Actors who were going to be The Next Big Thing—then fell off the face of the earth
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Anonymous
You don't really get IMDB, or how movies work, do you? Every single one of those "actress" credits is her appearing as herself. Have you never seen a single movie that used a real-life news anchor or TV reporter in a scene wehre they're appearing on a TV as themselves? It's not acting. It's called a cameo. And many anchors and reporters have done them, both American anchors etc. and ones in other countries' movies as well. IMDB stupidly lists such appearances under "acting" but you seem to think she's playing roles. If you bothered to read the Wikipedia entry about her, rather than IMDB, you'd see that she's "considered a serious journalist." She's moved out of higher-profile reporting and anchoring for sure, but hell, she's 66, spent decades in both hosting, anchoring and reporting jobs and can run whatever "media company" she wants at this point. It's odd that you want to treat her like young actors who had a couple of good roles then vanished, when she's had a very long and varied career. |
Anonymous
I think this is the same PP sock-puppeting another entry trying to bash Couric. What an odd obsession. |
Anonymous
O'Donnell was on one of the NCIS series for ages -- OK, looked it up: For 14 seasons on NCIS LA. That's a long, steady job to hold. I think "tapering off" to TV is more accurately "working steadily year in and year out instead of always hoping another feature film comes along." Feature films are hard to get, surprisingly short to shoot, and then you're out of work until the next one, and as soon as you're not quite as young any more, the work starts to trickle along rather than flow, I think. And a long-running series is an income, a steady group of people to work with, predictable hours (better for family life) and seasons (especially if the show is popular and not likely to be cancelled), and probably less stress than trying to have a movie-only career. I say that not because I'm some huge O'Donnell fan but because I know a couple of jobbing TV and theater actors and they say a regular series job is considered a career success in the field, because you're acting for a living, and that's what most actors really want--to make their full-time livings just by acting. Movies can do that only for a very few. |
Anonymous
| Someone asked about Freddie Prinze Jr.??? He married well and has been directing and producing pretty steadily for a long time. |
Anonymous
TAT made a bunch of money on 90210 and was great on White Collar. |
Anonymous
Lauren Holly was only anything because she was with Jim Carrey for a bit. I don’t think she was actually talented. |
Anonymous
Chris O’Donnell and Matt Damon were up for the same roles from the very beginning. Eventually Damon started winning them and O’Donnell got replaced. Being Robin in the worst Batman movie didn’t help. |
Anonymous
I don't think so. Matt Damon was always perceived as tougher than Chris O'Donnell. They're two different types of men. Matt Damon solidified his tough Irish status with Good Will Hunting, which he worked on with Ben Affleck. Both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck at the time of Good Will Hunting were seen as these "Southies" from Boston who were self-made. Chris O'Donnell didn't have the same reputation. |
Anonymous
| Brendan Fraser after the Mummy movies, until he made a comeback. |
Anonymous
| Alicia Silverstone |
Anonymous
I believe she was in the trilogy of them. . . |
Anonymous
I"m who you are responding to and I agree. I think he's successful by any standard, though movies are generally thought to be the top of the profession. |
Anonymous
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On the movies/tv thing, a lot of married actors with kids prefer TV because the work is regular and you are less likely to have to leave your family for shoots. For movie shoots, you basically always have to leave your family as the shoot will be someplace odd like Bulgaria and you’ll work round the clock until you drop. It’s one of the reasons actors have such a high divorce rate and often kids who are troubled. I do wonder if this is changing though as there is so much pressure to fill in lower cost locations like Atlanta or Canada even for TV shows, and I don’t know the logistics of moving families to those locations for the duration of a season shoot. It was easier when things were largely filmed on a sound stage in NY or California.
Ellen pompeo has talked about this interviews—how she went into acting thinking she wanted to be a movie star and then realized that a steady TV series allowed her to make a ton of money and also have the family she wanted. |
Anonymous
Yes, she was the golden child after Clueless, but seemed incapable of really capitalizing on this for some reason. |
Anonymous
Still though, she's been pretty successful. She did a season of a show called American Woman a few years ago, I really enjoyed it. And she played the mom on the new Babysitter's Club series which got a lot of a acclaim. She just did a Superbowl commercial, which nets her 7 figures, and she looked amazing. She had a great cameo in Senior Year, which was the #1 on Netflix for a spell. True she didn't really last on the A list for long but she has had a decent career. |