9 Actors Who Haven't Topped Their Breakout Performance
1. Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa - Rocky
Mostly because of the calibre of films it blew away at the 76 Oscars (Taxi Driver, Network, All the Presidents Men), Rocky is often sneered at; a film not worthy of mentioning in the same breath as those it beat to Best Picture glory. And while its true that it isnt in the same league as those films, and also true that the sequels became increasingly worse, it remains that the original Rocky is a fine film in its own right.
And within that fine film is Sylvester Stallones breakthrough performance, the one hes yet to better in three decades and counting. Stallone - who also scripted the picture and was nominated for both acting and screenwriting Oscars to join the hallowed company of Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin as only the third man ever to be nominated for both in the same year - is phenomenal as the eponymous pugilist, turning in a performance full of brutal, realistic physicality (not to mention iconography).
Hes been in big franchises since Rambo, most notably, with First Blood the closest hes ever come to matching his turn here but its his work in Rocky that serves as the best example of both Stallone the action-star, and Stallone the actor.
Which other actors never topped that breakout role? Share any we missed down in the comments.