9 Actors Whose Careers Were Ruined by One Role

The path to fame is pretty difficult for most actors. To make the more famous directors invite them to take part in their films, actors have to work with little-known directors first. But sometimes it happens that after several successful films, an actor takes part in a movie that gets bad reviews, and it becomes a stain on their reputation. And not all of the actors have managed to get out from under this mistake.

Bright Side came up with a list of actors whose careers went downhill after a bad role.

Demi Moore — G.I. Jane

The movie Ghost was released in 1990 and it not only made Demi famous, but it also brought her a couple of film awards and numerous invitations to take part in other projects. But in 1996, the movie Striptease was released and it was poorly received by the audience and the critics. Demi Moore got the Golden Raspberry Award for her role as Erin Grant.

But Demi’s role in an action film called G.I. Jane put an end to Moore’s promising career in acting. Taking part in this movie brought her another award for worst actress. But Demi shares that G.I. Jane is one of her favorite films and that this project was underrated. Demi said in one of her interviews: “It was that kind of criticism that really sent me into a space where I lost a little bit of passion and that maybe disheartened me.” And one of the studio executives shared: “People just don’t want to see her. We would have to drag them kicking and screaming to see this movie.”

Lindsay Lohan — I Know Who Killed Me

At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, Lindsay Lohan was one of Hollywood’s most sought-after young actresses, who was expected to have a great future. But in 2007, a low-budget horror film called I Know Who Killed Me was released where absolutely everything starting from the script to the acting was bad. And at the time of filming, Lohan was treated for numerous addictions and was often late or didn’t appear on the film set at all which also negatively affected the directors’ desire to work with her.

The movie I Know Who Killed Me was a complete disappointment, not only for the critics and the audience, but for the actress herself. When one of her Twitter subscribers wrote that he watched the movie 2 times in one night, Lindsay even replied: “two times too many!”

Elizabeth Berkley — Showgirls

The movie Showgirls was released in 1995. It got a bunch of negative reviews from both critics and audiences almost right after the premiere and won a couple of the Golden Raspberry Awards. Elizabeth Berkley was also criticized for her obviously bad acting.

Besides, her fans couldn’t cope with her sudden change of role. The actress had been part of a pretty popular sitcom for teenagers for a couple of years before she took part in Paul Verhoeven’s movie. This new negative fame had a harmful influence on Elizabeth’s career and directors started declining to work with her. After Showgirls was released, even Elizabeth’s agent refused to work with her.

Geena Davis — Cutthroat Island

In 1991, Geena Davis took part in the movie Thelma & Louise and won several awards for this role. But 4 years later, the movie Cutthroat Island was released and Geena’s career went downhill. With a budget of $98 million, the box office only made $10 million and it was a disaster.

Such a major failure couldn’t be forgiven, regardless of her work in Thelma and Louise, so after Cutthroat Island, Geena never had another big role.

Chris Klein — Rollerball

The handsome athlete named Oz from the movie American Pie made the audience fall in love with him. At this point actor, Chris Klein, with his second big role, became popular. A year after the second part of the American Pie franchise, Chris took part in Rollerball, a remake of the 1975 film with the same name. The film received terrible reviews from viewers and critics, and Klein’s career, which had just begun, instantly collapsed.

Jennifer Lopez — Gigli

According to viewers and critics, the movie Gigli became the worst one in Ben Affleck’s career. He managed to restore his reputation as an actor, but Jennifer Lopez failed to do the same. Despite the fact that before taking part in this disastrous movie, she had been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role in Selena, Gigli put an end to her acting career. But now, most people know Lopez as a singer and not an actress anyway, and she’s perfect for this role.

This movie also destroyed Martin Brest’s career who directed Scent of a Woman, that got Al Pacino an Oscar award, before working on Gigli. After this epic disaster, Brest had to quit.

John Travolta — Battlefield Earth

John Travolta’s career is full of ups and downs. The movie Grease, that was released at the end of the 1970s, made him famous, but after that, he only took part in little-known films until Tarantino offered him a chance to work on the legendary Pulp Fiction. In 2000, Travolta directed Battlefield Earth and played the main role in it. This movie became a leader in the number of Golden Raspberry Awards and the amount of negative reviews, and of the $70 million invested in this film, the result didn’t even pay off by half.

Jennifer Love Hewitt — Jewtopia

From the beginning of the 1990s, to the end of the 2000s, Jennifer Love Hewitt took part in many films, but it was the youth thriller I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel that made her really famous. In 2013, Jewtopia, a movie that was based on the Broadway play with the same name, was released. This movie wasn’t popular and got negative reviews from the audience because of the stereotypical characters and a large number of silly jokes. After that movie, Love Hewitt almost never took part in big projects and now we only get to see her in TV series.

Neve Campbell — Wild Things

The American-Canadian actress, Neve Campbell, is one of the actresses who are called scream queens. She became famous thanks to her role in the movie Scream. She played Sidney Prescott, a girl who managed to escape from the killer Ghostface in each one of the 4 movies. But in 1998, the actress decided to try something new and took part in the erotic thriller Wild Things. Despite the fact that the audience’s reaction to the film was generally quite positive, it failed at the box office, and Neve’s image in the film, which was very far from her positive character in Scream, no longer seemed appealing to her fans.

Except for the third and fourth parts of the franchise about the Ghostface killer, Campbell had no noticeable movie roles until 2016. Now, she has returned to TV screens and has a role in the House of Cards TV series.

What actor didn’t deserve to be left out of big movie projects?