Thursday, February 26, 2015

Riske Business: Stars I Thought Would be Huge but Weren't

by Adam Riske
Ever see someone in a movie and thought “Whoa, who is that? They’re going places” and then turned out to be completely wrong? Sure, maybe they worked for a while but they never popped and went off to become a “big star.” Here are five stars I guessed wrong on.

Ally Walker – This first one is a little bit of a cheat, but I’m adding it to the list nonetheless. I remember watching an episode of Siskel & Ebert and during a pan of Universal Soldier, Ebert noted that Ally Walker (in a sense) saved part of the movie for him. He called her performance “very good,” said it had “energy,” “intelligence” and “quickness” and closed with “we’re going to see more of her. She’s a good actress.” I used to take what Siskel & Ebert said as gospel, so I was always thinking Ally Walker was going to be hot shit or something -- a major player ready to capitalize off the UniSol Van Damme heat and turn it into a big career. It never happened. She had parts in While You Were Sleeping (which I still have never seen – surprising, even to me) and the AMAZING Bed of Roses but then went mostly to a career in television after that. My last memory of her was playing the mom in Kazaam and thinking “Ally, baby, has it really come to this?” Maybe she wasn’t born with it. Maybe it was just the Maybelline.
Ernie Reyes Jr. – In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, this muthafucka STOLE a ninja turtles movie from the ninja turtles. That’s charisma! For about 15 minutes, New Line Cinema and I were seeing eye-to-eye and tried to capitalize off this cat’s laid back martial arts charm with Surf Ninjas, a movie I used to watch every day after school for about a month when I was 11 and a role that should have catapulted him into the stratosphere. Then Surf Ninjas bombed (thanks America!) and my bud ERJ disappeared from the scene for years until popping up in minor roles in movies like Rush Hour 2, The Rundown and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom...(the bad one). What happened? Did Ernie Reyes Sr. tell him to hit the books? Was it turtle karma? In any event, what we’re left with now is one of the biggest “what ifs” in the history of Hollywood. This dude deserves a proper comeback. He’s a rich man’s Jackie Chan.
Jaimz Woolvett – Who? The ‘Schofield Kid’ from Unforgiven, that’s who. If you’re noticing a pattern here, I used to think almost everyone in a movie from the early 1990s was going to be a big movie star one day. Regarding Jaimz Woolvett, it’s rare that an actor gets such a meaty supporting role in a mainstream movie with so many established actors (such as Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman). Unfortunately, due to some circumstances of bad timing, he was unable to capitalize on offers that came in based on his strong work in Unforgiven. What were left were small roles in movies like Dead Presidents and Rosewood. Furthermore, Woolvett had some major health problems (which he would later recover from) that proved a setback. Nowadays, according to IMDB, he is primarily directing and volunteering at schools around Los Angeles. I want Clint Eastwood to cast him in a sequel to American Sniper. It would also star Wesley Snipes and be called American Sniper II: Always Bet on Black. Jaimz would play a sniper who has never shot anyone but brags about being a great sniper and then quits after he actually snipes a guy for real.
Jason Scott Lee – In the Bruce Lee biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, I thought Jason Scott Lee did a very good job tackling both that movie’s action and dramatic elements. I was sure he was going to go on to have a serviceable career as an action star throughout the 1990s. He got some work, including playing Mowgli in Disney’s live-action The Jungle Book from 1994 (which is my holy grail Disney DVD now that DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp is in my collection [ #ThanksHeathHolland!]) and as the villain in Kurt Russell’s forgettable Soldier but he never broke out as a leading man. Since then he’s shown up in mostly supporting roles, such as the voice of David in Lilo & Stitch, Siu-Foo in Balls of Fury and, most recently, Urag in Seventh Son. Do I have to see Seventh Son now to show my support?
Jay Hernandez – I remember someone (I think it was an entertainment reporter) said Jay Hernandez was going to be the “Mexican Tom Cruise.” That person was wrong. And ignorant. Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, even in Mexico. But Jay Hernandez is pretty good too (cool, suave, likeable) and I thought after his co-lead performance in Crazy/Beautiful that he was going to tear shit up in Hollywood. That never really happened. He’s been mostly a supporting actor in movies like The Rookie, Torque, Ladder 49, Friday Night Lights, Lakeview Terrace, Quarantine, Nothing Like the Holidays, etc. He did have another lead role in Hostel, but Eli Roth got all the press off of that movie. Hernandez was recently cast in a role in Suicide Squad, so I’m happy he’s still getting work. I just thought he was going to change the game, you know? I think him and I would be friends in real life. Like me and Michael Jai White on Twitter, who followed me before I followed him!

Who did you think would hit it big and then didn’t?

24 comments:

  1. This sounds so silly in retrospect (I guess that's the thrust of this whole column), but when I saw Coyote Ugly, I was completely convinced that Piper Perabo was poised for Julia Roberts-level stardom and acclaim. I guess the fact that Rocky & Motherfucking Bullwinkle (full title) came out that same year should've tipped me off.

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    1. Yeah, what happened to her? She didn't seem to get too many chances post-Coyote Ugly.

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    2. She died in The Prestige and got naked in Looper. I guess that's about as good as it got for her.

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    3. She's the lead on Covert Affairs, which I believe is a popular show on the USA Network. That's the same network that used to air Psych!

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    4. i totally agree. i'm speculating here, but i vaguely remember her coming out of the closet- that doesn't seem to help a woman's career in hollywood (just ask michelle rodriguez…)

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    5. Did some more digging, gang. It appears ol' PP (how come that didn't catch on?) got into the restaurant game some years ago. Specifically, she poured some money into a pompous, overpriced and cramped Mediterranean bistro in SoHo called Jack's Wife Freda.

      http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/piper-perabo-jacks-wife-freda

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    6. I bet that's where she hosts those Cheaper By The Dozen remake cast reunion parties.

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    7. I'll maintain she's pretty good in Rocky, or at least just as silly-earnest as that movie needs.

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  2. I was pretty sure both Alicia Silverstone and Mandy Moore were going to be big movie stars. Didn't really shake out for either one of them.

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    1. She had a semi-mustache in Batman and Robin, right? Or was I seeing things?

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  3. Speaking of the early 90s, does anybody else remember If Looks Could Kill?


    GRIECO!

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  4. I was really pulling for Thora Birch after her great performance in "Ghost World". In "American Beauty", I would say her performance is really the only one that works. Unfortunately, after "Ghost World" all her main starring roles were forgettable B-horror movies and hilariously titled Lifetime movies "Homeless to Harvard" and "The Pregnancy Pact". The consensus is her father, who was also her manager, burn a lot of bridges with his behavior.

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  5. Following "Sweet Home Alabama", I was pretty certain that Josh Lucas would head off to better places following that movie's success. But unfortunately followups in big-budget catastrophes such as "Stealth" and "Poseidon" really doomed his career as a leading man just before it can even get started.

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  6. I was convinced Kal Penn and John Cho were both going to be big stars, based on The Namesake and Better Luck Tomorrow. I'm still hoping for both of them.

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  7. Agreed on Thora Birch. Also I'd go with Chow Yun-Fat. Dude was a mega-star in Hong Kong. He's the coolest dude on the planet. He looks like he was born with guns in both fists. How did Hollywood fail him so badly? He's in an Oscar nominated film (Crouching Tiger) he's down-billed from the King and I to Anna and the King, then has 5 minutes of screen time in Pirates of Caribbean 3. Now he's back to being awesome in China in films that never make it over here.

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    1. Ah, Chow Yun Fat. Another foreign action star that Hollywood attempts to introduce into American audiences, and then totally bungles.

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  8. Totally agree on the guy from Unforgiven. I didn't even know his name until this article, but his character was so crucial to that film and he rocked it. The only other examples I keep thinking of, though, are the opposite. That is, actors who I thought weren't that great but have still managed to have very successful careers haha. Jesse Eisenberg comes to mind, but he earned it with Social Network.

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  10. I'd have to say Colin Hanks. Yeah he was just on one of the best shows of the year in Fargo but he has really been relegated to supporting roles on TV shows and I just always felt someone coming from that family and his staring role in a movie I still quite like, Orange Country, would have been bigger.

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  11. In the last podcast column me and Mark were giving out some love to Stephen Chow from Kung fu hussle. He hasent really done much since, hes awsome in that movie and should certainly have kept going on up

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  12. Tom Everett Scott, Summer Glau, Aisha Tyler, and Carla Gugino all have good careers, but are often underutilized.

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  13. I think Nathan Fillion should be bigger than he is and no Castle does not count as using his talents to the best of their abilities. Make that dude the next Indiana Jones or something.

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  14. I thought Brandon Lee would have made it as a big action and action/comedy star. He was quite funny in that movie with Dolph Lundgren and great as The Crow. Too bad, he died.

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