8) Adrien Brody
Then:
A lanky live-wire making an impression in films by auteurs like Steven Soderbergh, Terrence Malick, Spike Lee, Ken Loach and Roman Polanski. Malick may have screwed him by editing his lead role in The Thin Red Line down into a cameo, but Polanski directed Brody to a Best Actor Oscar win in The Pianist.
Now:
Now churning out movies – few of them good – like a cash-strapped content factory, Brody must be one of the most unfortunate Best Actor Oscar winners alive. After a brief period of stardom (The Village, King Kong), Brody’s stock plummeted, to the point where now the only name director willing to take a punt on him is Wes Anderson.
Otherwise for Brody it’s flop stoner comedies like High School, dud indies like American Heist, or movies you’ve never heard of like InAPPropriate Comedy with Lindsay Lohan, which has a high score of 1 on Metacritic.
7) Johnny Depp
Then:
Loveable weirdo star of cult films such as Edward Scissorhands, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood, Dead Man and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and a mainstream hit in Donnie Brasco and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Now:
Irritating weirdo star of such tosh as Alice in Wonderland, The Tourist, Dark Shadows, Transcendence, Mortdecai and two Kevin Smith movies that even Smith fans prefer to pretend don’t exist.
Having for the past decade-plus dragged out both the Pirates franchise and his working relationship with the faltering Tim Burton, Depp at least had some success last year with Black Mass. But looking at what he has coming up next, it seems that what some called his ‘comeback’ was just a blip.