A-List: Worst Post-Oscar Careers
By Josh Spiegel
March 5, 2010
The Robin Williams that most people knew and loved is gone. The man who made us laugh with his insane stand-up comedy in the 1980s and early 1990s has vanished. As soon as he realized that people only laugh at him for his rapid-fire patter, even if it's not funny, he went with that on every talk show in the land, and made boatloads of money. Recently, he starred in World's Greatest Dad, a movie that's been highly praised in general, but specifically for Williams' performance, both nuanced and unique. Still, his name in a movie, unless it's animated or a drama, is cause for concern among almost everybody who goes to movies these days. I mean...Old Dogs. OLD DOGS. How much worse does it get?
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Oh, it gets much, much worse. Cuba Gooding Jr., Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner for Jerry Maguire (and the man who gave the acceptance speech that will probably be replayed for years to come), has had so many bad movies in the nearly 15 years since his win. Let me throw out a few titles for you, everybody. Radio. Norbit. Home on the Range. Instinct. Chill Factor. Pearl Harbor. Rat Race. Boat Trip. Snow Dogs. Daddy Day Camp. Yes, that's right. The last film I named is Daddy Day Camp. He was in the sequel to Daddy Day Care. He replaced Eddie Murphy in a movie that Murphy, star of The Adventures of Pluto Nash, didn't want to star in. He lent his voice to one of the myriad Land Before Time direct-to-DVD sequels, as a character named Loofah. I am not making any of this up, folks. This is the career Cuba Gooding Jr. has
Is there any career that went south as quickly as it did for this man? Yes, he had a supporting role in As Good As It Gets and wasn't bad, but after that, his livelihood as a respected film actor went out the window. If there needed to be another nail in his proverbial coffin, it came with Snow Dogs. I don't mean to denigrate Cuba Gooding Jr., the man. He seems like a nice, self-aware guy. That doesn't mean that his filmography is above being made fun of. How can you avoid making fun of a man who starred in Boat Trip and Snow Dogs, movies whose titles live only to be mocked? The biggest example of an actor who doesn't have an Oscar, so much as an albatross around his neck, Cuba Gooding Jr. has become the ultimate poster boy of post-Oscar failure. Even Robin Williams hasn't gone that far.
Kevin Spacey
Spacey has won two Academy Awards, one for his supporting work in The Usual Suspects and one for his lead role in American Beauty. It's after the latter award that his career took a downturn. He followed up American Beauty with movies like K-PAX, The Shipping News, 21, Pay It Forward, The Life of David Gale, Superman Returns (technically not a flop, but not a well-liked movie), and Fred Claus. Spacey remains a relatively well-respected actor, partly for his heavy involvement in the theater, as he's currently the artistic director of the Old Vic, a famed London theater, and plans to be for quite a few years to come. This kind of artistic integrity manages to separate Spacey from his recent film work; also, it helps that he's been in other modern classics like Glengarry Glen Ross and Se7en.
Still, Spacey's post-Oscar career has floundered. Most of these films have been made specifically to capitalize on Spacey being seen as an Oscar-worthy actor; if he's in it, then the movie must be as good as his past performances. Often, this isn't the case. Also, his most passionate project, Beyond The Sea, turned into a big flop, despite his impressive performance. Maybe the problem was that Spacey was years older than his co-star, Kate Bosworth (hopefully, the sarcasm isn't too subtle there), and that he was also years older than Bobby Darin ever was. After this movie tanked, Spacey became a lot more involved in the stage, not the silver screen. Though his career hasn't been the most terrible among the five actors listed here, we should all be thankful that he's taking things slow.
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