6. Jessica Alba
Beautiful, gorgeous, smart businesswoman, “actress”, Jessica Alba has it all. She has a wonderfully cute family with her husband, her brand The Honest Company is really booming, her acting career is somehow still intact. Alba has been acting since the mid 1990s, but she really started to gain traction through her role on the TV show “Dark Angel” and her starring roles in “Honey”, “Sin City”, and “Fantastic Four”. While only one of those (“Sin City”) was a critical success, she was well on her way to becoming a sex symbol and established actress.
Since that time, a lot of movies she has starred in, or been in at all, are classic Friday night cable TV fare. They’re largely a mix of romantic comedies, poorly written comedies, and random action junk. She has kept herself busy over the last several years with plenty of movie roles, TV cameos, and her two children. According to Forbes magazine, Alba is worth $340 million. $340 million! At this point in her life, at the age of 35, she can really do whatever she wants.
She has a couple films coming out this year, but after that I would suggest for her to work with her company and her family. She is not the best actress in the world, but she has made her roles work for her, especially financially. She is a powerful businesswoman and she should continue to harness her abilities there to make the most of the 20 percent ownership of the Honest Company. She doesn’t need to act anymore, she has fulfilling work elsewhere.
7. Katherine Heigl
Similarly to her listmate Kevin James, Katherine Heigl has had success on television. She was a series regular on the massive hit “Grey’s Anatomy”, even earning an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Performance for an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Her film career has been up and down overall, as she has been acting since the early 90s. Her popularity really peaked in the mid-2000s with her performances in “Knocked Up” and “27 Dresses”. “Knocked Up” is actually a quality movie and “27 Dresses” is not too bad for a romantic comedy. However, since those films, both from the year 2007, she has earned the reputation of being incredibly hard to work with and her films have significantly gone down in quality.
Heigl can act, as seen in the early seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy”, but she has had such horrible material to work with that her career has really gone downhill. She is starring in the upcoming film “Unforgettable” as a newly divorced mentally unstable mother, Tessa Conover, who threatens the family of her ex-husband David, especially his new wife Julia Banks. Hopefully, the film’s title will describe the film later. I’m doubting it, but that’s my opinion.
Heigl should drop the diva attitude if she hasn’t already and go find Judd Apatow or Shonda Rhimes immediately and hope that one of them has a part for her. She’ll have plenty of residuals off her terrible romantic comedies and the good comedies she made because they show on television all the time.
8. Jennifer Lopez
From fly girl to the A-List, Jennifer Lopez has had quite the journey to the top tier of the Hollywood elite. She has had success in films, TV and music, and her popularity has stayed relatively steady over the years. Since her starring turn in “Selena”, she has performed in leading roles in a multitude of genres. Some for the better like in “Out of Sight”, and some for the worst, like “The Wedding Planner”, “Gigli”, and “Monster in Law”.
In her dramatic roles, she has performed well enough, alongside some great co-stars and great directors. Her comedic roles, however, have not been as successful. Most of the time, they have been successful commercially, but Lopez does not get to show off whatever acting chops she has.
In my opinion, she has only really made two good to great live-action movies, “Selena” and “Out of Sight”, both of which came out in the late 90s. Since then, I don’t think any of her movies were that good. She, of course, has her music to fall back on. Again, it was better in the early part of her career, but it’s still a successful venture for her.
She has become an empire, with a judging stint on “American Idol”, multiple fragrances, clothing lines, a fierce attitude, an ass allegedly insured for millions, and a cultural impact that has brought more Hispanic culture to the forefront. I think she should keep on going with her other ventures and just get off the big screen, unless she plans to work with Steven Soderbergh, who may or not may not be done making movies. Jennifer, you have so much working for you, and you’re an amazing performer. Stick to music and television and everything else, just not the silver screen.
9. Megan Fox
A career ruined by the claws of Michael Bay, Megan Fox had a nice start to her career, being featured in the Lindsay Lohan vehicle “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen”.
Her next film, however, was the first “Transformers” film from Bay. She then became a few things, including a sex symbol, a sought-after actress, and a piece of meat. Her character was not a person, she was a piece of flesh for teenage boys to oogle. If recent discussions of how women are still be exploited on the screen come up, her role as Mikaela Banes in “Transformers” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” always comes up.
When she actually became an actress again, away from the craziness of Bay, she starred in some absolute bombs. I really had faith in her if she was given the chance to really act. She was given the chance in “Jonah Hex” and “Jennifer’s Body” and the results were horrible.
She bounced back slightly with roles in “Friends With Kids” and “This is 40”, but she went down the dank, dark path of franchise-land with the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movies, which were nothing more than live-action creep fests that returned her to the side meat character.
Her next film sees her working with Will Ferrell, Jacki Weaver and James Franco, under Franco’s direction, and although I am not the biggest Franco fan, she is in better hands than she has been before. If Fox can prove she can actually act in a movie that requires her to actually act, then she can be removed from a list like this.
10. Rob Schneider
Rob Schneider’s career in entertainment is perplexing, to say the least. He started out in the late 80s and the early 90s on “Saturday Night Live”, in what some say was a really amazing time on the show. He was funny enough, but benefitted from a great writing staff and never really having to be the star, as that was Adam Sandler and Chris Farley’s job. Schneider, similarly to his SNL co-star David Spade, rode on the coattails of the friends into the movie business.
With very few exceptions, Schneider’s film career has been filled with one dud after another. He has specifically ridden Sandler’s back to being a staple of comedies over the last 20 years or so. Unlike Sandler, who has at least has made a few funny movies, Schneider has no redeeming qualities.
He doesn’t have the widest sense of humor and a lot of his characters feel repetitive, stereotypical, or inappropriate. If his film receives negative reviews, he’ll only call you nasty things in the press, but if you really annoy him, he’ll take out a full-page ad in Variety mocking you with incorrect facts.
Schneider has had quite the career, I don’t really know how, but he has. He should focus on his kids, his wife, and his weirdly enough anti-vaccination beliefs, instead of stinking up any screen on any device. Or maybe he should keep making trash so kids can keep getting vaccinated. As long as Sandler is working, Schneider is bound to hop on his tail.
Author Bio: Ryan Anderson is a sophomore at Miami University in Oxford Ohio, where he is studying Zoology and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. His love of classic cinema and film history keeps his love for film strong and ever-present in his life.