10 actors who tried to reinvent themselves and failed miserably
Not every actor is able to successfully launch a comeback.
There is no narrative more seductive to a Hollywood star than that of a comeback, as everyone wants to believe in the notion of an underdog redeeming themself. Cinematic history is filled with these comebacks, and they’ve only escalated in the era of social media, where there is more focus on celebrities than ever before.
Perhaps the most compelling comeback of the 21st century was from Matthew McConaughey, who had seemingly wasted his potential on a series of terrible romantic comedies, only to start giving bold dramatic performances, ultimately winning the Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ for Dallas Buyers Club. Similarly, Keanu Reeves had been treated as a joke for years before John Wick got him a new franchise, which kicked off when he uttered the iconic line “Yeah, I’m thinking I’m back”.
While these comebacks involved actors getting back to their roots, there are also examples in which stars recognised that they were in the wrong genre. It was only shortly after the critical venom directed towards The Twilight Saga that both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson started making indie films, and have now become two of the most exciting actors of their generation.
On the flip side, Liam Neeson’s career came seemingly to a standstill after some failed dramas, making it all the more surprising when he decided to become an action star with Taken in his late 50s. It’s exciting when actors try something new, but it doesn’t always turn out in their favour.
10 actors who tried and failed to reinvent themselves:
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez had basically become a musician full-time after failing to do anything notable since her performance in Out of Sight, but she seemed to get the impression that she was a talented dramatic performer when she earned a Golden Globe nomination for Hustlers.
In what would be hilariously revealed in Lopez’s self-produced documentary film The Greatest Love Story Never Told, she was so humiliated by her loss to Laura Dern that she had a meltdown, and only got further infuriated when she failed to receive an Academy Award nomination.
Lopez has since tried to court the Academy’s interest with Oscar-bait roles in the sports drama Unstoppable and the adaptation of the musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman, but it feels like such a nakedly obvious vanity project that no critics, voters, or cinephiles are falling for it.
Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke destroyed his own career thanks to his aggressive and toxic behaviour, but he started to mount a comeback when he delivered a beautiful performance in The Wrestler that earned him an Oscar nomination.
Rourke saw an opportunity to reinvent himself by playing the ‘heavy’ in other high-profile genre films, but it wouldn’t be long before his argumentative, uncooperative personality would doom him once more.
Rourke’s insistence on sparking creative disputes made the shoot of Iron Man 2 even tougher, a fact that is almost impressive given how the film was affected by the WGA strike. After phoning in his performance in The Expendables to such an absurd degree that he didn’t appear in any of the sequels, Rourke essentially pivoted to making cheap B-movies, a vast majority of which have been released direct to VOD or home media.
Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf is a frustrating actor because he does have talent, but seems to regress into problematic behaviours that make him impossible to work with, so while it finally felt like he was moving away from the days of Transformers and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when he wrote and co-starred in the semi-autobiographical film Honey Boy, the domestic abuse allegations levelled against him made him unhirable once more.
LaBeouf has never stayed out of trouble, as he got fired from Don’t Worry Darling (although he has disputed the reason why), created a failed free-acting lab in Los Angeles that collapsed, and made an enemy out of Francis Ford Coppola, who had tried to cast several ‘cancelled’ actors in Megalopolis, including Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, and who said that LaBeouf was even more difficult than Marlon Brando.
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg was once an actor who worked with Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ridley Scott, James Gray, David O Russell, and even proved himself a comedy star alongside Adam McKay and Seth MacFarlane, but he has since had a beguiling career pivot to becoming someone who is only making streaming slop.
However, the success of Wahlberg’s 2020 Netflix film Spenser Confidential seemingly incentivised him to make more streaming releases, as he’s now made films for Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, and Paramount Plus.
This coincided with his strange transition to being a conservative, faith-based star who makes inspirational biopics and family films. Wahlberg now cites the Christian film Father Stu as the best that he has ever made, and has tried to apologise for his role in Boogie Nights, which he now regrets because of his newfound connection with God.
Brie Larson
Brie Larson became one of the youngest winners in the ‘Best Actress’ category ever with her performance in Room, which suggested a promising career as a star of her generation but strangely, she neglected to pursue more weighty dramatic films in the aftermath and signed a contract to play Carol Danvers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While Captain Marvel made over $1billion, its success can be attributed to being released two months before Avengers: Endgame and thus feeling ‘essential’, as not only did its sequel, The Marvels, become one of the top three box office bombs of all time, but Larson wasted her time on other terrible studio blockbusters like Kong: Skull Island, Fast X, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It’s unfortunate that she doesn’t seem interested in making something like Short Term 12 or The Spectacular Now ever again.
Russell Crowe
There’s an argument to be made that, between 1997 and 2007, Russell Crowe had the most successful decade of any contemporary actor, as he starred in two back-to-back ‘Best Picture’ winners, won an Oscar, and appeared in several massive prestige films aimed at adults.
While no one would ever be able to sustain that level of success for a long time, Crowe has seemingly abandoned doing anything grounded after he popped up in the Australian western The True History of the Kelly Gang in 2020.
He has spent this decade making B-movies, including weird horror (The Pope’s Exorcist, The Exorcism), comedy (The Greatest Bear Run Ever, The Get Out), thriller (Unhinged, Poker Face), and sub-par superhero films (Kraven the Hunter, Thor: Love and Thunder). At this point, it is unclear what he is even trying to accomplish with his career.
John Travolta
John Travolta might have the single most fascinating career out of any actor, becoming one of the youngest ‘Best Actor’ nominees ever for Saturday Night Fever before he began to squander his potential in the ‘90s, only to be revived by Pulp Fiction.
Travolta had a dominant ‘90s that collapsed when Battlefield Earth made him a joke once more in 2000, but he has done a few interesting projects since, with his performance in the FX series American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson getting rave reviews.
However, his latest career move has been to do B-movies that go direct to VOD, as he’s starred in over a dozen films since 2010 that no one has ever heard of, and the few times Travolta has been recognised are for his most embarrassing work, such as Gotti and The Fanatic.
Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt felt like a breath of fresh air when he became the leading man in Guardians of the Galaxy, offering a superhero who was self-deprecating and funny, but he has seemingly abandoned comedy altogether, nursing a newfound obsession with playing military and law enforcement characters in Mercy, The Tomorrow War, and The Terminal List, which seems to confirm speculation that he is pandering to a right-wing audience.
The only light-hearted roles Pratt has recently taken on are his lazy voice-over performances in The Garfield Movie, The Super Mario Bros Movie, and Onward, which have nonetheless raked him in massive salaries. Given that the Guardians of the Galaxy series is likely over because James Gunn is at DC, it seems unlikely that Pratt will ever find a role that good again.
Aaron Eckhart
The Dark Knight was a game-changing film that featured an all-time great turn from Heath Ledger and only made Christian Bale more popular, but Aaron Eckhart also delivered a strong performance as Harvey Dent, the district attorney who becomes Two-Face.
Eckhart had been a consistently reliable supporting actor in everything from Erin Brockovich to Any Given Sunday, and in the aftermath of The Dark Knight, he proved to be an effective ensemble player in Sully and Bleed for This, with a promising character actor career on the horizon.
Obviously, not every actor needs to be a leading man, but Eckhart’s ego got the better of him, and he tried to reinvent himself as a movie star, only to spectacularly flop with I, Frankenstein, Incarnate, and Midway, leading him down the VOD route in the 2020s.
Armie Hammer
Armie Hammer seemed to have finally figured out his career after flops like The Lone Ranger and Mirror Mirror when he picked more arthouse projects, like Call Me By Your Name, Free Fire, and Sorry to Bother You, which earned him much praise, but this was all before the disturbing allegations made against him caused him to be dropped by his agency and fired from several upcoming films, with Taika Waititi even reshooting Next Goal Wins to replace him with Will Arnett.
Hammer was finally offered a comeback when he starred in Citizen Vigilante, a low-budget revenge thriller from the notoriously terrible director Uwe Boll. The film’s anti-immigration and Islamophobic sentiments caused it to be a sensation on VOD that attracted the attention of Elon Musk, making Boll into a hero among right-wing extremists. Hammer probably wasn’t going to get any mainstream roles anyway, but he’s certainly not getting them in the aftermath of this fresh controversy.
