When your name is your business card, your reputation is everything. No matter how bright the future might look, a few mistakes (or even one, if it's big enough) can nullify all the hard work you've done and make you an outcast. Especially in the entertainment industry.

Reddit user ElpidioPoitras1962 made a post on the platform, asking everyone, "Which actor most squandered an otherwise promising career?" People immediately started naming celebrities and their bad deeds, so we decided to go through the discussion (which already consists of 15K comments) and see who stood out in this online trial.

#1

Lindsay Lohan. She had so much going for her and it's such a shame that she just ended up getting caught up in all the [nonsense] that comes with Hollywood... I still kinda hope she'll make a comeback one day because she is actually very talented

Csula6: 

She had [jerk] parents and apparently learning difficulties. She never should have been in show business. The tabloids were okay with invading a teen girl's personal space.

Image credits: Anon_2004 ·

#2

Katie Holmes had so many projects going until she got with Tom Cruise.

MaskedMan8: 

He basically controlled everything she did from what I heard. He’s the reason she wasn’t in The Dark Knight.

Image credits: moscatodogiscute

#3

Kevin Spacey. You know why.

drew_tattoo: 

I mean, I think timing had a lot to do with it. MeToo was pretty big when Spacey's thing came out, then he f**ked it up more by trying to align himself with the LGTBQ community which was already (understandably) fighting pedophiles trying to throw in with them. Then other people started corroborating dude's story and it turned out Spacey had been r*ping boys in Hollywood for years.

Image credits: SerJustice

#4

Heath Ledger. Hurts, but he could have done so much more

.

damnyoutuesday:

I wouldn't call it "squandered", but man, what his career could've been always gets the mind running. Hell, what The Dark Knight Rises with the Joker returning could've been is enough to think about. He definitely would've had some damn good roles in some damn good movies. His Joker role was probably going to just vault his career to new heights. Damn shame that he died way too young.

Image credits: Weak_Commercial_7124

#5

I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Mickey Rourke. He was the leading man in a number of successful movies in the 80s then left Hollywood to become a boxer. His boxing career did so much damage to his face that he required reconstructive surgery. He did return to acting but his career never returned to anything close to the meteoric rise it had before.

Image credits: Liqourice5

#6

Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing, Ferris Bueller's Day Off) was sensitive about her large nose because of her school years and early acting career. With Dirty Dancing being a hit, she finally had the money to get herself Rhinoplasty. Unfortunately Hollywood disagreed and felt she lost her distinctive look; she was deemed too plain for the big screen and couldn't build off her success. She continued working but didn't get to have a career as leading lady.

Image credits: JewcyBoy

#7

Emile Hirsch after he choked an executive at Sundance.

mvcourse:

Always thought of he was born a decade earlier his career would’ve been solid. Really had the 90’s heartthrob look.

Image credits: craiglin23

#8

Taylor Lautner. Bro went from being the highest paid teen actor in Hollywood (or actor under 25, i don't remember the exact category) to unable to get a part because a movie he starred in was so incredibly bad. The reviews are hilarious (Abduction if anyone is interested)

gangsta_baby:

Taylor Lautner. All those sit-ups got him nowhere

Image credits: TheKinkyPixi

#9

Amber Heard. Well at least it’s squandered in the eyes of the public.

Image credits: Princess__AnimeLevi

#10

Shia LaBeouf. He was on his way up and Transformers had cemented him as someone who could lead a movie. You can debate about his talent and the quality of the movies, but any problems with them didn't have anything to do with him.

Ascholay: 

I feel like his downfall was growing up. Not that he shouldn't have pursued more but that film school pretentious attitude between projects.

If he wasn't famous he might have grown out of it and we'd see some great stuff. Because he was famous he had extra eyes watching when he made dumb kid decisions (like fighting with 4chan) and that's what killed him

jumas_turbo:

Guy admitted (told to the gf he was abusing) that part of his method acting for some sh**ty gangster movie he participated in involved him shooting stray dogs for fun, you know, to get into "gangster mentality"

Image credits: DisownedByMother

#11

Katherine Heigl

abcannon18: 

She talked [trash] about everything she was in... Knocked up, Grey's. She made herself completely unhireable and unlikable

Image credits: GundamMaker

#12

Edward Furlong. Terminator 2, American History X, the man was in so many great things and on his way to become a legend. Than it all went downhill. Such a shame.

pinball521: 

Drugs, alcohol, multiple arrests for domestic violence. He's pretty much a train wreck

Image credits: PreciousPraline

#13

Charlie Sheen. Could have been one of the greats. Went from platoon in 1986 to Wall Street in 1987 and then shooting his fiancé and future wife of John Travolta, Kelly Preston in the arm "accidentally" by 1990. And then a series of ups and downs before we all saw the unraveling into tiger blood and "winning" two decades later.

cabin_neighbor:

Has to be Charlie Sheen. So talented, some great serious roles, but the constant scandals, treating women like s**t and addiction problems completely destroyed his career.

I‘m not condoning any of his behavior, especially towards women, but I kind of feel for the guy.

Image credits: LordCheezusChrist

#14

Terrence Howard not continuing his role as James Rhodes/War Machine in Iron Man. To be fair Marvel was lowballing him on money for Iron Man 2, but it would have probably paid off if he continued in subsequent Iron Man/Avengers films. He still seems pretty bitter about the whole thing.

questionname:

 

He wasn't just paid a lot, he was the highest-paid actor in that movie for 10 minutes of screen time. And asked for the same treatment for IM2

Image credits: draiman

#15

Cuba Gooding Jr. won an Oscar and then nothing. It is true what they say... you know your career is over when you make a movie with dogs. Edit: The line about the movie with dogs was a joke. It is what I guess could be considered an old wives' tale. There have been plenty of actors who worked with dogs that had ok careers. Tom Hank Chuck Norris Jim Belushi To name a few. It was a joke because the last movie I remember seeing CGJ in was a dog movie of which I cannot remember the name.

Kittykittynobangbang: 

His more recent sex abuse charges probably won't help him much.

Image credits: richwith9

#16

Armie Hammer

GENERIC_VULGARNESS:

I hadn't heard anything about him, so I just googled it and holy [cow] - acting on BDSM/r*pe/cannibalism fantasies without his partner's consent!? No wonder he got dropped from everything.

Image credits: anonymidwest

#17

Jussie Smollett has to be in the running on this one. One crazy act and he'll never work in the industry again...in addition to the legal issues it has brought him. He was working since 1990 and has been in some pretty big productions...he was hot stuff for a while. All those years of building his career, all that work and that promising future just wiped away in an evening of pure and utter insanity. WTF was he thinking? Completely squandered everything he had worked for, in addition to making life that bit harder for real victims of hate crimes.

Image credits: anon

#18

Matthew Fox pretty much did nothing after LOST

winnower8:

Dom Monaghan basically said in an interview “just because you’re on a show together doesn’t mean you’re friends” about him. Might be a [jerk]

Image credits: green4355

#19

Rosanne. I think she's done now.

Inthewirelain:

That video she uploaded to her own YT channel where she screams out "I thought the b**ch was white!" is crazy. I do believe her to be honest she might not have meant it racially but she is just unhinged and probably drinking a lot, by the looks of it.

#20

Matthew Perry was awesome in Friends imo and had a couple bigger films afterwards. I believe without his addictions he could've had a solid career. But who cares, I just wished he'd get better.

Image credits: BrooklynNeinNein_

#21

Edward Norton was one of the best actors in Hollywood IMO. But apparently he has a bad reputation for being difficult on set. He hasn’t been in a big movie for a while now.

There was a time when he was getting nominated for Oscars. Primal Fear, American History X and Fight Club were great movies. And he was great in them

Image credits: GaryNOVA

#22

Amanda Bynes could've gone on to be one of the biggest women in comedy. She was genuinely hilarious and extremely smart.

Hollywood/Dan Snyder really f****d her up. She's doing better but had some pretty public freakouts recently.

#23

Rick Moranis would likely be one of the most celebrated comic actors of all time by now, but he gave it all up in the 1990s to raise his kids after his wife passed away. Much respect.

Image credits: zerbey

#24

Even though he is finacially very successful, I'd say Johnny Depp has squandered his artistic potencial by allowing himself to be eternally typecast as some variation of Hunter S. Thompson / Jack Sparrow to the point where he can't even knock that s**t off in private. He used to be someone that could have pulled off any role, now he's just doing a schtick.

I think it would have done him wonders to do a few arthouse movies in between. Something with a director that would challenge him as an actor.

#25

Jessica Biel comes to mind! She publicly stated that it’s so hard being her. Because of how good-looking she is, she never gets casted for roles anymore... which led to no one wanting to cast her.

#26

Eva Mendes hasn't done anything since starting a family with Ryan Gosling...

Reckoner1122:

That's by choice though, she wanted to be a stay at home mom. Then her brother was diagnosed with cancer, and she became his fulltime caregiver. She has a very successful fashion line, and has said that's where her passion is. She might return to acting once the kids are older, but from what I understand, she's happier now than she's ever been. Gotta give credit to people who choose that over "fame".

#27

Letitia Wright. She was the obvious choice to replace Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther. Then, apropos of nothing, she went on an antivax and antitrans rant on Twitter. Then played the victim card when people told her off. Now she's not going to be BP. It would be a career-maker for life.

#28

Faye Dunaway was set to become Hollywood royalty with Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, and Network under her belt. But by the late 70s, her on-set behavior became the stuff of legend. She got branded with the cursed "difficult" label, then *Mommie Dearest* came out and that was pretty much it. Then Bette Davis came out against her and that was pretty much it for her in leading roles in film. She had to start doing television, and many bit parts and guest appearances. A true fall from her former glory.

#29

CASEY AFFLECK. After the news broke in 2017 after he won an oscar, his roles started drying up. No new projects on the way. Last film he did was straight to video with a 10% RT score.

#30

Hayden Panetierre...

She had such a great youth in acting. And started looking like she was destined to be one of the next Hot-Sexy "it" girls.


But it seems Hayden has quite a few demons she's dealt with over the years. If you ever get bored, there is a rabbit hole of Blind Items about her upbringing and how its basically implied that she was whored out to MANY power players in Hollywood by her own parents, knowing full well what was going on because her father also had sexually abused her (allegedly)... then a few years ago after she divorced that Russian boxer, she got involved with a piece of c**p dude who routinely used to beat the c**p out of her, to the point he went to jail for it and she got a restraining order.... and then she went on to supposedly have sex with the dude's dad and brother...


Oh, but now that he's out of Jail and no longer under the restraining order... she's back with him... I'm sure it will end well.


Sad, but she seems like a very damaged girl.

#31

Mischa Barton quit the OC because she didn’t want to become type cast.

anon:

She was having drug problems and suffering from depression. It's understandable, but still ruined her career.

Image credits: sharpie456

#32

I feel like Cory Monteith (main dude from the early seasons of 'Glee') had a very bright future, sadly the guy always had some issues with addiction, which eventually took him. Shame.

#33

Robert Downey JR before Iron man. People forget how much of a bounce-back that was for him.

naanadrama: 

All I knew of him in my teenage years at the time was he was a former Hollywood actor and was always getting arrested on drug charges. So I was surprised when I saw him as Iron Man. He’s done great for himself.

Image credits: anon

#34

Lillo Brancato. He broke out in A Bronx Tale, was a good supporting character in Crimson Tide, and had a recurring role in The Sopranos.
He became addicted to heroin and was involved in a home invasion robbery where his accomplice murdered the off duty police officer living there.
Promising career right down the toilet like in Trainspotting.

Image credits: S-WordoftheMorning

#35

Back in the 80s Jon-Erik Hexum was on a show and was just starting to become well known when he shot himself with a blank. That is one crazy way to end a promising career in a split second.

MethMouthMagoo:

It was a real gun. It was loaded with blanks.

He took all but one blank out, and played Russian roulette. Not knowing that even with a blank, a gun can cause damage, if close enough.

Image credits: Adezar

#36

Jan Michael Vincent

tfresca: 

People are joking but he was a teen heart throb who died with missing limbs and a traumatic brain injury. Drugs and alcohol.

Image credits: mgable74

#37

Lea Michele.

The lead in the Funny Girl revival was hers for the taking, but she spent her entire career being mean and difficult to work with and now, shocker, no one wants to work with her.

With her talent, she should have taken Broadway by storm and scored the lead in a hit movie musical or two.

And this isn’t about her being more or less talented than anyone else in the Glee cast, but her voice and acting style were made for musical theatre.

Image credits: DramaBrat

#38

Puts on shades - David Caruso

BooeyBrown:

Another alcoholic whose rage ruined his career. His sobriety is what allowed him to return.

Side note: David had Kim Delaney kicked off of CSI:Miami for her inability to stay sober. All CSI franchises originally required a recognizable male-female duo to lead the show at launch. The former stars of NYPD Blue were a huge “gimme” for CBS, at the time

Image credits: Durhay

#39

Surely this needs to include Danny Masterson or whatever that guy's name was from That 70s Show. Combine him with the girl from Smallville and you have some serious messed up stuff.

bentheechidna: 

Would at least be easier if it were just sexual assault, but then he was part of the cult of scientology and used the cult to try and silence his accusers. I'd still be upset about the sexual assault part but the scientology aspect really throws out how systemic and defended people like him really are even when the public turns against him.

Image credits: anon

#40

Shannen Doherty from Beverly Hills 90210. Her attitude got her tossed from that show. Her fights with Jennie Garth were famous. Then she got onto Charmed and the same thing happened with Allyssa Milano. And her career pretty much dropped after that because she was considered a b***h and too difficult to work with. Now, sadly, she has Stage 4 Terminal Breast Cancer. Although she claims she feels she has 10-15 more years to live the fact is that she doesn't. When it spreads she'll have months.

#41

Kirk Cameron was an American teen idol who was the lead in one of the biggest sitcoms of the era, Growing Pains with many predicting a long, successful career in television or possibly even movies.

Then he became a Born-Again Christian and f****d the show up so badly that it's now more famously known for being the show that Leonardo DiCaprio was on when he was younger and that was only for the final season.

First of all, he had two of his stars - Julie McCullough and Matthew Perry - who would later go onto play Chandler in Friends - fired for different reasons. Cameron was offended when Julie had featured in an issue of Playboy which he felt went against his own image and he just deemed Perry "An agent of Satan". And while his drug issues during friends are famous in and of themselves, there was... no other reason why Cameron had Perry fired. It was just "I don't like him. And keep in mind that while Perry had a fairly minor role in the series, Julie played Cameron's on-screen girlfriend so he not only pissed her off but all of the shippers as well.

But he also royally pissed off the show's producers as he constantly nixed jokes that he considered rude or risqué, which heavily disrupted the show's dynamics. In fact, the show was retooled at least once so Cameron could get rid of his co-stars. In fact, there was an entire three-part storyline where the family went on vacation in Europe which was meant to be filmed *in* Europe, with shooting costs being subsidized by different countries' tourism boards, only for Cameron to force them to shoot the entire series of specials in California instead.

This led to a furious back-and-forth and attempted backstabbing by Cameron against the show's executive producers that backfired horribly. They attempted to rein his prima donna antics in only to find out that they flat-out couldn't since ABC wouldn't let them fire him since he was the biggest star.

But when they found out that Cameron tried to go behind their backs on one planned storyline by calling then-head of ABC Bob Iger and referred to them as "Pornographers", they had enough and demanded Cameron's firing one more time. When Iger refused, they decided to force Cameron out and shut down production of the show, cancelling it outright.

This f****d over Cameron since his news about how he had ruined the show and his bad blood with his costars had spread across Hollywood. For one thing, he refused to ask any of his co-stars to his wedding, which was during the show's production so everyone knew their working relationship was bad.

Nowadays, he's known exclusively for starring in Left Behind, an extremely awful Christmas movie fron 2018 and being an anti-vax dumbass.

#42

Megan Fox. While I know that most people aren't exactly fans of Michael Bay because of what he did with the Transformers movies, comparing him to Hitler, knowing that Steven Spielberg is Jewish, didn't exactly help her cause.

#43

Shelley Long left the biggest sitcom on TV right at the height of its popularity, to pursue a movie career. Didn't really work out for her.

#44

James Dean. He was already a huge movie star. But he was well on his way becoming one of the biggest, if not the biggest movie stars of all-time. A fantastic talent gone because he liked fast cars.

#45

Asa Butterfield was in the running to be the MCU Spider-Man, but he tweeted about it rather arrogantly / distastefully and it ruined his chance

Lol, and to rub it in, ALL major Spider-Men are technically now in the MCU, and A*s Butter is none of them.

#46

Crispin Glover. After Back to the Future he could have built a great career, except he was really a strange person and not very good at hiding it. Though he has been able to consistently find work in low-budget / indie projects, he could have been an A lister if he wasn't such an odd-ball.

#47

Kate Hudson was so good in Almost Famous that everything else she did afterwards feels like a letdown.

#48

Cas Anvar.

Main character in The Expanse, a SciFi show that has been skyrocketing in popularity sense being picked up by Amazon. Had credible accusations of sexual harassment leveled against him that ended with him being removed from the show

#49

Gina Carano had potential, huge potential. Imagine having a huge role in one of the most loved Star Wars new series.... Also being liked but many people because you're a legit strong character with no fluff.... and then bam, had to go out and tweet stupid s**t. 

#50

Kevin Sorbo. Gets cast as Hercules in a pretty successful show, moves on to star in Andromeda, connected with Lucy Lawless and all sorts of other people, but goes all right wing religious fundamentalist diva and pisses them all off to the point nobody wants to work with him anymore.

#51

Nicki Clyne. She left Battlestar Galactica to focus on her MLM sex cult NXIVM.

#52

Corey Haim. What's even sadder is that apparently his addiction is in part because he was sexually abused as a child star.

#53

Brett Butler. Went from making $250,000 an episode starring in Grace Under Fire (1993-1998) to a Go Fund Me in 2021 so she wouldn't end up homeless.

Broken-Butterfly:

That's what happens when you do a sh*tton of drugs and sexually assault children on set. F*ck Brett Butler.

#54

Fairuza Balk. I think she had amazing acting potential. But I’ve heard that she’s apparently big into witchcraft and animal sacrifice, so that’s probably got around to people in the industry.

#55

Brad Renfro. Excellent in The Client as a kid, as well as Sleepers. Excellent in then movie Bully as an adult, plus some other films.

Drugs took it all away.

#56

Haven't seen Elizabeth Berkley on the list yet. Her career was really taking off, she then took the wrong role in Showgirls and it basically stopped her career cold.

Wasn't fair to the actress, but she had so much potential before that.

#57

Phillip Seymour Hoffman. No question. A bad relapse and he’s gone. Best character actor of our generation arguably.

#58

Shannen Dougherty is the first one that comes to mind. Lead female role on the hottest show on tv at the time…and just couldn’t stop herself from blowing it all up. It’s must suck to peak at an age when you’re too young to appreciate it.

#59

Ja Rule turned down an offer to remain in the fast in the furious franchise after the original movie because he thought they were low balling him with their offer. After he turned them they wrote in a new character to fill the slot in script that Ja Rule would have had and gave the part to Ludacris.

#60

Gary Dourdan who played Warrick on CSI. I really thought he had leading man potential and was going to transition to the big screen like Clooney did.

#61

George Lazenby The guy that followed Sean Connery as James bond and then just stopped after one film.

thefuzzybunny1 replied: 

To be fair, when they made a documentary about this (Becoming Bond, I believe?) it turned out there were a lot of unreasonable things in the contract that Eon asked George Lazenby to sign. They wanted him to live his entire life, both on and off screen, in a manner that fit the "image" of James Bond. That would've meant 5 years of needing to dress, shave, eat and drink like 007, even on his days off. He let his beard grow a bit during the press tour for the one movie he did, because beards were in at the time, and the studio pitched a fit. He would've shaved in time to start shooting the next one, but they were angry anyway. Bond doesn't wear a beard, so Lazenby can't have one either!

Plus On Her Majesty's Secret Service was his first paid acting job, ever, so he hadn't come up in the industry. He wasn't used to those kinds of expectations. I wouldn't have signed a lifestyle contract under those circumstances, and it's not too surprising he didn't want to, either.

So, he went and did something else with his life. He was a competitive BMX biker, he raised a family. He's actually pretty rich now from various real estate investments, I understand. It's not Hollywood's vision of success, but there's something to be said for it

#62

Josh Hartnett, but to be fair, it was his personal choice.

FoundingEarthborn:

I think he settled down with his kids in England. He’s taking smaller roles now so he can be with his family.

#63

John Wilkes Booth - supposedly the best American Shakespearean actor of his day but then went all political and it didn’t end well.

#64

Mike Meyers. Some folks said he 86'd his career when he did The Love Guru.

#65

Ansel Elgort, was in two big films and could have been the next teen sensation but had to be a wierdo.

#66

Edward Furlong )T2: Judgement Day, and American History X).

Probably one of the most promising young actors of the 90s. Suddenly dropped off the grid and was never really the same ever after, following I think a drug addiction.

#67

Stewart Townsend. He had some big films where he was a lead: queen of the damned and league of extraordinary gentlemen, he was also cast in lord of the rings but lost it for some reason. Then he just disappeared. It was so weird it really seemed like he was on the cusp of making it big.

Ok_Mathematician2087:

I read an interview where his brother said that he had urged Stewart to go back to England and work in the UK once his Hollywood career clearly wasn't going to take off, but Stewart felt like it was a step down. I can understand that ego blow, but he would have done fantastic back in the UK If he had just swallowed his pride. A lot of raw talent, but it just didn't translate to what was big at the time in the US.

#68

Joe Son, the guy who played Random Task in Austin Powers. He was arrested for vandalism, and then when the police took a DNA sample, they found he was also guilty in a r*pe case several years prior. And then he killed his cellmate, so he'll be in jail until the 2030's.

#69

I used to love Boy Meets World and based off interviews they did after the show they all thought they would be big but none of them got any work for a while. I think they’re all working now in various fields but I’m surprised they didn’t immediately shoot up in popularity once the show ended.

I heard an interview with Danielle Fishel where she basically said that at the time the show ended, she had a big ego and thought she was too good for daytime soaps but no one else wanted to hire her. (I’m paraphrasing something I read years ago so don’t quote me)

#70

Sean Young - she did No Way Out and Bladerunner. Then she went batsh*t over not getting Catwoman and after Ace Ventura faded into obscurity.

#71

T.J. Miller was doing pretty good until his public freak out, wasn't he screaming about a bomb or something.

AalphaQ:

Yeah he suffered a traumatic brain injury and his personality actually changed after his surgery