10 roles that changed an actor’s career forever
“In one single moment, your whole life can turn ‘round,” famously sang Mike Skinner of The Streets, and it’s fair to say that, throughout the history of cinema, there might have been more actors drying their eyes were it not for a solitary movie from their back catalogue that unduly led to their subsequent success.
It’s often the case that an actor’s career takes off right from the beginning, but that early stardom is hard to sustain, and they seem to fall away from their initial trajectory. A return to form when given another chance by a director can help to resurrect such a movie star and bring them back into artistic adoration.
Other instances have seen actors trudge along on a career path that they don’t really seem to be happy with, the kind of cases where they are typecast and long for better opportunities. When that chance finally comes in a different kind of movie, they often take it in both hands and run with it.
We’ve compiled a list of actors who had one movie that undoubtedly changed their careers forever. From former screen queens returning to glory to Asian cinema megastars announcing themselves on an international stage, it’s time to look at the moments that changed everything.
10 movies that changed an actor’s career:
Youn Yuh-jung – Minari
Prior to her excellent ‘Best Supporting Actress’ Academy Award-winning turn in Lee Isaac Chung’s 2020 drama Minari, Youn Yuh-jung had been one of South Korea’s biggest stars, earning acclaim for her early roles in the likes of 1971’s Woman of Fire. It was her performance in Minari, though, that introduced her to a wider international fanbase.
Chung’s film, also starring Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri and Alan Kim, tells of a family of South Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas in the 1980s. Youn played the grandma of the family, Soon-ja, and her performance was one that followed up on her early career success and forever changed her future on the global cinema stage.
Matthew McConaughey – The Lincoln Lawyer
Matthew McConaughey could have been a very happy man, made famous by a string of rom-coms and living happily ever after on the residual cheques they would have doubtless provided. His role as one of Hollywood’s leading heartthrobs seemed like a pretty good deal and one which the Texan, who gained his first role in Dazed and Confused before becoming a mainstream leading man, was happy enough in. However, things were not as they seemed.
Behind his well-chiselled features, McConaughey was hoping for more. He wasn’t interested in being just another face on a well-lit poster. He strived to become a real artist, and while his performances in Dallas Buyers Club and True Detective are most people’s first thoughts when they think of the ‘McConaissance’, it was The Lincoln Lawyer that really changed things. The 2011 movie not only allowed the actor to flex his courtroom muscles in a more serious setting but also showcased his ability to deliver breathtaking monologues. It would be the precursor to his golden trilogy of Dallas Buyers Club, The Wolf of Wall Street and Interstellar.
Jamie Lee Curtis – Halloween
Following her roles in John Carpenter’s horror movies Halloween and The Fog, plus further efforts in Prom Night and Terror Train, Jamie Lee Curtis became America’s top scream queen. Further acclaimed followed throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but bar 2003’s Freaky Friday, Curtis’ former glory had largely faded.
That was until the actor reprised her role as Laurie Strode in the Halloween reboot of 2018 and its subsequent sequels. Suddenly, Curtis was thrust back into the limelight, and she regained fame by landing a role in the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once, for which she won the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actress’.
Robert Downey Jr – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
For a long time, Robert Downey Jr was a write-off. The actor’s connections with his experimental filmmaker father may have been enough to spark his interest in the world of filmmaking, but Downey Jr’s attention would soon turn to the darker side of life as drugs, sex, and crime would become his many devotions. It saw him comparatively blacklisted by Hollywood, deemed too destructive to function properly on set. So, how does such an actor traverse such issues to become a globally adored, franchise-leading and iconic performer? Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Starring opposite Val Kilmer as Harry Lockhart, Downey Jr steals the show with a composed yet wild performance that would not only emulate a newfound resolve in his own character but give a preview of the Iron Man persona of Tony Stark that would make him a money-making machine. The movie also holds perhaps Downey Jr’s finest moment on screen as he delivers a painful monologue to the camera to finish the movie with less of a bang and more of a weep.
Colin Farrell – In Bruges
Early into his career, Colin Farrell, the iconic actor, established himself as a star of Hollywood blockbusters, having performed in films like Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, Daredevil, Alexander the Great, and Miami Vice. Farrell proved his versatility, though, in Martin McDonagh’s 2008 black-comedy crime thriller In Bruges.
Farrell plays an inexperienced hitman who experiences severe grief after accidentally killing a boy during a hit. He’s duly sent out to the sleepy Belgian town of Bruges to await instructions from his boss, but existential dread begins to get the better of him. Farrell’s performance is truly scintillating and set him up to star in a number of quirkier movies in the following years.
Jackie Chan – Rush Hour
Excluding his somewhat disastrous performance in Burt Reynolds’ Cannonball Run, Jackie Chan had rarely had a hit in Hollywood until he partnered up with Chris Tucker for the comedy-action caper Rush Hour. Chan had enjoyed international success for decades, but the 1998 movie would be the moment his star truly started to rise in the West. Following the success of the movie, Chan became one of the most successful movie stars of the decade.
While most of the actors would look back at the roles and movies in this list with a certain fondness, Chan has often cited his frustrations with Rush Hour, both in his own performance and the dialogue used between the two men. Though it might not be his favourite movie from his canon, there can be no doubt that Rush Hour changed Chan’s life forever.
Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All at Once
As a child actor, Ke Huy Quan rose to stardom with his roles as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies. However, Quan’s career quickly evaporated, and after giving a handful of performances in the 1990s, he took an acting hiatus that lasted nearly two decades.
Eventually, Quan returned to the profession with Finding ‘Ohana, which quickly led to his big comeback in Everything Everywhere All at Once. For his effort as the patient husband of Michelle Yeoh’s character, Quan delivered one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest comebacks, winning the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and proving that his brilliance had merely been in hibernation.
Brendan Fraser – The Whale
For a time, Brendan Fraser’s role as the hapless but lovable goof was typified in his starring role in George of the Jungle. Though he would sharpen up for the Mummy franchise, which cast him as an equally lovable rogue – costing him his health in the process – Fraser’s star would rarely hit the artistic heights he had hopped during his salad days. In fact, the actor was barely seen on screen for nearly a decade as he faded into the shadows.
However, the 2022 Darren Arnofsky movie The Whale would not only give Fraser an opportunity to get back in the saddle but also scratch the creative itch he was looking for. Donning a body-changing suit and delivering some of the most powerful on-screen moments of his career, the movie has set Fraser up for a particularly fruitful new act in his career, all the while bagging him an Oscar to boot.
Winona Ryder – Black Swan
Few actors have enjoyed a start to their careers quite like Winona Ryder. Her early efforts in the likes of Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are brimming with quality, and the Minnesota-born actor followed up with two Academy Award-nominated turns in The Age of Innocence and Little Women. In the early 2000s, though, Ryder seemed to disappear from Hollywood.
Mid-way through the decade, though, she returned with a handful of small parts, including one in A Scanner Darkly. When 2008 rolled around, Ryder announced that she was back with a bang with a performance in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, the role that undoubtedly led her to earn her role as Joyce Byers in Stranger Things and her return to big-time stardom.
John Travolta – Pulp Fiction
When Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit Pulp Fiction landed in the cinemas, it arrived with a unique viewpoint. The director had managed to capture a post-modernist retro style that seemed to typify a century heading toward a brand new millennium. It was a violent, twisting, turning adventure movie wrapped up the garb of crime drama and flecked with side-splitting humour. But, one of its biggest draws was its cast, including the little-used John Travolta.
The 1990s were far removed from the previous two decades for Travolta. Having launched a career with Carrie and Welcome Back, Kotter, Travolta’s star truly rose when he bagged the role of Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. The highly successful movie would gain him access to Grease and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out with varying degrees of success. The latter was seen as a failure by critics, but Tarantino was enamoured with Travolta’s performance and picked him out of the mire to deliver a career-defining role which would see him become the heroin-taking henchman, Vincent Vega — a far departure from any of Travolta’s previous work. The role would completely change the modern perception of the actor, removing him from a musical-aligned song-and-dance man into the realm of a culture-defining actor.
