We often see Hollywood make someone a star overnight, but we don't talk enough about how one poorly received movie can make audiences turn on them just as quickly. While several of these actors eventually rebuilt their careers and continue to find success, here are 19 stars who all experienced a noticeable career shift after taking on a controversial or widely criticized role.
1. Megan Fox became one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors after starring in the first two Transformers movies, but a lot seemed to change when she did not return for the third. In a 2009 interview, Fox told Wonderland that director Michael Bay "wants to be like Hitler on his sets" and was "a nightmare to work for" while directing.
According to People, Fox said that being fired was "absolutely the low point of my career," although she admitted that she had refused to apologize because she was "so self-righteous at 23." Vanity Fair also reported that Fox believed she had been punished for speaking out too early, saying, "I was rejected because of qualities that are now being praised in other women coming forward." In my opinion, it's hard not to connect all that fallout to the smaller roles she received in the years that followed.
2. Taylor Lautner was one of Hollywood's top teenage actors when Abduction tested the limits of his enormous Twilight popularity. GQ reported that Hollywood was making a major bet on him, but after Abduction made $11.2 million during its opening weekend, Reuters reported that the result was "not enough to launch Lautner into action-hero stardom."
Lautner has never publicly said that the movie ruined his career, but he told People that the intensity of Twilight fame made him afraid to leave his house and contributed to his stepping back.
3. Elizabeth Berkley made a jump from playing Jessie Spano on Saved by the Bell to starring in the sexually explicit, NC-17-rated Showgirls. The Los Angeles Times reported that the movie was widely criticized when it came out, and Berkley received much of the blame for its failure.
4. Alicia Silverstone was coming off the enormous success of Clueless when she played Batgirl in Batman & Robin, but much of the coverage focused on her body rather than her performance. The Los Angeles Times reported that tabloids cruelly nicknamed her "Fatgirl," while Silverstone called the treatment "hurtful" and said Batman & Robin "definitely wasn't my favorite film-making experience."
She also explained that several unpleasant experiences made acting feel less appealing to her. Although Silverstone continued working, I think the movie and the hate around it caused her post-Clueless rise to fame to halt for a bit.
Silverstone later earned a Golden Globe nomination for Miss Match, seven years after Batman & Robin's release.
5. C. Thomas Howell was already a recognizable young actor from movies like The Outsiders, E.T., and Red Dawn when he starred in Soul Man. In the comedy, his white character uses tanning pills and poses as a Black student to qualify for a scholarship. UPI reported that the Hollywood-Beverly Hills chapter of the NAACP strongly objected to the movie, while The Guardian later called it a "career-killer."
Howell defended what he believes was the movie's intended anti-racist message by telling Yahoo Entertainment, "Our intentions were pure." Although he continued acting, I think the controversy damaged the mainstream momentum he had built as one of the most recognizable young actors at the time.
6. Faye Dunaway had already won an Oscar for Network and earned nominations for Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown when she played Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Vanity Fair reported that Dunaway regretted that the serious drama came across as campy and believed the performance had permanently changed how people saw her.
She told People, "I think it turned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me," and that it was "an awful hard thing to beat."
Dunaway later won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her role on Columbo, 13 years after Mommie Dearest.
7. Halle Berry had recently become the first Black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress when she starred in Catwoman, which received brutal reviews and lost money. Because it followed her historic win, many viewers still talk about the movie as the role that derailed the prestigious career they expected her to have next.
Berry strongly disagrees with a lot of that public opinion as she told Entertainment Weekly, "It didn't derail me because I've fought as a Black woman my whole life." Although she also said that she hated how the movie's failure was placed so heavily on her.
Berry continued receiving major recognition after Catwoman, including Golden Globe nominations in 2006 and 2011 for Their Eyes Were Watching God and Frankie & Alice.
8. Mike Myers was already famous for Wayne's World, the Austin Powers movies, and voicing Shrek when he starred in The Love Guru. The Guardian reported that the movie bombed in the US, and Myers's much smaller live-action presence afterward led many viewers to feel as though the role ended his run as one of Hollywood's biggest comedy leads.
In a later GQ interview, Myers acknowledged that the film "didn't meet an audience," but said there was still a lot in it that made him "really, really proud."
9. Geena Davis was an Oscar winner and the star of Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own when she appeared in Cutthroat Island, which became notorious for its financial losses. In an interview with The New Yorker, Davis pushed back on the idea that the movie single-handedly bankrupted its studio, explaining that the film studio "was already heading toward bankruptcy."
Still, she said her opportunities soon disappeared: "I got Stuart Little and then Stuart Little 2, but other than that the work just dried up." Davis has also spoken to Deadline about the extreme ageism female actors encounter as they get older.
Davis later won a Golden Globe for Commander in Chief, 11 years after Cutthroat Island.
10. Jesse Eisenberg's unique interpretation of Lex Luthor became one of the most divisive parts of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and he believes the response damaged his career.
After his performance was so publicly rejected, Variety reported that Eisenberg said, "I genuinely think it actually hurt my career in a real way." Eisenberg also made clear that he wasn't blaming the studio or filmmakers and instead felt personally responsible for how his performance landed.
Eisenberg recently earned a 2025 Oscar nomination for writing A Real Pain, nine years after Batman v Superman.
11. Pamela Anderson was internationally famous through Baywatch when Barb Wire attempted to establish her as a big-screen action star. The movie failed to create that career, but its release and the nonconsensual distribution of her private tape with Tommy Lee caused some real damage at the time.
Time reported that the violation affected Anderson's personal life and her attempts to expand her acting career, even though she and Lee never profited from the tape. Anderson hasn't publicly blamed Barb Wire alone for what happened and has remained open to revisiting it.
Anderson recently earned a 2025 Golden Globe nomination for The Last Showgirl, nearly three decades after Barb Wire.
12. Chris O'Donnell had received a Golden Globe nomination for Scent of a Woman and starred in several major movies when he returned as Robin in Batman & Robin. People reported that O'Donnell blamed many of the film's problems on Warner Bros. rushing production after Batman Forever. He said, "Warner Brothers just got greedy on it."
He also talked about director Joel Schumacher being devastated by the reviews, yet O'Donnell still called making the movies an "amazing experience." O'Donnell later spent 14 seasons starring on NCIS: Los Angeles, so although I think the movie ended the push to make him one of Hollywood's biggest theatrical leading men, O'Donnell has never said it ruined his experience.
13. Sofia Coppola stepped into The Godfather Part III after Winona Ryder left the production, a move that became a major point of criticism for her performance. The Associated Press reported that Coppola later joked she was once known as "the amateur actress who had single-handedly ruined The Godfather films."
The public attributed the movie's problems to her, mocking her "poor acting," but Coppola told People that the backlash "didn't destroy me." She also said acting was never the career she really wanted, so everything worked out since she is now an Oscar-winning filmmaker.
Coppola later won the Oscar for best original screenplay for Lost In Translation, 14 years after The Godfather Part III.
14. Meg Ryan was so strongly associated with romantic comedies that her dark, sexually explicit performance in In the Cut was a shocking flip to her "America's sweetheart" public perception. Ryan later told The New York Times that the reaction was "vicious" and acknowledged that the role was radically different from her "assigned archetype." But she has also made clear that she doesn't regret accepting the role.
15. Rachael Leigh Cook was coming off She's All That when Josie and the Pussycats failed at the box office before becoming a beloved cult movie years later. Alan Cumming told People that the movie was intended to be a "satirical musical comedy" about how commerce was infiltrating culture, but the young tween audience it was marketed to didn't seem to fully understand the satire.
E! reported that Cook had previously described being placed in "movie jail" after the release. Cook continued working steadily in television and smaller movies, so she clearly wasn't banished from acting altogether. But I think it's fair to say the movie changed the scale of the opportunities she received after She's All That.
16. Brandon Routh was still a relatively unknown actor when he was cast as Superman in a movie that seemed poised to launch an entire franchise. People reported that the expected sequel never happened and that Routh was devastated when the character was eventually recast. He said he "cried no less than three times" when he learned another actor would become Superman.
He also explained how he had to process the loss of everything the role had seemed to promise. Routh later rebuilt his career on television and even played Superman again in the CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths, so although the movie didn't destroy his career, I think it's fair to say that it cost him a lot.
17. Lori Petty had appeared in major movies, including Point Break, A League of Their Own, and Free Willy, before becoming the lead of Tank Girl. Entertainment Weekly reported that the movie flopped before eventually becoming a cult favorite. It was also reported that director Rachel Talalay said the failure placed her in "movie jail" and "ruined" her directing career.
Petty has never publicly made that same claim about her own career and has instead continued celebrating the movie. But I still think many viewers associate Tank Girl with the end of her run as a mainstream movie lead, since her career arguably looked different afterward.
18. Alden Ehrenreich beat thousands of actors to take over the role of Han Solo, but Solo: A Star Wars Story became a major box-office disappointment for the franchise. Former Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy later said that the filmmakers placed Ehrenreich in an "impossible situation" by asking him to inherit a character so closely identified with Harrison Ford.
Vanity Fair reported that part of Ehrenreich's later absence was intentional, and he has since pushed back against exaggerated accounts of needing emergency acting lessons during production. Many people still link his years of disappearance to this movie, but Ehrenreich has never said the movie ruined his career. So I would attribute all of this as a major interruption to his momentum, rather than a permanent ending.
Ehrenreich recently won a 2026 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in Becky Shaw, eight years after Solo: A Star Wars Story.
19. And last but not least, Jaden Smith. He had already starred opposite his father in The Pursuit of Happyness and was the lead in the successful remake of The Karate Kid when After Earth placed him at the center of another major studio movie with Will Smith. But this time, his movie received extremely negative reviews, and Reddit users have frequently described it as the project that ended Jaden's path as a mainstream leading actor.
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