Hollywood careers don’t move in straight lines. You’ve seen it happen. One year, an actor sweeps awards and lands magazine covers. The next, they pop up in movies you scroll past at 2 a.m. without a second thought. That’s where these ten actors landed. Once praised, once promising, now drifting through projects that barely register. Their choices grew weaker. So did the performances. Fame didn’t vanish overnight. It just slowly lost your attention.
1. Al Pacino
Al Pacino has worked for decades, yet eight Oscar nods landed in his first thirty years. You remember The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico. Of course you do. The curve tells the story. His latest nomination came with 2020’s The Irishman, the first in almost twenty years. That gap says plenty about the parts he’s picked since. You still catch flashes of the old fire, just fewer chances. Prestige once chased Pacino. Now he chases comfort, or curiosity.
2. Cuba Gooding Jr.
After that Oscar-winning turn in Jerry Maguire in 1996, you probably pegged Cuba Gooding Jr, then 28, as Hollywood’s next sure thing. The industry disagreed fast. He jumped genres and hit a wall of misfires, the kind you forget before the credits roll. Still, sparks showed up. You watched him land moments in As Good As It Gets, What Dreams May Come, and Men of Honour. Years later, 2016’s American Crime Story reminded you why he once mattered.
3. Eddie Murphy
You can list Eddie Murphy characters all day and still run out of fingers. Then the noughties happened. A run of films you remember, even if you pretend you don’t, pushed him into a loud quiet spell. Now he’s back, sort of. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Candy Cane Lane, and The Pickup signal movement, not magic. You want the spark again. You’re watching, hoping, waiting for that old timing to land clean.
4. Jennifer Lopez
You might roll your eyes at Jennifer Lopez as an actor, but rewind to her rom-com run and she owned that lane. She also punched her way into cult action status, circa 2001, back when you probably rented DVDs on a Friday night. Music took over, and it shows. Recent rom-coms and action plays? Easy to forget. Still, you can’t ignore her work in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Unstoppable, and Hustlers. Everything else? You skipped it, and that’s fine.
5. John Travolta
John Travolta turned 71 in 2025, and his career still refuses to behave. You probably know the highs by heart. Saturday Night Fever in 1977. Grease a year later. He owned pop culture. Then Hollywood cooled fast and slapped him with the “box office poison” tag. Quentin Tarantino revived him in 1994 with Pulp Fiction. You cheered. Then came Battlefield Earth in 2000, Gotti in 2018, The Fanatic in 2019. You winced. But Travolta keeps swinging anyway.
6. Marlon Wayans
There was once a time when audiences couldn’t get enough of the Wayans family. Marlon Wayans, in particular, made it pretty big in the film industry with his roles in Scary Movie, White Chicks, and the more serious Requiem for a Dream. That said, he’s had more misses in the last ten years than he has successes. We’re talking Naked, Sextuplets, The Curse of Bridge Hollow, Him, the list goes on.
7. Orlando Bloom
Franchises like The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean were enough to make Orlando Bloom a global icon in the early 2000s. Of course, there’s a whole list of other epic films the English actor can be proud of. Sadly ( at least for fans), Bloom stepped away from the spotlight for a while after a burnout of sorts. Nothing he has acted in since his return has been able to match his previous success, but they are at least still watchable…well, most of them.
8. Robert De Niro
It’s hard to believe that a two-time Oscar winner like Robert De Niro would ever have to star in anything sub-par, but his most recent films have been more B-grade than blockbuster. Tin Soldier with Jamie Foxx, The War With Grandpa alongside Uma Thurman, and The Comeback with Tommy Lee Jones have all been ok to skip, but then you get films like Killers of the Flower Moon that help to remind us of his incredible talent.
9. Taylor Lautner
Taylor Lautner stalled after Twilight, and each release showed it. The trilogy set a peak he never topped, while Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart kept stacking wins. You waited for the action pivot. It didn’t land. No flip, punch, or grin sparked momentum. Studios cooled. Audiences moved on.
10. Tom Hanks
It once felt simple: Tom Hanks on the poster, your ticket money was safe. The two-time Academy Award winner set that bar. Then came The Circle and Pinocchio, and yeah, you remember those nights. Do you really quit on an actor after a few misfires? Writing him off misses the point. You’ve seen him stumble before and bounce back. Not every recent pick lands, but some still work because he does.
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