Post-Oscar career lows

Cafe Society
1

Based on some posts in this thread.

Name an Academy Award winning best actor or actress and then name the worst movie they did after their award-winning performance. It has to be a post-award performance - anybody can make bad movies on the way up. But to widen the scope, we’ll allow supporting awards and, if the movie was bad enough, nominees.

A few recent winners to get us started:

Halle Berry - Monster’s Ball (2001) - Catwoman (2004)
Jim Broadbent - Iris (2001) - Around the World in 80 Days (2003)
Nicolas Cage - Leaving Las Vegas (1995) - Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000)
Jennifer Connelly - A Beautiful Mind (2001) - Hulk (2003)
Jamie Fox - Ray (2004) - Stealth (2005)
Cuba Gooding, Jr - Jerry Maguire (1996) - Boat Trip (2003)
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote (2005) – Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Nicole Kidman - The Hours (2002) - Bewitched (2005)
Gwyneth Paltrow - Shakespeare in Love (1998) - View from the Top (2003)
Julia Roberts - Erin Brockovich (2000) - America’s Sweethearts (2001)
Geoffrey Rush - Shine (1996) - House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Hillary Swank - Boys Don’t Cry (1999) - The Core (2003)
Charlize Theron - Monster (2003) - AEon Flux (2005)
Denzel Washington - Glory (1989) - Heart Condition (1990)

2

MI: 3 was a perfectly decent action movie, and one of the main reasons was Hoffman. He was sensational in that movie, a perfectly believable and detestable sociopath.

I don’t think enough time has passed to assess Hoffman’s post-Oscar low point.

3

Lawrence Olivier – Hamlet (1948) (and a nomination for The Boys From Brazil (1978)). The Jazz Singer (1980) and Inchon (1981)
Jack Palance – **City Slickers **(1991), **Cops and Robersons **(1994)

There is often a drop off in roles after an Oscar win: the actor starts demanding more money and starts playing it safe.

4

Orson Welles was only nominated for an acting award for Citizen Kane, but won for best screenplay on the same movie. He ended his career in the animated Transformers Movie.

5

That’s a low?

6

I was certain Cuba Gooding, Jr. was gonna be the inspiration for this thread. He only won Best Supporting Actor, but there are at least four abominations credited to his name after Jerry Maguire:

Pearl Harbor - 24% on Rotten Tomatoes
Snow Dogs - 23%
Boat Trip - 7%
Daddy Day Camp - Not yet released, but come on…

In all fairness, he only had a brief part in Pearl Harbor.

ETA: I noticed the OP already mentioned him. I’ll leave it just to point out that Cuba represents an exceptional case. Also, I didn’t follow the OP’s format. Man, I suck today. Apologies.

7

Jon Voight (Coming Home), James Coburn (Affliction), Mary Steenburgen (Melvin & Howard) and F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus) all appeared in the unspeakably horrid TV movie Noah’s Ark (along with Oscar nominee Carol Kane).

Red Buttons’ Fantasy Island appearances and Estelle Parson’s Watermelon Man and other post Oscar slumming don’t begin to touch this stinker (though I’m sure Shelley Winters managed).

8

Tommy Lee Jones deserved his best supporting actor Oscar for “The Fugitive”. He must have really needed pocket money badly to make last year’s “Man of the House”. A stinkeroo.

9

That one isn’t fair; Stealth was in post-production when Fox won. I heard they re-edited to increase his part to capitalize on the free publicity.

Pretty much all the ones you listed separated by a single year are probably the same deal.

10

Let’s see if anyone can guess these two.

From an Oscar win in 1960 to Purple People Eater, with Neil Patrick Harris and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

From an Oscar win in 1966 to Jury Duty, with Pauly Shore.

[spoiler]Sampiro was way ahead of me; they’re both Shelley Winters.

She had an Alan Smithee film in there, too.[/spoiler]

11

Fuckin Amen to the Jon Voight nod. That guy hasn’t had an interesting role in 30 years. Fire your fuckin agent already.

F. Murray Abraham: I always thought this guy must be a total asshole or either a theater purist. He belongs in the spotlight. What exactly is the problem?

12

For a guy who started out dressed as a piece of fruit to sell underwear, he’s done pretty well for himself.

13

Martin Landau received nominations for Best Supporting Actor in 1989 and 1990, and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Ed Wood in 1995. Then he did BAP*S (5% on RottenTomatoes.com in 1997.

BAPS* also featured Halle Berry, who would later win an Oscar, of course. This inspired a great blurb from The Onion: BAP*S Rented On Strength Of Academy Award-Winning Stars

14

Watermelon Man is a very funny and underrated movie. I wouldn’t consider it slumming at all.

15

Joan Crawford: From Mildred Pierce to, well, most of her post-MP career, including shilling around the world for Pepsi, culminating in Trog.

16

Some post-mortem career lows:

Lawrence Olivier: from multi-Oscar winner, including a special achievement award and a lifetime achievement award, to a recycled cameo in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Marlon Brando: from double Academy Award winner to recycled cameo in Superman Returns.

17

I agree and was just about to write the same thing. It had a lot of flaws but Estelle Parsons wasn’t one of them.

18

Anthony Hopkins- Silence of the Lambs to Freejack

19

I cannot believe noone has mentioned “Ishtar” for both Hoffman and Beatty (I know he only won Oscar as director but he deserves mention.)

Also “Two Jakes” for Jack Nicholson, one of my most disappointing movie going experiences of all-time.

And any of 50 or so movies with Louise Fletcher, presumably “Mamma Dracula” was representative.

20

Hilary Swank gets a reprieve. She won a second Academy Award post-The Core for Million Dollar Baby.