Whether you happen to buy into the whole Academy Awards thing or not, winning an Oscar is a big deal for any actor - when they look back across the span of their careers, receiving Hollywood's golden statue is likely to rank somewhere close to the top. And it makes sense: winning an Oscar usually marks the point at which an actor's career sky rockets; if they weren't super well-known before, they usually find themselves poised as the very centre of the cinema scene; suddenly everybody is a huge fan. But it doesn't always go that way. Sometimes the inherent pressure that goes hand in hand with an Oscar victory can cause something akin to a career meltdown. Actors unexpectedly find themselves feeling flummoxed and confused by their new found attention and their position as the toast of Hollywood - with so many opportunities at their fingertips, it can be an entirely disorienting experience. Take a look at the following 10 actors, then, all of which managed to bag an Oscar one year, only to later find themselves treading water - either unable to live up to the hype that the Academy Award brought them, lots of ill-judged movie choices in a row, or because there was nowhere else to go but down. Eddie Redmayne: let this be a lesson to you, sir. Watch your step, and be very, very careful...
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
