Are There Second Acts in Hollywood?
Actors will often try to change or rejuvenate their careers by changing the kinds of roles they play on-screen. But can they change how the public sees them?
Sometimes actors will change the kind of roles they take on because they want to change the way they’re viewed by the public. Other times, they’ll play an unorthodox part in a film that unexpectedly blows up, changing the trajectory of their career almost entirely by accident. And sometimes they’ll switch from acting in the kind of movies that offer them professional prestige to the kind that pay really good money. But regardless of the reasoning behind the reinvention, they generally tend to appeal to movie audiences — after all, everybody loves a comeback.
But are there really second acts in Hollywood? Just because an actor begins to play different roles doesn’t necessarily mean fans have forgotten their former personae. We studied this phenomenon by looking at three actors who have undergone a career renaissance to see if their fans favor movies from their new eras or the movies that first brought them into the public eye. The results indicate that, in many cases, actors are more than capable not just of changing the kind of roles they play, but of changing people’s minds.
MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY
There’s probably no clearer example of this Hollywood phenomenon than Matthew McConaughey. After a breakout lead role in A Time to Kill, McConaughey consistently found himself almost exclusively starring in romantic comedies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Failure to Launch. The star took time off from acting to “unbrand” himself in the public eye, then returned in the early 2010s with roles in gritty dramas like Killer Joe and The Lincoln Lawyer. By 2014, the peak of the “McConaissance,” he’d earned an Emmy nomination for acting in True Detective and an Oscar for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
Did it Stick?
Today, McConaughey is still making the kind of movies that defined his renaissance, working with directors like Guy Ritchie in The Gentlemen and Harmony Korine in The Beach Bum. But while the actor has certainly succeeded in changing the kind of roles he was offered, has he also been able to change the way the general public perceives him?
Ranker Insights data says yes! Fans of McConaughey are more likely to love his 2014 collaboration with director Christopher Nolan, Interstellar, than any other movie starring McConaughey. Specifically, those who voted him up on our list of The Best Actors In Film History (3.2 million votes) are 4X more likely to also vote up Interstellar on The Best Movies Of All Time (7.3 million votes). McConaughey fans are also slightly more likely to vote up True Detective on our list of TV Shows That Only Smart People Appreciate (1.3 million votes). Meanwhile, none of the Texas actor’s rom-coms of the 2000s register with his current fan base.
That finding is supported by the results of our list of The Best Matthew McConaughey Movies Of All Time (12K votes). The list has The Lincoln Lawyer at the top of the list with post-McConaissance films Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and Interstellar filling out the rest of the Top 5, along with A Time to Kill sitting at #2. It seems as though McConaughey’s new approach to the acting business is all right, all right, all right with moviegoers!
LIAM NEESON
Actors don’t always change their on-screen persona to get prestige. Liam Neeson first rose to fame as the star of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, earning the Irish star an Academy Award nomination for best actor. Afterward, he played historical figures such as Irish politician Michael Collins and groundbreaking sexologist Alfred Kinsey, starred in acclaimed movies like Gangs of New York, and played parts in blockbuster franchise films including The Phantom Menace, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Batman Begins.
But in 2008, the then-56-year-old Neeson surprised many by finding success as an action star. Taken was an unexpected hit that spawned two sequels, as well as more action roles for Neeson in The Grey, The A-Team, and A Walk Among the Tombstones. Today Neeson performs almost exclusively in action movies like The Commuter and Non-Stop, though he still occasionally appears in prestige films like Martin Scorsese’s Silence and the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. His newest film, Retribution, is an action-thriller set to premiere August 25.
Did it Stick?
It’s a close call, but our data says that fans of Neeson are slightly more likely to be fans of the original Taken than they are of Schindler’s List. The gap is wider among some pockets of his fan base: Those who voted up Neeson on The Best Actors In Film History are only 3X more likely to also vote up Schindler’s List on The Best Movies Of All Time, while they’re 8X more likely to vote up Taken and 5X more likely to vote up Batman Begins. While fans don’t have much of a statistical affinity for his lesser-known action flicks, the fact that Taken is so much better known and beloved by Neeson’s fans than the drama that put him in the public eye indicates he’s fully made the transition to action star.
SANDRA BULLOCK
Sandra Bullock’s reputation as a leading woman in the early aughts was, much like Matthew McConaughey’s at the time, tethered to romantic and action comedies. Due to the success of Ms. Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice, Bullock was mostly being cast in movies like The Lake House, despite her big role in the Oscar best picture-winning film Crash. In 2009, however, she starred in The Blind Side, a heartfelt sports drama that earned her the Academy Award for best actress. The suddenness of this breakthrough role is best illustrated by the fact that the same year she won this award, she also won the Razzie for worst actress for All About Steve.
In the years following The Blind Side, Bullock became more selective with the roles she took on, aiding in her transition from rom-com regular to prestigious star. One of the roles she selected was the leading one in Gravity, a realistic space drama that earned Bullock a nomination for another best actress Oscar. Since then, Bullock has continued to star in popular and prestigious movies like Ocean’s 8, Birdbox, and Bullet Train.
Did it Stick?
As popular as Bullock’s movies are with theatergoers, it seems that the bulk of her fan base prefers her earlier work. Fans of Bullock have a stronger affinity for Ms. Congeniality than any other film, as they’re 3X more likely to vote it up on lists like The Most Rewatchable Movies (4 million votes). They’re also 2X more likely to love her 2009 romantic comedy The Proposal. Meanwhile, The Blind Side barely registers with this audience, as Insights says those who voted up Bullock on The Most Beautiful Celebrities Of Our Time (8 million votes) were less than 1X more likely to vote up The Blind Side on The Best Movies Of All Time.
That being said, those who voted up Bullock on the list of The Greatest Actors & Actresses In Entertainment History (2 million votes) were 5X more likely to vote up Crash on The Best Movies Of All Time — though it should be noted that movie came before her career renaissance in 2009. While Bullock has had a very similar trajectory to Matthew McConaughey’s, for whatever reason, she’s had a harder time shaking off the associations of her older films. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though — after all, 59% of the votes cast for Bullock on lists across Ranker have indicated positive sentiment, while just 54% of those cast for McConaughey have been positive.
