10 Breakout Movie Performances That Ultimately Went Nowhere

The Big Break:

Having no previous acting experience, Jaye Davidson was approached at the wrap party for the 1991 film Edward II and asked to audition for Neil Jordan's 1992 IRA thriller The Crying Game.

Davidson role as Dil, the romantic interest of Stephen Rea's IRA volunteer, was all that anyone who had seen the film was talking about, especially the surprise reveal of Dil as a transwoman. In fact, Davidson's performance was such a success that his nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category at the Oscars threatened to reveal the twist to those who hadn't yet seen the movie. (The Chicago Film Critics Association meanwhile attempted to navigate such spoiler potential by nominating Davidson for both "Most Promising Actor" and "Most Promising Actress").

With a bright career ahead of him, Davidson was snatched up by Roland Emmerich to play the villainous alien god Ra in his sci-fi epic Stargate, taking home an enormous $1 million salary, almost unheard of then for an actor in merely their second movie role.

But Then:

Davidson was never comfortable with the fame of acting stardom. In fact, it has been suggested that he demanded such a mammoth fee for appearing in Stargate in the hope that it would deter producers from casting him.

He was also not particularly attached to the androgynous looks that made his name (despite his big break playing a trans character, Davidson has never identified as anything but a cisgender gay man).

Since Stargate, he has backed away from acting to pursue more work as a far more masculine-presenting male model.

Since the mid-90s, Davidson has just one acting credit: as a photographer in Nazi sex doll black comedy short film The Borghilde Project. Perhaps, then, his breakthrough role never led anywhere simply because he didn't want it to.