I’m sure we all have actors we used to like a lot, but have grown to dislike due to them being in every second movie out there.
For me a partial list would include Chris Pratt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ryan Reynolds, Liam Neeson, hmm, can’t think of any actresses at the moment.
Anyway, do studios actually track whether actors are about to become overexposed or do they only look to the box office to make their casting decisions?
Also, how could one reverse overexposure? (I realise that most people have a short attention span, but I just couldn’t imagine watching a Chris Pratt movie in the near future unless he only has a small part in it).
Studios put popular actors in films because they are a draw.* Actors usually don’t say no because they never know when their careers will flame out.
The way to reverse it is to take a role that’s very different from their usual image (Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder) or to get the lead in a successful franchise (Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible films).
*Though actors are less of a draw than the used to be: it’s franchises now. If Robert Downey, Jr. dropped out of The Avengers films, the studio would choose someone else and keep the franchise going. People will bitch, but they’ll still see the movies.
Jennifer Grey (Red Dawn, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Dirty Dancing) accomplished this by getting a nose job. Not exactly her intention, but it sure worked… she went from being one of the Brat Pack to making TV movies because she no longer looked like the nice Jewish girl any more. She could have gone from playing all the Jewish high school girls to all the Jewish college girls and instead had to take a 10-year hiatus in her career so she could start playing all the soccer moms.
I think you are overestimating the overexposure of these actors. Chris Pratt, for instance, has been in a dozen feature films since 2010. And really only three in the past year; The Lego Movie (voice role), Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. That’s not that many. (That’s in addition to his television role in Parks & Recreation, but that’s basically a supporting role in an ensemble cast.)
Another thing is that it’s a matter of timing. A couple of years ago, I saw an actor (might have been Benedict Cumberbatch) being interviewed on The Daily Show or elsewhere. The interviewer noted that he had about five films coming out that year. The actor explained that it was an accident of timing; that the movies were filmed over a longer period of time, but they happened all to be released the same year. (And the studio might push the release of a film ahead to capitalize on current interest in an actor.)
Bradley Cooper. He’s a good actor, but I’m a bit tired of seeing him and hearing about him.
This has been going on forever. I’m old enough to remember when it seemed like Elliott Gould was in everything.
How do you reverse it? You can’t; as RealityChuck points out, filmmakers want big names in their casts and actors don’t want to turn parts down. I wish more directors would do what Lucas did in Star Wars: unknowns in the leads, familiar faces in the supporting roles.
I was going to say this, then I looked it up. Best I could find is that she got the nose job right after filming Dirty Dancing, so her career was hardly done.
I think social media plays a role here. 20 years ago, A Jennifer Lawrence would be in movies, on talk shows, in magazines, etc. Now we have all that plus 60,000 different articles on Buzzfeed and the like. And all of that fuels even more mentions of Jennifer Lawrence. Tom and Lorenzo do a post on her every time she appears somewhere Oh, and when you watch something on Youtube, you see videos they’re promoting featuring Jennifer Lawrence. And clickbait on various sites has pictures of Jennifer Lawrence…
So if you would have seen X mentions of Jennifer Lawrence in a week 20 years ago, now you see 10X. So, yeah, it didn’t used to be this bad.
Spraking of Mission: Impossible, someone should consider putting out a movie version of that show. Liam Neeson would probably make a kick-ass Jim Phelps.
A good example of a ridiculously over-exposed actor who successfully salvaged their career would be Ben Affleck.
He and Matt Damon burst onto the scene with their screenplay Oscar win. Then he joined the $20 million dollar club and started churning out crap movies one after another. It peaked with his ‘Ben-ennifer’ tabloid-ready relationship to gorgeous-but-hated Jennifer Lopez. Fortunately he stepped back from the brink. He got his personal life in order by marrying cute but likeable Jennifer Garner and starting a family (though they just split). And he got his career back by taking small but meaty & respectable roles in smaller, independent films. His win for *Argo *was arguably his return to respectability.
And when he was first cast as the next Batman initially people were disappointed, but now even fanboys have accepted him in it. And they should. He always was a very good actor with leading man good looks.
Yes, there’s the “strike while the iron is hot” attitude by both the studios and the actors. And then nowadays the “personality journalists” both in print, tv, and internet jump on the band wagon by tossing more gasoline on the fire.* It’s all about the $$.
So, is there a way to reduce the overexposure without going on a multi-year career hiatus? Maybe limiting oneself to 1 or 2 films a year. A little less premiers with red carpet walks. Less nightclubbing. Emma Watson was poised to go big time, but she was able to manage her career to avoid over exposure, but she seems to be keeping busy.
I guess for the young men, keeping one’s shirt on and buttoned will keep you out of the tabloids. I guess a little more modesty might help for the women also.
IMHO, actors are only “overexposed” if they’re in lots of movies you didn’t see or saw and didn’t like. If you enjoyed their performances, then why wouldn’t you want to see another one? Were people complaining that the Beatles were releasing too many good songs back in the 1960’s?
And don’t complain that seeing someone in three movies a year is too much, when you’re willing to watch TV actors perform all year long without complaining. By any objective measure, you watch them far more often than you watch movie stars, but no-one ever called Bryan Cranston overexposed because he was on TV 13 hours a year.
What about the classic movie stars of Hollywood’s golden age? When the studios ran things? They worked constantly–on big pictures & small. There were many movie magazines & gossip columnists covered their exciting lives. (Usually releasing news approved by the studios.) Some of these names & faces remain legendary.
Benedict Cumberbatch? He became famous for a TV show that’s squeezes out a few episodes every other year. And he’s done a variety of movie projects–SF/fantasy blockbusters (does voice work & motion capture count?) & slightly arty stuff. He’s currently doing *Hamlet *onstage in London–not exactly forcing himself on us.
I can see being irritated by overexposure of actors you find irritating.
Right, but that’s where the social media overexposure plays a big role. I’m totally sick of hearing about Benedict Cumberbatch, but that’s not because I’ve seen him in too much stuff.
I’ve seen the guy in two movies, the Imitation Game and as Khan in that Star Trek movie. He was fantastic in the former. I didn’t really like him in the latter, but no biggie. But I am so incredibly sick of him and everybody talking about how hot he is, especially because I think he is remarkably unattractive, and I’d pretty much like him to go away and never come back.
All in all, I suspect Chris Pratt would much rather be overexposed than waiting tables or driving a cab.
The guy has just caught a few big breaks. ***Guardians of the Galaxy ***was an unexpected smash, and he sang well enough to get a supporting role in Into the Woods, another hit. Those successes put him on the map, and got him cast in Jurassic World.
COULD people get tired of him? Sure, but if so, his best move might be to do a very DIFFERENT kind of movie, rather than to lay low.
Wait, what? Chris Pratt wasn’t in Into the Woods. Are you perhaps thinking of Chris Pine (who played the prince, and who previously played James Kirk)?
And now people are talking of Chris Pratt for a reboot/sequel/prequel of Indiana Jones. I could see him in that role.