Hollywood loves a good comeback story. That’s a fact well known to actors like Brendan Fraser, whose personal traumas and injuries, plus what he’s since described as quiet industry blacklisting, kept him out of Hollywood for years after starring in major hits like The Mummy. He launched his comeback with a transformative rendition in The Whale, a performance which earned him a six-minute standing ovation at the 2022 Venice festival, and ultimately won him an Academy Award for Best Actor.
But for every Brendan Fraser, there’s a Chris O’Donnell, or any of the other former heavy hitters on this list. Some of them were at the height of their thespian prowess, and some of them had the industry and movie lovers everywhere eating out of their hands. But then for some reason they proceeded to torch everything with one movie project they should never have gotten involved in. Unfortunately for them, Hollywood didn’t forgive these slip-ups, and some of these careers never fully recovered.
Mike Myers – The Love Guru (2008)
Mike Myers’ plummet from comedy royalty is the one nobody saw coming. His two massive comedy franchises Wayne’s World and Austin Powers basically defined the ‘90s. So when he dropped The Love Guru in 2008, it made sense that people assumed he’d cooked up yet another hit. That assumption quickly turned out to be false as even his die-hard fans covered their eyes at the cringeworthy jokes of his Guru Pitka.
To no one’s surprise, the movie swept the Razzies for Worst Picture and Worst Actor, definitely not something Myers wanted next to the paycheck he got for voicing Shrek. Critics didn’t hold back either, calling out the lazy writing and recycled gags, and audiences stayed home. The damage didn’t stop after opening weekends either. Studios basically stopped offering Myers live-action roles, and apart from a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards the following year and one last voice outing as Shrek, he all but vanished from the screen until Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018, where he popped in a cameo as a record exec. And even then, it wasn’t his movie. Since then, his roles have been short and to the point, but to many, the novelty of a Mike Myers cameo has ran its course.
Chris O’Donnell – Batman & Robin (1997)
Before Joel Schumacher stuffed him into that unflattering rubber suit and let Arnold Schwarzenegger spit terribly cringey puns, Chris O’Donnell was mapped out by studio execs to be the next big thing. He’d just bagged a Golden Globe nomination and a Chicago Film Critics Award for his supporting role as Charlie Simms in Scent of a Woman, the kind of early buzz that usually leads to bigger roles. Now, he was teaming up with some of the biggest stars in the world.
But rather than being a springboard, this movie essentially made sure that would never happen. It led the 1997 Razzies with a record 11 nominations, including Worst Picture, and was so bad it even hurt George Clooney’s reputation for a while (though he survived it). After that disaster, studios weren’t exactly lining up to cast him. He eventually found his footing again on NCIS: Los Angeles, which is a “nice” comeback story. But the supposed “next big leading man” path he was on led to a sharp dead end.
Elizabeth Berkley – Showgirls (1995)
Elizabeth Berkley spent years playing Jessie Spano on Saved by the Bell, a role that turned her into America’s sweetheart. But then she tried to prove she had serious acting chops by accepting a role in Showgirls. The gritty NC-17 Vegas drama had, well, other ideas. Her over-the-top performance as dancer Nomi Malone became one of the most notorious performances in a movie, and earned her a Razzie for Worst Actress.
Her agency dropped her like a hot potato, and studios blacklisted her from anything remotely resembling a leading role. It took years of grinding it out in smaller projects to rebuild any kind of momentum. Berkley later admitted she felt thrown under the bus by the media and never understood why all the blame landed on her instead of the director.
Jake Lloyd – Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)
Unlike the first three, which were mostly about bad career moves and stalled momentum, this one’s about a child getting torn apart by grown adults online and an acting career that ended before it even got a chance to start. Jake Lloyd was just eight years old when he landed the role of young Anakin Skywalker in the most anticipated movie of that decade. But when The Phantom Menace failed to live up to two decades of fan expectations, all the anger and disappointment was redirected at him instead of the filmmakers. For instance, he faced brutal bullying at school from his peers. Add to that a whirlwind press tour that was just too intense for a middle schooler, and it became too much.
By 2001, Lloyd had walked away from acting entirely. Worth noting is the fact that Lloyd and his mother have since said that the well-documented bullying wasn’t the only reason he quit. They’ve also pointed to a schizophrenia diagnosis and some family crisis he dealt with in the years that followed.
Geena Davis – Cutthroat Island (1995)
This one was a disaster for everyone involved. However, some suffered more intense blows than others. The most disappointing aspect of this fall from grace is that Geena Davis already had an Oscar on her shelf. She’d won Best Supporting Actress for The Accidental Tourist, thus proving she could cut it in a blockbuster.
Cutthroat Island was supposed to make her cinema’s first female pirate action hero. Instead, it became one of the biggest box office flops in history. The flop was so massive that it helped sink Carolco Pictures, the studio behind the film. One would think that her Oscar would’ve protected her from the fallout, but it didn’t. Studios gave her a wide berth and she never recovered to leading lady territory.
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