9 Actors Who Haven't Topped Their Breakout Performance

6. Kate Hudson As Penny Lane - Almost Famous

It might seem hard to believe since she's spent the last 15 years helming vacuous rom-coms, but Kate Hudson's breakthrough performance in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous is genuinely great. Playing the wonderfully-named Penny Lane, Hudson garnered a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination at the tender age of 20, losing out to Marcia Gay Harden (for Pollock), but nevertheless announcing herself as a star-in-the-making. That never quite transpired, and while Hudson is no-doubt a well-known, likeable, charming actress, it remains that she hasn't produced anything even in the same hemisphere as her performance as the groupie-with-heart in Almost Famous. It can be argued that she hasn't even appeared in a single good film since she was Penny Lane - not all of her rom-com excursions are truly terrible, and she always has a nice chemistry with Matthew McConaughey, but still, in terms of Almost Famous-good: nothing - rendering her a true one-hit-wonder (but what a hit). With an upcoming role as Richard Pryor's (Eddie Murphy) wife in Lee Daniels' Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said?, Hudson looks to have her most interesting project in a over a decade, so here's hoping it goes someway into restoring her status as a serious actress.