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| Green Lantern (2001) – Senator Hammond (Tim Robbins) |
Read a list of ten Academy Award-winning actors who had their careers ruined by bad science fiction or superhero movies.
It’s every actor’s dream to win an Oscar. To be recognized by their peers as the leading actor, or actress of the year. The first Academy Awards were presented on May 16, 1929, in front of only 270 people. Now the awards ceremony is seen live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online.
The 90th Academy Awards ceremonies aired on Sunday and they handed out the latest set of awards. Some winners go on to fame and glory. Others peak and are never seen again. Of the 90-plus actors and actresses, some stand out.
Here they are.
1. F. Murray Abraham
Born Murray Abraham, 78-year old F. Murray Abraham made his screen debut as an usher in the George C. Scott comedy “They Might Be Giants” (1971). After that, he snagged a few small roles in movies like “Serpico” (1973), “The Sunshine Boys” (1975), and a police officer in “All the President’s Men” (1976). He played another gangster flick in the Al Pacino gangster film “Scarface” (1983). A highlight of his career back then was playing a talking bunch of grapes in “Fruit of the Loom” TV commercials.
His career hit a high note playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s rival Antonio Scarlatti in the 1984 hit “Amadeus”. His career sounded like a slide whistle with duds like “National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon”, “Last Action Hero” and “Muppets in Space”. Abraham hit the bottom of the barrel with the worst Star Trek movie ever “Star Trek: Insurrection” as the plastic surgery freak Ru’Afo. Lately, his career has been on the upswing starring in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and the TV series “Homeland”.
2. Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody, 54, is an actor and producer. He’s the youngest man in history to win the Best Actor Oscar at 29 for Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist”. With his unconventional good looks, he instantly became so popular that he got a standing ovation just for coming in a restaurant. He got his big break in Steven Soderbergh’s King of the Hill in 1999. Then, Brody played a punk wannabe in Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam, a corporal in Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”, and a union sympathizer in Ken Loach’s “Bread and Roses”.
In 2002 he got his Oscar playing Polish classical composer Władysław Szpilman in “The Pianist”. After winning an Oscar everyone thought he’d rack up a string of Academy Awards but they were wrong.
Right after “The Pianist” he starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 disaster “The Village” playing a drooling village idiot. After that, it was all downhill with critically panned films like “The Jacket” and Peter Jackson’s subpar remake of King Kong. He even started in the other terrible remake Predators. His career hasn’t hit the lowest note yet since he got critical acclaim for roles in movies like The Grand Budapest Hotel. It’s a long way from best actor though.
3. Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly, now 47, started her career as a child model in magazine, newspaper, and television ads. She’s best known for starring in the cult classic 1986 Jim Henson film “Labyrinth”. Her big break came in the 1984 crime film “Once Upon a Time in America”. After that, she racked up critical acclaim for roles in movies like “Dark City” and paying a heroin addict in the 2000 drama “Requiem for a Dream”.
She showed a flash of genius in the movie “A Beautiful Mind” and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. It seemed like her career was ready to break out but then it broke down. She took a role that ruined her career. Ang Lee’s “Hulk” smashed her career down to size. After that she’s only had a bunch of flops like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “Winter’s Tale”.
She had a couple of modest hits like “Blood Diamond” but her highest profile role to date is the computer voice in Spider Man’s suit in “Spider-Man: Homecoming”.
Not so beautiful career.
4. Joel Grey
Joel Grey, 85, was an accomplished theater actor before the 1952 film “About Face”. Later he won an Oscar in 1973 for Best Supporting Actor in “Cabaret”. He reprised his role as Master of Ceremonies from the stage version.
His swan song was the terribly campy action sci-fi film “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins” based on a series of campy action novels. Most disturbingly, he’s a white man in makeup playing an Asian Kung-Fu master. He trains another (without yellowface) white man to become an unstoppable killing machine. Kind of like “Iron Fist” but without the social commentary.
He danced his way out of that sci-fi role but that was it for him. After that, he did some bit parts before going back to his first love: the stage.
5. Sean Connery
The 87-year old Scottish actor is best known for playing James Bond in the 1960s. Sean Connery’s big hit was the 1988 film “The Untouchables” that won him an award for Best Supporting Actor.
After that his career got whacked. He had some popular films like “The Hunt for Red October” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” but his Academy Award didn’t save him from shooting blanks like “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and “The Avengers”. Not the good one from Marvel either. That’s the one where he plays a menacing weatherman in a kilt.
The final nail in his cinematic coffin was “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”. LXG, as it was called, is based on one of the greatest graphic novels of all-time but the movie sank like cement shoes and his career never came back up for air. He retired from acting after that. RIP
6. Mercedes Ruehl
Mercedes J. Ruehl, 70, is an American theater, television, and film actor. She won Tony awards before a bit part in the 1976 movie “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands” started her movie career. It was the 1991 movie “The Fisher King” that got her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She’s the first Cuban-American female Academy Award winner.
Unfortunately, Arnold Schwarzenegger ruined her career. She co-starred in “The Last Action Hero” as the star’s mom alongside F. Murray Abraham.
After that, she starred in a series of box office bombs like” What’s Cooking” (2001) and “The Amati Girls” (2001) before heading back to the theater.
7. Halle Berry
Halle Maria Berry is a 51-year old actor who started out in a series of blink-and-you-missed-it television shows and roles. Her big movie break was a small role in Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” in 1991.
Berry continued to work in forgettable movies like “The Flinstones” and B*A*P*S. She got critical acclaim for her starring in her dream project the 1999 HBO biopic “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge”. She played Dandridge who’s the first black woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. It’s fitting because, a few years later, Berry won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in “Monster’s Ball” (2001). She became the first, and so far only, black woman to have won the award.
Her next role took her in another direction as Storm in “X-Men”. Berry also delivered the worst one-liner in superhero movie history with “Do you know what happens to a toad that’s hit by lightning? The same thing as everyone else.” After that, she appeared in the box office bomb “Gothika”. But then it got worse.
In 2004 she starred in the horrendous superhero movie “Catwoman”. That was it. Her career was buried. Thanks to the black leather superhero her career never recovered and she starred in a series of flops like “Perfect Stranger”, “Dark Tide” and the gross-out comedy “Movie 43”. At least she got an Oscar and a Razzie.
8. Tim Robbins
The 59-year old actor Tim Robbins is an actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist, and musician. After spending years doing television roles he broke into film with “Howard the Duck”. Despite that sad footnote in Marvel movie history, he recovered doing several more films.
In 1995, Robbins wrote and directed the acclaimed capital punishment saga “Dead Man Walking” starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The film earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. But in 2004 he hit the big time with the Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar for “Mystic River” (2003). His career was set. Or so he thought.
His career got a death sentence with the hokey science fiction movie “Mission to Mars”. The 2011 flop “Green Lantern” only helped to put his career out of its misery.
He had a couple of notable roles in movies since then like “War of the Worlds” and “Zathura” but his movie career is now dead and gone. One minute you’re an Academy Award Winning director and the next you’re a crazy man arguing withTom Cruise about blood.
9. Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Roy Rush, 66, is an Australian actor. Rush is one of only 23 people who has won the “Triple Crown of Acting”: an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award.
Rush made his film debut in the 1981 Australian film “Hoodwink”. He’s best known for the 1996 movie “Shine” which earned him the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics’ Choice Movie Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. A record for a single performance.
He followed that up with a brilliant performance in “Shakespeare in Love”, but then made the worst casting decision possible. He starred as the villain Casanova Frankenstein in the underrated but poorly received “Mystery Men” in 1999. That was it for his career.
He starred in a few movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and the sequels but he never got the accolades again and slide into the shadows of movie history.
10. Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe, 53, is an actor, film producer, and musician. He’s best known for films like “L.A. Confidential” (1997), “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” (2003), and “Man of Steel” (2013). His first acting role was as Dr. Scott in an Austrailian stage production of “Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Crowe’s first movie role was in “The Crossing” in 1990.
He had a number of roles that helped pay the rent like the Denzel Washington sci-fi stinker “Virtuosity”. But he got critical acclaim for his role in the western “The Quick and the Dead” and “Romper Stomper”. He got his first, of three Oscar nominations, for the Michael Mann 1999 drama “The Insider”. But it was “Gladiator” that put him on the center stage. He won Best Actor for the movie and became Hollywood gold. The next year he got his third nomination for A Beautiful Mind. Hollywood was entertained.
While “Man of Steel” was a blockbuster hit it got mixed reviews sending Crowe’s career into a spiral. Crowe had some modest success in films like “American Gangster” but it started sliding down the drain until the Tom Cruise “The Mummy” reboot finished the job. His career is done, but he’s looking to bring it back.
Which is your favorite actor from the list? Which is your least favorite?
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