Call it a double-edged lightsaber. Every actor in Hollywood chases Star Wars, hoping the gig will provide instant A-list entree. But the Star Wars track record is filled with underachievers and stalled careers. Six movies in, the franchise has spawned just one megastar: Harrison Ford. “The problem is, when you are in such a massive franchise — and there’s no bigger franchise than Star Wars — a lot of moviegoers look at an actor and only can see the character they played in it,” says Phil Contrino, analyst at Boxoffice.com.
Natalie Portman, who already had a hot career before Episodes I-III, admitted she struggled after the exposure. “Everyone thought I was a horrible actress,” she said in December. “I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me.” Neither Ewan McGregor nor Liam Neeson was helped by the franchise (McGregor famously fell out as the lead in Danny Boyle’s The Beach in favor of Leonardo DiCaprio around the same time as Episode I’s 1999 release). The list of acting careers that never took off is even longer, from original stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher to Jake Lloyd (young Anakin Skywalker) and most notably Hayden Christensen, whose star was on the rise when he nabbed 2002’s Attack of the Clones.
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