10 Actresses Whose Careers Went Downhill After Winning An Oscar

9. Reese Witherspoon

Oscar Win: Best Actress, Walk The Line (2006) When Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar for Best Actress in 2006, she was a proven box office draw. In the past eight years, however, she's had just one hit: the critically-panned 2008 film Four Christmases, which co-starred Vince Vaughn. Yikes. You might think her Oscar-winning performance in Walk The Line was an anomaly, but when she initially started out, Reese Witherspoon's career could not have been any more promising. Fear, Overnight Delivery, Pleasantville, Cruel Intentions, Election, American Psycho - not all of these movies were great, but at the very least, she played interesting characters. It seems the breakout success of Legally Blonde in 2001 has since typecast her in other similar, rom-com roles even after the acclaimed she received for portraying June Carter Cash. The good news is that Reese Witherspoon finally seems ready to break out of her comfort zone. After appearing in the critically-acclaimed film Mud last year, Witherspoon hopes to build on that success with roles in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice and Jean-Marc Vallée's Wild. Jean-Marc Vallée's last film was Dallas Buyers Club, which has seen Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto pick up dozens of awards. Can the director also breathe some new life into Reese Witherspoon's career?