Oh. My. God.
Now I’ll never be able to watch those movies again, for the bitter taste of disappointment.
Probably will change since she won an Oscar.
Susan
Good point. I read somewhere – possibly here – that Christina Ricci had breast reduction surgery so she’d be taken seriously as an actress. Do you suppose this is what has kept Pamela Anderson from getting an Oscar nod?
Anyway, the reason they’re not huge stars is simple: not enough gas around when they were initially formed.
I was jumping in to say Ciaran Hinds as well, who has been a huge personal favorite of mine since the mid '90’s (Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Ivanhoe). I so wanted him to be cast as Aragorn in LOTR - sorry Viggo, but you just weren’t my idea of a Numenorean.
Just a note, Ms. Birch has top billing on four movies slated for this year, a mix of drama and pop titles. Maybe this is her year.
I’ve always thought that Altair deserves to be a bigger star. 12th brightest star in the night sky, but a measly 1.7 solar masses, and stuck that backwater constellation Aquila to boot. Not hardly an Ursa Major or Orion, there.
In fact, a recent study shows that prenatal dutch ovens lead to increased birth weight.
I was going to nominate Jennifer Tilley, but I maybe I shouldn’t, because of the bosoms.
I think most of the names mentioned so far fall into four categories:
1. People who’re impossible to get along with. Linda Fiorentino has had a reputation for being an absolutely impossible bitch for as long as I can remember, long before Kevin Smith worked with her. She’s beautiful and talented, but Hollywood has lots of beautiful and talented women, and in the end, if you have a choice between one who’s hateful and mean and one who’s nice, who’re ya gonna pick?
Tom Cruise may be a nut, but by all accounts he is kind and generous to everyone on a movie set; if a key grip told him on a movie set in 2000 that he was having a baby girl, and Cruise meets him on a set this year, he’ll ask the guy how his baby is, and is she in second grade or third? He’s an expert of networking and getting along with people, and makes it so people enjoy working with him. Fiorentino did the opposite, so when it came time to find a sexy brunette, they started calling other numbers.
**2. People who aren’t very good looking. ** The simple truth is that looks matter, and the most famous actors (and especially actresses) are pretty. Tilda Swinton is a hell of an actress but she’s not beautiful. Looks even affect critical impressions. The majority of Best Actress winners are young, pretty girls.
3. People who just take a different career path, like Ryan Gosling, Alicia Witt or Ciaran Hinds. I mean, it’s not like those people are worried where the money for the next gas bill is coming from.
4. People who chose to work in big movies and TV shows, but not necessarily as stars. Alfre Woodard is the perfect example; she’s never been a megastar, but she’s had non-stop work in the movies and television for thirty years, has won four Emmy awards, was nominated for an Oscar, and I am sure has made an excellent living doing what she loves; why bother with the paparazzi when you can make millions working on all kinds of movies and shows?
Oh, you said titles.
Never miiiind… 
that and the not being a very good actress thing.
I’m glad Ryan Gosling is staying in his niche, for purely selfish reasons. Who else could play his troubled and nuanced characters the way he can? Half Nelson and Lars & the Real Girl wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good with anyone else in the lead, IMO.
Why exactly is he famous? I looked him up on IMDb, and I noticed he’d been in some things I’d heard of, but most of the titles seem pretty obscure. I know he was nominated for an Oscar, but I’d never even heard of “Half Nelson.”
I wouldn’t say he is famous. Among arthouse film enthusiasts and people who live in Hollywood, maybe.
ETA: He’s a hell of an actor, though. Really, do yourself a favor and check out Lars and the Real Girl, and/or Half Nelson. The guy is AMAZING. He can communicate more in a look than most of the actors he works with can convey in entire pages of dialogue. The only person I can think of who didn’t look like an amateur next to him is Patricia Clarkson, and maybe the coworker he had a thing for in Half Nelson. Maybe the crack dealer in Half Nelson. Maybe.
After looking Witt up, I agree. The character is supposed to be a model and soap-opera actress. However good of an actress Kirsten Dunst is, I don’t consider her pretty enough for either (which is why she’s never done those jobs in real life) But Witt is.
And for all the talk about what a bitch Linda Fiorentino is, she worked pretty steadily into her early 40s, a time when most actresses find their careers in decline no matter how good they are.
HEY! Dammit, you’re talking about the future Mrs Manduck!
That couldn’t have been too hard considering her breakthrough came at 35. But according to the IMDB, this is what she appeared in during the peak of her career:
Where the Money Is (2000)
What Planet Are You From? (2000)
Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)
Dogma (1999)
Body Count (1998)
Men in Black (1997)
Kicked in the Head (1997)
Larger Than Life (1996)
Unforgettable (1996)
Bodily Harm (1995)
Jade (1995)
The Desperate Trail (1995) (V)
The Last Seduction (1994)
Aside from The Last Seduction, Men in Black and Dogma, were any of those movies any good? I’m pretty sure the “female and in her early 40s” curse didn’t get her (which I think is crap anyway), but it definitely had to do with her choices and the well known reputation of her attitude problem.
Alia has grown up! Wow.
Yea, Christina Ricci an Jennifer Connelly both became far less interesting after their breast reductions. It sort of seemed like selling off an asset because some asshole producer wanted to be sadistic.