Ok, so the answer to the thread is Freddie Prinze Jr. and Orlando Bloom and all inbetween.

Josh Hartnett definitely qualifies as well.

Yes. I actually just asked someone a few days ago where Josh Hartnett went.

Home?

Top men are working on it!

Top. Men.

I remembered that Orlando Bloom married Miranda Kerr. No surprise he is in barely anything now, he'll probably spend the next ten years just having sex.

No one saw it, but I thought Bloom gave an interesting performance in The Good Doctor.

excellent pick, a prime example for a failed leading man career. horrible actor too.

You know who really went quiet. Emilio Estevez. The man was always starring in films, then around 2000, just stopped, came out no where and directed Bobby, not nothing really since then. I always liked him.

Rick Moranis too, though he left on his choice to raise his kids after his wife died.

Don Johnson headlined films once upon a time.

I don't think people like Owen, Law, Bana, Mortensen, Farrell, etc, really fit this thread that well. Yes, they flirted with stardom, and yes, they kinda failed at that. But they have always been pretty serious-minded about acting, and they are going to continue having strong roles in prestige pictures, made by prestige directors. I find it rather likely that 10-20 years from now, they are still going to have solid careers, mainly doing small/medium budget, but still high pedigree films. Just not big event films, or big B.O hits.

Shia LeBeouf has intentionally chosen that road now. He has stated that he is not interested in event films, he wants to do serious roles in serious films.

Orland Bloom got married, got a kid, and is going to be in the next two Hobbit movies (might be just cameos, but still). I think his main problem is that he simply isn't as talented as the other actors I mentioned. Directors don't like him as much as they like the other guys.

Personally I think Orlando is a fine actor, but I also think, that all those actors have the innate talent for being *great* when they have the right role and the right director. And yes, that includes Shia. I genuinely think that in the upcoming years he's going to come out with a his artistic breakthrough role. The guy has a big natural talent, that simply hasn't been properly mined yet. He should be around for a while.

Regardless, if someone has a steady career doing small or medium budgeted prestige pictures, I don't think it's fair to say their career went nowhere. They didn't become stars, but some maybe never really even wanted to become stars.

Excellent post, Tuukka, as always. But Owen, Law, Bana, Mortensen, Farrell are all stars. Like Chippy said, we can't all be the next Leo or Jolie.

Yes, Owen is a different case than, say, Hartnett (he is talented, for once). But he could have been on top (and he should have been), but he isn't.

Owen doesn't belong on this list. Sure he's not "huge" as some would think his potential was, but he's still popular among a certain crowd and still does films. Same with Cera.

Which is also true of Jude Law, Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell... Tuukka said it very well.

Stop and consider Jude Law for a second. Just his recent career. He played high-profile roles in a pair of well-received Steven Soderbergh films (Contagion and Side Effects), as well as a supporting part in one by Martin Scorsese (Hugo), and he is the co-lead in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which earned around 550 million worldwide. Oh, yes, his career is over.

I will not say her career went nowhere, but Jennifer Connelly could seriously use a rebound. Although I s'pose she intended Virginia (an Oscar friendly drama and the directorial debut of Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black) as such before it received savage reviews at Toronto.

I definitely agree with this.

In fact I think anyone who gets to consistently do good *supporting roles* in notable movies, with maybe an occasional starring role in very low budget films, qualifies as an amazing success. The vast, vast majority of actors never even flirt with that kind of momentum in their careers. Most struggle to get *any* roles in movies or TV, and those who do, carve careers on maybe saying only a few lines of dialogue, and getting only a few minutes of screentime, in every project that they do.

The guys mentioned are insane success stories compared to that. They are at (almost) the top of the acting world.

In my native country, there are actors who have headlined several big local films and are big stars in here. When they get their chance in Hollywood, it usually means really small stuff. Remember that fairly generic henchman-partner who accompanied Michael Nyqvist throughout M:I-4? He got maybe 15 short lines of dialogue, but probably a good 20-30 minutes of screentime. That was Samuli Edelmann, one of the biggest stars of all time in Finland, and it's the most notable Hollywood role any Finnish actor has ever had.

The 2nd biggest Hollywood role ever by a Finn is played by Pihla Viitala, who is one of our biggest female stars, and he got to play the witch Mina in Hansel & Gretel. I haven't seen the film yet, but I think she's 4th or 5th billing in it.

Every actor here in Finland would kill to have a Hollywood career like almost any actor mentioned in this thread. So yeah, this is all really dependent on your POV.

And laugh at him as much as you want, but Renny Harlin still remains the most successful director we have ever had, even if the arthouse filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki is much more artistically profilic, especially in Europe. And Renny is *still* making bigger budgeted films than any other Finn.

I would say the Finnish girl playing Jeremy Renner's love interest in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (the third or fourth most important role in the film) is a more notable role than a generic henchman in a Mission: Impossible film, even if Ghost Protocol made more money.

How about Josh Lucas? He was the Taylor Kitcsh of the mid 2000s and never recovered .

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/zu ... al-trailer

I think it was a concious decision of Bloom's to get out of the big budget game and focus on acting. I think Three Musketeers made his mind up.

Aaron Eckhart can be added to this list now.

Alicia Silverstone. Batman and Robin killed all the goodwill she had from Clueless.

Goodwill from chicks, yeah. But it created a bunch more from horny men.

Taylor Lautner, Clive Owen, Demi Moore. Rachel McAdams? I know she's in TV right now but we haven't seen her in movies for quite a while. I don't know if she went on the indy route.