6. Cuba Gooding Jr.
Gooding Jr. found early success in 1991’s Boyz n the Hood. The film was a critical success and an unlikely box-office hit. Small, supporting roles in movies like A Few Good Men (1992) and Outbreak (1995) followed. But his breakthrough role was in the 1996 Tom Cruise sports comedy Jerry Maguire. Gooding Jr. played a football player who ended up signing on with sports agent Cruise. The movie was that rare thing: it not only was a box-office success but also a critical success, and Gooding Jr. ended up winning Best Supporting Actor by the Academy Awards. In that film, he also launched an indelible movie catchphrase, which was “Show me the money!” A year later, Gooding Jr. had a supporting role in As Good as it Gets. After that, it was all downhill. Besides highly-visible roles in Pearl Harbor (2001) and Snowdogs (2002), every film Gooding Jr. made failed to break the box office or failed to achieve critical acclaim. His career trajectory was so bad that some movies he made ended up as direct-to-DVD films.
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