Sometimes, actors fall out of the limelight due to their personal conduct or after a string of failed movies. Other times, they get blacklisted due to Hollywood backroom dealings. Either way, when they manage to break back onto the scene, their comebacks can become the stuff of legend.
Betty White
Betty White had such a long career that she had numerous comebacks. She had some early success in the 1950s (yes, 70 years ago) in the show Life with Elizabeth. Then she popped back up in the 70s on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and then later on The Golden Girls. She was even on Hot in Cleveland in 2010. Suffice it to say, she was a big deal by the end of her career.
Keanu Reeves
Believe it or not, Keanu Reeves wasn’t always a Hollywood A-lister in his career. Between the failure of the second two Matrix films and his reemergence in the title role of John Wick, Reeves was in a slew of terrible projects that sank his profile.
Jane Fonda
Unlike many actors who faded into obscurity for bleak reasons, Jane Fonda just stepped away from the cameras because she got married to Ted Turner. The pair divorced in 2001, and she popped back up in a lot of major roles.
Ke Huy Quan
Ke Huy Quan, who famously appeared as a child in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but he then vanished from Hollywood for years. He finally reappeared in Finding ‘Ohana, and then had an Oscar-winning turn in the film Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
Rob Lowe
You know what they say, “when they go Lowe, we go Highe.” Wait, no they don’t. Look, Rob Lowe is great. He was in a lot of 80s movies as a member of the “Brat Pack,” but he fell from grace when some infamous videos of him partying too hard made the rounds. He made his comeback on The West Wing in 1999 and has stayed in the public eye ever since.
Michael Keaton
It’s poetic that Michael Keaton broke back into Hollywood with the extremely meta Birdman. In that film, he plays a washed-up actor who has been defined by his one-off portrayal of a superhero. Following that, he’s seen a huge return to form, playing everyone from The Vulture in the MCU to Ray Kroc in The Founder.
Winona Ryder
The endlessly likable and charming Winona Ryder was the “it” girl of the late 90s. She was arrested in 2001 on a shoplifting charge, which saw her get dropped by most Hollywood studios. It wouldn’t be until 2016 when she had a starring role in Stranger Things that she fully recaptured her former star power.
John Travolta
Heartthrob and odd dude John Travolta blew everyone’s socks off with his roles in Saturday Night Fever and Grease. He took the 80s off for whatever reason, but went back to being a big deal with the eccentric 1994 crime drama Pulp Fiction.
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Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser was the next big thing in the late 90s, with huge roles in movies like The Mummy and George of the Jungle. The word is he was blacklisted in Hollywood after he spoke out against Philip Berk, the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, regarding an alleged assault. Fraser made a huge comeback in 2022 when he won an Oscar for his leading role in The Whale.
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Robert Downey Jr.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: RDJ was a huge star in the 90s, but a string of high-profile scandals and his personal struggles with addiction benched him. He rehabilitated his image and burst back onto the scene with 2008’s Iron Man, became the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the rest is history.
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