bill movies, also by Tarantino. It’s a shame he hasn’t done more, because I always liked Madsen. Even as the psycho Mr. Blonde, he was still riveting to watch.
Diane Lane. She was probably my first celebrity crush, I saw a number of bad movies in the late 80’s simply because her name was on the rental box. I’ve since recognized that she has talent to go with those incredible looks. Though she has had a decent career, she should have been A-list at some point.
I’ll nominate Mira Sorvino. I guess she was typecast…
I’d also like to simply point out that some of the most impressive actors/actresses have never had a realistic chance at “superstardom,” and I suspect many of them wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.
[personal aside]
Ahh! I remember waiting to watch that thing with bated breath in 1978.
Because it was Luke!
How could it not be awesome!
And at the tender age of eight, I learned how staggeringly non-awesome a movie could be![/personal aside]
Parker Posey (House of Yes, Dazed & Confused, Party Girl)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Boogie Nights, Talented Mr. Ripley)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko)
Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry)
all ought to be more famous than they are now. But at least Swank’s career seems to be getting some momentum from her new flick. (Can’t remember the name offhand, but it’s directed by Clint Eastwood.)
Eddie Murphy seems to me like the archetype of a momentary superstar whose time has come & gone.
Halle Berry seems to wasting her cache as an oscar winner, and will quickly be eligible for this category.
I tried tracking down an online copy of this article but couldn’t. But, Truman Capote once wrote a great magazine piece - I think for “Vanity Fair” - about the fleeting nature of Hollywood superstardom entitled “Kier Dullea, Gone Tomorrow.” (Kier Dullea [rhymes with “here today”] was the ‘star’ of 2001: A Space Odyssey and was supposedly going to be the next big superstar, circa 1968.) If you ever happen to see a copy, read it, it’s funny.
No, haven’t read much about my favorite actor from the 80s since his DUI. The last movie I saw him in was “The Good Thief” an indy film that was pretty good. I always thought Nick had a lot more acting potential than most people saw in his “big” films from the 80s. If anyone has see some of his more down to earth serious roles (as opposed to 48 Hours) I think they’d recognize that.
Do you just mean he’s gotten fatter or has he been involved in something?