The very nature of the entertainment world suggests that there will be some fast rising (and falling) stars. Not everyone can sustain the momentum that Harrison Ford and Julia Roberts have had. However, while the music industry welcomes these one-hit wonders with open arms, the film world has a slightly different approach. Chris Neumer investigates...
10) JIM CAVIEZEL — The Passion of the Christ
Jim Caviezel doesn’t necessarily fit the standard billing of a one hit wonder since, prior to his appearance in director Mel Gibson’s religious epic, he had already been in a couple of big budget movies (Angel Eyes and The Thin Red Line), but nonetheless he makes the list here for one reason: from here on out, no matter what role he takes, he will always be known as the guy who played Jesus; Angel Eyes and The Thin Red Line are becoming distant memories of the Caviezel that once was.
I was in a theater when a trailer of Caviezel’s last film, Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius came on and, at a critical moment, when Jones is pondering whether he’ll be able to make a tough shot to win a tournament, someone in the front of the theater yelled out "Of course he’ll win the Masters! He’s the son of God!" I suppose there are much worse things to be known for than your ability to be Christ-like.
Of all the actors on this list, the potential to go "George Reeves" is greatest with Caviezel. Twenty years down the road, Caviezel could be a member of Hollywood’s A-List, out of the business because of the frustration at constantly being seen as "Jesus", dead, or at the San Diego ComicCon, dressed in full robe, sandals and a beard blessing people for ten dollars a pop. Only time will tell.
9) The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie was released in 1990 and grossed nearly $140 million, proving once again, there’s no accounting for taste. I find this especially scary because, at the time it was released to theaters, I remember going out to see it with friends. Two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie sequels were released in the subsequent years, but their combined box office was still significantly lower than the original’s. Almost as quickly as it started, American’s fascination with the jive-talking, break-dancing, pizza loving reptiles was over.
And yet, that didn’t stop Warner Brothers from dusting off the concept in 2007 and releasing another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie. If you missed it, it’s because, following the same logic as New Kids on the Block in the mid-90’s, the project was sold as an acronym, TMNT. Then it was gone again, producing the most unusual creation on the list: a remake of a one-hit wonder that became a one-hit wonder itself.
8) Iben Hjejle — High Fidelity
Going way outside the box, director Stephen Frears and producer/star John Cusack decided to cast the Danish actress Iben Hjejle as the female lead in their adaptation of author Nick Hornsby’s book, High Fidelity. Having received a series of good reviews for her work in the dogme film Mifune, Hjejle’s acting career was riding an international high in 1998. Even so, Hjejle was an intriguing choice for Frears and Cusack because, besides having a name that no one would be able to pronounce without some kind of assistance (it’s EE-ben Yay-lee), she had never previously appeared in an English language film. English was her second language!
Hjejle makes this list of one hit wonders because, equally intriguingly, she hasn’t appeared in another English language film since completing High Fidelity. Hjejle moved back to Denmark to be closer to her family and is now one of the country’s more prominent TV stars. Hjejle could well be the poster girl for one hit wonders here in the states though. Consider: she was in one American film in which she had top billing, over actors like Jack Black, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Joan Cusack and Tim Robbins, and then never made another movie. Words fail to capture the unusual nature of this situation.
7) Paul Hogan — Crocodile Dundee
America had a strange fascination with all things Australian during the mid to late eighties. Leading this surge of antipodean culture in the states was Australian television star, Paul Hogan. Having visited New York City and felt strangely out of place, Hogan created the character of Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, an Australian cowboy/renaissance man, and wrote a script about Mick Dundee’s trip to America. Crocodile Dundee was a huge hit for Paramount. Its inevitable sequel was released two years later to less than stellar reviews and a significantly smaller box office take. Hogan can now occasionally be seen recreating his Mick Dundee character in Subaru ads.
Note: Originally, I had slotted Hogan’s fellow eighties, Australian import Yahoo Serious in the #6 spot. Serious wrote, directed and starred in the 1988 film Young Einstein and then didn’t make another movie for more than five years. Young Einstein was an enormous success in Australia, but, despite a huge marketing campaign here in the states, crashed and burned miserably in its American release. Serious, along with Ashton Kutcher and Gretchen Mol are the actors who will headline a future list entitled: Actors Who Would Be One Hit Wonders… If They Ever Had A Hit.
6) Emmanuelle Beart — Mission: Impossible
Remember Iben Hjejle, the European-born actress who starred in one English language feature and then returned to her home country to work? Multiply her situation by ten and you get Emmanuelle Beart. This French beauty starred in one of 1996’s biggest movies, Mission: Impossible, opposite one of the planet’s biggest stars, a still sane Tom Cruise, then went back to France and hasn’t made an American feature since.
Beart currently one of the biggest stars in France and has been nominated for a whopping eight Cesar Awards (the French Oscars) in her life, but has yet to do anything in America.
5) Mercedes Ruehl — The Fisher King
Less than three years after Mercedes Ruehl won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her outstanding performance in The Fisher King, she was starring in a made-for-TV movie about a family of accused pedophiles, complete with a colon in the title, Indictment: The McMartin Trial. Less than four years after Ruehl won her Oscar, she was guest starring on a sit-com. In 2000, Ruehl co-starred in the made-for-TV movie, All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story and she bottomed out in 2004 by guest starring on Law & Order. While being a ‘name’ guest star on Law & Order, CSI or any of their derivations is probably good for about $100,000-$125,000 dollars, it’s hard to justify these appearances artistically. I’ll leave fellow Oscar winner Gary Sinise’s casting on CSI: New York to a later column, but suffice it to say, no matter what the project, you never want to follow David Caruso.
Ruehl’s cinematic success spike is probably the sharpest of all the actors on this list. The project she worked on immediately prior to The Fisher King was a guest-starring role on The Cosby Show. Ruehl’s first project after The Fisher King was the critically acclaimed Lost in Yonkers. A month after Lost in Yonkers was released, she appeared in multiplexes in a supporting role in the enormous bomb, The Last Action Hero.
4) Brandon Routh - Superman Returns
The case of Brandon Routh is intriguing to me because of how severely it goes against the grain of Hollywood’s normal operating procedures. It was announced on October 19, 2004 that Routh was cast as Clark Kent/Superman in Warner Brothers’ nearly $300 million revival of the Superman series. It was the biggest coming out party Hollywood had seen since Hayden Christenson was cast as Anakin Skywalker in the late ‘90s. Normally an actor in Routh’s situation would complete principle photography on Superman Returns and would then sign on to several other projects before Superman opened in theaters. This way Routh would be hedging his bets; if Superman tanked, he’d still have a number of high-profile gigs; if Superman was the biggest film ever, his asking price would skyrocket. After Christenson completed Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, he immediately did the film Life as a House (even though it was released before Star Wars). He then did Shattered Glass before heading back to Lucas’ third prequel.
From October of 2004 to January of 2008, Routh spent less than a month filming projects other than Superman, work that came on the yet-to-be-released Lie to Me. After finishing his portrayal of Clark Kent, one of the biggest rookie roles in the last twenty-five years, Routh spent more than a year and a half not working in the feature film world. In this day and age of money, fame and power, Brandon Routh’s situation stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. There is no reason or explanation for this superbly unique failure.
Note: Brandon Routh would have been higher on this list if more time had elapsed between Superman Returns and the present. It is duly noted that, of all the actors/characters on this list, Routh has the greatest untapped potential. It’s possible he will evolve into a Josh Lucas/Mark Ruffalo like actor, time is on his side. As it is though, he stands firm on the one-hit wonder chart at #4. 3) Janet McTeer — Tumbleweeds
Really, Janet McTeer shouldn’t even be on this list. No one has ever heard of her and, even at this point, I don’t think I’d be able to pick her out of a lineup with four other women. However, McTeer truly earns her lofty position atop the one hit wonder board because she was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award in 1999 for her role in Tumbleweeds, a movie coincidentally that no one has ever heard of either.
When I learned that McTeer was English, I assumed that Tumbleweeds must have been one of those stuffy, British period pieces that as a high schooler, I was forced to sit through in Literature class. This assumption could not be more wrong. Tumbleweeds is actually the story of a forty-something American woman who lives in San Diego with her 12-year old daughter, who is desperately trying to straighten out her life.
McTeer’s follow up to Tumbleweeds was a supporting turn in director Keith Gordon’s stellar film, Waking the Dead. I love Waking the Dead and have seen it no less than five times. Despite this familiarity with the project, I couldn’t remember a woman who fit McTeer’s description in the project. McTeer has continued to act but hasn’t had anything that has ever come close to hitting the level she did in Tumbleweeds. In 2004, McTeer took a guest starring role on a BBC TV movie of Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage. Less than five years after she was nominated for the film world’s top prize, McTeer was guest starring in a made-for-TV movie… in a foreign country.
2) The cast of The Blair Witch Project — The Blair Witch Project
Consider the cast of The Blair Witch Project as the exact opposite of Brandon Routh. At the height of the unexpected success of this strange, home video movie, the film’s leads desperately wanted to find acting work… especially since they didn’t receive their payment bumps for the movie’s immense success until sometime later. They auditioned and auditioned, they called in favors, they promoted, the worked the circuit, they tried as hard as they could doing whatever they could… they just didn’t land anything substantive.
In retrospect, this makes perfect sense. While Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams were part of the nearly $250 million sensation, no one went to see The Blair Witch Project because of Donahue, Leonard and Williams. Some critics actually suggested that the film worked in spite of the three; numerous mentions were made to the effect that the movie might have worked better had the actors’ improv talents consisted of something other than saying ‘fuck’ repeatedly.
To make matters worse for Donahue, Leonard and Williams, during the promotion of The Blair Witch Project, the directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, sold the footage as being real and posted have-you-seen-me flyers of the actors in question. No one will hire you as an actor if it says on your imdb page, as it did for Donahue, Leonard and Williams, that you are “missing and presumed dead”.
1) Nia Vardalos — My Big Fat Greek Wedding
I’m of the opinion that when making a top ten list, the number one choice should be readily apparent to the creator. When making up my year-end list of the best movies, there generally isn’t much debate about what the first slot is going to be. If there’s debate, my feeling is that I must be missing something. I originally had penciled in the cast of The Blair Witch Project as the biggest one-hit wonder of the last twenty years. However, I didn’t feel at all satisfied with that selection. I reasoned that there must have been someone I was missing. And there was. Nia Vardalos, writer/star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of Hollywood’s strangest recent entities. It is a patently formulaic romantic comedy with a no-name cast that somehow managed to haul in more than $240 million at the domestic box office. Vardalos was the face of the movie, the promotional campaign and the stories of the little-movie-that-could. The fall of 2002 was the Fall of Vardalos… and I hope she enjoyed it. Since My Big Fat Greek Wedding left theaters, Vardalos has been the epitome of a one-hit wonder. She has made one other film that has been released, the critically panned failure, Connie and Carla and has had one television series seen airing, the critically panned failure, My Big Fat Greek Life.* If you thought Mercedes Ruehl had book-ended her Oscar win with some interesting, if uncomfortable choices, consider what surrounded Vardalos’ one shining moment: The project immediately prior to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, she guest starred on Curb Your Enthusiasm. The project immediately following was an ill-fated sit-com that was yanked after a mere seven episodes. Now that’s how you become a one-hit wonder.
* It should be noted that the rights to My Big Fat Greek Life were sold to CBS well before the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding was released to theaters. While Vardalos may deserve some of the credit for the painfully unfunny material in the show, she does not deserving any second-guessing for actually signing on to do the show; when she did so, she was a struggling actress/writer who had a small indie film coming out way off on the horizon. She cannot be faulted for that decision.
