Stalled careers

[Famous Mortimer]

I was reading an excellent article on straight-to-video action films, and someone in the comments mentioned Lexi Alexander's "Punisher: War Zone". A brilliantly violent film, deserved way more attention than it got, but checking Alexander's IMDB page? A couple of years later, some awful-sounding film about a kid entering a singing competition, an episode of a show I'd never heard of, and that's it.

She's fairly vocal about the problems she had getting "Punisher" made, so that's probably not helped her, but I'd have expected someone to give her another film in a similar vein.

Anyway, any other careers that seemed to weirdly grind to a halt that you wish hadn't?


(oh, I ought to throw in my mention of Christopher Smith, who made 4 of my favourite films of the last decade, then a TV show I'd never heard of, and no news since. Please make more films Chris).

[Blumf]

Although Sherilyn Fenn has been busy, you'd have thought after Twin Peaks she'd have been a lot bigger than she was.

[mothman]

I do like to have a chuckle regarding the career (or lack of it) of one Danny Cannon, who made one British movie in the early 90's (The Young Americans) which was so obviously designed to attract the interests of US studios, he might as well just have filmed himself fellating studio execs for 90 minutes. He then went off to Hollywood in full "I'll show you, Britain's film industry is dead, I'm out of here, losers" mode. Made Judge Dredd with Stallone, and was never heard from again. I think he ended up as a director of CSI episodes.

[Brundle-Fly]

Slightly off topic but looking on IMDB today, Gene Hackman and Hywel Bennet seemed to have retired from the profession, which is a bit of a shame.

[Genevieve]

I wouldn't say I wish I'd seen more from her but the one that always springs to mind is Julia Ormond.  Rather a reserved acting presence I'd say but she had the lead in a bunch of tasteful big budget Hollywood flicks in the early-mid 90s.  Then they really threw her in the deep end - reprising an Audrey Hepburn role and marketing her as some sort of replacement.  Imdb shows she took the next year off (it wasn't a bad film and the problem with the original - silly age difference - was improved on, I think it did alright) then nothing of note.  In recent years she's had some supporting roles in well known films but she's in a different phase of her career now; still, kudos for doing that because lots of middle-aged actresses say it's hard to find work then.  Clearly though, the plan was changed, she may have decided to have children but it seems that at one time everyone was set to make her a screen siren and then they didn't.

[checkoutgirl]

I think he ended up as a director of CSI episodes

I'm not being funny or anything but that still sounds quite successful to me.

That transexual bloke out of The Crying Game, Jay Davidson, did fuck all after that. It's possible he just chose not to though. Like Rick Astley.

This thread is basically in the same territory as that one about Les Battersby and Syd Little doing interviews on The Cruise Channel. Basically explaining how they got into alcoholism and the reasons why their grandson killed himself.

[SavageHedgehog]

Jay Davidson was well used as a villain in the original Stargate

[pigamus]

I think I remember reading that Julia Ormond, like Helen Baxendale, was considered something of a snotty cow and not too well liked by her fellow professionals. But I may be mixing her up with someone else.

[mothman]

I think there's been a long line of actresses who've briefly been Hollywood's next big thing, only to... not be. Julia Ormond was one, Gretchen Mol was another. Miranda Otto, perhaps. Olivia Williams...

[Small Man Big Horse]

Savage Steve Holland's career has always frustrated me, he made Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer and (the less interesting) How I Got In To College, but since then it's been directing kid's tv or crappy tv movies.

Then there's Jaco Van Dormael, who's directed three of my favourite films - Toto The Hero, The Eighth Day and Mr Nobody, but little else. Still the latter was made in 2009 so at this rate there's a chance he'll make one final film before dying.

[kaprisky]

Dominic Anciano and Ray Burdis - two of the three people responsible for Operation Good Guys, they made two feature films in the post-Guy Ritchie, gangster bandwagon (Final Cut and Love Honour And Obey) then promptly disappeared.

I think Mark Burdis (also in OGG) did the MC duties on some televised boxing coverage.

[Pepotamo1985]

Speaking of Richie, Nick Moran (Eddy from Lock Stock) seems to have largely faded since his turn in that film (most of his roles post are in films so obscure they don't even have Wiki entries). Odd, because he was/is a handsome guy and seemed to have some talent. I remember that he got into some trouble in America which may have helped.

Similarly, Ian Virgo's career seems to have been a downhill trajectory from day one - bit part in Black Hawk Down, minor parts/daytime TV drama roles/budgetless UK gangster tripe since.

[Cleaners From Venus]

Speaking of Richie, Nick Moran (Eddy from Lock Stock) seems to have largely faded since his turn in that film (most of his roles post are in films so obscure they don't even have Wiki entries). Odd, because he was/is a handsome guy and seemed to have some talent. I remember that he got into some trouble in America which may have helped.

He was in The Great Train Robbery: A Copper's Tale on BBC a week or so ago. First thing I thought was, "Blimey, where's he been all this time?"

[Small Man Big Horse]

I was always quite fond of Paul Reynolds due to Press Gang and Let Him Have It, but Trevor's World of Sport seems to have wrecked his career as whilst he's worked a fair bit since then, it's only in one or two episodes of a long running show like Casualty or The Bill.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Steve Guttenberg's career dropped dead for some reason in 1990. He'd obviously had a great run and I've heard that he stopped acting for a bit to have a rest having made loads of money but to come back 5 years later only to appear in a bunch of films you'd only ever see on Channel 5 on Saturday morning suggest he either pissed off someone really important or had a crap agent. His autobiography sheds no light either, it ends during Three Men and a Little Lady, arguably his last hurrah.

Alex Cox should have a much better career than he has. Wikipedia says he was effectively blacklisted for breaking a Writers Guild of America strike in 1988 but I'm surprised it could have such an impact on his career when he had some momentum behind him.

[checkoutgirl]

Steve Guttenberg's career dropped dead for some reason in 1990.

I think the Stonecutters got sick of him and revoked their support.

[Harry Badger]

Speaking of Richie, Nick Moran (Eddy from Lock Stock) seems to have largely faded since his turn in that film (most of his roles post are in films so obscure they don't even have Wiki entries). Odd, because he was/is a handsome guy and seemed to have some talent. I remember that he got into some trouble in America which may have helped.

Currently starring in a West End production of Twelve Angry Men. He did star in the ill-fated Christy Malry's Own Double Entry and ended up paying about £70,000 of his own money taking it on a tour of art-house cinemas when no distributor would touch it post 9/11.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

In the 80s there was a bit of a fuss about a new young film maker called Lezli-An... something (the weird spelling of her first name was a deliberate thing, mentioned in all interviews), who persuaded Glenda Jackson to appear for nothing in a film about a strike. She was expected to be new big thing... but nothing happened after that.

Julia Ormond appeared in Inland Empire, btw. Yes, I was surprised to realise who it was.

[Bad Ambassador]

In fairness to Nick Moran, he seems to have lost interest in acting, apart from a small role in the last couple of Harrys Potter, having co-written a play about Joe Meek that ran in the West End, co-written and directed the film adaptation ("Telstar") and co-written and directed another film since then.

[Chriddof]

In the 80s there was a bit of a fuss about a new young film maker called Lezli-An... something (the weird spelling of her first name was a deliberate thing, mentioned in all interviews), who persuaded Glenda Jackson to appear for nothing in a film about a strike. She was expected to be new big thing... but nothing happened after that.

You mean this?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092711/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10

Appears to have also featured John Thaw and Craig Charles.

One person that springs to mind on this topic is Thora Birch. She was getting pretty big for a while in the late 90s and early noughties with American Beauty and Ghost World, but then everything just suddenly petered out afterwards. She's done a bunch of stuff since then but it seems to be nothing you'd ever have heard of (the only thing I recognised post-Ghost World was "My Life As A Teenage Robot", a Nickelodeon cartoon).

[Glebe]

One person that springs to mind on this topic is Thora Birch. She was getting pretty big for a while in the late 90s and early noughties with American Beauty and Ghost World, but then everything just suddenly petered out afterwards. She's done a bunch of stuff since then but it seems to be nothing you'd ever have heard of (the only thing I recognised post-Ghost World was "My Life As A Teenage Robot", a Nickelodeon cartoon).

She also played an old woman in Last of the Summer Wine, unless I'm very much mistaken.

[Famous Mortimer]

One person that springs to mind on this topic is Thora Birch. She was getting pretty big for a while in the late 90s and early noughties with American Beauty and Ghost World, but then everything just suddenly petered out afterwards. She's done a bunch of stuff since then but it seems to be nothing you'd ever have heard of (the only thing I recognised post-Ghost World was "My Life As A Teenage Robot", a Nickelodeon cartoon).

I think her issue was an extremely pushy father, who would demand to be treated almost as a second director for scenes involving his daughter, and when Thora wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with the father any more, I just think people stopped using her.

[Urinal Cake]

Every actor and actress from 'Home and Away', "neighbours' etc and went overseas to 'make it' with the exception of Isla Fisher, Guy Pierce and probably a few others who haven't done stuff recently.

[mothman]

Most of the cast of The Commitments...

[SteveDave]

Scott Ryan who wrote, directed & starred in The Magician[nb]A film I've mentioned so many times here you'd think I've got shares in[/nb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk8bPiTSKbs

I went to a Q & A with him after a screening of the film in about 2005 & he said he was going to make a zombie film set in the Australian out-back next. But looking at his imdb page...nuthin'. Which is a shame as one of the extras on the DVD of The Magician is him in Gervais mode saying how amazing he is & then at the very end he turns to the person behind the camera & says "Do you think people will realise I'm taking the piss?"

[grassbath]

I think her issue was an extremely pushy father, who would demand to be treated almost as a second director for scenes involving his daughter, and when Thora wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with the father any more, I just think people stopped using her.

Bit weird that, considering she got her tits out in American Beauty.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Thora Birch will always be remembered as the answer to the question "which actor connects Scarlett Johansen and Keira Knightley?"

Spoiler alert

Birch & Knightley were in The Hole, and Birch & Johansen were in Ghost World.

[close]

[Famous Mortimer]

Bit weird that, considering she got her tits out in American Beauty.

More specifically, he demanded to be on the set during her sex scene in "Winter of Frozen Dreams" - both he and Thora's mum are former adult film stars (they were in "Deep Throat", apparently).

http://www.wetpaint.com/news/articles/2013-07-01-what-happened-thora-birch-creepy

[mothman]

Another perspective on the career of la Birch: http://lebeauleblog.com/2013/05/01/what-the-hell-happened-to-thora-birch/

The What the Hell Happened blog is quite good value for looking at overviews of stalled stars' careers. It's quite obvious most of the time the writer has never seen half the films he references and is thus too fond of the sentence "it got bad reviews and flopped at the box office." But he's certainly a completist when it comes to acurately charting an actor's downward trajectory.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Every actor and actress from 'Home and Away', "neighbours' etc and went overseas to 'make it' with the exception of Isla Fisher, Guy Pierce and probably a few others who haven't done stuff recently.

Isla Fisher seemed to vanish for a few years, then suddenly she was everywhere. For some reason, I get really annoyed by celebrities getting a second wind - Kylie Minogue did it before, too; after initial success she became kitsch and unpopular, before suddenly reappearing a few years later and taking the world by storm. Surely it's someone else's turn.