31 Movie Roles That Saved (Or Completely Derailed) An Actor’s Career

It’s amazing how one role can completely change an actor’s life
31 Movie Roles That Saved (Or Completely Derailed) An Actor’s Career
Add Cracked to Google

If you scroll down the IMDb list of any seasoned actor, you’ll see a long list of movies, shows and other projects that you might have never even heard of. Amongst that list is a movie that really stands out. For whatever reason, this movie was like a grocery stick in time, clearly separating their career before and after it.

In fact, for better or for worse, these grocery stick roles changed some actors’ entire trajectory.

John Travolta (For Good)

JOHN TRAVOLTA BE PULP FICTION CRACKED.COM After 70s hits like Saturday Night Fever and Grease, John Travolta had multiple flops in the 80s that saw his career dwindling. The role of Vincent Vega in Tarantino's 1994 phenomenon Pulp Fiction catapulted him back on the A-list, and lead to a string of hits.

Freddie Prinze Jr.

Freddie Prinze Jr. FRED JONES CRACKED.COM As he started to age out of teen heartthrob territory, he had a hard time finding his niche. Не spent the last of his credibility with a weird blonde haircut on Scooby-Doo.

Justin Chatwin

Justin Chatwin GOKU CRACKED.COM Landing the role of Goku should have launched Chatwin to stardom, but Fox fumbled 2009's Dragonball Evolution so badly that we haven't heard much from him since.

Alicia Silverstone

Alicia Silverstone BATGIRL CRACKED.COM She cashed in her Clueless cred on the now-infamous Batman & Robin, garnering a Razzie and not much else. She's had a lot of work since, but nothing close to her mid-90's potential.

Brendan Fraser

BRENDAN BE FRASER NO SUDDEN MOVE CRACKED.COM Fingers crossed! It's been a long time since The Mummy, and it might be too early to tell, but 2021's No Sudden Move landed Fraser on Martin Scorcese's radar for 2022s Killers of the Flower Moon with De Niro and DiCaprio. Only time will tell.

Josh Hartnett

Josh Hartnett SLEVIN KELEVRA CRACKED.COM Hartnett was more or less blamed for the failure of 2006's star-studded Lucky Number Slevin. The movie marked an abrupt halt to his reputation as a hit-maker.

David Carradine

DAVID CARRADINE KILL BILL CRACKED.COM Tarantino saves another one! In the 70s, Carradine was famous for his iconic role as Caine in Kung Fu, but the 80s and 90s brought dozens of straight-to-video movies. Martial arts fans worldwide saw his legacy reach new heights as Bill in Kill Bill.

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez RICKI CRACKED.COM 2003's Gigli has ruined more than its fair share of careers. Jennifer and Ben Affleck made it out alive, but Lopez' career never quite rebounded the way Affleck's has.

Diane Lane

DIANE LANE A WALK ON THE MOON CRACKED.COM 80s successes in Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish and The Outsiders lead to a brief retirement after multiple flops. 1999s A Walk On The Moon garnered serious attention and lead to The Perfect Storm and an Oscar nomination in the steamy thriller Unfaithful.

Cuba Gooding Jr.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. JERRY ROBINSON CRACKED.COM For a while there, Cuba couldn't make a bad movie if he tried - until 2002's Boat Trip. Who would've thought Snow Dogs would be his best movie of 2002?

Elizabeth Berkley

Elizabeth Berkley NOMI MALONE CRACKED.COM Fresh off of a wildly successful run on Saved By The Bell, Berkley took a gamble on the risky, semi-raunchy, NC-17 rated Showgirls. It didn't pay off, and she's had to settle for bit parts on TV ever since.

Topher Grace

Topher Grace VENOM CRACKED.COM Grace left That 70's Show to pursue a film career, and was gaining some momentum. 2007's Spider-Man 3 was supposed to be his crown jewel, but instead he was drained of all remaining marketability as a lead.

Mike Myers

Mike Meyers GURU PITKA CRACKED.COM Meyers has made some massive hits, but even more extremely questionable duds. 2008's The Love Guru seems to have been the last straw, and he's just been jumping from Shrek movie to Shrek movie ever since.

Chris Klein

Chris Klein JONATHAN CROSS CRACKED.COM Klein was strapped into a dorky helmet and plopped next to LL Cool J in the absolute bomb Rollerball (2002). It lost a ton of money, and all of Klein's professional momentum.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry CATWOMAN CRACKED.COM After the debacle that was 2004's Catwoman, there were calls for her to return her Oscar. She has managed to hold onto the role of Storm since then, but it's still a far cry from her early 2000's dominance.

Battlefield Earth

John Travolta TERL CRACKED.COM After a Tarantino-fuelled resurgence in Pulp Fiction, Travolta went down a dark road starting with the 2000 L. Ron Hubbard adaptation Battlefield Earth.

Orlando Bloom

Orlando Bloom DREW BAYLOR CRACKED.COM After Bloom found massive success in high fantasy and pirate movies, the 2005 drama Elizabethtown did the impossible: it made Orlando Bloom boring as hell.

Lindsay Lohan

Lindsay Lohan AUBREY FLEMING/ DAKOTA MOSS CRACKED.COM Lohan was a fixture in Hollywood for most of her life, but she seemed to hit her expiration date with 2007's I Know Who Killed Me. It proved she was popular in the tabloids, but not so much on screen.

Ingrid Bergman

INGRID BERGMAN BE ANASTASIA CRACKED.COM Ingrid Bergman was one of the most popular actresses in the world after 1942s Casablanca. A series of personal and professional setbacks had basically driven her to exile until her Oscar-winning performance in 1956's Anastasia resurrected her career.

Kurt Russell

KURT RUSSELL DEATH PROOF CRACKED.COM Kurt Russell had 80s cult hits like Escape From New York but his star power cooled by the mid 90s. After Tarantino cast him in 2007s Death Proof, he got back to blockbusters like the Fast & Furious series and Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2.

Michael Keaton

MICHAEL KEATON BIRDMAN CRACKED.COM 80s and 90s kids agreed on Beetlejuice, Batman, and everything Michael Keaton until we got (literally) too much of him in 1996's Multiplicity. It's all bit parts until 2014's Birdman got him an Oscar nom and, just like the plot of Birdman, sparked a serious comeback. Oh I get it now!

Pam Grier

РАМ GRIER BE JACKIE BROWN CRACKED.COM 70s blaxploitation films like Coffy and Foxy Brown made her cinema's first female action star. In the 90s, career peaks were a Snoop Dogg video and an episode of The Fresh Prince until Tarantino gave her the title role in the now-classic Jackie Brown.

Mickey Rourke

MICKEY ROURKE SIN CITY GRACKED COM After critically acclaimed 80's films, Rourke focused on a fairly successful boxing career. Не returned for bit roles in the mid 90s, but 2005's Sin City gave his career a massive jolt, landing him The Wrestler - a role that won him a Golden Globe.

Sean Connery

SEAN CONNERY BE THE UNTOUCHABLES CRACKED COM By the 80s, Connery's career had completely fallen off the rails. Не couldn't leave the shadow of James Bond in the '70s, but his role of Jim Malone in The Untouchables won him an Oscar in 1988, and lead to hits like The Hunt for Red October.

Drew Barrymore

DREW BE BARRYMORE SCREAM CRACKED.COM The beloved child-star in E.T. and Firestarter was in and out of rehab in her teens. After landing smaller roles in the 90s, that one-scene cameo in Scream really kicked things into gear, and lead to Never Been Kissed and Charlie's Angels.

Josh Brolin

JOSH BROLIN NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN CRACKED.COM Goonies never say die! The 20 years between The Goonies and Best Picture-winning No Country For Old Men brought small, forgettable roles, but Brolin's performance in No Country revived his career and lead him to much bigger roles like Thanos in the MCU.

Cameron Diaz

Big Actors Who Had Never Acted Before CAMERON DIAZ in The Mask Diaz was a model, not an actress - but then again, they were looking specifically for a model for the role of Tina Carlyle, and Diaz quickly won over director Chuck Russell. Some dancing and acting lessons later, she was ready. CRACKED.COM

Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds ruined superheroes for everyone CRACKED.COM Before making a remarkable comeback as Deadpool, Reynolds says his 2011 flop Green Lantern made studios skeptical of superhero movies: I represented the death of the superhero for a while.

Rooney Mara

ROONEY MARA REGRETS PLAYING TIGER LILY IN PAN. The movie not only (sorry) panned, but it was also a major talking point in the conversation about Hollywood's trend to whitewash movies. Mara said she felt embarrassed to be part of it. I really hate, hate, hate that I am on that side of the whitewashing conversation. I really do. I don't ever want to be on that side of it again. I can understand why people were upset and frustrated. CRACKED.COM

Neil Patrick Harris

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS HAROLD&KUMAR CRACKED.COM Doogie Howser had wrapped a decade earlier, but everyone still called him Doogie. NPH's coke-snorting, stripper-hungry version of himself in Harold & Kumar erased his child-star image, and landed him How I Met Your Mother.

Robert Downey Jr.

ROBERT BE DOWNEY JR. KISS KISS BANG BANG CRACKED.COM In 2005, Robert Downey Jr. was in dire need of another chance. Years of drug abuse, and a stint in prison gave him a toxic reputation in Hollywood, but Marvel saw his performance in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as their ideal template for Tony Stark.

Tags:

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

VIRAL ON CRACKED

A WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER OF
JOKES + TRIVIA

Forgot Password?