Why Hollywood Is Reluctant To Cast These Actors

Hollywood’s fame, sometimes, is like a bubble. Within no-time it rises to the sky and a single mistake will cause it to burst. Numerous celebrities have faced this dilemma in their Hollywood careers and problems like sex-scandals, drug, addiction and personal grudges has thrown them out of the stream…and with the studios’ woke progressive approach, often times, a tweet from the wrong political party will also get you black listed, case in point; Disney putting the kybosh on Gina Carano’s acting career. The explicit examples of such celebrities include Tobey Maguire being discarded because of his illegal poker ring, Jim Carry’s infamous legal fight over his girlfriend’s suicide, and above all Kiefer Sutherland’s media trash-talk which compelled most of the Hollywood directors to call their bid off from him.

Although it is quite difficult to determine the reason why these celebrities have to face such career setbacks, we have tried our best to find the factors contributing to this. We have brought a list of case studies of such actors and have analyzed them so as to fine why Hollywood is reluctant to cast them again.

Some may believe that what destroyed Hugh Grant’s career was his infamous scandal when he was found with a prostitute alone in the car. As most of his movies like Love Actually, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary were going very well on the screen, it served as an uphill task to manage that scandal. Not only that, those movies were not up to the mark either: those who sense movies and understand characters, termed him a failure because of his over-exposure to the same genre. Grant gave an interview after his movies, in which he explained that he has thought of quitting movies because now he feels too old to play comedy and romance. He further added that these roles now wear him out.

His movies proved him right as both The Man From U.N.C.L.E and Cloud Atlas didn’t go well. A little about Grant’s personal life: he is now the father of four children and husband to two wives. DailyMail even reported that both of his wives were pregnant at the same time which kept him quite busy in upbringing both of his children during 2011 to 2015.

Freddie Prinze Jr. remained the “it guy” of Hollywood for nearly 10 years. His movie I Know What You Did Last Summer played a huge role in his success—until he experimented his acting in comedy. He released his sitcom Freddie, and the show didn’t perform well, considering his reputation. The last nail in the coffin was Delgo which was released in 2008. Delgo received the lowest gross incomes of all time and it caused Freddie’s career to end.

After this setback, Freddie rolled back to TV where he participated in a lead role at 24. But that too proved to be a bad dream of him. He was devastated; he even said in an interview that he hated every moment in shooting 24 and working with Kiefer because the latter is unprofessional, and he will not regret saying it on the live camera.

Apart from TV and movies, Freddie also worked on some side hustles including a cook book which he wrote in the previous years and some additional work for WWE. Freddie was also involved in a gaming company called Twitch for which he says that he is a partner and is writing a book on gaming. He also said he would be writing a book on cooking and healthy lifestyle with easy recipes.

If one wants to know what destroyed Katherine Heigl’s career, it would be her infamous slamming of the projects she did herself. She gave remarks on Knocked Up which launched her career, and called it a sexist movie. She even said that she had a hard time in loving the movie.

The same year she released Grey’s Anatomy, she withdrew herself from Emmy nominations. The reason she gave for leaving was that she didn’t find adequate work to allow herself to be in this nomination. So, in order to maintain the integrity of Emmy’s awards, she is withdrawing herself.

After this, no efforts were made by Apatow and Rhimes to work with Heigl because of her failures in her rom-coms. Moreover, her on-set mis-management has also harmed her career. To the TV shows, and she still fails. Thence the reluctance from Hollywood to cast her again.

Jennifer Love Hewitt’s career turns are remarkably similar to that of Prinze Junior. She became famous from I Know What You Did Last Summer” like her co-star Freddie Prinze Jr. and also went down like the way Freddie did. Where Freddie struck at sitcom, Jennifer’s Achilles Heel was Jackie Chan comedy Tuxedo. She participated in Delgo , which proved the last disaster of Jennifer’s career in movies.

Although before Delgo, Jennifer tried her best to pivot her career on to stream like her efforts in The Ghost Whisperer and The Client List, but none of them produced desired results. Furthermore, her alleged involvement in bringing her ex-partner to be casted in the series The Client further deteriorated her standing. The Criminal Minds also went off after just one season. After that, there is no occurrence of real-time screen appearance by Jennifer. The reason may be that she has given birth to her second child and as a devoted mother she has to give her child ample time and care. So, if things go fine, she will be appearing on the screen after a long break. PERHAPS. If those setbacks have not got the better of her.

Hayden Christensen was known for his role in the famous Star Wars series. Although he did many additional works on the sideline of these series e.g. he played a role of a notorious reporter in the movie Shattered Glass or the one he played in Life as a House; none of these roles caught the eye of the public. Anakin Skywalker was his identity and as soon as he left Stars Wars, his viewership dropped.

After the Star Wars prequel series with George Lucas, Christensen had to face severe criticisms because of his misfit roles. As a result, nearly all his projects went flop. Facing such circumstances, he decided to quit his acting career altogether. On his decision, he told the LATimes, that it was based on the fact that his role in Star Wars had enabled him to stay in Hollywood for as long as it did, but as his performance didn’t prove up to the standards of the Star Wars fans… there was so much hate that he was forced to step down and away from Hollywood. These days, Hayden has taken smaller roles and still has a voice-over career with the Star Wars franchise… though in recent days there have been talks that Hayden may resume his role as Anakin Skywalker turned Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. It seems after the debauchery of the Star Wars franchise under Kathleen Kennedy, fans have “forgiven” Hayden for his performance as back in the prequel days and are excited to see if he will be part of Disney’s Obi-Wan series.

Sean William Scott’s participation in American Pie series, not only made him a star but also his character as Steve Stifler shaped his identity in Hollywood. Consequently, whenever he tried to play any other role the audience wanted it to be like what he did as Steve Stifler. So, in order to get over this, he turned towards voice-over works, and luckily, he made it to all the four parts of the Ice Age. This was by far his one of the most successful projects, and after that he decided to take a break from Hollywood. The reasons for his break are still anonymous but whatever the reason is, one can say that he is taking it out of his choice.

Sean William was recently cast as Father Joe in the television series called This Country.

If someone wants to know what ruined Tobey Maguire’s career, it would be his pathetic role of Peter Parker in Spiderman 3. However, according to the director Sam Raimi, Sony was ready for a Spider Man sequel which would clear Tobey’s name or for a redemption, but the delay and the fact that Tobey was turning 35, ruined the movie production. Therefore, Sony resorted to The Amazing Spider Man instead of Spider Man 4.

 Later on, he did some fine projects like 25th Hour which went fine. More projects include Rock of Ages and Pawn Sacrifice. However, when his work was being aired and going steadily upward, he was found involved in an alleged Poker ring which harmed his public reputation and ultimately his productions too. Currently only one of his movies is rated by IMDb.

Vince Vaughn became famous for his role in Old School and Wedding Crashers. These movies made him and most of the directors realize what kind of role would fit best for him. As a result, they all tried to maintain him in the same posture: arrogant and cocky, similar to what he played earlier. However, in his lateral works which include Four Christmases, the script made his role fairly undermined and for that he wasn’t appreciated. To cover this, Vaughn returned to box office with blockbusters like Delivery Man and The Internship, but none of them were enough to restore what he had. After that, he returned with the second season of True Detective.

Although his appearance was appealing to the audience, the overall season was a flop and even caused HBO to rethink the series. Now that Vaughn has entered his 50’s, it is too difficult for him to return to Hollywood with the same zeal and zest and charisma. However, he might have thought of rebranding himself into some other figure. Whatever his choice will be, the audience must want to have a look over that.

Mohr was a promising figure during the 90s. The reason behind this was his performance in Saturday Live and Jerry Maguire. However, in the recent time, he failed in his attempt to become a star because of poor performance in Fox Comedy Action. He received back-lash over his role in the movie and after that he attempted to revive himself in Gary Unmarried but his third attempt also failed miserably.

Having received that, he returned on the screen in the role of host. His first show was Last Comic Standing which continued for three years—not much success. Then, his second podcast show: Jay Mohr Sports, which is still going on as his full-time work.

Adding more injuries to Mohr’s career was his messy personal life. In 2016, Mohr was found filing a divorce petition against his wife Nikki Cox accompanied by his demand for his son custody. Although he then cancelled it after six days, he re-filed the divorce petition but this time his wife also put drug-use over him. With all the inconveniences and drama surrounding his life, Hollywood seems reluctant to cast this actor again.  

It was obvious in the early 2000’s that if any person was asked to rate who was the funniest man on the planet, the answer would be Dane Cook. However, now the things are a lot different and the Dane Cook era, filled with abrupt laughter, seems to have ended.  The things which ended Dane’s career include his failed attempt to become a big movie star by participating in Employee of the Month. The movie included lambast-ic comedy which didn’t go well with Dane’s character. He couldn’t pull the role off rightly. Afterwards, he tried to revive his reputation in Mr. Brooks and 400 Days but none of them bore success. 400 Days only earned 58 dollars overseas.

Cook was dejected, and appalled, over this and he then wanted to try his image over television. Unfortunately, even there, he received a shock when NBC abandoned his show and stopped its airing. Dane had no options and as a last resort he thought of returning back to stand-up comedy. Initially, he was doing well but later on he faced allegations of joke theft and low-grade comedy which ultimately landed him in trouble.

Jim Carrey was considered to be one of the top actors of the industry back in 2000’s. His movie The Mask performed exceptionally, topped the charts, and hit the target of 100 million dollars. Adding to this was his second release Dumb and Dumber which crossed the 100-million-dollars mark again. These instant successes proved to be ephemeral.

Movies like Mr. Popper’s Penguin ruined Jim’s career. Easy-going and low-quality comedy along with high audience expectation, and all the hype, caused the movie to flop. He, then, came up with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone—the results were similar. Later on, he faced another blow in the form of his girlfriend’s suicide after he broke up with her. Jim had to face trials, and his Hollywood fame bubble burst! Perhaps he will have his second wind with a career as a selling artist as he hear he’s quite the painter.

It was said that Matthew Fox lost his charm after the movie Lost. The reasons are known and include many of his professional mistakes including some of his personal troubles. Talking about his professional mistakes: first, his movie Alex Cross, A SUPER FLOP. This earned him a bad reputation in the industry. Second, his role in World War Z was also not up to the mark and nearly proved fatal. While he may have survived in the movie, it did not seem the case in Hollywood.

As for his personal life, it was also full of blunders which added up in destroying his life in Hollywood. He was accused of beating women along with an allegation that he hit a female bus driver. And in this age of #MeToo…about the only calls that he will be getting will be from his lawyers.

Many a times, even after sheer hard work, things never get better. John Cusack’s new movies are a case in study. John made around 17 movies in the tenure of four years….most of not all went straight to “video” as the saying goes, in this times of ours, it is straight to streaming. It is reported that many of his projects went well, but none of them were categorized as high achiever including Love and Mercy.

Such setbacks are difficult for anybody—Cusack being no exception. However, back in the 2000’s, Cusack found himself in the same situation and managed to get out of this with his movies like Serendipity and Love Dogs. But now, as he is in fifties, sustaining in the industry is not going to be easy for him. Moreover, Cusack is working on different projects like he is writing a book on Eward Snowden. Also, he is working as co-founder of a press foundation named Freedom of Press. We hope that it will keep him afloat.

Having a resume full of failures is never going to land you a good job. This law is true everywhere including Hollywood. But it seems as if Jessica got away with it. Talking about Jessica Alba’s career, the first impression comes in the form of a series of failures ranging from Fantastic Four to The Eye. However, her four nominations in Razzie Awards with an addition of one award ranked her safe.

After giving flop films, though she won an award, she remained in distress. She was told by a director as “Cry Pretty” which almost forced her to quit acting. She, in her recent interview, has admitted that she has quit acting and now her family is all what she cares about.

Alba is also running a consumer brand i.e. “The Honest Company”. The company is estimated to have a worth of around 1 billion dollars. But like her acting career, her company also faced many setbacks in the forms of lawsuits. The last legal battle of The Honest Company has costed her around $1.55 million dollars for settlement of dispute. Luckily, for Jessica Alba, The Honest Company just went public on May 5, 2021 with the initial offering of $16 per share.

Characterized as a great horror actress by the huge success of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gellar faced problems in transitioning to other genres. When she moved towards a romantic sci-fi and comedy movie Scooby-Doo, she faced criticism. It is not just that she messed up in acting but also that she seemed misfit for the movie. Movies felt like a lost cause for her at that juncture of time.

After movies, she tried her luck in T.V series like Ringer. That too failed and ended after a single season. However, this wasn’t her career’s end. She then moved towards voice-overing and launched her lifestyle cooking brand called “Foodstirs”-another success. She is now a mother of two and is happy with her husband Freddie Prinze Jr.

After first appearance on the screen in The Mask, Cameron Diaz became an “It girl” of Hollywood. For around twenty years, her attractive personality and good acting skills made her enjoy the status of “It girl”. But soon her charm began to wear off as she became inconsistent in her works and also because critical reviews which she was attaining. Moreover, she missed most of the chances which could have improved her image by putting less effort in them like in Being John Malkovich.

The situation continues to follow till in 2014, when her career hit a major blow when big flicks like Sex Tape and Annie, both went flop. Nevertheless, Diaz managed to get herself by partnering in a book manual with The Body Book. The manual completely rebranded her and became the best-selling lifestyle guide till 2016. After that, she released another one i.e. The Longevity which was another success.

During her book writing period, Diaz also tied the knot. Her husband Benji Madden made her take a break from her acting career. Few years later, she announced in Goop Wellness Summit that now she wants a whole life, despite having a sky-reaching career she wants a stop now. That might be a full-stop to her Hollywood career.

Billy Zane, the guy who played the role of the villain in the blockbuster film of all time Titanic. Although he played it really well but his past performances had made him a reputation which went against Caledon Hockley.

Anyways, Zane performed well in the Titanic but this is certainly not the case with his other projects .He tried his best over movies and T.V shows, but none of them were charming enough to hold the attention of the public for long. His series Guilt was stopped after just one season.

One of the major problems that you face after running a show for ten years is, at the end of the show, you will be exhausted and will have no room to join some other genre. This happened with Willy too, as he left SmallVille, he had to take a long break from Hollywood.

It is even more surprising that after Welling left SmallVille, he was too selective for the roles he opted for in the aftermath. He remained for a very short period of time in Hollywood after Smallville, and the reason was probably his over exposure to a single show for 10 years. Later on, he tried his luck in some other small-scale projects like the one in which Welling was made a C.I.A agent. Sadly for him, none of them made his stay longer in Hollywood. Rumors are that he will join Lucifer for the third season.

Christopher Mintz faced the same dilemma which Billy Zane faced after the Titanic. Christopher’s role in Superbad made a permanent impression of him on the audience’s mind. Even though he tried his best to come up with different roles in movies like Kick-Ass and Role Models, none went equal to that of SuperBad.

After that, Christopher tried his luck in some other genres like music, voice-over and television, which proved great for him. Some of his works went super successful and helped him grow. Last we heard, he has turned into a real true hero as he had tried to stop a mass-shooting a local community college in Oregon and in the process got shot five times.

The chances of one getting invited to the Academy Awards are miniscule, when titles of the films are like Male Gigolo, The Hot Chick or Deuce Bigalow etc. Surely, Schnieder’s filmography is not appealing enough for a studio to hire him for a Steven Spielberg film given that he was nominated by Razzies for the worst actor of the year.

So here is an example that even if you’ve made it “big” on Saturday Night Live… you still can’t really make it in Hollywood. Well, at least as an actor with an sustainable career on screen.That was enough for him to realize that he had to shift his path. So, he moved to voice-over and producing series, and he is doing just great there.

Judge Reinhold remained one of the most classical and stereo-typical guys of Hollywood. People used to call him “That Guy” because of his iconic role in Beverly Hills Cop and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Both of these movies earned him great names but time changes everything. The guy who used to rule the screen with his bold under-look is nowhere else now. No major role played by Judge Reinhold in the last fifteen years except the one in Arrested Development and The O’Keefe T.V series which was stopped from airing after just one month of its release.

After that, his involvement in a fight at Dallas Airport made headlines and created problems for him in 2016. Although he later apologized, it wasn’t effective to restore his reputation and the stature he once possessed. Judge was in trouble for quite some time, but our sources have reported that Beverly Hills Cop season IV, has gained the attention of two directors and it is possible that soon the season will be on screen. This is great news for Judge and for his fans too.

The hero of Monkeybone and 2003-released Looney Tunes, Brendan Frasser faced backlash after these movies went flop. It was speculated that his career was soon going to end. But, thanks to the Mummy Trilogy which took his career to new heights, he got the kick again. All three parts were super-hit and Fraser was in the limelight for the upcoming ten years. Later on, he released Extreme Measures and Furry Vengeance which further characterized Brendon as an insane movie star who will go to any extent in following what he aimed for. Both of these movies performed well on charts. But, after that comes the projects which Brendon regretted. Movies like The Quiet American made his acting look pale in front of his co-stars like Ian MaKellen and Michael Cain.

Brendon tried to recover himself in Journey To The Centre of The Earth, which proved effective for him. But as soon as the original movie director left the franchise, Brendon also left with him and didn’t participate in its sequel. As a result of these circumstances, Brendon was confined to small-budget movies like HairBrained and The Old Couple which restricted his growth and now he is almost invisible.

Taylor Lautner remained a key actor in the industry during his performance in the Twilight Saga. He enjoyed the limelight of Twilight fame. But as soon as Twilight turned into a dark night, Jacob was nowhere to be seen. The reason was his putting of all eggs in one basket. Where his co-stars were cashing out from Teen Wolf, he was stuck at being Jacob.

He was given a chance to come in the lead role but his un-inspiring and dry acting skills lead to the failure of the movie. He failed in Abduction and Tracers badly and it was estimated that the hype he had achieved from Twilight in contrast to his acting skills was overestimated. Similarly, Lautner achieved little success when he moved to the comedy genre. His series Cuckoo aired on BBC earned him good reputation. Because of this, he became the crew member of Adam Sandler which earned him a role in Grown Ups 2 and Ridiculous Six.  

For Taylor Momsen, one can say that she was born while her mom was shooting for a movie. Why? Because at the age of just two, her mom made her participate in an ad shoot and according to her, she didn’t want to do that but had no choice either. That being said, Momsen was born amidst all those cameras and spotlights.That was the start of Taylor’s career and the first full-fledged work of her was in Cindy Lou Who. Later, she participated in many kids shows like Gossip Girl.

Although Taylor participated in Gossip Girl, her inclination towards her music career pushed producers to drop her in season 5 of Gossip Girl. But that didn’t affect Momsen’s career. She moved herself in the music and played the role of lead singer in The Pretty Reckless. The band was too successful. In the year 2016, four of her songs went for Billboard Mainstream chart ratings. As for her acting career, we might not see her again on the screen.

The third person who can be characterized with Jennifer and Freddie Prinze is Julia Stiles. Julia’s career took a boom in the 90’s and burst in the mid 2000’s. A decade of rise and fall. Like Jennifer, she then tried to set her foot in some low-budget projects such as The Omen and Edmond. Yet, none of them made breakthroughs in terms of her career revival.

Nevertheless, Julia kept herself busy in many side hustles while admitting that she wanted to be doing full-fledge work and to be on screen. In an interview with NYTimes, she expressed that at certain moments, the directors and producers are in love with you and want to cast you but then after sometime they shift their focus on to some other actor or actress. She wants herself to be in constant limelight.

Ashely Green was no less than Diaz: her appearance on the screen in Twilight Saga made her an instant success. But as soon as the Twilight charm wore off, none of her works gained enough attention. After Twilight, she released Apparition in 2012, but the results were shocking that the movie only earned 1 million with the cost of production at 17 million dollars. This was a huge setback on Greene’s career.

As a result, she landed on small screens where she tried with projects like Pan-Am, the most expensive drama by ABC news but still it went off after one season. The new Pan-Am for her was The Rogue which performed similar to Pan-Am leaving Greene dejected.