Caine said he is not retiring on his own. He said if he gets roles he will continue to work. If he doesn’t get any more roles he’s OK with that. He’s 87 now.
He’s been working pretty steadily, but mostly in supporting roles. Good supporting roles, and he gets decent billing, but with one or two exceptions, he doesn’t have the lead.
I wouldn’t say that his career has gone off the rails, though–he does have the lead in a drama movie (Let Him Go), to be released later this summer.
Eh. I think everything he does is the same old crap. I find him more corny than the Nebraska State Fair.
I don’t think Al Pacino and Robert De Niro really count. They’ve played plenty of scenery-chewing roles in their later years where they play exaggerated versions of themselves, but that’s because they’ve most been in roles where that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.
I haven’t seen The Irishman, but it’s gotten very good reviews, as did the acting of De Niro and Pacino in it, and that was released in 2019. I have seen Hunters, the Amazon Prime series from earlier this year, and while I thought it was a problematic series, to put it mildly, I thought the acting was generally very good, and that included Al Pacino, in a surprisingly nuanced role in a pulpy action/dark comedy series where he very easily could have gone over the top, but didn’t.
Yeah, I think a lot of these examples don’t really meet the OP’s stated criteria of actors “going off the rails”? There’s a difference between losing your acting ability and merely not having roles that actually require acting ability.
Some people dial back willingly. E.g. Rick Moranis’ basically willingly retired to raise his family, not because he stopped getting good roles.
I agree about Hunters. He could have easily turned in a scenery chewing performance but it turned out to be one of his more nuanced roles in years.
Disagree if we’re talking about acting performance.
The last two movies I saw Gibson in, were not only terrible, but also breath-takingly racist; racist in a way I thought was not possible any more in the 21st century.
But I have no quibble with his acting; he plays the characters in an imposing but understated way which works well (to him I think he’s making Birth of a Nation, so perhaps that’s why he takes it seriously).
Wesley Snipes was HUGE in the 90’s, then disappeared.
Kevin Costner was on top of the world after J.F.K., Dances With Wolves and The Bodyguard. What happened?
Remember the show Alias? Bradley Cooper was just a guy, probably the fifth lead. I wonder what his castmates like Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan think when they see how huge his career has become?
How about Michael Moriarty? He went off the deep end and then immigrated to Canada.
Well, after his performance in Be Cool, he seemed to have all the potential in the world.
I always liked Tony Rosato (SCTV, SNL). He was a terrific supporting actor, never the leading man, but I could have seen him as the sidekick in a bunch of high-profile films, a la Tony Randall or Dom DeLuise. Instead, he was the second banana in a lot of straight-to-video fare as soon as he got bounced from SNL, and he had legal and mental health issues about 20 years later. He worked steadily until his death in 2017, but mostly doing crap.
In their book Truth in Comedy, Charna Halpern and Del Close discussed the most appealing traits of a good improvisor: Supportive of all the other people onstage, dedicated to making them look great. They name-checked Beluhi and Mike Meyers, notorious laugh whores. They should have name-checked Tony Rosato.
My favorite example from that book was when they were talking about a scene taking place at a prom. Bill Murray, who wasn’t in the scene, grabbed someone and drug them on stage, and they just slow-danced in the background, helping to create the illusion of there actually being a dance going on.
Costner is a limited, wooden actor who went off the rails with hubris rather than acting style, getting involved in ambitious but dubious projects like “The Postman” and “Waterworld” which bombed hard. He turned down the role of Pres on “Air Force One”, which was written for him, to be in “The Postman”.
I like this quote from the “Great Movies Marred By One Bad Performance” thread:
Depp remains an excellent actor, despite wringing all the money he can out of Jack Sparrow and being way too fond of starring in Tim Burton films (and his various other personal issues). And Dwayne Johnson is actually a decent actor, despite his usual fare of schmaltzy blockbusters - have a look at him in Ballers.
Re Dwayne Johnson: I agree that he seems to have acting skills. I usually like his performance. However the topic is about going off the rails, not about talented actors choosing blockbuster movies in preference to critical darlings.
In that regard, I don’t think he’s gone off the rails at all. He’s doing pretty much what he’s been doing all along.
Pacino said his Heat character was supposed to be a cocaine addict. guess I’m odd because I thought the Irishman was boring.
Sometime in the 90s Pacino apparently decided to only perform either whispering or yelling.
My theory is this: imagine that you’re Al Pacino and it’s 1993 and you’ve never won an Oscar but you’re up for one thanks to your work in Glengarry Glen Ross; and then you sit there and watch as you lose yet again; but then, later that evening, you get called up on stage amidst thunderous applause to get handed an Oscar for what you did in Scent of a Woman, because HOO-AAH and I’M JUST GETTING WARMED UP and FLAMETHROWER and I’ll rub your NOSE in enlisted men’s CRUD till you don’t know WHICH END IS UP! YOU UNDERSTAND?
I’m guessing that something inside you clicks into place right then.