When it comes to ranking the Batman movies, I think most will agree that The Dark Knight is perched firmly at the top.

However, what about the bottom of the list? Well, I think things get a bit trickier there. Sure, I know exactly what Batman movie people want to place at the bottom (and I’ll get to it in a few), but for my money, the worst live-action Batman movie is 1995’s Batman Forever, and by a wide margin.

And, look, I know I’m pretty much the ONLY person who says this, but I have my reasons. Here are just a few.

Let's Get This One Out The Way First. Yes, I Think Batman Forever Is Worse Than Batman & Robin

When I ranked the Batman movies, I put Batman & Robin at the bottom, but it’s not because I think it’s the worst. No. It’s actually because I’m a man of the people, and I know everybody hates Batman & Robin. But personally, I LOVE it, and I always have (I actually now like Batman v. Superman, which surprises me). Because what people think is its biggest weakness–that it’s way too silly–I think is its biggest strength, since Batman & Robin always has its tongue firmly in its cheek, right down to Clooney’s silly performance.

Which is the thing, really, because Batman Forever doesn’t entirely commit to being camp like its follow-up. Directed by Joel Schumacher after two successfully dark Tim Burton Batman movies, Batman Forever often walks the line between something that wants to be taken seriously and something that’s incredibly goofy, and this mishmash kind of throws it off for me.

I think it also might be because Val Kilmer commits to being an amazing Batman, which actually works AGAINST this movie, which I’ll get into next.

Val Kilmer Is A Great Batman In A Bad Batman Movie

I know some people think Val Kilmer isn’t at his best in this movie when compared to other Batmen, but I think Kilmer does a good job of playing both Bruce Wayne and Batman, which is never an easy task.

As Wayne, he’s charming, and as Batman, he doesn’t brood like Bale’s or Pattinson’s versions, nor is he a tired bruiser like Ben Affleck. Instead, he’s actually more similar to the quieter (but somehow more lethal) Michael Keaton, but slightly modified to fit this movie's more colorful tone. And, I don’t think that should be understated. Val Kilmer is just a tad beneath Keaton for me.

That works against him since the playful tone is dialed up to a million, what with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey hamming it up, and it just throws the whole thing off since Batman sometimes seems like he’s in a different movie. Oh, and speaking of Jim Carrey…

I Agree With Tommy Lee Jones. I Can't Sanction Jim Carrey's Buffoonery

Jim Carrey–who was my childhood–has a really funny story about a time he went up to Tommy Lee Jones outside of work, and Jones told him that he couldn’t “sanction” his “buffoonery.” And honestly, when it comes to Carrey’s performance as The Riddler, I’m with Jones on this one.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Tommy Lee Jones singing “Trick or treat” at Wayne Manor beside Carrey is ludicrous to the nth degree, but I really do feel like Carrey goes WAY over the top (even more than usual for the ‘90s) in this movie. It really makes me kind of despise his character.

And, I’m talking about despising him just as much as I despise Jared Leto’s Joker in Suicide Squad. That’s how much I loathe Jim Carrey’s manic performance in this movie. Even as a kid, I just found it so annoying.

That Said, It Still Has Its Positives!

Here’s the thing. While I genuinely can’t stand Batman Forever, I do have to give some props to its visual style. The backdrops and designs are colorful in a way that really does look like a comic book at times, so kudos to that.

Oh, and the soundtrack is still bananas. “Kiss From a Rose” by Seal is way too good a song for this middling movie. Method Man’s “The Riddler” is also great, as is U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.”

But the rest? Put it straight and directly in the trash.

Recently, I was watching an interview with Sylvester Stallone where he was looking back on his career. As he was talking about the Rambo franchise, specifically the first movie in the series (and by far the best of the series), First Blood, he mentioned another movie I’d never heard of: The Hunted.

Stallone said that the movie, which you can watch with a Paramount+ subscription, was based on the book First Blood, which his movie from 1982 was also based on. I read it years ago, and I knew a lot had been changed for the movie, so I had to watch The Hunted. It’s a wild movie.

The Hunted Is Packed With Talent

After reading a little about The Hunted, I was surprised that I had never heard of it. It’s loaded with A-list talent. Benicio del Toro plays an elite soldier who has gone nuts, and Tommy Lee Jones, his former instructor, is tasked with bringing the loose cannon in. It co-stars Connie Nielsen, of Gladiator fame, and features some great character actors, including Rex Linn, Mark Pellegrino, and José Zúñiga. Johnny Cash provides a brief intro narration.

The film is directed by the Academy Award-winning William Friedkin, who is most famous for The French Connection and The Exorcist, among many others. It also had a reported budget of over $50 million, which certainly wasn’t chump change in 2003. All things pointed to The Hunted being an underrated classic. Well, all things except the reviews, which were mostly negative. Still, I was ready to dive in.

The Hunted Is A Violent, Crazy Flick, But The Direct Connection To First Blood Isn’t Clear

It also appeared that maybe Stallone wasn’t exactly correct when he said in the interview with GQ that the movie was based on the book. I couldn’t find any evidence that the book First Blood, which was published in 1972, and The Hunted were directly connected. However, plenty of reviews of the movie compared it, mostly negatively, to the book and the Stallone film.

First Blood famously changed quite a bit from its source material, most notably the ending. I won’t spoil it if you’ve never seen it, but let’s just say the book is much more violent and much more tragic in the end than the movie is. It seems to me that The Hunted was very much inspired by the original First Blood book. The plot is that of a rogue soldier hunted by his former mentor (Col. Trautman in First Blood) that ends tragically for everyone. In fact, if I were author David Morrell, who wrote First Blood, I’d have to question if too much was lifted from my story.

In The End, The Hunted Just Isn’t Very Good

I went in with an open mind, ignoring the critics on this one. As the movie went on, however, I got more and more frustrated. I really wanted this to be good, but it just isn’t. The dialogue is cheesy and ham-fisted, the performances are pretty thin, and the direction is lazy. It’s not what I expect from the talent involved. There is so much obvious foreshadowing early in the movie that the third act of the movie was basically spoiled before it even started.

I see now why it carries only a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; it’s not what anyone wants to see from the likes of Friedkin, Jones, and del Toro. At least I can take comfort in the fact that one of the best movies on the 2025 movie schedule, One Battle After Another, features del Toro in a much better performance.

Hollywood is a tough place to get your big break. Many actors struggle for years before they finally hit it big. These stars put in the effort and stuck with it until they finally became huge stars after they turned 40. Stars like Steve Carell, Kathy Bates, Alan Rickman, and many more actors like them are household names now, but it took them years to get there.

Steve Carell

Like so many other people Steve Carell started his career at Second City in Chicago. He then kicked around television for a while, with roles on the Dana Carvey Show and eventually at The Daily Show. It's when he left that show to head the cast in The Office that his career exploded and he became one of the most beloved stars on earth.

Samuel L. Jackson

Samuel L. Jackson has one of the most impressive resumes in Hollywood, but it took him a long time to get there. His first credit came in 1972 when he was 24, but it would take another two decades or so, after a series of smaller roles in the late '80s, that he would land the role of Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction and have his career completely explode.

Alan Rickman

The late, great Alan Rickman started acting in theater in the mid-70s, finding regular roles throughout the early '80s. Then, in 1988, at age 42, he made his feature film debut in a little movie called Die Hard. To this day, Hans Gruber is a legendary villain. He would go on to star in dozens of movies, most notably the Harry Potter films, before passing away in 2016 at age 69.

Betty White

Though Betty White had a little success in her 30s with her eponymous TV show for NBC in the '50s and minor hit Life with Elizabeth in the same decade, it really wasn't until after her 40th birthday in 1962 that she really rose to big stardom. After her 50th birthday, she was cast in the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and after her 60th birthday, she teamed up with Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty in the role she's probably best known for today in Golden Girls.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman was born in 1937, but it would take almost 50 years for the legend to truly break out in film. After working here and there as a dancer and as a stage actor in the 1960s and '70s, he scored his breakout role in 1987's Street Smart, starring alongside Christopher Reeve. His performance earned him the first of his Oscar nominations and by 1989's Glory, Freeman was a bonafide star.

Bea Arthur

Like her Golden Girls co-star Betty White, major success came later for the great Bea Arthur. Though she was a steadily-working actor starting in the 1940s, it wasn't until she played the character Maude Findlay, first in All In The Family, then her own spinoff called Maude, that Arthur reached the heights of fame. She was nearly 50 at that point, but her star never faded after that.

Brian Dennehy

Brian Dennehy didn't set out to be an actor. After serving in the Marines and graduating from Columbia University in 1965 with a degree in history, he caught the theater bug and started working in regional theater. In 1983, after a few smaller roles, he scored his first big role as the sheriff in First Blood at age 45.

Kathryn Joosten

Kathryn Joosten is best known for playing the beloved Mrs. Landingham in The West Wing and like her character, her real-life story is truly inspiring. She spent the first half of her life first as a nurse, then as a stay-at-home mom, raising two kids. At the age of 42, after divorcing her husband, Joosten began working in local theater in her hometown of Chicago. At age 53, she moved to Orlando and became a performer at Disney World. Soon after she moved to Hollywood and started landing parts in TV. Amazing.

Kathy Bates

Though she made her film debut in 1970, it would be more than two decades later, after working in theater and in bit TV parts, before Kathy Bates would become a star. It was, of course, he now-legendary performance as Annie Wilkes in Misery that would vault her to stardom. Truly one of the best female villains in Hollywood history.

Bryan Cranston

Most people certainly think first of Breaking Bad when they hear the name Bryan Cranston and with good reason. Cranston was 52 when he first starred as Walter White. Of course, that wasn't his breakout role, which came eight years earlier when he starred as the dad in Malcolm In The Middle ]. While he has been acting in movies and TV for years, it was that role, after his 40th birthday, that really put him on the map.

Viola Davis

EGOT winner Viola Davis found success on the stage first, winning two Tonys before turning 40. In 2008, at age 43, she was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Doubt, but it was 2011's The Help, for which she was nominated for another Oscar, that vaulted her to superstardom.

Rodney Dangerfield

Rodney Dangerfield has one of the best stories of perseverance in Hollywood history. Though technically his career started in the 1930s, his stand-up was so bland that he eventually gave up and became a salesman. In the 1960s, he re-invented himself and his act and it was a hit, with some of the best one-liners of all time. Suddenly the guy that got no respect was getting respect by talking about how he got no respect! It wasn't until 1980, at almost age 60, that Dangerfield landed his first starring role in a movie, in Caddyshack.

John Mahoney

John Mahoney started his career as the "old guy" at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. After years as an English teacher, the future Frasier star gave up his career and started acting in his late 30s. By the late 80s, well into his 40s, he was landing roles in movies like Say Anything... and Moonstruck.

Jane Lynch

It's easy to say that Glee was the project that really made Jane Lynch famous, but she got her big break before that when she found her way into the Christopher Quest universe, where she was responsible for some of the wittiest one-liners in Best In Show.

Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais took a roundabout way to comedic fame. He started in music, moved to radio, and eventually found his way onto the popular British show The 11 O'Clock Show. It was in 2001, however, at age 40 when he co-created and starred in The Office. The rest is well-known history.

Michael Emerson

Michael Emerson took the very long trail to fame, and his story is inspirational. He struggled for years as an actor, first in New York, then later in Florida where he taught acting as well. He stsarted landing work in the theater in the late '90s, but got his big break in a guest spot on The Practice in 2001. Of course, he's best known for playing Ben on Lost.

Peter Dinklage

Though he found steady work in the early '00s, Peter Dinklage really shot to superstardom when he was cast as Tyrion Lannister in Game Of Thrones when he was 42. Today, that character is still, and will likely always be, one of the most beloved in TV history. Tyrion also happens to the character who appeared in the most episodes of Game of Thrones.

Larry David

Larry David's career had a lot of ups and downs in the early years. His first major gig was as a writer on SNL, though he didn't find much success there. At age 42, in 1989, he co-wrote a TV pilot for what became Seinfeld and his career took off. On screen, after playing a few minor roles onSeinfeld, he found even more fame with HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Melissa McCarthy

While she did have some big supporting roles in her 30s in Gilmore Girls and Samantha Who?, Melissa McCarthy's career exploded when she started as Molly in Mike & Molly, in 2011, at age 41, she co-starred in Bridesmaids, where she completely stole the show, earning an Oscar nomination in the process.

Margo Martindale

Margo Martindale has become one of the best character actors in Hollywood, but it took her a long time to get there. She worked in community theater for years before she regularly started landing TV roles in her late 30s. After her 40th birthday, her career took off with dozens of memorable supporting roles in both film and TV.

Leslie Jones

Saturday Night Live is generally thought of as a young person's game. Most cast members join very early in their careers and by the time they are 30, they are moving on to other things. Leslie Jones is an exception to that. She didn't join the cast until she was nearly 50, but she made an immediate impact. Since leaving the show, she's continued to star in things like 2016's Ghostbusters and Coming 2 America in 2021.

Ty Burrell

Modern Family took the world by storm when it debuted in 2007 and one of the leads of the show, Ty Burrell, became a huge star. This came after years in Hollywood in supporting roles and, eventually, a starring role in the short-lived show Out of Practice. It was Modern Family that made him a household name.

Octavia Spencer

Octavia Spencer started landing bit parts and supporting roles in the mid-90s, but it was 2011's The Help that put the Academy Award-winner on the map, after her 40th birthday. Not only did she win for her role in The Help, but she's been nominated for others as well, including for her work in Hidden Figures and The Shape of Water.

Patrick Stewart

While Patrick Stewart steadily found work in the theater and in smaller supporting roles in TV and film, it wasn't until he was cast as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987 that he became a household name. He was 47 at the time and he's only gotten more famous as he's gotten older.

Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton basically made his own fortune in Hollywood after years of smaller supporting roles, he wrote, directed, and starred in Sling Blade. The movie was a low-budget masterpiece and he's been starring in big roles and winning awards ever since.

Hannah Waddingham

Many actors get their start in the theater, just like Hannah Waddingham. With a fantastic singing voice and wonderful acting chops, it makes sense that this is where Waddingham would first find success. It would take a couple of decades for her to equal that on screen with roles in shows like Game of Thrones, and, of course, her greatest claim to fame, Ted Lasso.

Richard Farnsworth

Without a doubt, the late Richard Farnsworth had one of the most incredible careers in Hollywood history. He had uncredited roles in some of the most famous Hollywood epics including Gone With The Wind, The Ten Commandments, and Spartacus. He didn't earn his first credited role until he was 46 in a movie called Texas Across the River in 1966. Then in the 1970s, he became a well-known character actor in projects like Roots, The Natural, and Misery.

F. Murray Abraham

After scoring a handful of supporting roles in movies in the 1970s, F. Murray Abraham became a household name after his Oscar-winning performance as Antonio Salieri in 1984's Amadeus. It was truly a career-making role and one that is still loved today by fans.

Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson was 41 when he starred in one of the greatest movies ever made, even if it's a movie you can only watch once. As Oscar Schindler in Schindler's List, Neeson immediately became world famous. It's safe to say that role will always keep him famous, too.

Lucille Ball

It's really hard to believe that Lucille Ball was over 40 when she became famous on I Love Lucy, but it's true. The comedian worked in show business for decades before she and her husband Desi Arnaz created the now-legendary TV show and her fame never faded for the rest of her life.

Tommy Lee Jones

Like a lot of actors from Texas, Tommy Lee Jones does things his way. The Harvard grad worked for decades, even winning a Golden Globe and an Emmy before he truly found fame and became a leading man in the 90s with movies like The Fugitive and Under Siege.

Ken Jeong

it's not often that someone switches careers from medicine to drama, but that's exacting what Ken Jeong did. Though he always had a love of acting, he originally pursued a more traditional career as a doctor, while acting and doing standup on the side. By the mid-2000s he was earning enough to leave medicine behind, and in 2011, at age 40, he broke out in a huge way in the Hangover.

Anyone who has seen Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation must wonder for at least a second if there is truth in Bill Murray’s character of a famous American actor in Japan to film a commercial. Well, there definitely is. Huge American and European stars have been hawking products in Japanese commercials for decades. 

Some of the biggest names in Hollywood, some of whom you’d never expect to be selling cars and shampoo in the States, are happy to do it in Japan. While there was a time those stars may have been labeled as “sell-outs” in the U.S. for doing commercials, it was very lucrative to appear in ads in Japan, without the baggage. Here are just a few of the celebrities who have made those Japanese ads. 

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman is known in the U.S. for her Miss Dior perfume commercials, but in Japan, she’s better known for selling Lux shampoo. The commercial we found is a pretty standard shampoo commercial, very similar to one you’d see in the States with long, flowing locks being flung to and fro. 

Jodie Foster

Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster is one of those actors you’d least expect to see in a commercial, but in the ‘90s, Foster starred in a campaign for Honda Civics. The commercials are pretty bland, with lots of shots of a smiling Foster standing near the Hondas she was selling. 

George Clooney

He may be one of the biggest movie stars of all time, but George Clooney isn’t above slinging coffee in Europe or doing extensive voice-over work on American commercials. In Japan, he’s the face of Kirin Beer in at least a couple of commercials, co-starring with some CGI songbirds. 

Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves has developed a reputation for being one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. It makes sense that a product would be interested in having him as a spokesman. In the United States, he occasionally does a commercial or two, most notably for Squarespace. In Japan, he’s also popular. Like a lot of Western celebs, he’s been hired by the whiskey maker Suntory to do commercials. As always, he looks cool doing it. 

Madonna

At the height of Madonna’s fame in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it would’ve been very rare to see her endorse a product on TV in the United States, but in Japan, she was part of a big campaign for Takara, a whiskey made by Blanton’s for the Japanese market. The commercials don’t look like they took up much of the Material Girl’s time, however, as they are just cuts from her music videos spliced with buzzwords and shots of the bourbon. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Lately, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been showing up in more and more commercials. At the 2024 Super Bowl, he was in a State Farm ad, for example. It seems the former Governator likes the idea of picking up a nice paycheck for a minimal amount of work, and who can blame him? It’s something he’s been doing in Japan for decades, going back to the pinnacle of his fame in the ‘90s when he endorsed an energy drink called Alinamin V. These might be the strangest of all the commercials too, featuring Schwarzenegger’s giant head popping out the bottle and other over-the-top images. 

Miles Davis

No one defines “cool” quite like Miles Davis did. The late jazz legend had a reputation for being prickly, but fans still wanted to be him. His sound on trumpet was unique, as was his style, and it all oozes authenticity. Endorsing products in the U.S. might have branded him a “sell-out” to his fans, but in the ‘80s, he could go to Japan, where he was also a big star, and shoot commercials for Honda Scooters, and no one would be the wiser in North America. 

Britney Spears

Britney Spears might be the least surprising person on this list. At the height of her fame in the late ‘90s, she’s exactly the kind of celebrity that would be huge in Japan. Spears took advantage of that fame, starring in a series of commercials for Go Go Tea. The pop star also appeared in an ad for Mikakuto Gummy Candies as well. 

Harrison Ford

Back in 1996, Entertainment Weekly reported that Hollywood stars could make anywhere from $500K to $2 million for a couple of days’ work on a Japanese commercial. It explains why actors like Harrison Ford, who no one would have expected to see in an ad in the ‘90s in America, would spend a few days in Japan shooting commercials for Kirin beer. We don’t know how much he made, but it’s safe to assume the Star Wars star made enough to pay Jabba back and then some. 

Cameron Diaz

SoftBank is one of the largest holding companies in Japan and it loves to bring over American stars to promote its services. One such star was Cameron Diaz, who in the mid-’00s starred in commercials and print ads all over Tokyo for the cell phone giant. No doubt such a campaign made it possible for the actress to semi-retire in 2014. 

Brad Pitt

Coffee, specifically canned coffee, seems to be one of the more lucrative areas of advertising for Western stars in Japan. None other than Brad Pitt even showed up in one in the ‘90s. Pitt stars as an office worker getting more work done after drinking a can of Roots Coffee. 

Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis is big in Japan. He’s been spotted selling everything from cars to financial services. Daihatsu and SoftBank have both hired the Die Hard legend to hawk their wares. He even learned a phrase or two in Japanese for the spots. 

Sharon Stone

Just as in America and Europe, Japanese beauty brands love to hire a famous actress to taut their product’s ability to make everyone as beautiful as they are. Sharon Stone was a major spokeswoman for Vernal soaps, for example. Stone also appeared in commercials for jewelry and other luxury wares. 

Ben Stiller

When you watch the Kirin ad Ben Stiller did back in the late ‘90s, it makes you wonder if it was the main inspiration for Zoolander. It feels like an outtake from the movie about a male model, it’s so goofy. Don’t get it wrong, it’s supposed to be over-the-top and funny, so it fits the character of Derek Zoolander perfectly, even if Stiller wasn’t actually playing the role. It’s also better than Zoolander 2.

Francis Ford Coppola

Of course, the most famous example in the West of a star doing Japanese commercials is the fictional Bob Harris (Bill Murray) doing Suntory ads in Lost In Translation. The inspiration for the film, or part of it, had to be Sofia Coppola’s father, Francis Ford Coppola doing ads in Japan in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Including one for Fuji Cassettes, and yes, Suntory whiskey. 

Sylvester Stallone

Rocky star Sylvester Stallone got on the Japanese advertising train back in the mid-’90s, including doing some very strange commercials for Bayern Sausages. An Italian-American doing ads for German sausages in Japan. It’s the UN of commercials! 

Brooke Shields

Back in the ‘80s, Brooke Shields was huge. For much of the decade, she found a lot of work in Japan in ads for everything from tissues to coffee to stereos. No doubt that helped her pay for her Princeton education, where she studied during a break from her career in the mid-’80s. 

Richard Gere

In 2009, Japanese company Suntory bought Orangina, the sparking orange beverage from France. Almost immediately, Suntory did what they had done so often in the past, they hired an American actor for an ad campaign. Richard Gere starred in a few commercials for the brand at the dawn of the 2010s, playing a classic Japanese comedy character from the ‘60s and ‘70s named Tora-san.  

Audrey Hepburn

By the early 1970s, Hollywood legend Audrey Hepburn had already semi-retired from acting, starring only sporadically in a few movies in the ‘70s before bowing out completely. Still, she did work in Japan occasionally in commercials, including one for wigs from 1970, which seems pretty odd, but hey, it’s Audrey Hepburn, so who are we to question it?

Leonardo DiCaprio

Even the great Leonardo DiCaprio has gotten in on the Japanese ad business, hawking credit cards in the ‘90s and Jim Beam more recently. You might expect the latter, but definitely not the former, in the United States. 

Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway is another glamorous actress who has been known to pop up in luxury and beauty ads in Japan. One product, Lux Shampoo, is well known for using American stars in its ads for its products. The rom-com star pitched for the company a few times in the mid-’00s. 

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Suntory Whiskey definitely takes the win for grabbing some of the biggest stars from the U.S. to sell its products. Even way back in the ‘70s, it was paying Sammy Davis, Jr. to do commercials for them. They even got him to scat for one of them, and it’s a gem. 

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones has been a regular in Japanese commercials for a long time, and watching some of the more bizarre ones, he’s clearly having a lot of fun. It definitely references his role in the Men in Black series, but beyond that, it’s hard to pin what they are about, exactly, except that he’s selling coffee. 

Nicolas Cage

It’s no surprise to find Nicolas Cage on this list, now is it? Going back a couple of decades, the actor did a series of commercials for Pachinko games, which are Japanese slot machines and pinball machines.

Kyle MacLachlan

In what might be the absolute best and most bizarre entry on this list, Kyle MacLachlan starred in a whole series of commercials for Georgia Coffee as Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. The commercials played out like a bizarre mystery, just like the show, and also featured other characters from the show, and the famous intro. It’s truly awesome… and weird… and awesome.

Sean Connery

If you want someone elegant and cool to advertise your whiskey, why not hire James Bond himself, Sean Connery? That’s exactly what Suntory did in the early ‘90s and he’s everything you want him to be in the ad. 

Hugh Jackman

When you have the talents of a true song-and-dance man like Hugh Jackman, it’s smart to take advantage of that. It’s what Lipton Ice Tea did in 2010 to amazing results with the Deadpool & Wolverine star dancing around a Japanese hotel. 

Cindy Crawford

Cindy Crawford was the most famous model in the world in the ‘80s and ‘90s, so it’s no surprise she’d been seen on Japanese TV selling lots of stuff, as she was virtually everywhere else in the world. For example, in Japan, she hawked a sports drink called Pocari Sweat. Sweat seems like an odd thing to name your drink, but Crawford could sell anything in those days. 

John Travolta

Canned drinks are huge in Japan and the competition for customers is intense, which has led to a lot of American stars getting lucrative gigs. John Travolta is one such star, who was hired to appear in an ad for Tokyo Drink. Naturally, he danced his way through it. 

Hulk Hogan

Professional wrestling has long been hugely popular in Japan. American wrestling stars like Hulk Hogan have been traveling to Japan to work for decades. With that fame, came commercials for the Hulkster, like one in the early ‘90s hawking Hitachi Air Conditioners. 

Quentin Tarantino

It’s not always just actors either. Quentin Tarantino, whose Kill Bill movies are a tribute to Japanese culture, popped up in an ad for SoftBank’s cell phone service. The director looks like he had a blast making the spots, too. 

Kiefer Sutherland

When 24 debuted, it instantly became one of the biggest hits on TV, and that success translated to Japanese TV as well. So much so, that Kiefer Sutherland was hired by the energy drink Calorie Mate to star in a series of commercials in the style of the spy show. 

There was a time when “selling out” was a real concern for artists and their fans. It’s far more common today to see big stars in commercials. Before it became okay to be seen selling stuff on TV, those big names could head to Japan for a nice paycheck, without retribution from hardcore fans. Until the internet, it was rare for an American or European to even know the stars had done it. Now with the internet, we get to see all these great commercials they were doing. 

Everything is bigger in Texas, they say, and that certainly includes the star power of its homegrown celebrities. From the biggest stars in music to the biggest on the silver screen, the biggest celebs in the squared circle, and almost everywhere else, Texas has bred them all. 

California may be home to Hollywood, but there might not be a Hollywood without its biggest legends who hail from the Lone Star State, so here is our list of some of the biggest stars from Texas

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey was born in Uvalde, Texas, raised mostly in Longview, TX, went to college in Austin, and got his first big break in show business in Dazed & Confused, which was, of course, filmed in Texas. McConaughey still lives in Austin. It makes sense that the proud Texan wants to see more movies made in his home state. McConaughey has also sparked rumors in the past that he might be interested in running for political office in Texas, though he's usually brushed them aside. Politician or not, the man sure loves his home state. 

Renée Zellweger

She may have won accolades for playing an English woman, but Renée Zellweger is Texas through and through. The Bridget Jones' Diary star was born outside Houston in Katy, TX, and grew up there before attending the University of Texas. It was in Austin that she discovered her love for acting and she landed her first on-screen role as an extra in Dazed & Confused. 

Owen Wilson

Dallas-born Owen Wilson has played a lot of fantastic roles over the years, but none better than his many roles in the films of Wes Anderson. Wilson and fellow Texan Anderson have been friends since their college days at the University of Texas. It's also worth noting that both of Owen Wilson's brothers, Luke and Andrew, also hail from Texas, of course. 

Jim Parsons

While some people ooze "Texas," Houston native Jim Parsons doesn't, really. You might guess he'd be from New York or Chicago, but nope, he's a Texan. Born and raised in the suburbs of Houston, he also attended the University of Houston before striking out for Hollywood and making it big. 

Carol Burnett

Comedy legend Carol Burnett grew up in California, attending high school right in Hollywood, but the Annie star was born deep in the heart of Texas, in San Antonio in 1933. Though her vast career has taken her far from Texas, the state can still call her one of its own. 

Beyoncé

If the stars are brighter and everything is bigger in Texas, then it only makes sense that one of the biggest stars would come from Houston. There is no bigger star on the planet than Beyoncé, who was born and raised in Texas along with her sister Solange and her Destiny's Child bandmate, LaTavia Roberson. 

Selena Gomez

Like many other native Texas, Selena Gomez is proud of her Mexican heritage. The Only Murders In The Building star was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas, and although her many acting roles and career took her to California early in life, her family's roots are firmly in the Lone Star State. Gomez is named for another Texas native as well, the late Tejano superstar Selena, who was murdered in Corpus Christi in 1995. 

Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson first got famous playing a farm boy-turned-bartender from Indiana on Cheers, and while he moved to Ohio as a teenager, Harrelson was born in Midland, Texas. He's also tight with his occasional co-star and fellow Texan, Matthew McConaughey, and, according to McConaughey, the two could even be brothers! 

Tommy Lee Jones

Sure, he was roommates at Harvard with Al Gore, but Tommy Lee Jones is all Texan. The No Country For Old Men star was born in the small town of San Saba, Texas, and raised in Midland. He's never really strayed far either, as he has resided in Terrell Hills, TX, near San Antonio, for years. He's also a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the Texas Film Hall of Fame. There really isn't another actor who screams "Texas" like Jones, is there?

Steve Martin

Waco-born Steve Martin is one of the funniest people in film history. While he grew up mostly in Southern California, his roots are originally in central Texas, where he was born in Waco, on August 14th, 1945, the same day that the Japanese surrendered in World War II. 

Jamie Foxx

The multi-talented Jamie Foxx started acquiring his many skills as a kid in Terrell, TX, outside Dallas, where he was born and raised. As a kid, he played piano and excelled at sports at Terrell High School. He moved to Southern California after school and in 1991, scored a role on In Living Color, and the rest is history. 

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner moved to West Virginia when she was just three, so she probably doesn't remember much of anything from her early life in Texas, but the Daredevil star was born in Houston. 

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson exploded into show business by winning the first-ever season of American Idol and she's been a star ever since. It's a journey that started when she was born in Forth Worth, TX, and raised in the suburb of Burleson, just outside the city. While her career may have taken her to LA and New York, her heart (and sports allegiance) has stayed in Texas.

Wes Anderson

People love to debate what the best Wes Anderson movie is, but if you are wondering what is his most personal, it's probably Bottle Rocket, which was filmed almost entirely in Anderson's home state of Texas. It stars a couple of fellow Texans as well, Owen and Luke Wilson. While the Wilsons are from Dallas originally, Anderson hails from Houston. 

Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Thee Stallion is a triple threat. She proved herself on the mic, and on the dance floor, first, then she started taking over TV and movies by starring in her first film in 2023. Before all that happened, though, she grew up in and around Houston. The “H-town Hottie” even got her nickname, Stallion, in the city. 

Michelle Rodriguez

Michelle Rodriguez has been in some huge film franchises, like Fast & Furious and Avatar. She kind of grew up all over, including in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, but she was born and lived for a few years of her life in San Antonio, TX. 

Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke's parents were high school sweethearts who had Ethan shortly after they were married. Born in 1970 in Austin, TX, Hawke moved to the Northeast with his mother but spent his summers in Fort Worth with his dad. His grandfather even served in the Texas House of Representatives for 10 years. He has deep Texas roots that he is proud of. 

Hilary Duff

Lizzie McGuire star Hilary Duff is another Texas girl. Born in Houston, her family also spent time in San Antonio before moving to California when Duff was still young to pursue her acting career. Boy did that pay off quickly! 

Jennifer Love Hewitt

From a young age, Jennifer Love Hewitt was showing off her talents, singing and dancing across Texas, where she was born in 1979. Eventually, even the Lone Star State could not contain her and she moved to LA with her family, where she soon landed her first starring role on the legendary Party Of Five, after having roles on the Disney Channel and elsewhere as a kid. 

Eva Longoria

Born in Corpus Christi, TX in 1975, Eva Longoria has always been proud of her Tejano roots. In fact, her ancestry and culture are so important to her that she returned to college to earn a Master's degree in Chicano studies from Cal State-Northridge.

Forest Whitaker

Though he went to high school in Los Angeles, Forest Whitaker's life began in Longview, Texas. Every summer of his youth, he spent time with his grandparents in Longview and still has family all over Texas. 

Taylor Sheridan

It's no surprise that Taylor Sheridan is from Texas. While he was actually born in North Carolina, the Yellowstone creator is the definition of a true Texan. Not only did he grow up in Fort Worth, but he owns a working ranch in the Lone Star state called 6666 Ranch. He and his family live in Weatherford, Texas.

Farrah Fawcett

She might have had the reputation of being the all-American blonde from California, but Farrah Fawcett was born and raised in Texas. After high school in Corpus Christi, she attended the University of Texas before heading to Hollywood where she immediately started landing acting and modeling jobs. Once she scored her role on Charlie's Angels, the rest is history. 

Isaiah Washington

Controversial actor Isaiah Washington's most prominent role was in the first three seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Since then, he's worked on numerous films and TV shows, before announcing his retirement in 2023. He was born and raised in Houston. 

William Jackson Harper

Star of The Good Place William Jackson Harper is a native Texan, born in Dallas and raised in Garland, TX, where he first started acting in high school. His Texas-sized determination kept him going when he struggled early in his career, before finding a starring role on the Kristen Bell-led sitcom. 

Dakota Johnson

It might be surprising to learn that despite being the daughter of Hollywood royalty, Dakota Johnson was born in Texas. She was born to Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson in Austin while her father shot a movie in the Lone Star State. The star was then raised in Los Angeles, of course, but Austin will always be where she came into this world. Since then, she's built a great career. 

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin

Steven James Anderson loves his home state so much, that he took a name based on its capital, Austin. Better known as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, the WWE superstar was, in fact, born in Austin, though he was raised mostly in Edna, TX. The wrestler still owns property in the state, Broken Skull Ranch, near Tilden, TX. It's not like he hides his love for the state either, as one of his many nicknames is "The Texas Rattlesnake."

Gary Busey

People sometimes forget that Gary Busey was once nominated for an Oscar for playing Texan Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story, and the actor also hails from Holly's home state. Busey was born in the Houston area; Baytown, Texas, to be exact. He moved to Oklahoma in elementary school and it was in Tulsa that the enigmatic actor began his show biz career. One of his first big breaks in Hollywood was a TV show that was set in Texas called, appropriately, The Texas Wheelers.

Gina Carano

Gina Carano was controversially dismissed from The Mandalorian and whether you agree with the decision or not, it's hard to argue that the MMA star brought a little bit of that strong individualism Texas is known for to the role and her career. Something that might be inherent in her, as she was born in Dallas County Texas.

Shaquille O'Neal

Texas is a huge state, with a lot of personality, so it only makes sense that a celebrity who's physically large and has a personality to match would hail from the state. Shaquille O’Neal is an Army brat, so he moved around a lot as a kid, including being born in New Jersey. It's in Texas, however, where the world started to pay attention to O'Neal as he became a standout basketball star, eventually becoming a top college recruit and going to LSU for school. He was drafted into the NBA as the #1 overall pick in 1992, and the rest is history.  

Robin Wright

Robin Wright might be best known for playing a Washington insider on House Of Cards and a Buttercup in The Princess Bride, but before all that, she was born in Dallas in 1966. Her parents divorced when she was young and her family moved to Southern California, but for those two years, she was a Texan. 

Michael Strahan

He first made a name for himself playing football in New York, and now he's known for hosting Good Morning America in New York, but Michael Strahan is a born and bred Texan. He was born in Houston, and went to high school there, though for a little while he lived with his family in Germany where his father was stationed in the Army. 

There you have it, a list that proves everything is, indeed, bigger in Texas. The toast, the steer, the plains, and the stars. Not just the stars in the sky, but the stars in Hollywood and beyond. Few states can compete with the Lone Star state when it comes to star power. 

Have you ever caught a rerun of an older TV show and during the opening credits sequence, you spotted someone who made you say, “Hey, I know that person!”? This is actually a more common occurrence than you may realize, as there many A-list celebrities whose first IMDb credit (or one of the first) was a supporting role on a series long before they earned the honor of being a leading presence on the big (or small) screen. The following are some of our favorite examples of famous actors who appeared a bit further down the the line on the call sheet on a TV show when they were starting out.

Chris Pratt (Everwood)

Before Guardians of the Galaxy made him a leading man, Chris Pratt really began to gain traction from starring in the Parks and Recreation cast as Andy Dwyer. However, even earlier than that, he starred on a WB family drama called Everwood as high school joke Bright Abbott alongside fellow future MCU star Emily VanCamp, who played his sister, Amy.

Jennifer Lawrence (The Bill Engvall Show)

Before her Academy Award-nominated performance in 2010’s Winter’s Bone, her star-making role as Katniss in The Hunger Games and Oscar-winning turn in Silver Lining’s Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence was a sitcom star — specifically a cable network sitcom star. On The Bill Engvall Show, which lasted three seasons on TBS, she starred opposite the eponymous stand-up comedian as his on-screen alter ego’s teenage daughter, Lauren Pearson,

Austin Butler (Zoey 101)

The musical talents that earned Austin Butler the title role of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis can be traced back to his part on Ruby & the Rockits, which lasted 10 episodes on ABC Family (now Freeform) in 2009. However, the Oscar nominee’s first major TV role was on the final season of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 as James Garrett — a character missing from Paramount+’s feature-length follow-up, Zoey 102.

Margot Robbie (Pan Am)

While her earliest role was actually the long-running soap opera, Neighbours — much like many other Aussie A-listers — we thought we would highlight American audiences’ first true introduction to Margot Robbie on Pan Am. An interesting fact about Robbie is that the future Oscar nominee and DC movies star was actually roommates with co-star Christina Ricci while playing 1960s-era flight attendant Laura Cameron on the short-lived ABC drama from 2011 to 2012.

Seth Rogen (Freaks And Geeks)

While still part of the main ensemble, Seth Rogen’s role as the initially arrogant Ken Miller pretty much got the short end of the stick amongst the Freaks and Geeks cast, for the most part. Ironically, Rogen, arguably, went on to become the painfully short-lived coming-of-age dramedy’s biggest star, which is really saying something, given his co-stars include Jason Segel, Linda Cardellini, and John Francis Daley.

Brie Larson (Raising Dad)

A notable moment in Academy Award winner Brie Larson’s evolution from child star to modern A-list actor was her role as the late Bob Saget’s youngest on-screen daughter on Raising Dad — a sitcom that ran for one season on The WB (now The CW) in the early 2000s. Following her success as the MCU’s Captain Marvel, Larson returned to TV in 2023 — reprising her Scott Pilgrim vs. the World role for Netflix’s animated series reboot, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and leading the Lessons in Chemistry cast for Apple TV+.

Leonardo DiCaprio (Growing Pains)

While doing press for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt recalled how they both appeared on the hit ABC sitcom Growing Pains much earlier in their career. Of course, Pitt had a one-episode guest appearance while the Oscar-winning The Revenant star and Titanic cast member had a prominent role as Luke Brewer — a homeless teen taken in by the Seavers in Season 7. 

Ana De Armas (The Boarding School)

One of the films that earned Academy Award nominee Ana de Armas a spot on the A-list was Rian Johnson’s hit whodunit, Knives Out, from 2019. More than a decade earlier, the Cuban-born actor landed a role on a coming-of-age mystery TV show called El Internado (or The Boarding School), which originally aired in Spain from 2007 to 2010.

Michael B. Jordan (The Wire)

After getting his start as a Toys ‘R Us kid, the fascinating Michael B. Jordan made his official acting debut on an episode of The Sopranos, but later landed a more prominent role on another acclaimed, gritty HBO series in 2002. He appeared amongst The Wire cast as Wallace — an orphan whose tragic story had a profound impact on the Emmy-nominated series beyond his 13-episode stint.

Anne Hathaway (Get Real)

Anne Hathaway fans should know that before she broke into the mainstream by leading Disney’s The Princess Diaries cast, the Academy Award winner made her acting debut on a 1999 Fox TV show called Get Real as a high school senior who shocks her family with the decision to refuse college. Coincidentally, the short-lived dramedy was also the debut of Hathaway’s Rio co-star, Jesse Eisenberg, and was an early gig for NCIS' Eric Christian Olsen as well.

Denzel Washington (St. Elsewhere)

With two Oscars to his name, it’s hard to imagine a TV screen big enough to contain the talent of one Denzel Washington, yet it was a TV show that helped launched the young actor’s career in the early 1980s. Following his official debut in the 1977 TV movie Wilma, the future Training Day lead played Dr. Philip Chandler on NBC’s hit medical drama, St. Elsewhere.

Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek)

For years, Michelle Williams was known best from the Dawson’s Creek cast as Jen Lindley. Now — after receiving multiple Academy Award nominations for acclaimed dramas like Manchester by the Sea and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans — that role on the hit teen drama is, typically, among the last things mentioned in regards to her career.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock From The Sun)

As a child actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt starred in some good movies and made a few notable TV guest appearances before landing his first successful series regular gig with 3rd Rock from the Sun. He played the eldest member of a group of extra-terrestrial visitors, and the character resembles a teenager in human form on the Emmy-winning sci-fi sitcom.

George Clooney (The Facts Of Life)

As a TV star, George Clooney is best known from his main role on the popular ‘90s show, ER, on which he played Doug Ross. Much earlier, however, the future two-time Oscar winner had a memorable recurring role on Diff’rent Strokes' (very different) spin-off, The Facts of Life, as George Burnett — a carpenter who would become close to the girls living under Mrs. Garrett’s roof.

Woody Harrelson (Cheers)

With multiple Academy Award nominations to his name, Woody Harrelson is known today as one of Hollywood’s most versatile movie stars, but his first big break came when he joined the Cheers cast in the mid-1980s. In fact, he won his first Emmy Award for playing the naive, but lovable, Woody Byrd, whom Sam (Ted Danson) hires on as a new barkeep following he death of Coach (Nicholas Colasanto).

Jason Bateman (Little House On The Prairie)

At least before he led Netflix’s Ozark cast, Jason Bateman has always best known on the small screen as a sitcom star, with his roles as David Hogan on Valerie (later changed to The Hogan Family) and Michael Bluth on Arrested Development being the famous examples. However, his very first gig was playing James Cooper Ingalls for 21 episodes of Little House on the Prairie during the early 1980s.

Don Cheadle (The Golden Palace)

An early Don Cheadle role you may have forgotten about was featured on a TV show spin-off you may not have heard of, either. The future Academy Award nominee and MCU actor starred alongside most of the Golden Girls cast on The Golden Palace as Roland Wilson — the young manager of the titular hotel where the short-lived sitcom took place. 

Jason Momoa (Baywatch)

Even long before he landed the role of Aquaman in the DC movies, Jason Momoa was no stranger to saving lives in the water. The Hawaiian-born actor made his debut in his home state when he joined the Baywatch cast as a character also named Jason from 1999 to 2001.

Marisa Tomei (A Different World)

We know her from her Academy Award-winning role in My Cousin Vinny as Mona Lisa Vito (who she'd love to revisit) or as Peter Parker’s (reinvented) Aunt May in the MCU, to name a few examples. Yet before many people knew who Marisa Tomei was, she was on the first season of The Cosby Show spin-off, A Different World, as Hillman student Maggie Lauten.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (The Get Down)

One interesting fact about Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: before he was an Emmy-winning DC TV show star (for playing Cal Abar on HBO’s Watchmen) and a scene-stealing DC movie villain (Black Manta in Aquaman), he worked as a San Francisco city planner until he was laid off in 2010. The role that first helped him make a name for himself as an actor was night club owner Clarene “Cadillac” Caldwell in Netflix’s musical period drama series, The Get Down, from co-creator Baz Luhrmann.

Alexandra Daddario (All My Children)

Speaking to Women’s Health in 2022, Alexandra Daddario recalls that she was fired from the long-running daytime soap opera, All My Children, which she actually found to be a liberating, educational experience. It led to seek improvement in her acting skills and pave the way for her to breakthrough in the Percy Jackson movies, give an Emmy-nominated performance as part of the HBO’s The White Lotus cast, and star in many other notable works.

Adam Driver (Girls)

Without Lena Dunham, there might not be a Kylo Ren — or at least, the memorable version of the Sith Lord we got in the hands Adam Driver. The former Marine’s scene-stealing role on HBO’s Girls as Adam Sackler is what got Hollywood to take notice of his talent, leading to his casting in the Star Wars movies and his Oscar-nominated performances in BlacKkKlansman and Marriage Story.

Melissa McCarthy (Gilmore Girls)

Gilmore Girls proved to be a launch pad for many A-listers — few of which would blow up quite like Melissa McCarthy, who played Sookie St. James on the hit dramedy.  She later won an Emmy for her leading role on the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly and received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role as a member of the Bridesmaids cast. And that film skyrocketed her to the A-list as a trusted name in comedy and more.

Drake (Degrassi: The Next Generation)

One of the most memorable and important characters from Degrassi: The Next Generation is Jimmy Brooks, who served as an inspirational representation for wheelchair users on the long-running Canadian coming-of-age drama. The role was played by an actor named Aubrey Graham, who still acts on occasion — an Anchorman 2 cameo, for instance — but primarily performs as a rapper under the moniker Drake.

Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men)

At just eight years old, Kiernan Shipka proved to be a stand-out alongside AMC’s Mad Men cast with her performance as Sally Draper. She later went on to lead her own TV show (Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and headline movies like Amazon Prime’s horror-comedy, Totally Killer and The Silence.

Ryan Reynolds (Fifteen)

Despite his many earnest roles over the years, it may be hard to picture Ryan Reynolds as anything other than the smarmy goof he plays in the likes of the Deadpool movies and National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, for instance. Perhaps watching him make his debut in the Canadian coming-of-age drama Fifteen will help audiences see another side of him.

Tommy Lee Jones (One Life To Live)

It is amazing to think about how many acclaimed and even legendary actors started out on soap operas, such as Tommy Lee Jones. One of the earliest roles for the Academy Award-winning star of The Fugitive and the Men in Black movies was the ill-fated Mark Toland on One Life to Live from 1971 to 1975.

John Travolta (Welcome Back, Kotter)

Before his Academy Award-nominated role in 1977’s Saturday Night Fever — and its fantastic movie soundtrack — made him one of the biggest stars of all time, John Travolta was better known by another name: Vinnie Barbarino. That was the future Pulp Fiction cast member’s character on Welcome Back, Kotter — a hit sitcom that never made it to 100 episodes. He practically stole the show from star and co-creator Gabe Kaplan with his famous catchphrase, “Up your nose with a rubber hose!”

Jennifer Love Hewitt (Kids Incorporated)

Her role as Sarah Reeves on the original Party of Five may have made Jennifer Love Hewitt a teen idol, but it was not her first major TV gig. The Ghost Whisperer star was 10 when she demonstrated her multiple talents on Disney Channel’s Kids Incorporated, which focuses on the lives of a group of young artists who perform live music at a club for children.

Benedict Cumberbatch (Fortysomething)

It was his eponymous role on the modern crime drama Sherlock that made Benedict Cumberbatch a nigh-unpronounceable household name, but his first starring role on a TV series was Fortysomething. The MCU’s Doctor Strange actor played the on-screen son of none other than House’s Hugh Laurie on the English dramedy that lasted six episodes.

Jared Leto (My So-Called Life)

In one of the best ‘90s shows that ended too soon, My So-Called Life, Jared Leto portrayed what would become his first iconic role: high school heartthrob Jordan Catalano. The much celebrated coming-of-age drama also marked one for the first times the future Academy Award winner acted alongside his sibling and Thirty Seconds to Mars bandmate, Shannon.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Passions)

Movie star Mary Elizabeth Winstead has more than a few very notable small-screen roles — such as a leading stint in Fargo Season 3 and Hera Syndulla alongside the Ahsoka cast for Disney+. The Scott Pilgrim vs. The World cast member’s earliest major TV gig, however, was on the supernatural soap opera Passions.

For any TV actors out there hoping one day to make it onto the big screen, let these stories serve as proof that your dreams may not be far away from becoming a reality.

Considering just how hard it is to make in show business, it's remarkable how many celebrities have been good friends with other successful celebrities since before either was famous. Some going back to childhood. Here's our list of celebrities that have been friends for longer than they've been famous. 

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck

It’s probably the most famous friendship in Hollywood. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon grew up together in Cambridge, MA, and they’ve pretty much been besties ever since. They were even uncredited extras together in Field Of Dreams and both found early roles in School Ties together. Of course, in 1997 when they wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting together, their collective fame blew up. 

Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones

Another set of long-time friends are former Vice President Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones. They were roommates when they attended Harvard together. At the 2000 Democratic National Convention when the party nominated Gore to be its candidate for President, Jones said in a speech,

Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams were both taken from the world when they were too young. The two have more in common than tragedy though. Reeve and Williams forged a lifelong friendship after meeting as graduate students at Juilliard and rooming together while in school. Reeve even credited Williams with showing him that life would go on after a horse riding accident left him paralyzed. 

Madonna and Debi Mazar

Entourage star Debi Mazar and global superstar Madonna have been friends since the early ‘80s when they met in the hipster scene of the East Village and the dance clubs of New York City. They stayed friends since that time and Mazar has had Madonna’s back when internet trolls take shots at the pop music legend. Mazar also appeared in a number of Madonna’s early videos, like “Papa Don’t Preach.”

Ving Rhames and Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames were roommates as undergrads at SUNY Purchase. Tucci even gave Rhames his nickname, Ving, which is short for Erving. Rhames let the world in on that tidbit when he presented Tucci with a Golden Globe in 1998 for Tucci’s role in Winchell. The two have only worked on the same project together once though, 1995’s Kiss of Death. 

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

Amy Poehler and Tiny Fey first met at the improv school Improv Olympic (now known as iO Theater) in the early ‘90s when they were both just starting out. In the years since, they’ve stayed friends and worked together a lot, including on SNL and hosting the Golden Globe Awards together. 

Brad Pitt and Sheryl Crow

Brad Pitt and Sheryl Crow have known each other since college. Pitt was a year behind Crow at the University of Missouri and according to Crow, they didn’t know each other well, but they did cross paths a lot, She worked with his fraternity during Greek Week and she was friends with his college girlfriend. She also jokes on the podcast that she dreamed she would marry Brad Pitt. 

Rick Moranis and Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee was the bass player and lead singer of Rush, one of the most popular bands of the last 50 years. Weirdly, his biggest hit wasn’t with Rush but was a song called “Take Off” that appeared on a Doug and Bob McKenzie album. He sang on the track because he’s been lifelong friends with Rick Moranis, who played Doug McKenzie. The two went to grade school together. 

Lauryn Hill and Zach Braff

Lauryn Hill attended Zach Braff’s bar mitzvah. You read that right. Braff told a story to Seth Meyers (whom Braff has known since college) about his bar mitzvah being “musical theater themed” and his partner in the games the kids played was none other than Ms. Lauryn Hill, who went to high school with Braff. 

Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand

Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand first met years before they both found success in Hollywood. They even roomed together in the Bronx. While they were roommates, McDormand met Joel Coen, of the Coen Brothers, and they started dating. Eventually, they would marry and Joel and Ethan Coen would cast both McDormand and Hunter in Raising Arizona, one of many roles the Coens have cast McDormand in. 

B.J. Novak and John Krasinski

B.J. Novak and John Krasinski were in the same class in high school at Newtown South High outside Boston. They were friends long before they both starred in The Office, though in high school, according to Novak, Krasinski was more of a jock, while Novak was a theater kid. Obviously, both ended up wildly successful as actors. 

Gwyneth Paltrow and Maya Rudolph

Maya Rudolph and Gwyneth Paltrow have been friends for years. Rudolph’s father, Richard, was best friends with Paltrow’s father, Bruce, and Maya and Gwyneth attended the same school, St. Augustine by the Sea School in Santa Monica.

Adam Sandler and director Judd Apatow famously shared an apartment in Los Angeles when they were both just starting out in the industry. When Sandler landed his gig with SNL and moved to New York, he continued to pay rent on the place because he was worried he’d immediately get fired from the show. He didn’t and the rest is history. 

Lisa Kudrow and Conan O'Brien

Conan O’Brien met Lisa Kudrow in 1985 when he moved to LA out of college and decided to take an improv class. According to O’Brien, he walked into the class on his first day and immediately identified Kudrow as someone that was going somewhere. 

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson 

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson first met in their sophomore year at the University of Texas. Both were in a playwriting seminar and Anderson immediately was intrigued by Wilson. They have stayed close over the years and Wilson is a regular player in Anderson’s films, starring in eight of them. 

Danny DeVito and Micheal Douglas

Starting way back in 1975 Danny DeVito and Micheal Douglas have been working together. Douglas produced One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest which DeVito had a supporting role in. The two have been friends for much longer, going all the way back to 1967 when they met on beach and immediately bonded. 

Cameron Diaz and Snoop Dogg

This might be the most surprising on the list. Cameron Diaz and Snoop Dogg went to Long Beach High School together. They've known each other since they were teenagers and, according to Diaz.

Brad Pitt and Jason Priestley

Before they were stars, Brad Pitt and Jason Priestley, as roommates, apparently would have contests to see who could go the longest without showering or shaving. Somehow, they were both still really, really good looking despite this. 

Laura Linney and Brooke Shields

Star of The Blue Lagoon, Brooke Shields, and star of You Can Count on Me, Laura Linney, have been counting on each other since they were children. Brooke Shields celebrated Laura Linney's 56th birthday in 2020 by posting a throwback of the two when they were just kids. 

Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance

Courtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett got married in 1997, which was well after both had become successful. Their friendship, however, goes much further back. They met at Yale Drama School in the '80s, though both were dating other people at the time. They would reconnect years later and they've been together ever since. 

Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton

Way before they found fame together on The Simple Life, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton were friends. According to Hilton on the show, they've been best friends since they were two years old. In September 2023, Hilton celebrated Richie's birthday by posting a bunch of photos of them through the years, from childhood to the present. 

The Great Gatsby was not the first time Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire worked together. They appeared together in This Boy's Life back in 1993. Their friendship, however, goes back even further having met early on when they were both struggling to land their first roles and auditioning for the same parts. They are still close friends. 

Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts

Technically Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts were already working actors when they met on the set of Flirting back in 1991. Neither were famous yet, and the fellow Aussies became fast friends, and have stayed very close ever since. 

Adam Levine and Jonah Hill

Adam Levine and Jonah Hill have been friends since childhood. They've often joked about each other in interviews and really seem to have a close bond. They are so close that Jonah Hill even officiated Levine's wedding in 2016. 

Kate Hudson and Liv Tyler

Liv Tyler and Kate Hudson have a lot in common, starting with all of their parents being famous themselves. They also both grew up in Los Angeles and attended the same high school together, Crossroads School for Arts & Science, where they first became buddies. They starred in Dr. T & the Women together in 2000 and are still very close friends

Jamie Dornan And Andrew Garfield

Jamie Dornan And Andrew Garfield have been mates for almost 20 years. The two were roommates in the early days of their careers, running in a pack with the likes of Charlie Cox, Robert Pattinson, and Eddie Redmayne as they struggled to land auditions. It's safe to say they've all done pretty well since then. 

Timothée Chalamet and Ansel Elgort

Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City is one of the most prestigious arts high schools in the country. It's no surprise that it has its fair share of famous former students. Two of those are Timothée Chalamet and Ansel Elgort, who were in the same class and have been best friends since attending. 

Scarlett Johansson and Jack Antonoff

Like so many others on this list, actor Scarlett Johansson and musician Jack Antonoff attended high school together. What makes them different is that they even briefly dated and went to the prom together at New York City's Professional Children’s School. They broke up after graduation, but they'll always have prom! 

Mel Gibson and Geoffrey Rush

The country of Australia is not all Mel Gibson and Geoffrey Rush have in common, When both were starving artists trying to make it early on, they shared an apartment that, according to Gibson, didn't have any furniture. A few decades later it's safe to assume both have plenty of places to sleep and sit down after all their success. 

Kristen Bell and Matthew Morrison

Kristen Bell attended the prestigious New York University's Tisch School of the Arts alongside Glee star Matthew Morrison. They were friends in college, and as Bell told Us Weekly in 2010, the two briefly dated. She told the magazine, 

David Lynch and Peter Wolf

In what might be the oddest pairing on this list, director David Lynch and musician Peter Wolf were once roommates at School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the 1960s. Wolf, who is famous for being the lead singer of the great J. Geils Band told The New York Times that the living situation didn't last long, as he was way too messy for Lynch. 

Kirsten Gillibrand and Connie Britton

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of Massachusetts and actor Connie Britton first met on a study-abroad trip to China while both were in college at Dartmouth. The pair have remained friends in the decades since and often post about each other on social media and of course, Britton endorsed Gillibrand when she first ran for the senate.

Actors, musicians, politicians, roommates, childhood friends, and starving artists. Each pair on this list have unique stories, that are somehow also very similar. They say birds of a feather flock together and this list of celebrities who were friends before they were famous seems to prove that point over and over.  

Many Hollywood stars don't actually live in California these days. While some of the stars on this list might have a home in LA, they certainly seem to prefer to spend their off time very far away from the glitz and the glamour. Here are just some of the many stars that live outside of the Golden State. 

Nicole Kidman - Nashville

Nicole Kidman and her husband (and fellow Aussie) Keith Urban have quite a few homes around the world, including LA and their native Australia, but it's the greater Nashville area that they call home most of the time. 

Meryl Streep - Connecticut

21-time Oscar nominee Meryl Streep was born in New Jersey, went to school at Vassar and Yale, and certainly strikes me as an east coast type of person. While she's lived in LA at times throughout her career, it's Connecticut that she's called home for most of her adult life. She's lived in Salisbury for decades now. 

John Goodman - New Orleans

John Goodman spent years living in LA, but in the '90s he'd had enough of California and he and his Louisiana-born wife made a choice between his hometown of St. Louis, and her home state. They moved to New Orleans, where they've been ever since. 

Matthew McConaughey - Austin

You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the boy. Matthew McConaughey was born in Uvalde, TX, went to school in Austin, and has long lived on a ranch near the Texas state capital and getting fed up with the paparazzi in Malibu.

Bill Murray - Charleston, SC

Bill Murray has lived all over the place, LA, NYC, and Chicago... but he's a known fixture around Charleston, South Carolina and even owns his own restaurant in town called Harold's Cabin. He's also invested in the Charleston minor league baseball team. 

Harrison Ford - Jackson Hole, WY

Harrison Ford moved to LA in the '60s to follow his acting dreams, but once he hit it big, he bailed out. While he does own a home in Brentwood, he spends most of his time at his 800-acre ranch outside Jackson Hole, WY. The ranch has been his primary residence since the 1980s and it seems he prefers to call that home. 

Demi Moore - Idaho

When Covid hit in early 2020, Demi Moore and her daughters holed up together in her longtime house in Sun Valley, Idaho. They were soon joined by her ex-husband and father to her daughters, Bruce Willis. Eventually, Willis' current wife Emma Heming, and her child with Willis also joined the big happy family. Moore has lived in Sun Valley for years and it's often featured on her Instagram page.

Jeff Daniels - Chelsea, MI

Jeff Daniels grew up in the small town of Chelsea, Michigan and as soon as he could after finding success in Hollywood, he moved back. He's a true small-town kind of guy and it makes perfect sense. While he makes his money in Hollywood, his heart is always in Michigan. 

Chris Rock - New Jersey

Chris Rock has always been an East Coast guy. Though he was born in South Carolina, his family moved to Brooklyn when he was a baby. He grew up in Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy. He started his comedy career in New York City, and for a couple of decades has lived in Alpine, New Jersey.

John Travolta - Ocala, FL

John Travolta loves to fly and is a first-class plane spotter. As such, he seems to have found the perfect place to live. The Pulp Fiction star has called Ocala, FL home for decades now. While that might sound odd, it's not when you find out his house backs up to an actual airport, so he can park his planes right at home. Sounds pretty awesome. 

Tom Cruise - Clearwater, FL

Superstar Tom Cruise actually has houses all over the world. LA and London, for starters. The most surprising place he's owns property though has to be Clearwater, FL. Cruise has what's described in the Tampa newspaper as a "sprawling penthouse" just blocks from the headquarters of the Church of Scientology, to which he has long been an outspoken member, so it makes sense. 

Taylor Swift - Nashville

Music star Taylor Swift grew up in Pennsylvania and Nashville and still has a home in the latter, where she seems to spend a lot of her time when she's not on the road. In fact, she has homes all over the place, including LA, Rhode Island, and New York City. 

Chris Evans

Chris Evans grew up just outside of Boston in the suburb of Sudbury, MA. Even though he's become one of the biggest stars in the world, he's stayed close to home. He and his new bride live nearby where he grew up in Massachusetts, after getting married in Boston. 

Chris Hemsworth - Byron Bay

The Australian native Chris Hemsworth couldn't ignore the siren call of home. After years in Hollywood becoming one of the biggest stars in the world, he decided it was time to move home. He and his wife Elsa Pataky settled in a small surfing community south of Brisbane called Byron Bay in 2015 and have never looked back. 

Tommy Lee Jones - Texas

Tommy Lee Jones doesn't seem to care much for the trappings of fame, though he has used some of the money he's earned as an actor to buy a huge tract of land in Texas. Jones might be Harvard-educated and work in Hollywood, but he's Texas through and through. 

Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani - Tishomingo, OK

Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani might be Hollywood's most unlikely couple, at least until you see them together. Less surprising is that they split time between her home stomping grounds in LA and his in Oklahoma. The two built a house on Shelton's ranch in Tishomingo, OK, where they spend most of their time. 

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds - Bedford, NY

The enduring couple of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds don't seem to be interested in big city living, instead opting for the small upstate town of Bedford, NY They maintain a couple of other houses, but their real home is in Westchester County, NY, where they live a quiet, but luxurious life in a small enclave with some celebrity neighbors including Martha Stewart and Micheal Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. 

Mark Ruffalo - Callicoon, NY

Mark Ruffalo is another actor who prefers the peace and quiet of small-town America to the bright lights of Hollywood. The Avengers star and his wife Sunny live in the tiny berg of Callicoon in the Catskill mountains of New York State. 

Elijah Wood - Austin

Elijah Wood doesn't actually live in a shire, like his Lord of the Rings character, but he doesn't live in a huge city, either. Wood has called Austin, TX home for years and a when he was on Hot Ones, he explained where to get all the best meals in town. 

Dave Chappelle - Yellow Springs, OH

Yellow Springs, Ohio might be the last place you'd expect to find a celebrity living among us, but when you understand Dave Chappelle's background, it makes perfect sense. The legendary comedian grew up in Yellow Springs and though he's made a name for himself in Hollywood, the Ohio town is clearly the place he calls home. 

Julia Roberts - Taos, NM

Many years ago, Julia Roberts bought a ranch in Taos, NM, and it seems every year, she spends more and more time there. She even married her husband Danny Moder there. While she does split time in a house in Malibu, closer to work, she seems to prefer the peaceful life of Taos, as she's explained in the past. 

Daniel Day-Lewis - Ireland

Long before Daniel Day-Lewis decided to retire from acting, he had settled into living in Ireland’s County Wicklow. It's hardly surprising that an actor like Lewis would shun the spotlight, after all, he really only worked when the part really fascinated him, and he retired in 2017 despite unparalleled success as a performer. 

John Cena - Land o' Lakes, Florida

Don't confuse John Cena's hometown of Land o' Lakes, Florida for a stick of butter. The Fast X star has lived in the town outside Tampa for a long time. Even as his star has risen in Hollywood, with a major role in the DCEU as Peacemaker both in The Suicide Squad and his own show, The Peacemaker, Cena has resisted moving to California. 

Vera Farmiga - Woodstock, NY

Upstate New York is a popular place for stars to escape the public eye and Vera Farmiga is one of the stars that prefers it that way. The Many Saints of Newark actor lives in the famous artist colony of Woodstock in the Hudson Valley, following in a long tradition of celebrities retreating to the woods to get out of the spotlight, even when she's popping into rock shows in Woodstock to play Iron Maiden covers in a bar band. 

Woody Harrelson - Maui, HI

Woody Harrelson is definitely a man who moves to the beat of his own drummer, so the fact that he lives in Hawaii is hardly a shock. He even semi-retired for a while at the height of his career. While he's not "off the grid", he's certainly off the beaten path. Thankfully, his home was unaffected by the tragic wildfires earlier this year. 

John Mayer - Livingstone, MT

John Mayer has settled down into a much quieter life in recent years. The Dead & Co guitar player has found peace and quiet in the small Montana town of Livingstone. While life on the road certainly has its wild times, one would think, it must be nice for Mayer to get back home for some relaxing peace. 

Ken Jennings - Seattle, WA

Despite being named co-host of Jeopardy! a couple of years ago, and really taking a shine to the gig that shoots in LA, Ken Jennings does not seem to have plans to permanently relocate to Southern California. Jennings and his family have long called Seattle home and it seems he's happy to commute when it's time to shoot new episodes of the legendary game show. 

Robert De Niro - New York City

It's hard to imagine Robert De Niro living anywhere but New York. He just doesn't seem to be a California type of guy at all, right? He even helped get the Tribeca Film Festival off the ground, which bolstered not only NYC but the actual neighborhood he lives in in Manhattan as it struggled to recover from the 9/11 attacks. 

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence is bi-coastal, for sure. She does have a house in LA, but her husband Cooke Maroney is an art dealer whose business and gallery are in New York City, so she seems to spend most of the time she's not working in the Big Apple. 

Dan Aykroyd - Sydenham, Ontario

Dan Aykroyd has always been proud to be Canadian and he's been a longtime resident of Sydenham, Ontario, near Kingston, ON, not too far from where he grew up in Ottawa. 

Jennifer Hudson - Chicagoland Area

Superstar Jennifer Hudson is a Chicago girl and as such, she's stayed close to home. She may be a worldwide star, but Chicago is what made her who she is today and despite the means to live anywhere, Hudson chooses to live in the suburb of Burr Ridge, outside Chi-Town. 

Nikki Glaser - St. Louis, MO

Despite being the hometown of a lot of huge stars like John Goodman, Sterling K. Brown, Jenna Fischer, and Jon Hamm, most don't stay in town. The exception to that rule is comedian and comedy roast specialist Nikki Glaser. She moved back during the pandemic and found it much more fulfilling to live in her hometown than on either coast. 

While Los Angeles may be the city of dreams, it's not always the city of permanent residence for stars that have reached those lofty heights. Most may get their start on the West Coast but many of the biggest stars in the world don't live in California. 

Jamie Foxx already got critics raving earlier this year with his show-stealing performance in They Cloned Tyrone, and just months later he is back for the courtroom drama The Burial. Foxx portrays slick, fast-talking lawyer Willie E. Gary in this story that’s based on true events. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars as the financially troubled funeral home owner Jeremiah Joseph O'Keefe, who takes on a billion-dollar “deathcare” company with the help of Foxx’s personal injury lawyer. Critics have seen The Burial, which is available to stream now with an Amazon Prime subscription, they’re calling it a crowd-pleasing throwback to the ‘90s. 

The Burial premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, with Jamie Foxx emerging as an Oscar contender for his work. In addition to Tommy Lee Jones, the movie also co-stars Jurnee Smollett, Alan Ruck, Mamoudou Athie and others, so let’s see what the critics have to say. David Fear of Rolling Stone says there may not be a role better suited to Foxx’s talent, and The Burial is a must-see opportunity to watch the actor in his element. As he wrote:

Lindsey Bahr of the AP writes that The Burial is glossy, appealing and goes down suspiciously easy, but warns the viewer not to confuse how naturally Jamie Foxx embodies the character with a lack of effort. According to Bahr: 

Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com gives the movie 3 out of 4 stars, saying that Jamie Foxx elevates this throwback to the ‘90s courtroom drama with a performance that is hilarious, gaudy and self-effacing all at once, while never diminishing his character to buffoonish levels. In Daniels’ words: 

Travis Hopson of Punch Drunk Critics agrees to a point, admitting that Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones are quite a lot of fun to watch, although the movie often feels uneven, as if it’s not taking itself very seriously and therefore undercutting its quieter moments. This critic rates the movie 3 out of 5 stars, writing: 

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times calls The Burial “old-fashioned yet timely” as Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones and an impressive supporting cast take a story that appears to be about a contract dispute between two white men and reveal it to be so much more. In Roeper’s words: 

This sounds like a great option for fans of the ‘90s legal dramas, as well as those who want to see Jamie Foxx put on yet another stellar performance this year. Other critics seem to agree with the above assessments, as The Burial holds a 92% Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics as of this writing. The movie is available to stream now, and be sure to check out some of the other best movies on Amazon Prime Video, as well as our 2023 Movie Calendar to see what’s hitting the big screen soon. 

Soap Operas are not usually the first thing we think of when we think of “Prestige Television” but they have been popular since the dawn of TV and without them, some of our favorite stars might not have ever gotten their big break. In honor of that, we’ve compiled quite a list of famous actors who started out in soap operas. 

Brad Pitt (Another World)

There aren’t many bigger stars in the world than Brad Pitt. While he famously made his first mark in pop culture in Thelma & Louise, his first professional, credited acting role came on the soap Another World. The Ocean’s Eleven star played a character named Chris on two episodes in 1987. Little did anyone know just how famous he would soon be. 

Leonardo DiCaprio (Santa Barbara)

Pitt’s co-star in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio, is also one of the biggest stars in the world. Like Pitt, DiCaprio also can point to a turn on a soap opera early in his career as a launching pad. DiCaprio had a smattering of bit parts before starring in Santa Barbara, but it was five episodes on the soap that really got his career moving. 

Demi Moore (General Hospital)

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Demi Moore was box office gold with films like St. Elmo’s Fire, A Few Good Men, and Ghost. Moore earned a then-unprecedented $12.5 million with her role in Striptease, but she got her start much more modestly as reporter Jackie Templeton in 85 episodes of General Hospital from 1982 until 1984. 

Marisa Tomei (As The World Turns)

Marisa Tomei’s career went into the stratosphere with her Academy Award-winning turn in My Cousin Vinny in 1992. She’s since been nominated for two more Oscars in her lauded career that all started with the role of Marcy Thompson, as a series regular on As The World Turns for three seasons. 

Alec Baldwin (The Doctors)

The Doctors debuted on NBC in April of 1963, on the very same day as General Hospital premiered on ABC. Unlike GH, which is still on the air, The Doctors lasted only a mere 20 years, but like GH, it helped launch a lot of careers. Alec Baldwin was one of those actors who appeared on the soap, as the character Billy Aldrich for a few years in the early 1980s, years before his big breaks would come in Beetlejuice and The Hunt For Red October. 

Kathy Bates (The Doctors)

Another actor who got her start on the oft-forgotten The Doctors is the great Kathy Bates. Bates worked hard while scratching out a living as an actor in New York City. After scoring just one bit part in the movie Taking Off in 1971, it was another 6 years before she would land a big role, this time on The Doctors.

Laurence Fishburne (One Life To Live)

Laurence Fishburne famously made waves as a teenager starring (as Larry Fishburne) in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece Apocalypse Now. While the role made him famous, his career started years earlier as Josh Hall in One Life To Live. Fishburne was only 11 years old when he debuted on the show.

Jordana Brewster (As The World Turns)

Jordana Brewster is a star in one of the biggest film franchises in history as Mia Toretto in the Fast & Furious movies. She got her start in one of the biggest soap operas in history as well. After a quick one-off on All My Children in 1995, Brewster landed a regular role on As The World Turns later that same year. She remained on the show for 118 episodes over the next six years. 

Shemar Moore (The Young and the Restless)

For over a decade, Shemar Moore starred as Derek Morgan on the beloved Criminal Minds and then on S.W.A.T for six years. Neither was his first long-time role on television, however, as Moore got his start on eight seasons of The Young and the Restless as Malcolm Winters, a role he’s returned to a number of times, most recently in 2023. 

Tom Selleck (The Young And The Restless)

Another actor who got his start on The Young and the Restless is the legendary TV star Tom Selleck. After bouncing around in bit parts for most of the ‘70s. The Blue Bloods star found a semi-regular role on the soap in 1974. He would later own TV in the ‘80s as Thomas Magnum on one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Magnum PI.

Meg Ryan (As The World Turns)

Meg Ryan was America’s sweetheart in the 1980s and '90s. Before she starred in numerous rom-coms, from When Harry Met Sally To You’ve Got Mail, she was Steve Andropoulos’ sweetheart Betsy on As The World Turns. She would play the role for three years, before snagging a role in a little movie called Top Gun, and off she went to stardom. 

Lauryn Hill (As The World Turns)

It’s not just actors who got their start on soap operas. Singer and rapper Ms. Lauryn Hill is famous for her amazing neo-soul album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998, but seven years before that, and before The Fugees, she starred as Kira Johnson on As The World Turns.

Taye Diggs (Guiding Light)

This one is a bit of a stretch because Taye Diggs had already put together a great career on Broadway, starring in the original cast of Rent and other shows. He did, however, get his regular screen time on Guiding Light in 1997, after a couple of smaller parts on TV. 

Julianne Moore (As The World Turns)

Julianne Moore has won a slew of awards in her career. The Boogie Nights star can boast five Oscar nominations and one win, she has an Emmy, multiple Golden Globe and SAG awards, and even one Daytime Emmy, which she won for Best Actress on the soap As The World Turns in 1988.

David Hasselhoff (The Young And The Restless)

Baywatch might have been a soap opera on the beach, but it wasn’t the first time David Hasselhoff starred in one. The Hoff played Snapper Foster (yes, that’s the name of the character) for seven years in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s on The Young and the Restless, before scoring his gig on Knight Rider. While starring on Knight Rider, The Hoff also appeared on one episode of Santa Barbara.

Mark Hamill (General Hospital)

Stars Wars has often been described as a “space opera” so it only makes sense that Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, got his start on a soap opera. The future superstar started smaller, with a role as Kent Murray on General Hospital for a couple of years right before Star Wars became the biggest thing, well, ever. 

Josh Duhamel (All My Children)

Transformers star Josh Duhamel has starred in 39 movies and had roles on 18 TV shows, including Las Vegas and Jupiter Rising, and it all started with a breakout role on ABC’s All My Children in 1999. He starred on the soap opera for a few years, before moving on, but did return briefly in 2011 to reprise his role as Leo du Pres. He even won a Daytime Emmy in 2002 for his performance. 

Kelly Ripa (All My Children)

Kelly Ripa has been everyone’s favorite morning talk show host for years now and over 30 years ago, she was a dancer on Dance Party USA. Her first serious acting gig came in 1990 as Hayley Vaughan on All My Children, a role she would play for more than a decade. Not only did it jumpstart her career, but the soap played an even more important role in her life, as that’s how she met her husband, Mark Consuelos.

Mark Consuelos (All My Children)

That’s right, Mark Consuelos also began his career on All My Children, playing Mateo Santos on the show for six years. The Riverdale star was a huge hit on the show, and like Ripa, returned in 2010 to help celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary. Consuelos and Ripa married in 1996 while starring on the show together and now almost 30 years later are still working together as co-hosts on Live.

Ryan Phillippe (One Life To Live)

From I Know What You Last Summer to Cruel Intentions, Ryan Phillippe played some iconic parts in the 1990s. It was One Life To Live where he landed his first one, though, in 1992. In the ‘00s, he got more serious, with major roles in Gosford Park and Crash, but none of it might have happened with the soap opera casting him as a teenager. 

Amber Tamblyn (General Hospital)

Amber Tamblyn wasn’t even a teen when she landed her first on-screen role on General Hospital in 1995. The 127 Hours star played Emily Quatermaine for six seasons on the soap.

John Stamos (General Hospital)

Before playing Uncle Jesse on Full House, and before playing bongos for The Beach Boys, John Stamos was breaking hearts as Blackie Parrish on General Hospital for three seasons in the early ‘80s. Stamos even earned a nomination for a Daytime Emmy for the role in 1983.

Mario Van Peebles (One Life To Live)

Mario Van Peebles made his permanent mark on film with his direction of the 1991 classic New Jack City. The cult classic was huge at the time, and Van Peebles has been acting and directing in TV and film ever since, but his career really got going a decade prior to New Jack City when he appeared as Doc Gilmore in One Life To Live in 1982 and 1983. 

Hayden Panettiere (One Life To Live)

“Save the cheerleader, save the world” is a now-legendary catchphrase from the TV series Heroes and the cheerleader was, of course, the great Hayden Panettiere. Panettiere had already scored numerous credits before Heroes, including her first role as a five-year-old One Life To Live for 26 episodes in the mid-'90s. She followed that up as Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light for four seasons.

Justin Hartley (Passions)

Justin Harley was part of the cast that made more TV viewers cry than any other as a part of the brilliant ensemble on This Is Us. Hartley got his start probably making daytime TV fans emotional on the short-lived (by soap opera standards) Passions. After becoming a series regular on Smallville, he returned to daytime TV on The Young and the Restless before landing his award-winning gig on This Is Us. 

Robin Wright (Santa Barbara)

In 1987 Robin Wright became part of cinema history with her role as Buttercup in the much-beloved The Princess Bride. It took a few years of starring on the soap Santa Barbara before she would get that breakout role, but she’s been on top ever since, with iconic roles on the Netflix series House of Cards and in movies like Wonder Woman 1984, which is pretty fitting, as that was the year she started on Santa Barbara.

Lindsay Lohan (Guiding Light and Another World)

Lindsay Lohan’s first movie role was actually two roles in 1998’s The Parent Trap. She immediately endeared herself to audiences, and that love only grew with Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. She’s had an up-and-down career since, but like so many others, that career started as a kid on a soap. Two soaps, actually. First, a brief one-off on Guiding Light, with a reoccurring role on Another World for two seasons. 

Kevin Kline (Search For Tomorrow)

Search for Tomorrow is one of those soaps that despite running for more than 35 years, it’s completely forgotten about today. It was canceled in 1986, but it was around long enough for Kevin Kline to make his first on-screen appearance. The classically trained Kline returned to the stage after leaving the show, but in 1982 he found himself in a role in Sophie’s Choice alongside Meryl Streep, and he’s never looked back. 

Tommy Lee Jones (One Life To Live)

Harvard grad Tommy Lee Jones actually got his first role in the classic Love Story but it was a minor “blink and you’ll miss it” type of role. It was probably his 21 episodes on One Life To Live in the early 1970s that really jumpstarted his now-legendary career. 

Tom Berenger (One Life To Live)

Speaking of One Life to Live in the ‘70s, Platoon star Tom Berenger overlapped with Jones for one season on the long-running soap. Berenger played Tim Siegel for 66 episodes from 1975 until his character’s death just after getting married in the 1976 season. Classic soap opera plot!  

While budgets of soap operas might not be that of prime-time TV, there is undoubtedly plenty of talent on these shows, and has been for many years, as this amazing of list famous actors who started out in soap operas proves. 

Behind-the-scenes drama can be just as captivating as the films themselves. One of the most infamous feuds in Tinseltown history is the clash between two titans of the silver screen, Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones. Their beef, which ignited during the production of Joel Schumacher's 1995 hit Batman Forever, remains a fascinating tale of clashing personalities, artistic differences, and the enduring legacy of one of its era's most iconic superhero films.

The Birth of the Feud

When Tim Burton stepped as the director for the third Batman film, Joel Schumacher took the helm, ushering in a new visual style. Gone were the Gothic influences of German Expressionism, replaced by the vibrant neon aesthetics reminiscent of MTV music videos. Another significant change was in the casting department; despite the possibility of Michael Keaton reprising his role, he decided to step away, citing his dissatisfaction with the script, which he deemed "never good."

While Val Kilmer stepping in as the new Batman was noteworthy, it wasn't the movie's biggest headline. The Hollywood buzz of that era centered around a beloved figure for those of us who grew up in the '90s – the comedic genius Jim Carrey, stepping into the shoes of The Riddler. Adding to the star-studded cast was Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, portraying the complex district attorney Harvey Dent/ Two-Face. The comedian speculates it was his star power and prominent role that may have irked the Oscar winning actor and sparked the flames of their feud. 

A Clash of Styles

At first glance, The Mask actor and the Fugitive star seem unlikely to clash. Carrey, known for his eccentric comedic roles, was cast as the Riddler, a character that perfectly suited his offbeat humor. And the Ace Ventura star chewing up the scenery in a relentlessly maddening performance makes the film worth revisiting even today. In contrast, the Coal Miner’s Daughter actor, renowned for his intense and stoic performances, embraced the role of Two-Face, another iconic Caped Crusader villain. It was precisely these differences in approach and temperament that fueled their discord.

The Dumb & Dumber vet candidly shared his experience on Norm Macdonald Live in 2017, recounting how the Men In Black actor expressed his strong aversion to working with him on the Batman Forever set. Carrey recalled the tension reaching its peak during production, just before their “biggest scene” when he unexpectedly found himself in the same restaurant as Jones, as he revealed to Macdonald:

Jones' Uncomfortability With The Material

Carrey and Macdonald seemed to have some insight into the situation, and as revealed in a 2015 oral history from Heat Vision, the No Country For Old Men star required quite a bit of persuasion to commit to the project. According to producer Peter Macgregor-Scott, the always serious actor initially expressed his confusion after reading the script:

The Legacy is "Forever"

Despite the on-set tensions, Batman Forever proved to be a blockbuster, raking in over $336 million globally. While the feud between Carrey and Jones didn't appear to affect the film's commercial triumph, it undeniably left its mark on the actors. The movie enjoyed immense success and set the stage for introducing Batnipples and Arnold Schwarzenegger's pun-laden performance as Mr. Freeze. So can we really complain? 

For those longing to revisit the most '90s incarnation of the Dark Knight–seriously, you have never seen so many curtain haircuts on display–Batman Forever is now available for streaming to anyone with a Max subscription.

Over the past few years, actress Jenna Ortega has become a household name. While she’s worked in TV and film from a young age, Ortega’s roles in horror-centric projects like Scream, X, and (of course) Netflix’s Wednesday has resulted in her having a strong and vocal fanbase. But her talent also lies outside of all things spooky, and her role in the new crime drama Finestkind proves she’s a bonafide movie star. 

Finestkind recently had its premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, which CinemaBlend is in attendance for. The movie is written and directed by Brian Helgeland (42, Man on Fire), and features a strong cast including Ben Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, and Toby Wallace. The film follows estranged brothers Charlie and Tom (Wallace and Foster), who are fishermen off the coast of Massachusetts. As they reconnect and start working together for the summer, Charlie starts a relationship with Ortega’s Mabel, who comes from a family of drug dealers.

While Tom tries to teach Charlie his dangerous trade, it soon becomes clear that there are threats both on land and on the water. The team of fishers make a gamble going into Canadian water to score a haul of scallops, and are caught by the coast guard and fined a whopping $100k. Following this the brothers and Mabel cook up a scheme to do a one-time drug run in order to pay the fine. From there things go from bad to worse, as they deal with a violent and dangerous heroin kingpin.

Finestkind has some charming comedic moments, but things also get very tense as a result of the drugrunning plot line. Jenna Ortega’s performance is a real standout, as she goes from a child actress to playing a formidable independent woman. There’s no masked killer or Addams Family characters for her to interact with, but her natural charisma and emotionality don't need those IPs to shine.

Another standout performance in this movie comes from the legendary Tommy Lee Jones. He plays Tom’s cantankerous father Ray, a man who lives in purposeful isolation. But when a medical crisis arises, he tries to make changes and connect more– especially with his son. Jones has both hilarious line deliveries and heartfelt moments throughout which show why he’s had such a long and celebrated career.

Unfortunately, Helgeland’s script doesn’t always work, despite the heartfelt performances by Finestkind’s cast. At my screening of the movie there were a number of moments where the audience laughed at the dialogue– even during the movie’s high stakes moments. There’s one particular line that serves as the movie’s mission statement, which unfortunately got less and less effective the more it was repeated. And some character’s choices were truly baffling, especially in the way the movie ultimately wraps up.

It’s unclear when Finestkind will be released, but it will eventually be available with a Paramount+ subscription. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Many Hollywood stars have emerged over the last several decades and established themselves as multi-genre threats. You could think of the great Robert Downey Jr., Harrison Ford, and even Scarlett Johansson. But today, we will be talking about another actor who has been in the industry for years: Tommy Lee Jones. 

He's been all over the map, from action thrillers to sci-fi movies to dramas that show his ability to act. Now, we have this list of the best Tommy Lee Jones movies that you should check out, whether on a streaming platform or as a rental. 

The Fugitive (1993)

The Fugitive is based on the 1960s TV show of the same name. Starring Harrison Ford in one of his best roles and Tommy Lee Jones, this action thriller follows a surgeon who is framed for murder and escapes from custody after a severe bus crash. He makes it his mission to find the person who actually killed his family while simultaneously being hunted down by the government. 

Jones plays Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, one of the people hunting Ford's character, Dr. Richard Kimble. This was the film that won Jones the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the film itself earned several nominations, including Best Picture. He offers a fantastic performance, and the movie is filled with action to keep you on the edge of your seat. Plus, the leads have some great chemistry. 

Stream The Fugitive on Tubi.
Rent/Buy The Fugitive on Amazon.

JFK (1991)

Directed by Oliver Stone, JFK is a political thriller that looks deep into the real investigation of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, mainly following Jim Garrison, a lawyer who believes that the supposed killer had an accomplice and that it was was a two-person job. 

Jones plays Clay Shaw/Clay Bertrand, again showing his impeccable acting talent and raw ability to draw eyes to the screen. Once again, he was nominated for an Academy Award, alongside seven other nominations, the movie winning two. It's a great political film for those who want a good drama. 

Stream JFK on Max.
Rent/Buy JFK on Amazon.

Men In Black 1-3 (1997-2012)

Here come the men in black. For the first three movies, the Men in Black franchise mainly followed the adventures of Kevin Brown and James Darrell Edwards III, known as Agent K and Agent J, as they fought against a whole universe of aliens to keep humanity safe. 

I could talk for hours about the first three Men in Black movies and why it's one of Jones' best films, but I think everyone already knows it. The chemistry between him and Smith is always killer, and they can pull laughs from the crowd no matter how gross the aliens they encounter might be. 

Truthfully, I think the franchise peaked with the films where Jones played Agent K, and nothing can ever top his role. There have been attempts to revive the series and start with new actors, but I just can't get behind them. I will always want to see a continuation of these two and their extra-terrestrial adventures. 

I don't think we'll be getting another movie from them anytime soon, but a girl can dream, alright?

Stream/Buy Men in Black on Amazon Prime.
Stream/Rent/Buy Men in Black II on Amazon Prime.
Stream/Rent/Buy Men in Black III on Amazon Prime.

In The Valley Of Elah (2007)

Directed by Paul Haggis and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon, In the Valley of Elah is a crime drama that will captivate you. The film mainly follows the story of a military father looking for his child. When he discovers that his son has been killed, he makes it his mission to find the people responsible and take them down, settling on revenge rather than grief.

The movie was released during the Iraq War, and Jones was the perfect pick to portray that desperate fear and, later on, the rage that comes from losing a child. He was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. 

Rent/Buy In The Valley of Elah on Amazon.

Lincoln (2012)

Directed by the incredible Steven Spielberg, Lincoln stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the titular man and tells the story of President Lincoln during the last few months of his life as he works hard to end slavery and the Civil War, leading up to the events of the establishment of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

Lincoln is packed to the brim with stars alongside Lewis, such as the incredible Sally Field, Adam Driver, Bill Camp, and more. Still, Tommy Lee Jones' Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens was undoubtedly one of the best. He delivered some of the film's best scenes, from his solo speeches to moments involving others. He was again nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards for his role. 

Rent/Buy Lincoln on Amazon.

No Country For Old Men (2007)

No Country For Old Men follows three stories: a man who stumbles upon money in the desert, a hitman trying to get to the cash for his nefarious deeds, and the sheriff looking into the crime and trying to solve it before anyone else gets hurt. Eventually, their lives intertwine, and tragedy strikes. 

The film won Best Picture at the Academy Awards for a good reason, as the main three stars, Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem, killed it. There's something about seeing Jones as a good guy sheriff trying to save the day that makes the film that much better. Trust me; you'll be rooting for him as the movie progresses. 

Stream No Country for Old Men on Amazon Prime.
Rent/Buy No Country For Old Men on Amazon. 

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Witness the start of a hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain America: The First Avenger is the first film in that franchise, where we meet Steve Rogers, a young man with many health problems, who is given the chance to become a figure of hope for America through using a super-soldier serum that will change him forever. 

The MCU has vastly expanded since this film, but I sometimes like to revisit the movies that began it all – and Jones is hilarious and fantastic here. He plays Chester Phillips, a colonel responsible for creating Captain America, and he's sarcastic, gruff, and all things great about a military officer in a movie. I would gladly watch a film just about him. 

Stream Captain America: The First Avenger on Disney+.
Rent/Buy Captain America: The First Avenger on Amazon.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Directed by Oliver Stone, Natural Born Killers follows the story of two people who were traumatized in childhood, which bled into their adult years. But of course, these two end up meeting, twistedly falling in love, and taking their trauma to the next level – by killing people, and these acts gain media attention that turns them into stars.

Let me tell you, if you want to see a movie where Tommy Lee Jones acts maddening, this is the one. His scenes are genuinely some of the most enthralling of the movie. He plays the prison warden that the main characters are taken to, and seeing him angry is always a sight. The film itself is pretty bloody, so keep that in mind before watching. 

Rent/Buy Natural Born Killers on Amazon.

Ad Astra (2019)

Ad Astra is a psychological sci-fi film that stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut who heads into space on the mission of a lifetime – to find his father and stop him from discovering aliens, which could ruin life as they know it on Earth, and quite possibly the galaxy around them. 

The movie is one of those films that takes its time getting into the story and showing just how scary space travel can be, but Jones' performance is incredible. I love his scenes with Pitt, and it's always fun to see him back in a sci-fi film after MIB. 

Rent/Buy Ad Astra on Amazon.

Jason Bourne (2016)

Last but not least, we have Jason Bourne. This Bourne franchise film follows the titular CIA assassin, but he finds out that there's a lot more to the government organization than he ever thought possible, which causes a target to be placed on his back. While he tries to outrun the CIA, the director sends others to finish Bourne off. 

Tommy Lee Jones as a CIA director is everything you could ever want. His character, Robert Dewey, is powerful, intense, intelligent, and a perfect antagonist to Jason Bourne, and Jones’ scenes with Matt Damon are fantastic. I would watch this again. 

Rent/Buy Jason Bourne on Amazon.

There are so many other films that Jones has made, but these are the ones to highlight. Now if you don't mind me, I will go and watch Men in Black again and be freaked out by all those cockroaches. Gross. 

1997’s Men In Black features what is arguably Will Smith’s best role of his career to date, but like many Hollywood stories, there was another big name actor who almost got the part in the action movie instead of him. That person was Chris O’Donnell, who at a time had a number of hit movies like Scent of a Woman, The Three Musketeers and as Robin in Batman Forever. As Men In Black hits its 25th anniversary, the movie’s director recalls “underpromising” the ‘90s classic to O'Donnell so that he could get Will Smith on board. 

Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld recently shared that Hollywood producers' first choice for the sci-fi comedy ahead of production was Chris O’Donnell for Agent J opposite Clint Eastwood as Tommy Lee Jones’ role of Agent K. However, Sonnenfield was dead set on Smith. Here’s how he steered O’Donnell away in his words while recently discussing the film with Insider:

While speaking about Men In Black a quarter of a century after its original release (on July 2, 1997), Barry Sonnenfield shared that Will Smith was his top choice for one of the movie’s leads because his wife thought he would be the right fit for the part. In order to give Smith a chance, he downplayed the movie to Chris O’Donnell. He continued to share the story behind Smith nabbing the role, saying,

Barry Sonnenfield also shared that he thinks O’Donnell – who more recently has become famous for his role in NCIS – is a “good actor.” However, once his wife gave him the idea to cast The Prince of Bel-Air star he had a one track mind about it. At the time of the casting, another Will Smith classic, Independence Day had yet to come out, which ended up becoming the top grossing movie of 1996, preceding the release of Men In Black the following year. Those producers who preferred O’Donnell had no idea that Smith was about to become the biggest Hollywood star, but they surely must have been happy to see it happen. 

When sharing the Men In Black story, Barry Sonnenfield shared that it is his belief that “you always want to underpromise and overdeliver.” Alongside Men In Black, the filmmaker is behind the Addams Family movies, Wild Wild West (also with Will Smith) and most recently has directed multiple A Series of Unfortunate Events and Schmigadoon! episodes. 

Men In Black became the highest grossing movie of 1997, continuing a two-year blockbuster streak for Will Smith at the time. Twenty-five years later, Men In Black is still a classic and very much holds up among ‘90s films and there’s a lot of love for the sequels too. Happy 25th to Men in Black! 

If things had gone off as planned for Jamie Foxx’s Amazon movie The Burial, the project would have seen the Soul actor teaming up with Harrison Ford in a movie based on a wildly true story. Sadly, the project has seen a bit of a shake-up, with Mr. Ford leaving his intended role entirely. However, The Burial couldn’t have landed a more perfect replacement, as instead of Harrison Ford playing the lead role, it’s Tommy Lee Jones, his co-star from The Fugitive, who’s going to take the vacancy.

Based on a true story about dueling funeral home directors, and a lawsuit involving “a handshake deal gone wrong,” The Burial will now see Tommy Lee Jones starring as Jeremiah O’Keefe, one half of the feuding party. Deadline’s reporting of events comes almost a year after Jamie Foxx initially set up the project as both a producer and actor, slating himself to play the role of attorney Willie Gary. No reason was given as to why Harrison Ford left The Burial, which is set under director Emily Betts, with a script by writer Doug Wright.

No offense to the acting skills of Harrison Ford, but landing Tommy Lee Jones as a Mississippi businessman ready to go to court is a pretty amazing save. The Burial will absolutely benefit from Jones’ no-nonsense drawl, even though he is a Texan himself. Though with this new casting, Jamie Foxx may need to tweak his approach, as we’ve all seen what happens when Mr. Jones is around buffoonery that he cannot sanction.

As for Harrison Ford’s surprise departure, one could presume that the scheduled start of The Burial’s production may clash with his current gig in the fifth and final Indiana Jones movie. As Ford encountered some injuries that delayed his own responsibilities on Indiana Jones 5, the legendary action star may need to make up for lost time on director James Mangold’s big sendoff for the series. Nowhere could this be more apparent than with Harrison Ford’s recent return to set after incurring said injury this past June.

Jamie Foxx himself is certainly busy, as he’s not only dodging questions about whether he will or won’t be in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but he’s also working on several other projects at the moment. With his Mike Tyson series still in the works, you’d think that maybe Foxx would be taking a breather. But he not only has time for a movie like The Burial on his plate, he’s also ready to pitch the world on a remake of Stephen King’s Misery with a Black lead.

The Burial currently does not have a release date, nor do we know when production will start. For now, we’ll just have to imagine what the on-screen teaming of Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones will look like, as we wait for more information. Though should you want to look at something more concrete, check out the 2021 release schedule for what’s headed to theaters throughout the rest of the year. 

The movie industry is a killer business to work in, as anything and everything can go wrong at a moment’s notice. But in the new film The Comeback Trail, that’s exactly what Robert De Niro and an all-star cast are hoping will happen, as the deadliest scam in Hollywood history is about to be hatched! The only problem is, for it to pay off, someone’s gotta die, and that someone is the seemingly unkillable Tommy Lee Jones. You’ll have to see it to believe it, so here’s the trailer for The Comeback Trail:

We did mention an all-star cast in The Comeback Trail, and as you can see in the first look above, it’s a hell of a line-up trying to strike it rich by knocking ‘em dead. As a pair of producers (Robert De Niro and Zack Braff) are struggling to pay back a mobster they are in some serious debt to (Morgan Freeman) an accidental death on the set of a rival producer (Emile Hirsch) gives our protagonists a fatal idea. All they have to do is look like they’re mounting a film of their own, complete with a totally insane/washed up western star (Tommy Lee Jones) and have him “accidentally” die. The only trouble is, this particular cowboy is hard to send to the last roundup in the sky.

It certainly isn’t for lack of trying though, as The Comeback Trail shows Tommy Lee Jones’ character engaging in everything from a daily round of Russian Roulette to a fiery horse stunt and a rickety bridge scenario. But, in true comedic fashion, Jones’ aptly named hardcase Duke Montana brushes himself off, and is ready to go every time. Which, to the chagrin of Robert De Niro’s Max Barber, means he has to go back to the drawing board yet again.

2020 feels like a strong year for Robert De Niro, as he has two big comedies in line for debut after a 2019 that saw him pour his heart and soul into the lead of Martin Scorsese’s de-aged mob epic The Irishman. No doubt, with a role that heavy, an actor would kind of need the time to mentally recover and have some fun. With both The Comeback Trail and even the family comedy The War with Grandpa, it feels like De Niro is stretching his comedic talents to great effect yet again. And to think, all it took was lobbing some dodgeballs at some kids, and trying to kill Tommy Lee Jones.

There’s an all-star cast just waiting to make the public laugh, and in a year that’s gone as hard as 2020 has to throw curveballs and disasters into the world, we could use the sort of energy The Comeback Trail is looking to put into the world. Audiences can see the film start its way down its road of happy accidents, when it’s released on November 13th.

Batman Forever is a Batman movie that largely gets overlooked. It's not lambasted the way Batman & Robin is, but it's not beloved the way so many of the others are. However, there is one story about the production of the movie that's been repeated more than once, which is that Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey, who played the two villains of the film, really did not get along. Now, director Joel Schumacher has confirmed that the story is very true. It seems Jones really didn't like Carrey.

Batman Forever was the second movie that Tommy Lee Jones worked on with Joel Schumacher, and the director tells Vulture that while working with Jones the first time was wonderful, the actor was really mean to his co-star on the second film. According to Schumacher...

Jim Carrey has spoken before that the situation between himself and Jones on the set of Batman Forever was heated. According to Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones called what the Ace Ventura actor did "buffoonery" and did it to his face.

Jim Carrey has suggested the reason Tommy Lee Jones didn't like him was simply that Jones had a problem with the film, and the more comic way the comic book property was handled under Schumacher. The feeling was that maybe Jones wasn't comfortable with that sort of work. The director suggests the animosity may have come from somewhere else, saying that Tommy Lee Jones likes to be the center of a scene, and being the center of attention is tough when you're standing next to Jim Carrey...

It's not entirely uncommon for actors who work together to discover they don't necessarily love each other personally. Usually, however, everybody involved is a professional, and the work gets done with a minimum of drama and people move on. The reason Joel Schumacher seems to be calling out Tommy Lee Jones here is that he felt Jones' place in Hollywood gave him a responsibility to be more professional, that the actor did not live up to...

While Joel Schumacher apparently is willing to talk about Tommy Lee Jones general conduct, he'll be leaving the specifics out.

Needless to say, Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones have never worked together since, and based on this information, it seems unlikely to ever happen again.

Sometimes, the stories that surround the creation of iconic movies like Men In Black are just as interesting, if not more so, than the stories that they tell on the big screen. And in the case of an anecdote that Men In Black and Bill and Ted franchise screenwriter Ed Solomon has recently shared, there’s an argument to be made for the latter.

Apparently, the film we all know and love took a more involved path to becoming itself than anyone knew, as a fan asked Ed Solomon on social media if there was a point that Men In Black didn’t have Will Smith’s Agent J as the focal point to the story. And that tale starts with Solomon recounting the casting of Tommy Lee Jones, and a discussion that led to some colorful language being used:

Never known as someone to mince words, this Men In Black story definitely tracks with the stories others have told about Tommy Lee Jones’ extremely serious demeanor. Let’s not forget, this is the man who told Jim Carrey that he wouldn’t sanction his buffoonery, in the phase of his career where buffoonery was his stock in trade.

So clearly, Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t suffer who he feels are fools, and Ed Solomon learned that lesson the hard way, as he continued to tell his story with the following additional details:

While the comic book that Men In Black was based off of was definitely a more serious affair, the film that hit theaters in 1997 was a comedy/sci-fi blockbuster that came in behind Titanic as the second highest-grossing film of the year. And keep in mind, this movie also spawned a hit single through Will Smith’s hot career as a rap star.

So without the comedy/sci-fi tone, not only would the film have more than likely failed to snare the collective audience that it did, it wouldn’t have sold itself all that well. It was something that Will Smith himself understood, as Ed Solomon mentions in the next part of his epic story he shared through Twitter:

Ultimately, hiring Ed Solomon back as the writer of Men In Black was the best idea that could have ever transpired in this crazy path from point A to point B. As the franchise would grow to include two more sequels, and one recently released “legacyquel” out of Men In Black International, that initial seed of following Agent J into a wider world we never knew existed took root and became a memorable series. And in case you were wondering, this story does have a happy ending, as director Barry Sonnenfeld all but confirmed to Solomon in the final piece to the story, which sees the writer rehired. But as you’ll see below, even Tommy Lee Jones eventually came around to the idea that was Men In Black:

Collaboration is a key to making any film of any stripe work, and all of the ingredients that went into Men In Black turned it into the memorable classic that Hollywood is still chasing after to this very day. But you can’t always catch lightning in a bottle, as sometimes what works and what doesn’t work isn’t so easily discerned. But Ed Solomon had a vision, a clear plan of action, and once he was brought back into the fold for good, blockbuster history was made. And no matter what you think of the sequels, that original can’t be beat -- especially when it creates a song as catchy as the original Men In Black single.

Men In Black International is currently in theaters, with Men In Black being available on its own, or part of the original trilogy collection, on digital HD and home video.

The summer season may be the most highly-anticipated season for moviegoers, but last weekend was as disappointing as it gets. Men in Black and Shaft are two properties that have opened to massive appeal and dollar signs in the past, but not in 2019. Both films had underperforming debuts and are sure to be overshadowed the comeback of Toy Story 4 this weekend.

Men in Black International certainly might have done better for itself if fans were promised the return of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ Agents J and K, who hung up their sunglasses and suits in 2012. That’s not to say new leads Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson don’t have star power. The pair unforgettably dazzled us with their chemistry in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, but sometimes continuity just works better than Hollywood using a neuralyzer on our favorite franchises.

The producers of the sequel/spinoff, Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes, recently talked to Variety about why the iconic Men in Black pair were not involved in the new Men in Black installment. Check it out:

Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes have been producers on all the Men in Black films. As MacDonald said, when they finished the trilogy with Men in Black 3 in 2012, they felt they had closed the chapter of Agent J and K’s story arcs and didn’t plan to bring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones back to continue their stories.

They did, however, add one wink to the original agents. In the office of Liam Neeson’s character, Agent High T, there is an oil painting of J and K saving the world in the original 1997 movie. Take a look at the painting to the right:

When they decided to revitalize the franchise, they moved past these key actors and injected some girl power with Tessa Thompson’s character of Molly, alongside Chris Hemsworth’s goofy but badass persona. The movie centers on Molly, who watches her parents get neuralyzed as a kid and curiously seeks out the secret Men in Black organization.

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones cameoing was apparently decided against because they knew their inclusion would have fans hungry for more from them. It does show some lack of confidence on their part to say this. There have certainly been plenty of fun cameos of these sorts that haven’t taken away from the new additions to franchises.

In a recent report on the behind-the-scenes drama on Men in Black International, a source said that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were deemed an “expensive and not as forward-looking proposition” for the studio to pursue. The movie went through multiple script changes and director F. Gary Gray almost left the project a few times as well.

Men in Black International has made $113 million worldwide since its opening last week (being made off a $110 million production budget) and received poor reviews from critics and fans. So one could assume that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones probably couldn’t have saved this one anyway.

James Gray’s Ad Astra was slated to open in theaters on May 24, opposite Booksmart, Brightburn and Aladdin. But when May arrived and we still hadn’t seen a trailer, that release date began to look unlikely. And indeed, the film wound up being pushed back until September of this year. Now the first trailer has finally arrived and it looks to have been worth the wait. Check out Brad Pitt heading to space to find Tommy Lee Jones in Ad Astra:

At the beginning of the year, without a lick of footage, I had Ad Astra on my list of most intriguing under-the-radar 2019 movies and after seeing this trailer I am considerably more intrigued and don’t expect this to stay under-the-radar for long. That’s because this trailer is chock full of stunning visuals, interesting character moments, and a story that leaves you with more questions than had you not seen the trailer at all.

The most simplistic description of the story of Ad Astra is that Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride travels into space to find his missing father, but as we see here it is much, much more complicated than that. The way the trailer begins with some sort of phenomenon dubbed ‘The Surge’, which seems to be like an electromagnetic pulse, immediately lets us know that there is more going on than just a missing Tommy Lee Jones.

Brad Pitt’s character finds out that his father’s mission to search for intelligent life isn’t quite what he thought he it was. It’s unclear if they know if he is still alive (he is) or where he is, but what is known is that he was experimenting with some nasty stuff. Anyone who watches The Expanse, and if you don’t you should, probably got major protomolecule vibes here.

So Roy McBride must go find his father and save the entire Solar System. Finding out the truth, about his father, about extraterrestrial life, about what connection there is between The Surge and his father’s work (there’s gotta be right?) will be the driving questions of this space mystery.

The science fiction elements of the trailer weren’t the only intriguing parts though. The mentions of psychological evaluations and Brad Pitt reiterating his commitment to the mission are quite interesting and could foreshadow some sort of space madness for the character. I also suspect that when he finds his father and learns the truth, he will have to make a hard choice between honoring his mission and his love for his father.

It’s those human elements that make for the best sci-fi and they look to be present here. Also, to quote Armageddon, “What are you doing with a gun in space?” Engaging in a lunar rover chase/shootout, that’s what! Liv Tyler is once again back on Earth thinking about her astronaut. There looks to be some really cool action in Ad Astra and with Dunkirk and Interstellar cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema behind the lens, it all looks positively gorgeous.

James Gray’s previous efforts include We Own the Night and The Lost City of Z and although it sounds like Ad Astra was pushed back in part to finish all the effects, a September release could mean there is confidence it could compete come awards time.

You can go to the stars when Ad Astra releases on September 20. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all this year’s biggest movies.

A little over 20 years ago, our galaxy got a lot bigger at the movies, with the Men In Black series making its debut in theaters on July 2, 1997. The franchise helped secure Will Smith's position as a blockbuster movie star, made David Schwimmer think twice before turning down feature film work, and started a series where humor was only matched by its deep thoughts on the universe. While there are only three films, and a short lived cartoon series in the canon based on the cult comic book series that ran at various times in the 1990s, there are still some interesting ways to experience the stories of Agents J and K.

And that leads us to our Newbie Guide to the Men In Black series, which is your one stop shop for all the knowledge you could need when it comes to enjoying all the franchise has to offer. We'll begin with a rundown of all of the properties in the series, as well as a quick synopsis of what each piece is about. Then, once we've run through the series' content, we'll lay out a couple of different suggestions on how to watch the series, depending on how you want to experience the story of the Men In Black franchise.

Be warned, there are some spoilers past this page, as we'll be going into details about why these different viewing runs are unique, and what sort of experience you should expect. Time to suit into the last suit you'll ever wear, as we're about to deputize you dear readers as honorary agents in the employ of the Men In Black.

Men In Black (1997)

Officer James Edwards is about to have a really interesting day. After an encounter with a perp not of this world, he's about to be drafted into a shadowy government organization and become one of the Men In Black. What's more, his initiation couldn't have happened at a worse time, as a rogue alien has crash landed on Earth, in search of a secret that could wipe the entire planet off the map.

Men In Black: The Series (1997 - 2001)

After the events of Men In Black, an alternate timeline sees agents J, K, and L going back to work protecting the Earth against the worst scum of the universe. Various baddies come and go, in this episodic cartoon series.

Men In Black II (2002)

Five years after Men In Black and the retirement of Agent K, Agent J is thrust into another conflict that could make or break the Earth. This time, evil arrives in the form of Serleena, a shapeshifter after a powerful artifact left on our planet as part of a protection pact between the MIB and an alien dignitary. As it turns out, there's only one play that Agent J has when it comes to even standing the slightest chance of saving the day: he has to bring Agent K out of retirement.

Men In Black III (2012)

An alien prisoner, Boris The Animal, escapes from maximum security on the Moon and is hell bent on rewriting history to allow Earth's conquest. As Agent J is the only person to be unaffected by a shift in the space-time continuum, he has to go back to 1969 to right the wrongs of history. And, he's going to have a little help on his side... a younger, brasher Agent K.

The history of the Men In Black now lies before you, and there are many paths you can take to experience it. Let's start with the most obvious route to take, the one that hits all the stops along the way.

The Complete Run

What started as a random adaptation of a cult comic series turned into a money printing machine, as Men In Black became the third highest grossing film of 1997, right behind Titanic and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. With Will Smith's blockbuster profile gaining a lot of cred when added with the previous year's Independence Day, and Tommy Lee Jones being the well-respected, Oscar-winning character actor that everyone knew and loved, their pairing was fated to become something that would bring in a total of $1.65 billion in worldwide grosses. That run would also spawn an animated show, which brings the series to the following running order:

With the notable exception of Men In Black: The Series, the series timeline for Men In Black runs pretty straightforward, as the focus is really on Agent J's progression as a Men In Black agent, with Agent K being brought into his story as required. The relationship between the two agents takes some interesting turns, and J has to not only bring K out of retirement via deneurolyzing, but he also has to go back in time and work with a younger version of the agent that trained him. Not to mention, the animated series branches into a new timeline where K doesn't even go into retirement, L is still part of the team, and Edgar has a twin brother. So if you're ready to get weird with the Men In Black, taking the full journey is the way to go.

The Short And Sweet Run

As with any blockbuster franchise worth their salt, there's a faction of folks that tend to discount the validity of one of the sequels, Men In Black II in this case, as a quality entry in the series. So, if you really want to leave that entry out, we won't hold it against you, as it does make for an interesting narrative. If this is the path you seek, you'll only need the following films to enjoy it:

Ignoring the story of Men In Black II, the series becomes more of a Mobius strip of timey-wimey continuity. With Men In Black starting Agent J's recruitment, we still get the origin story of how James Edwards III became Agent J, through those fateful days in 1997. But, by following it up directly with Men In Black III, we get a story that shows just how well Agent K knew his young recruit before even bringing him into the fold. Thanks to the twist of James's father being killed during Boris the Animal's attempt at preventing the Arc Net Shield deployment in 1969, you've got a bittersweet story about just how connected this inseparable pair is, and how Agent K knew exactly who he was drafting when he reunited with his young friend several decades later.

The Agent J Run

Taking into account the story of James Darrell Edwards III's mysterious recruitment into the Men In Black, there's another way to experience his story's continuity. Since the narrative does tend to focus on J's development as an agent in the Men In Black, this is an intriguing way to experience his complete arc. In that respect, the order you should be watching the Men In Black series is as follows:

We start at the end, as again Men In Black III introduces us to the events in 1969 that orphaned Agent J, and threw him into the path of Agent K. Through watching Men In Black and Men In Black II after watching Men In Black III, we get to see his life progress in a somewhat linear fashion, witnessing a piece of his childhood that would eventually become important to his development as an agent. Also, with this altered viewing order, we see J take on the hardest lesson of his Men In Black career, one that mirrors Agent K's own path through life, as the coda to the series, which leaves him on the path to become an eventual senior agent in the organization. Though, if you want to see the series from a different pair of eyes, all it takes is some clever re-re-organization.

The Agent K Run

While Men In Black as a franchise tends to focus on the exploits of Agent J, there's another, sadder story, to be told through the career of his partner. Looking at the story of Agent K's development as a Men In Black agent, there's a funny symmetry that can be seen when you view the film franchise in a totally reversed order, as listed below:

The grumpy guy's story starts to come into focus much better when you start off getting best acquainted with his looser, Josh Brolin inhabited 1969 counterpart as your foundation. From that point, we're watching Agent K getting progressively more experienced through his unfolding backstory, as he remembers bigger and more heartbreaking events that occurred in his career. The ending, of course, is Agent K remembering his own recruitment into the Men In Black ranks, and his ultimate retirement to be with the woman he loved from so long ago. Strangely enough, watching the story in reverse allows Agent K to maintain the happy ending he deserves, with only a little bit of headcanon needing to be accepted. And yet, there's still one more continuity that could be brought into play, changing everything you know about the series.

The Agent L Run

It's time for a long standing hot take in Men In Black history: Agent L, formerly known as Laurel Weaver, got the short end of the Neuralyzer when it comes to the history of the franchise. Just as she gets that big promotion to the MIB team at the end of Men In Black, she's written out with the slightest of explanations during Men In Black II's opening moments. But there is a way to spend more time with Agent L, as all you'll have to do is slip into the following alternate continuity:

So, get this: Men In Black: The Series not only keeps Agent L on board with the organization, it also keeps K in the ranks as well. This puts the series in a totally different timeline, and in this version of events, Agent L mostly serves in the medical branch during the events of Men In Black: The Series. That's for three of the series' four seasons, with the fourth and last putting L into the field, and with an alien partner named Agent X. While it's not a full fledged revival of Linda Fiorentino's dry witted performance in Men In Black, it's a spirited continuation of her character that validates her existence as more than a mere plot point in Agent J's development as a human being.

How The New Men In Black Movie Will Handle The Previous Movies

After several years of dormancy, Men In Black was announced to have a couple of different projects in the fire, with one emerging as an actual winner that's recently gone into production. Though, right now, it's uncertain as to how much this new film will interact with the classic Men In Black canon for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, this spin-off is taking place in the U.K. branch of the Men In Black organization, with Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, and Liam Neeson being the agents and chief on display.

This new spin-off is supposed to act as a soft reboot that introduces new characters into the Men In Black series, while also honoring the original continuity in some respect. So, there's a chance that Agents J and K might be, at the very least, mentioned, though there's always a slight chance that fans' wishes to see their favorite agents back in action will be granted in the next film. For now, though, we'll get a Jurassic World-esque spin-off creating a new, more global exercise in the storied franchise's history, as an invasion is headed our way and only the Men In Black can save us.

Two-Face and Riddler looked like they had a blast together during Batman Forever, but off-camera, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey's relationship was anything but amiable. Carrey hasn't been shy in the past about talking about how Jones hated working with him, but now the comedy star has gone into more detail on the encounter where Jones' unpleasantness was on full display. One day during Batman Forever's production, Carrey found out that Jones was eating at the same restaurant as him. He went to greet his co-star, which caused the blood in Jones' face to drain. Carrey continued:

Tommy Lee Jones bluntly summarizing his hatred for Jim Carrey in such an archaic fashion is weird enough, but what's even stranger is that Jones expressed disapproval of Carrey's antics before they were going to shoot the biggest scene they had together in Batman Forever. After Carrey recalled this encounter during his recent appearance on Norm MacDonald Live, the show's eponymous host posited that Jones might have been jealous that Carrey was the center of attention on set. After all, Batman Forever was in principal photography months after Carrey became a comedy movie star thanks to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask. But Carrey had a different take on Jones' grumpy demeanor, saying:

The two actors haven't worked together since, and even with their bodies of work usually being vastly different, as Jim Carrey pointed out, I can't help wondering if there's been a time where Tommy Lee Jones avoided a project simply because there was a possibility Carrey could be involved with it. If Jones couldn't tolerate such "buffoonery" on one movie, you can bet he wouldn't be thrilled about having to go through that a second time.

As for Batman Forever, while it's not one of the more well-received of the Caped Crusader's movies, Riddler and Two-Face were one of the more interest villain pairings. Carrey's Riddler was clearly inspired by Frank Gorshin's iteration of the question-obsessed antagonist from the 1960s Batman TV series, while Jones' Two-Face had more of a Joker twist compared to his comic book counterpart. Together those two nearly defeated Batman and the newly-debuted Robin, but in the end, they were defeated, with Two-Face meeting a spiky demise and Riddler being driven permanently insane.

It's been more than 20 years since Batman Forever's release, and both Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey's acting careers are still chugging along. Jones can next be seen in Just Getting Started, which hits theaters on December 8, while Carrey will next star in the TV series Kidding, which will air sometime in 2018.

Great movie chemistry is a difficult thing to find. When you have it, your film can survive based off that alone. When two characters don't mix well, the entire movie falls apart. Sometimes, however, two actors can work so well together that their interaction transcends everything else that happens on screen and they steal every scene together. Sometimes it's a romantic pair, sometimes it's a bromantic pair, but when it works, it works so well that you just want to see it again.

We're not saying that movies these pairs were in together need sequels. In most cases, we don't expect or really want a sequel to the existing film. The chemistry these pairs share transcend the movie they were in. We know they'd be great together in literally any movie. Here are 10 movie pairs we want to see together again, in anything.

Edward Norton & Brad Pitt

Fight Club received most of its acclaim for its unexpected twist ending and its "fight the power" message that resonated with many young people in the 1990s. While I would argue the movie probably hasn't aged as well as you might think and probably isn't as good as it was in college, the performances of its two leading men were rock solid and their interaction was flawless. Both Brad Pitt and Edward Norton have gone to bigger and better things, and since they're two of the greatest actors working today, we'd love to see them on screen again. Maybe in something a little less depressing.

Meg Ryan & Tom Hanks

Ok, so we already have three movies to enjoy with this classic romantic movie pairing (you probably missed Ithaca). So what? The chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan is absolutely perfect, and just because they've done movies together doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity for more. Great actors always bring something special to the screen, but sometimes when working opposite somebody who knows them well, performances can be brought to the next level. We've seen them fall in love, but as older performers, they could make a romantic movie about people who have spent decades together now, and audiences would buy it because they watched the pair fall in love two and a half decades ago.

The Rock & Jason Statham

The most recent pairing on this list, the Fast and Furious franchise appears to be losing some steam after the most recent entry, but two people you can't blame for that are The Rock and Jason Statham. They both brought their A-game to The Fate of the Furious, but what's more, when the two were on screen together you honestly forget that any other movie was even happening. There's talk of this pair getting their own spinoff film, but it honestly doesn't matter if they do a Furious spin-off or anything else. Cast Jason Statham in any of the 47 movies The Rock currently has in production.

Eddie Murphy & Dan Aykroyd

Trading Places is, almost without question, one of the great comedies of all-time. If that movie had been released in the last 10 years, a sequel would have been greenlit before the movie was out of theaters. Neither Dan Aykroyd or Eddie Murphy is busy making a lot of movies these days, which is why it would be perfect for the two of them to reunite in something new. Seeing either of them in a brand new comedy would be a treat. Seeing what the two of them could do together after all these years would be guaranteed to be hilarious.

Anne Hathaway & Meryl Streep

The Devil Wears Prada was a breakout role for a young Anne Hathaway, acting opposite a multi-time Academy Award winner. Now Hathaway has an Oscar of her own, and the promotional material for a movie that reunites this pair writes itself. Prada certainly requires no sequel, so we imagine these two could do something else together. It could be something dramatic and Oscar worthy, or something lighter in the vein of their previous joint venture. Either way, another project starring these two would be impressive to watch. Ways in which the character dynamic could shift after all these years is exciting to think about.

Josh Gad & Luke Evans

One of the highlights of the recent Beauty and the Beast remake was the pairing of Luke Evans as Gaston and Josh Gad as his friend/sidekick Le Fou. The pair were absolutely hilarious together and after watching them doing press and social media stuff together in the lead up to the film, it's clear the two have a lot of fun together. They could make any comedy together, and we're fairly certain it would be great. Their timing is perfect and every joke in Beauty landed perfectly. Does anybody want to make an Abbott & Costello biopic? Please do so right now.

Arnold Schwarzenegger & Jamie Lee Curtis

With all the blockbuster success that James Cameron has had over the years, his action comedy True Lies is often overlooked. What made that film work so well was the on-screen chemistry between leads Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. If there was a pair on the list that we wanted to see make a true sequel to their previous film, it might be this one. It would be great to see how "Boris and Doris" and doing after all these years of spying together. What does that situation do to a relationship? Are they closer together or falling apart? We're fairly certain they're no less entertaining.

Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones

The Men in Black movies worked because the pairing of the joke-cracking Will Smith and the straight-faced, but no less funny, Tommy Lee Jones, was absolute perfection. If there's a single reason that the third installment of the franchise didn't work, it's because Jones wasn't a big enough part of the movie. So let's move on from Men in Black and find something else for these two to do together. They'd be no less funny in any comedy. Find Jones and Smith a pair of roles with a similar relationship and let the jokes fly.

Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone

While La La Land may not have been Best Picture, it was not from lack of effort from the film's two leads. Of course, that isn't the only movie the two have been in together. They've made three films together in recent years and now we just want to see more. Whether it's musicals, romantic comedies or serious dramas, these two have great chemistry together. We're hoping they continue to make different kinds of movies together and give us even more to enjoy for years to come.

Tim Robbins & Morgan Freeman

There may be no greater love story about the relationship between two male friends as The Shawshank Redemption. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and the characters they played, could not be more different, and yet the relationship between them is one of the strongest in the history of cinema. Both men are older now, but that only changes the circumstances. We bet these two could still deliver powerful performances on screen together. We would never want to see these two follow up their previous film, but anything these two could do with each other would be great.

Everybody knows that Dwayne "Franchise Viagra" Johnson has The Midas Touch; you simply throw him into your series and watch him revitalize the whole thing. He's done it plenty of times, and no series of films epitomizes that idea more than the Fast & Furious franchise, as his character Agent Luke Hobbs brought a new sense of vibrancy and energy to the proceedings in 2011's Fast 5. However, Vin Diesel recently came out and admitted that the role was originally intended for a very different actor early in Fast 5's development. He elaborated:

During a recent live Facebook Q&A session (via USA Today) Vin Diesel explained that the role of Hobbs was written with Academy Award winning actor Tommy Lee Jones in mind. But prior to the production of Fast 5, a woman named Jan Kelly suggested the idea of Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson working side by side in a movie, and as such the role of Hobbs received a few minor tweaks and found itself in the capable hands of The Rock. The character (and the actor who plays him) would go on to become a focal point in the series, so we think they made the right call in the long run.

Of course, if you've seen The Rock's performance as Luke Hobbs from the Fast & Furious franchise then you should already have a fairly thorough understanding of why Tommy Lee Jones was originally considered for the part in the first place. The character began his existence as a brilliant and brutal government agent constantly one step behind Dominic Toretto and the rest of his crew. It's a pitch perfect homage to Tommy Lee Jones' Oscar-winning performance as Samuel Gerard from The Fugitive, and the series makes very little effort to hide the tribute.

Just take a look at one particularly iconic scene from the classic 1994 thriller and you will almost instantly notice the DNA of Luke Hobbs:

Ultimately it's probably for the best that the role went to Dwayne Johnson. The Rock has a stronger pedigree for action than Tommy Lee Jones, and that's a quality that has served him well throughout his three (soon to be four) Fast & Furious movies. Besides, Jones has already played his dutiful lawman; it's time to pass the torch and let someone have a shot at this awesome archetype.

Cinema Blend will bring you more information related to the Fast & Furious franchise as more news becomes available to us. Furious 8 will hit theaters next year on April 14, 2017.

Would you watch a Men In Black sequel if it didn’t have Will Smith? How about one that didn’t have Tommy Lee Jones? Would you watch a fourth Men In Black if neither of them showed up? You might soon be given the choice.

There has been talk for years now of another Men In Black movie making its way to theaters. At one point, a rumor (that I believe stemmed from the Sony email hacks) connected the next Men In Black movie to Sony’s developing 21 Jump Street series. That’s likely not the case, but producers Walker Parkes and Laurie MacDonald did confirm to THR that a Men In Black revival is “very active,” but that leading man Will Smith will not return. When asked if the A-list star is coming back, Parkes admitted:

After which, MacDonald confirmed that the next movie will be the kickoff of a new trilogy of films. You know, right next to the Terminator trilogy, the new Ghostbusters trilogy, and the sequels to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that suddenly nobody wants.  

Let’s pump our brakes for a second and think about what’s happening here. The Men In Black films have been successful for Sony, earning a global total of $1.6 billion over the course of three films. The most recent, 2012’s MIB 3, earned the most money in the franchise, posting a global cume of $624 million – though domestically, it was the least popular of the three original films, by a decent amount.

That being said, the concept behind the Men In Black series lends itself to easy reinvention. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were but two agents in a large operation, and new Men In Black stories could easily follow two new sunglass-wearing operatives on different missions to save the planet. The third movie even made time travel possible, so that opens up several possibilities.

Casting is crucial. The effects and creatures in the Men In Black films were eye-popping, but most everyone came to these films because they enjoyed the way a boisterous Smith played off of the crusty Jones. You don’t necessarily need to replicate that chemistry, but you do need to find a duo who prove to be dynamic. I do find it interesting that this is the second major Will Smith franchise – after Independence Day -- to move on without Smith. The actor has Bad Boys 3 on the horizon (according to come reports), but if that shifts gears, should we stat to worry about the actor’s ability to maintain his status as a major movie star?     

Tommy Lee Jones, over the course of his career, has played the stoic bureaucrat who has had to stop our hero (be it Will Smith, Harrison Ford or Chris Evans) from saving the day. Now, he’s putting Matt Damon in his eyesights as part of the still-unnamed Jason Bourne sequel, with Paul Greengrass at the helm.

Variety reports that Tommy Lee Jones has joined the next Bourne adventure, co-starring alongside Matt Damon, who returns to the series after sitting out 2012’s The Bourne Legacy. The trade notes that Jones will play "a superior officer at the CIA," which puts him at the tail end of a long line of character actors playing stuffed shirts in the Bourne series, including the great Joan Allen, Brian Cox, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney, Chris Cooper and Stacy Keach. Seriously, that’s an amazing repertory of angry, bitter old actors who hate the way Matt Damon (and, once, Jeremy Renner) operates.

Variety also confirms that while Julia Stiles will return for her fourth entry in the series, she will be joined by Ex Machina and The Man from UNCLE beauty Alicia Vikander in an undisclosed role (something we have been tracking for some time now). No mention yet of Viggo Mortensen, who had been rumored for a part in the fifth Bourne movie, and may still surface as details continue to emerge.

The Bourne series finds itself in a unique spot. It attempted to break away from the trilogy of films established by Doug Liman, Paul Greengrass and – more important – Matt Damon when it bet on Jeremy Renner and the story of Aaron Cross. (Chems!) While the movie did OK in the States, banking $113 million back in 2012, it wasn’t much of a draw internationally. It made more than The Bourne Identity, the first film in the franchise, but sequels should trend upward, and Legacy wasn’t as big as Universal had hoped.

So when Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass agreed to return to the series, you could understand why the producers were willing to shift back into gear with the team that delivered two hits in The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Supremacy. There are precious few details in the rest of the Variety piece, outside of the fact that Christopher Rouse is handling screenwriter duties for the fifth Bourne film, and production is expected to begin before the summer ends. Right now, Universal is looking to have Matt Damon’s latest Bourne in theaters on July 29, 2016… so I’m sure producers like Frank Marshall will be watching Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation this weekend to see how a like-minded spy thriller performs on this particular weekend.

Most comic book/superhero movies are adaptations of preexisting source material, which means that it’s especially important to find the right actor to breathe life into these characters. Occasionally the studios find someone who plays a near-perfect version of the lead characters, like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Christopher Reeve as Superman. Then there are those at the opposite end of the spectrum, actors who, although successful, gave the audience a terrible version of the hero, villain, or supporting player either due to a bad script or just going in the wrong direction with the character.

These bad performances can be found not just in the modern era of comic book movies, but in decades past. While all the actors on this list have enjoyed success with their film careers, their respective superhero movies are not indicative of their talents, resulting in mediocre, campy, or just straight up horrible performances. These are the movie stars who should have stayed away from superhero films.

Richard Pryor, Superman III

Richard Pryor is one of the greatest comedians of all time, but his performance as Gus Gorman in Superman III was not one of his best moments. As the bumbling computer programmer (a skill that he learned in just days?!), his only purpose was to serve as unnecessary comic relief while Superman battled the film’s subpar villains. Just because an actor/performer is talented and has impressed people doesn’t mean that they’ll be a good fit for every project. Pryor’s shenanigans didn’t add anything substantial to the story, and while this doesn’t dent his impressive career, it did leave a blemish on the Superman film series.

George Clooney, Batman & Robin

Batman & Robin was the straw that broke the Bat’s back, and George Clooney was at the forefront playing Gotham City’s not-so-Dark Knight. When Val Kilmer decided not to reprise his Bruce Wayne role after Batman Forever, Clooney was brought in as his successor. However, like the nearly all the other actors, his performance was negatively received, and one critic called him the George Lazenby of the Batman series, referring to the short-tenured James Bond. Nearly 20 years later, Clooney is still apologizing for the film, Bat-nipples and all. Still, we owe him and the rest of the cast and crew a degree of gratitude. After all, if Batman & Robin hadn’t flopped, we would have never gotten Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

Tommy Lee Jones, Batman Forever

Rather than let Billy Dee Williams become Two-Face as originally planned, Tommy Lee Jones was hired as the replacement for Batman Forever. Other than his face being scarred, the bizarre clothing, and the coin flipping, this version of the duality-obsessed criminal didn’t resemble his comic book counterpart so much as a kooky, Joker knock-off who, by the way, didn’t even follow the rules of his own coin flipping. Every time he showed his gruesome half-face on screen, he was hamming it up to unbearable levels, and MTV Best Villain nomination aside, he’s among the worst on-screen adaptations of a Batman rogue. It also doesn’t help matters that Jones was mean to his villainous costar, Jim Carrey.

Colin Farrell, Daredevil

The 2003 Daredevil movie turned to Colin Farrell, then known from American Outlaws and Minority Report, to play Daredevil’s arch-nemesis Bullseye. Unfortunately, this version of the comic book villain missed the mark by letting Farrell go way overboard with performance. Nearly every time you see him, it’s bad one-liners and dialogue you couldn’t help but groan at. The badass assassin from the comics became a walking joke draped in an alligator skin trench coat. Luckily for Farrell, his career wasn’t tainted by the film, but the Bullseye we’re possibly getting next year in Netflix’s Daredevil Season 2 can only be an improvement. Maybe giving Farrell’s Bullseye the costume he asked for would have helped, but probably not.

Nicolas Cage, Ghost Rider

It’s been debated by intellectuals across the world whether Nicolas Cage is a great or terrible actor (thank you, Community). However, most of us can agree that Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider was not one of his finest performances. Even when his skull lit up in flames, there was nothing remotely scary about Cage’s Ghost Rider, and every line sounded more funny than serious. You can almost feel Cage’s crazy leaking through rather than ever feeling he was a real superhero. Despite the negative reviews (which included a Razzie Award for Cage), Sony decided to bring him back again for 2012’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but now that Marvel has the Ghost Rider rights back, we won’t have to worry about him returning for a threequel.

Jamie Foxx, The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Electro is one of Spider-Man’s most powerful adversaries, but as The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s main antagonist, there was nothing electrifying about Jamie Foxx’s version. Max Dillion starts off as a copy of Riddler from Batman Forever, i.e. being obsessed with the movie’s protagonist. Right away it’s obvious acting like a nerd doesn’t come natural to Foxx. Eventually we get the origin story, and right on schedule, he gets unnecessarily angry at his former idol. Although Electro’s powers were visually amazing, Foxx’s villainous persona was dull and barely reminiscent of what the character is like in the comics. Maybe if Max’s personality had been tailored to fit Foxx’s talents, things would have worked out better, but the end result was this Electro shorting out.

John Travolta, The Punisher

Although may fans enjoy Thomas Jane’s performance as Frank Castle, The Punisher itself garnered mixed-to-negative reviews over the years, and John Travolta’s Howard Saint didn’t help things. Like several of the other mentions on this list, Travolta hams it up in every scene he’s in, and his over-the-top Saint feels out of place in a movie that’s supposed to be dark and gritty, a.k.a. what the Punisher is all about. Despite being the main crime boss who ignites Frank’s mission of vengeance, Saint feels more like a stereotypical evildoer from a time long past. Maybe if he had infused the role with a little Vincent Vega it might have turned out better.

Mickey Rourke, Iron Man 2

Ranking high on Marvel’s list of less-than-stellar villains is Ivan Vanko, a.k.a. Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2. Unlike Jeff Bridges’ Obadiah Stane in the first movie, there was nothing remotely fun about this Tony Stark adversary. Even ignoring that hilariously bad Russian accent, Vanko was barely fleshed out as a character, resulting in a one-dimensional bad guy wielding a pair of electric whips. If Rourke is to be believed, Vanko not being fully developed stems from several of his scenes being cut, but even so, the end result was a poor enemy for Iron Man. Evidently Rourke agrees, because he now holds eternal hatred towards Marvel for how they wronged him.

Halle Berry, Catwoman

If you’re reading this list, you probably know that 2004’s Catwoman is arguably the biggest train wreck of a superhero movie of all time, not to mention just a horrible movie in general. While Halle Berry starred as Marvel hero Storm for four X-Men movies, her experience with DC was a disaster in every sense of the word. Berry has given many great performances in movies and TV, but this film gave her nothing interesting to work with, and fans got a cringeworthy hero wearing a "sexy" costume that was anything but. Frankly, if Berry had just done a little research and found out that this Catwoman barely had anything to do with the feline-obsessed Batman villain, she would be without this blemish on her resume, and a Razzie Award.

Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet

It was already a bad sign when The Green Hornet moved away from his pulp roots and turned into a modern-day comedy, but having Seth Rogen play lead hero Britt Reid took the project further down the rabbit hole. Rogen has made his mark as a comedic performer, but The Green Hornet was not the best way to show off his funny chops. Aside from his rich background, nothing about the movie’s Britt Reid resembled the original character. Instead, he was turned into a goofball wannabe crimefighter with various amusing personality quirks, which may be a good character for Rogen to play in general, but it’s not who the Green Hornet is. Heck, even though Kato is the one with the badass fighting moves, at least the original Green Hornet contributed productively to their crimefighting. Aside from the money, the same can’t be said for Rogen’s version of the character.

Harrison Ford still didn’t kill his wife. Tommy Lee Jones still doesn’t care. And if you get that reference, then you likely will be interested in the news that Warner Bros. wants to get back in The Fugitive business, after a 17-year hiatus.

Deadline has the details on the new Fugitive project, which will be shepherded at the studio by screenwriter Christina Hodson, as well as producers Arnold and Anne Kopelson. The main question everyone needs answered, however, can not be found in the initial report: will this new chapter in the saga of The Fugitive include either Harrison Ford or Tommy Lee Jones, who made a terrific pair as hunter and hunted in Andrew Davis’ 1993 film? Right now, it's unclear if this is a reboot, a remake, or a sequel that has been long in the making.

Here’s that scene I referenced, up above:

The Fugitive was one of the most successful feature films constructed off of an existing television program The weekly drama series ran on ABC in the 1960s, and followed the exploits of Dr Richard Kimble (David Janssen), a man falsely accused of murder who escapes the authorities when the train taking him to Death Row derails. Kimble becomes a fugitive, hunted by the police while he simultaneously pursues the "one-armed man" who he believes committed the actual crime.

The premise transitioned beautifully to the silver screen in 1993, with Ford filling in as Kimble – a slightly arrogant hero who’s deflated by the fear of his surprising conviction, then driven by the need to both avoid capture and solve his wife’s murder, vindicating his claims of innocence. The Fugitive arrived during a busy time in Ford’s career. He’d recently put Indiana Jones to bed in The Last Crusade (we thought it was for good, but, you know), and he was juggling his role as Jack Ryan in the Tom Clancy adaptations. As good as Ford was in The Fugitive, Tommy Lee Jones was better… and he has the Best Supporting Oscar trophy to prove it.

It was Jones, actually, who agreed to reprise his role in a Fugitive sequel/spinoff U.S. Marshals in 1998. With no Harrison Ford to chase, Jones tracked down Wesley Snipes, playing another innocent man on the run. But the formula was watered down by that point.

That, I imagine, will be the immediate challenge of a new Fugitive movie. The concept doesn’t lend itself to sequels, with Jones’ character constantly chasing innocent people. This could be a straight reboot of the original premise, as Ford likely is tied up with Blade Runner 2 and a possible fifth Indiana Jones movie. We’ll keep you posted on this one as it develops.

Sometimes a movie duo works fabulously together onscreen, but the two utterly loathe each other offscreen. Rumor has it this was the case for Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart on Sabrina, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey on Dirty Dancing, and even Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling on The Notebook. Well, add Batman Forever's dastardly duo of Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey to this list. It turns out Jones loathed Carrey, and had no trouble letting it be known.

While promoting his upcoming Dumb and Dumber To, Jim Carrey appeared on Howard Stern's show for a lengthy interview. About 55 minutes in, talk turns to Carrey's time playing the Riddler in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, in which Tommy Lee Jones co-starred as Two-Face. Well, it turns out Jones was less than thrilled to be sharing scenes with the comedian, and wasn't shy about letting Carrey know. According to Carrey, Jones said to his face:

Reached for comment, Tommy Lee Jones offered this as response:

All kidding aside, Jim Carrey was incredibly calm and polite about this pretty aggressive insult. He was actually able to rationalize where Tommy Lee Jones's intense outburst arose: pure professional jealousy. That might seem insane considering at the time one was a rubber faced comedian and the other a well-respected and established actor, but allow Carrey to set the scene:

Rumors of behind-the-scenes drama first surfaced out of Batman Forever when director Joel Schumacher called Jones a "bully" for his behavior on set. But Carrey has previously been pretty quiet about the whole affair. Even now, he seems to show no anger or indignation, adding...

This is a pretty classy move, especially from a guy who's made a mark literally talking out of his ass.

To see the full Jim Carrey interview, click to page 2.

Few actors have the sort of split between work quite like Tommy Lee Jones. The man seems to be only half-interested in some movies, and completely plugged in during others. Usually, it's the smaller films that earn his full dedication; the larger ones have him playing some variation of bored, stubborn old man. Now that he's signed onto Criminal , however, what personality will take over?

The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Tommy Lee Jones is joining Kevin Costner and Gary Oldman in Criminal, a pretty silly-sounding thriller from Millennium and director Ariel Vromen. The plot concerns a dead CIA operative's thoughts and memories being transferred (accidentally, I hope) into the mind of a dangerous convict. Within those memories is the key to a massive terrorist plot that must be stopped, but the feds will have to trust a mysterious, unreliable criminal. Or maybe a friendly, handsome, likable criminal who is imprisoned after being wrongly accused, since he's being played by All-American Kevin Costner.

Jones will be playing the neuroscientist who pioneers this technology and leads the operation, while Oldman is the CIA man who shepherds the project through completion. Just gonna go ahead and assume there will be a severe philosophical battle between the principled scientist and the at-all-costs lawman. Normally this would be a lame cliché, but in this case, it definitely feels like Jones should be playing the stern task-master and Oldman the compassionate man of science, as he was in this year's Robocop . It could be nice to see the plainspoken Jones in a more cerebral role than his recent work. As for Oldman, he, of course, contains multitudes.

Jones last popped up in Luc Besson's woeful The Family last year. You'd think he would perk up getting to star alongside Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfieffer, but instead he was his same gruff unhappy self, a hard-pressing fed with little-to-no patience for the ex-hood played by De Niro. A scene in a library where he goes against Jones' wishes and tells old mob stories is accompanied by pained reaction shots of Jones looking irritated and unhappy, but those moments might as well be edited in from any other part of the film. Jones reportedly sunk a bit more of himself into The Homesman, his latest directorial effort where he stars alongside Hilary Swank. It's earned some festival plaudits and will hit theaters in November. Reportedly, it pursues a much smaller and more patient demographic than Criminal.

Now, the question is, what does Jones' involvement in this film say about the material? Is this another paycheck gig (a large paycheck, one would assume) that allows Jones to go off and do smaller films? Or is this something really interesting? Costner and Oldman together with Jones is a curious trio and seeing them bounce off each other could be worth the price of admission. And hey, maybe this movie has ideas, things to say about the dividing line separating cop and criminal rich and poor, science and faith, something like that. A bit too early to say, considering Vromen's smaller profile (he directed the mob killer drama The Iceman). We'll find out soon.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?’s Tim Blake Nelson is pretty familiar with actors stepping behind the camera. He’s gone behind the lens on several occasions himself, most notably for 2010’s wonderful Leaves Of Grass, and now, he’s signed up to help two of his fellow actors work on their own directorial projects.

The first of the two films is being directed by James Franco, and it is entitled Bukowski. It’ll follow the title author/ post office employee/ drunk/ madman, Charles Bukowski, through his traumatic childhood and high school years. Nelson will play the writer’s abusive father who continually gets into physical altercations with his son.

The second of the two films comes from Tommy Lee Jones, and it’s entitled Homesman. The current Oscar nominee will direct from a script he co-wrote. The action centers around a shady character and a cheap school teacher who concoct a scheme to transport three women over the Western plains in an ox-drawn wagon. Nelson will play a thief looking to pilfer one of the females, which is a key way in which the script seems to separate itself from the beloved children’s game Oregon Trail.

Nelson has served as a ringer in many a movie. The noted character actor has a way of swooping in and stealing scenes, and if these two directors are lucky, he’ll deliver exactly on that reputation.

Both efforts are set to shoot in the next few months. Neither has a release date yet, but given the time frame, they likely won’t be out until very late 2013, or more likely, early in 2014. Until then, try not to die of dysentery.

Earlier this evening at the Golden Globes, Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig came out to present the award for best actress in a movie drama. Rather than playing it straight, they cooperated on a big long bit in which they talked about each of the films and their leading ladies as if they’d never seen a moment of actual footage and were guessing based on the title. The joke went over pretty well with many members of the audience, except Tommy Lee Jones.

While Will and Kristen were waxing comedic about Jones’ Hope Springs co-star Meryl Streep, the cameraman cut to the actor, and he looked absolutely furious. His glare was vicious, and as a result, he’s already gotten his own .gif. Take a look at it below…

Jesus Christ. He looks like he’s mentally using every fiber of his being to keep himself from climbing on stage, removing his shoe and committing second degree murder. Luckily, he was able to restrain himself, allowing the show to go on and no one to be arrested.

Here’s to hoping Jones is in a far better mood on Oscar night when he may very well walk away with a much deserved Academy Award for his turn in Lincoln.

A sold-out crowd packed the Alice Tully Hall at the aptly named Lincoln Center tonight for the New York Film Festival Secret Screening that pretty much everyone knew at that point was Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, billed as unfinished but looking very much complete. I was seated in a side balcony, not only a terrible angle for viewing a movie, but a pretty ominous one for a biopic about a guy who was assassinated in a theater; I was ready to consider myself lucky if I made it out the theater alive (and with my checked cell phone returned to me), though of course, I had some muted high hopes for the actual movie itself.

There were moments of Lincoln where I was ready to throw something at the screen in exasperation, either where John Williams's score got all War Horse sentimental or Tony Kushner's script got weirdly didactic in explaining the nuts-and-bolts politics at the center of the film's action. It will be especially surprising if you've seen Lincoln's big, sweeping trailers to learn that it is a very wonky movie, almost entirely about Lincoln's efforts to pass the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, which he and his Cabinet accomplished both by being morally right and pulling off some classic Washington back room deals. The first hour of the film contains some long lessons about how a bill becomes a law (passed by the Senate and then a 2/3 majority in the House!) and some interminable exposition about the state of the Civil War, and the well-lit, sumptuously detailed Lincoln seems perilously close to becoming the dutiful civics lesson appropriate only for viewing in drowsy high school classrooms.

But Lincoln has more than a few aces up its sleeve, with a dynamite and incredibly wide-ranging supporting cast and a payoff for all that Constitutional exposition with a genuinely tense scene that involves a House roll-call (yes, just like on C-SPAN, but with more shouting and a lot more facial hair). Tommy Lee Jones steals the film right out from under the very good Daniel Day-Lewis, playing the strongly anti-slavery Pennsylvania representative Thaddeus Stevens, who gets into some real knock-down drag-out fights with the pro-slavery faction on the House floor, and always has the best zingers. And you may spend a large section of the film trying to squint through all the facial hair to recognize some favorite actors, from John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson and James Spader as a trio of ne'er-do-wells manipulating votes behind the scenes to Mad Men's Jared Harris as a believably grizzled Ulysses S. Grant. And those are just the sizable parts-- David Oyelowo, Dane DeHaan, Lukas Haas, Walton Goggins, Adam Driver, Julie White, Hal Holbrook, Michael Stuhlbarg and many more all pop up in a handful of scenes, giving Argo a serious run for its money as the 2012 film most crammed full of character actors you love.

The problem is that, with so much fun action happening on the House floor, the ostensible main characters get overshadowed-- and none more so than Lincoln, a soft-spoken and obviously powerful figure who still isn't part of some of the film's best scenes. Day-Lewis's performance is faultless and surprisingly restrained, but he spends far too much of the film acting opposite Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln (giving a performance badly out of step with the film's low-key tone) or Joseph Gordon-Levitt as eldest son Robert, a character with almost no bearing on the plot. Spielberg's emphasis on Robert and youngest son Tad (Gulliver McGrath) feels almost like a parody of his love for father-and-son stories, but Spielberg never brings his personal touch to these parts of the film; it's way more fun and emotionally meaningful to simply watch Lincoln in the dirty work of making the government work.

The best moments of Lincoln are satisfying and often very funny, but there are no emotional heights or applause moments, and very little of the twinkly Spielberg sentimentality that drowned out War Horse. Lincoln probably could have used a little more of that, actually, but it's very much in-step with its rock-steady protagonist, a man full of funny stories and aphorisms but rarely feeling more human than the marble statue we're all familiar with. For all its period polish Lincoln is almost certainly a Best Picture nominee, but that restraint will probably keep it from winning-- and will probably prevent Day-Lewis from winning too, as much as I expect his toned-down performance will grow in my estimation the further I get away from it.

The movie's best shot at an Oscar is probably Tommy Lee Jones, believe it or not. Even halfway through the film I couldn't imagine how a single actor could break through the pack, but Jones has all of the film's best scenes and biggest laughs, and his epic fights with Lee Pace on the House floor (yes, poor Lee Pace goes toe-to-toe with Tommy Lee Jones) are the closest the film gets to thrilling. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, John Williams and the makeup artists will all surely be nominated, but especially given the weak Best Supporting Actor field, Jones has a very good shot at his second win-- and for making a movie as glossy as Lincoln so funny at times, he probably deserves it.

I'll be writing more about Lincoln's Oscar chances in tomorrow's Oscar Eye column, and more about the film itself as the season rolls along. As much as I felt truly exhausted by the film at times, I already find myself wanting to see it again for the supporting cast alone-- not exactly the mark of a great movie, but one with strengths that go far beyond its title character.

Thank you, Rick Baker. Without your limitless, Oscar-winning imagination, the Men In Black universe would be mighty boring (and we probably wouldn’t return as often as we do). As audiences prepare to strap in for the third MIB this Memorial Day weekend, we wanted to revisit the first two films and spotlight the 15 weirdest creatures who walk among us,as featured in the first two Men in Black movies. Sorry, Michael Jackson, but you didn’t make the cut. Find out who - or what - did below (and look out for Eric's one-on-one interview with Rick Baker, which will be running later today!):

This alien with the fake head might only be in the movie so Tommy Lee Jones can make a crack about human being aliens and space aliens, but it’s still every bit as cool as the detached head Arnold wields in Total Recall.

Apart from Vincent D’Onofrio’s loose-skinned alien, this dude with the gill eyes looks the most human. As such, you would think he’d be the least mesmerizing, but those eyes are bizarrely creepy. If you look at them from the right angle, I’m pretty sure they tell you how you’re going to die, which, according to Big Fish is a good thing.

How does this dude’s head grow back so quickly? What regenerative powers is he blessed with? He’s like the Hydra, and I want his life immediately.

By themselves, each of these tiny aliens would be creepy, but together, they seem to have the powers of one average butler. I wonder if they’d clean out my garage in exchange for food.

Take your pick. At the MIB headquarters, it’s a veritable Grand Central Station of extraterrestrial weirdos, though this slug who catches Agent J’s eye makes us laugh and cringe, simultaneously.

Tommy Lee Jones refers to this baby alien as a squid, and his observation is quite astute. He seems to be able to survive on land, but like that mermaid in Splash, think he’d feel more comfortable in a bathtub.

This dude is so tiny; yet, he seems to have superior brainpower. Is it just brain size relative to total body weight? Is he just the smartest of his kind? I need to talk to a scientist immediately.

Clearly, a lot of the Men In Black budget was devoted to creating this dude, and I must say, it was money well spent. His gigantic frame is very detailed, and to this day, anytime I see a guy with loose skin, I get nervous he’s going to turn into this hideous and imposing specimen. Luckily, none have thus far.

The main alien from Men In Black 2 starts off so tiny, and almost looks like a flower bouquet when angered. Then it turns into Lara Flynn Boyle, and all hell starts breaking loose.

So this guy is the reason New York’s subways smell as bad as they do. Watch his teeth, though. His bite can chew through a train car.

Johnny Knoxville’s sidekick creature believes that two heads are better than one … except when Boyle’s serpentine tentacles are poring snake-like creatures through his various ears and nostrils.

As MIB taught us, pretty much everyone who works for the postal service is an alien. Our favorite has to be this multi-armed dude who defines the term “Express Mail.” He should quit smoking, though. Terrible for his alien lungs.

During a pivotal fight, Agent K (Jones) encounters the unfortunately-named Ball-Chinian. Pretty self-explanatory.

Have you ever wondered what lives inside of the lockers in bus stations and train depots in every major city? Here’s your answer: Small universes of furry creatures who worship wristwatches. Cool.

What’s worse than a sullen, semi-bald alien who bears a striking resemblance to comedian Chris Elliott? How about four of those creatures, each with their own flying ships?! Do you have a favorite we missed? Shoot us a message in the comments section below.

Tommy Lee Jones, at 65, stays incredibly active as an actor. He’s returning to the Men In Black franchise after a 10-year absence to deliver the third installment in that series. He has two more films coming to theaters before year’s end, and is filming another for 2013. But what he really wants to do is direct, and it appears he’s getting ready to do so very soon.

Jones will write, direct, produce and star in The Homesman, a period drama about a pioneer woman and what the trade describes as “a claim-jumping rascal of a man” as they transport three insane women from Nebraska to Iowa. According to Variety, Jones has yet to cast the woman he’ll act alongside. Maybe he can reach out to Sissy Spacek, who co-starred in Jones’ directorial debut, a TNT original movie titled The Good Old Boys.

Jones has been honing his craft behind the camera. He directed the moving Western The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in 2005, and moved to a TV movie called The Sunset Limited in 2011. It doesn’t sound like he’s picking up any green-screen tricks from his Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld for these efforts. Jones, a Texan, favors throwback dramas with grit and personal pain. Homesman fits that mold.

Until then, blockbuster audiences will be able to see what happens to Agent Kay in the third MIB before checking out Jones in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Next year, the Oscar nominee plays a larger-than-life figure in Gen. Douglas MacArthur for Peter Webber’s Emperor. And then, after that, The Homesman? Possible. We’ll keep you posted.

The Men in Black continue to prepare for their big-screen return. After a teaser clip and a full-length trailer, Sony now unveils an interactive Web site that encourages fans to download Twitter skins, share images from a gallery, watch animated gifs and more. It’s a decent time filler as we wait for Black to reach theaters in May.

Especially when, a while back, it seemed like Black might never happen at all. Serious pre-production issues – most tied to a convoluted script – almost shelved the planned sequel. For those who don’t know, the third story sends Will Smith’s Agent J back to the 1960s, where he attempts to find out what’s wrong with his partner, K (Tommy Lee Jones), by working with the younger version of the quiet spy (played by Josh Brolin).

The “Story” section of new Web site also says J’s mission involves saving the entire Men In Black agency, and humankind, itself. So the stakes are much higher than earlier implied, and shots from the long trailer do suggest some type of alien invasion, though we can’t really tell if it’s happening in the past, or in the present day.

Sony potentially has a massive summer planned, with MiB3 and The Amazing Spider-Man placed on major holiday weekends. Smith’s usually an easy bet at the summer box office, but the MIB series has been on the shelf for some time now, and we’re not sure its core audience will return for more extraterrestrial shenanigans. Truthfully, I thought the latest trailer did a good job of setting up the off-the-wall effects in the sequel. But good reviews and strong word-of-mouth will go a long way in determining if MIB 3 is as big a hit as its predecessors.

After what seems like years of speculation about whether it would ever finish production, and even a recent admission from director Barry Sonnenfeld that going into production without a finished script might have been a mistake, Men In Black 3 has a lot of factors working against it as it attempts to be one of the summer's big blockbusters. The first few looks at the film have promised Josh Brolin's pitch-perfect Tommy Lee Jones impression and not much else, but a new trailer that debuted today at Yahoo! offers a better look at the mod 60s setting, the time travel plot, and some giant alien special effects that definitely outpace what the first movie was capable of back in 1997. Take a look at it below.

The slapsticky gags of the Men in Black universe appear to be back in full force, along with a bunch of ever sillier jokes, like the hippie telling Will Smith to get high--literally-- and the jarring nonsense of Smith saying he will "slap the shiznit out of Andy Warhol." When did Agent Jay start speaking in dated mid-90s slang? And why on earth would Andy Warhol-- oh, excuse me, secret agent Bill Hader-- put up with that? Then again, the little circular cycles that Jay and young Kay (Josh Brolin, still awesome) ride through the streets look kind of great, and now that we know a little bit more about the plot, the time travel idea seems to have a little bit of potential.

I still refuse on principle to get too excited about a movie that blatantly struggled to pull its story together, but bad Andy Warhol jokes aside, this looks a little more promising than everything else you've seen so far. Men In Black 3 opens on May 25; let us know if this trailer makes you more excited to see it. And for everything else you need to know about the film, visit our Blend Film Database.

Flight of the Conchords co-lead Jemaine Clement reveals his diabolical side this summer playing Boris, the villain tormenting Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the third Men In Black film. Today, we get our first look at Clement in costume, and he looks like an extra from Dennis Hopper’s seminal Easy Rider. See for yourself (courtesy of The New Zealand Herald):

If you didn’t know, Barry Sonnenfeld’s latest MIB sends Smith back in time to the 1960s, where he interacts with a young version of Jones’ Agent K (played by Josh Brolin). Watch the trailer if you haven’t yet.

As for Boris, Clement promises that he’ll look “hideous” once the proper prosthetics are applied to bring out his inner alien. He also joked that for once in his career, he has discovered a character that allows him to dwell on his inner demon. "I'm 90 percent evil in real life," Clement told the Herald. "It's hard to be nice most of the time when I'm only 10 percent good."

Let’s hope Men In Black III is a hell of a lot more than 10% good, because the reported budget on the sequel hovers around $275 million, and so it will make back a small fortune to break even. The first two films did very well, earning $250M and $190M, respectively. But it has been 9 years since Smith and Jones donned the familiar black sunglasses. Will a new generation of moviegoers care? Or can the time-travel device win back fans who were less-than-impressed with the second installment? We’ll find out on May 25, when Sony opens the newest Men In Black adventure everywhere.

15 years after the first movie, and 9 years after the disappointing sequel, Men In Black III is coming to theaters next summer and is stuck trying to sell their movie to an audience that may be as old as this franchise. As a result, the first teaser trailer for the film, which Sony Pictures posted online today, is less focused on revealing information about the new film than going over the basics of what the Men In Black do. Here's Will Smith, here's Tommy Lee Jones, here are their suits, here is their memory eraser stick, here are the aliens they monitor-- oh, and in the last 30 seconds, here's this time travel plot! Take a look for yourself below.

The best reveal of the trailer by far is the shot of Josh Brolin as the younger version of Tommy Lee Jones, and you can't blame them for saving it to the very end-- Brolin nails the delivery and the grim facial expression, and his facial expressions are better than any alien makeup or Will-Smith-leaping-off-the-Chrysler-building effect in the trailer. But after months of production delays and a script they were apparently making up as they went along, it's a little worrying that Men In Black III has revealed no coherent plot here, spending a lot of time on the elements of Men In Black they know we like already and saving the actual details of the sequel for later. I know it's unlikely but it makes me wonder if they're still working out the plot kinks in the editing room.

The movie will be hitting early in the summer movie season, opening May 25 next year, and there's still time for them to impress us more with the marketing. But as nice as it is to see Jones and Smith-- the most unlikely but enjoyable comic duo you can think of-- reunited, memories of the awful Men In Black II and this mediocre trailer are getting in the way of having a lot of hope here.

You always have to cringe a little when Entertainment Tonight is given exclusive advance footage of anything, since they wind up promoting it a day earlier in the most obnoxious, voiceover-laden way possible. And yet, they're almost always showing off something new and cool all the same; in this case it's worth suffering through the voiceover and graphics to get a look at new footage from Captain America: The First Avenger, including footage of Cap throwing the shield and Tommy Lee Jones giving instructions to his soldiers, and looking appropriately grumpy as ever..

Check out the video below, and look online later tonight or tomorrow for the actual footage that Entertainment Tonight will be premiering. From the looks of what they show in this promo, we actually have a lot to look forward to. Am I the only one with more faith in this project the more we see of it?

UPDATE! The full promo is now available! Here it is!

And here's the original, thirty-second ET promo.

For a famous curmudgeon who doesn't seem to like anyone or anything, Tommy Lee Jones is still working a lot, and particularly on two big tentpole projects that everyone wants details on: this summer's Captain America, and the forthcoming Men In Black 3. But if you thought Jones's participation in the two films meant he would have details worth spilling, oh boy were you ever wrong. In a hilariously frank interview with New York Magazine, Jones talked a lot about his HBO movie The Sunset Limited, but then revealed that he knows virtually nothing about the two big projects he's part of.

They started by asking about Men in Black 3, which Jones will still be shooting for another week with director Barry Sonnenfeld and co-star Will Smith; to his credit, he calls the shot "a hell of a lot of fun." But then they ask about plot details, and well, Jones is basically a stone wall:

Apparently given some license to talk smack about a blockbuster project, the interviewer then went in for the kill when asking about Captain America. And Jones played right along!

In short, don't bother asking Tommy Lee Jones about his career choices, because if he's in a movie he didn't direct or that cost more than $100 million, he's probably as annoyed with it as you are. I know that probably qualifies as being a poor sport, but I admit, I kind of love him for this.

Earlier this week, the cover for the new issue of Empire came online, giving us yet another look at the hero of what should be one of this summer's biggest blockbusters: Captain America: The First Avenger. But, as I said then, it was unlikely that it would be the only new image from the film that they would be printing and today I've been proven right.

Screen Crave has gotten their hands on some scans from the inside of the newest issue of Empire that provide looks at an assortment of characters, including the first shots of Richard Armitage as Heinz Kruger and even a teeny, tiny look at Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Col. Chester Phillips. The spread also gives us another look at Chris Evans in full Cap uniform (including helmet), once again making the argument that he looks totally badass.

Check out three of the pics below and for more head on over to Screen Crave. For more on Captain America: The First Avenger, head on over to our Blend Film Database

Back in May, while promoting his film Tamara Drewe at the Cannes Film Festival, Dominic Cooper let the news slip that he would be playing the young Howard Stark in Captain America: The First Avenger. But just like the Tommy Lee Jones story from yesterday, it's nice to have a confirmation, and now we have it: Cooper is officially the young John Slattery.

Marvel has issued a press release confirming that the role of Stark officially belongs to Cooper. While the announcement doesn't include any information about how he will be involved in the plot of the film, Stark is best known as the father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) and the founder of Stark Industries, but, covertly, was also one of the founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret government organization that oversees all superhero activity in America.

You can read the entire release below. Congratulations Mr. Cooper. Hopefully you'll be a bit more involved than Gerard Sanders.

Last month, whist being interviewed for Leicester Square TV, Captain America star Haley Atwell, who will play Cap's squeeze, Peggy Carter, confirmed that Tommy Lee Jones, who had previously been rumored for a part in the film, was cast in the upcoming superhero film. As we learned last week, however, with the revelation that Teresa Palmer would not appear in Mad Max: Fury Road, co-stars aren't necessarily the most reliable source of casting info. So is Tommy Lee Jones really a part of Captain America: The First Avenger?

The answer is yes, and who he is playing has also been confirmed. Marvel Studios has issued a press release announcing that Jones has indeed joined the cast and will play the role of US Army Colonel Chester Phillips. In the comics, it is Phillips who initially recruits the young Steve Rogers into the Super Soldier Serum experiment that eventually turns Rogers into the hero known as Captain America. In addition to Atwell and Chris Evans, who will be playing the title character, the cast also includes Hugo Weaving as The Red Skull, Sebastian Stan as the young Bucky Barnes, and Stanley Tucci as scientist and serum inventor Abraham Erskine.

You can check out the full press release below. Whatever doubts you might have about Joe Johnston as a director and the project as a whole, it's hard to deny that they are putting together a stellar cast.

At the end of April we first heard the rumor that Tommy Lee Jones was considering playing an unknown role in The First Avenger: Captain America, and while there's never been any official confirmation, we're hearing the rumor again from another source very much in the know: Hayley Atwell, who's playing Cap's love interest in the film. In an interview with Leicester Square TV (via Comic Book Movie), Atwell revealed that she shares a scene with Jones in the film, "Which I'm really looking forward to doing."

Unfortunately Atwell's loose lips didn't include information on exactly who Jones will be playing, but based on her character--a woman whom Cap meets while fighting for his country-- we can probably assume that speculation about Jones playing a military man is spot on. Maybe this revelation will inspire Marvel to actually confirm the casting?

After years of waiting Men in Black III is finally happening. Sony has hired Tropic Thunder writer Etan Cohen to work on a script which is, probably a good thing since Tropic Thunder was pretty funny. The Men in Black franchise could use more funny after that second movie which was, decidedly, not.

There’s no denying though, that the first movie was good times. THR says Barry Sonenfeld, who directed the first movie, will probably be back. Unfortunately Sonenfeld also directed the first movie and, let’s face it, he hasn’t really done anything worth watching since the first movie.

Still it’s Men in Black and there’s reason to hope for more fun with flashy thing wielding secret agents in the battle to protect earth from illegal aliens. Very illegal aliens. That is, assuming they get the cast back. Will Smith still hasn’t committed to the project, probably because he’s no longer really rapping and so doesn’t need another movie to sell his next album with a wacky alien line dance. There are rumors that he’s now interested in coming back but, we’ll see. Tommy Lee Jones is, well Tommy Lee Jones. If he resists, let him wear a cowboy hat.

The disturbing thing is that it sort of sounds like Sony is going with MIB III, or without Will. They’ve hired their screenwriter and they plan to start shooting in 2010.

Tommy Lee Jones is in negotiations to direct and co-star in The Lincoln Lawyer which, even though Abraham was indeed a lawyer, has absolutely nothing to do with our 16th president. Instead the film’s name refers to the car which was named after our bearded Civil War leader. It’s probably for the best, Tommy Lee looks awful in a beard.

THR says the film focuses on a Los Angeles lawyer named Mike Haller who operates out of the back of his car, a Lincoln. His career becomes more high-profile when he’s tasked with defending a Beverly Hills playboy accused of murder. Haller is already cast and it’s Matthew McConaughey in the role. I know, I see him as more of the Beverly Hills playboy type too. It’s unclear where that leaves Jones since, he’s definitely not the Beverly Hills playboy type. I’m sure he’ll find something to do.

Tommy Lee Jones got plenty of critical acclaim with his last foray into the works of Cormac McCarthy (2007’s Academy Award-winning No Country for Old Men). So it’s no surprise that he’s signed up for another McCarthy property, and this time he’s bringing Samuel L. Jackson along for the ride.

Variety reports that Jones and Jackson will star in The Sunset Limited for HBO, which McCarthy adapted from his own play. The film will follow a relationship between two men, one of whom (Jackson) saves the other from throwing himself in front of a subway train (it’s unclear whether the train contains any motherfucking snakes). Jones will also direct.

It’s not the first time the two J’s have worked together; they both appeared in the 2000 William Friedkin thriller Rules of Engagement.