7 Actors Whose Film Careers Went Downhill After Winning An Oscar

As I covered in my previous article, winning an Oscar can do funny things to your career. You can rise up from obscurity to become one of the most famous A-list stars in Hollywood or your career can shrivel up and wither away, with direct-to-DVD movies being your only remaining option. Really, being a successful actor in Hollywood means having great people around you to help you make the right decisions so you can avoid all potential pitfalls. With some of these actors, not making the right decisions is the main reason why their careers go downhill; for others, it's just plain bad luck.

This list covers seven actors, in particular, whose movie careers took a turn for the worse after winning an Academy Award. Why just seven? Because, unlike actresses, actors actually have it pretty good in Hollywood. Scour through previous Oscar winners and you will find that most actors tend to do okay. For actresses, however, it's a much different story. Six out of the ten actresses that I had listed won their Oscars in the 2000s, by contrast, I had to go through over thirty years of awards winners just to find seven unlucky actors. So, join me, as I look into these actors' careers and attempt to figure out where it all went wrong.