The great thing about being a celebrity is that there’s always another chance to right past wrongs. Defying expectations, sometimes actors can revive their careers with just one well-played part. And watching them rise from the grave of their stone-cold careers is like bumping into a friend at a high school reunion: sure, they’re fatter, balder, and several cosmetic surgeries down the road, but hell if they aren’t also new and improved.
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10. Kiefer Sutherland
It’s not that Kiefer ever stopped working, it’s just that the work he did after the ‘80s was by and large negligible. After Young Guns in 1988 he pretty much disappeared until 2001 when, of course, 24 began.
Has it been all a bed of roses since then? Not really. He’s had a few unimpressive movies – Mirrors is the only one that comes to mind – but he knows what side his bread is buttered on and has been loyal to 24. He’s not one of those actors who, as soon as they realize a TV show has energized their career, bails to do movies only to find the water is very, very cold. (Rob Lowe, David Caruso, and Jimmy Smits, I’m looking at you.)
Unfortunately, 24 has kind of run its course. We’re ready for Jack Bauer to stop saving the world from saving terrorists. Looks like Sutherland’s going to need a second stimulus package.
9. Neil Patrick Harris
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Most of us have happy memories about boy wonder doctor Doogie Howser. He was the precocious, big-headed teen who had to make life choices about growing up and about other peoples’ lives, and we loved him for it.
And then he disappeared from the face of the planet.
He popped up briefly for air in 1997 to play Carl Jenkins in Starship Troopers, then disappeared again. Like a lot of actors who have their careers revived after a protracted period of spotlight deprivation, NPH used the weapon he knew best: television. How I Met Your Mother reminded us of why we liked him in the first place – and his hilarious cameos in the Harold & Kumar movies certainly didn’t hurt, either.
8. Charlie Sheen
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For a guy who was Oliver Stone’s thespian muse in the ‘80s, Charlie Sheen’s career went into a particularly disgraceful tailspin in the ‘90s. You know things aren’t going well when you’ve gone from Platoon to Hot Shots! Part Deux, especially when the latter movie is the highlight of your career for that decade (his cameo in Being John Malkovich was another exception to an unexceptional 10 years).
While it’s true that Sheen never managed to reclaim his cinematic throne, he’s since become the highest paid actor on television, raking in a cool $825,000 an episode. That’s not quite as much as Jerry Seinfeld made during his heyday – he was pocketing $1,000,000 an episode for at least three seasons and was offered $5,000,000 an episode if he’d continued for one more season instead of wrapping in 1998 – but it’s probably enough to keep Sheen in shampoo and conditioner until the end of the millennium.
Not bad for a guy who spent the better part of the ‘90s as yet another poor excuse for a Sheen.
7. Sylvester Stallone
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After Cop Land things were not looking good for Sly. I mean, Cop Land was actually a pretty decent little movie, but you take a guy who’s been out of the limelight for a long time and stick him in an indie with Michael Rapaport (a man whose career defies more logic than Sarah Palin’s brain) and you get sub-optimal results.
But things have been looking up for Sly this decade. Not only has he resurrected the franchises that first made him famous – Rambo and Rocky – but he’s started up a new one, to boot: The Expendables. The man has found his second wind and he’s not slowing down.
6. John Travolta
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No one knows about the comeback more than John Travolta. His career was DOA by 1993. Here are the most recent films he’d made before Pulp Fiction: Look Who’s Talking, Look Who’s Talking Too, Eyes of an Angel, and, of course, the unforgettable Look Who’s Talking Now. The man had gone from ‘70s heartthrob to ‘90s clown, sharing the screen with talking babies and Kirstie Alley – it’s hard to say which is worse. At least he wasn’t in danger of being eaten by the babies.
Pulp Fiction pulled Travolta out of cinematic purgatory and gave him one of the best comebacks in the history of comebacks. He has Tarantino to thank for this, and if he was really smart he’d get on Tarantino to make a prequel of Pulp Fiction. His career could use it. Again.
