Retirement Age - MSN Movies
In honor of actor-turned-rapper Joaquin Phoenix, we offer up 10 Hollywood stars who should hang it up
By Sean Nelson
Special to MSN Movies
The recent announcement by Joaquin Phoenix that he intended to retire from movies in order to focus on his music career struck many people
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moreas strange. After all, is Phoenix not well-respected (and rightfully so)? Was he not nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line"? Could he not reasonably expect a long and fruitful career doing the kind of interesting, left-of-center work he has been doing in films like "We Own the Night" and the brand new "Two Lovers"? Yes. Yes. Yes. But no — Phoenix has declared his intention to do something else. Only time will tell whether his desires will be fleeting, whether his music will be worth the sacrifice, whether he was, you know, in his right, sober mind when he made the announcement. But even if Phoenix's career transition really is an art-project hoax (as has been reported), it still raises some important questions. For example: Why don't more movie stars retire? I happen to think Joaquin Phoenix is a powerful actor — all the more so if this really is a big practical joke — but I applaud him for having the (theoretical) guts to give up the attention, acclaim and, let's be clear, massive paychecks that go along with film stardom. Maybe he'll find success as a musician, even a Spinal Tap-style prankster one. Maybe not. But we can hope that his example might inspire at least a few of his colleagues to consider hanging it up, too. For example:
Tom Cruise
Unlike many, I am no Tom Cruise hater. I don't always go in for his movies. (I could never understand the appeal of "Top Gun," for example. But, then again, I'm not a Republican frat boy with no sense of humor ... or a gay man.) But I have no trouble seeing that there are scant few actors who can do the kind of square-jawed, all-things-to-all-people, blank-slate, type-A movie star thing that Cruise does so effortlessly. His strength as an actor is the absence of any discernible personality to interfere with his persona. Which makes it all the more problematic that his empirically bonkers real-life personality is now inextricably linked to his on-screen characterizations. "Valkyrie" was a better film than it got credit for, and Cruise was pretty good in it. But there's no denying that every time he made some move toward assassinating Hitler, you were like, "Hey, the guy who jumped up and down on Oprah's couch is gonna try to kill Hitler!" or, "Hey, the guy who thinks Scientology is real and psychiatry is fake is wearing an eye patch!" It's untenable, and it's only going to get worse as Cruise tries more and more desperately to get back to his place at the top of the heap. Prescription: Stop trying. Call it a day. It's the only way he'll ever be missed.
Quite possibly the greatest living screen actor, Pacino is part of a rare breed of legends whose best work ("
The Godfather" films, "
Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico," to name a few) is among the very best work that was ever committed to celluloid. But his best work was also
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more a long time ago, a time that seems longer every time he trots out another howling dog like "Righteous Kill," "
88 Minutes," "
Two for the Money," "The Recruit," "Any Given Sunday," "Heat" (yeah, I said it) and on and on and on. He always plays the same part, always plays it the same way. And even when he manages to squeak out a genuinely memorable performance (in "The Devil's Advocate," for example, or "Donnie Brasco") or appear in a worthy film ("The Insider," "Insomnia"), it only offers a glimpse of the work he did prior to his '80s hiatus. Only as Roy Cohn in "Angels in America" do you get the sense of Pacino using everything he has. His legacy is assured. Maybe he should stop phoning in the inferior, though no doubt lucrative, film roles, and return to his first true love, the theater. It couldn't be any worse than "Scent of a Woman."
Will Smith
This is more along the lines of a personal favor. I liked DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince a lot, and though I never saw the TV show, I have been disappointed in every step of Smith's career since. Yes, he is the biggest movie star in the world. Yes, his movies
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moremake more money than anyone else's. But that doesn't make them, or him, good. From his cop-out performance in "Six Degrees of Separation" to his
Eddie Murphy-copping star turns in "
Men in Black" and "Bad Boys." It bummed me out when he got serious as "
Ali" (though he deserves some credit for attempting the impossible), and bummed me out even more that he stayed serious in "The Legend of Bagger Vance," "
The Pursuit of Happyness" and "
Seven Pounds." His action hero movies ("
I, Robot," "
I Am Legend," "
Hancock") all suck, but no film sucks as hard as "
Independence Day." Except maybe "Bad Boys II," or "Wild Wild West" or "
Hitch." And yet, in spite of everything, some part of me tends to give Smith, who is obviously talented and charismatic, the benefit of the doubt. I humbly request his retirement, so he can go out on top, and so I can be spared the experience of seeing any more of his lousy films.
Mickey Rourke
This one is hard, because I have been a real fan of Mickey Rourke since I was 10 years old. I even had a picture of him on my wall. His work in "Diner," "The Pope of Greenwich Village," "Body Heat," "Rumble Fish," "Barfly" and others (even silly trash like "9½
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moreWeeks," "Year of the Dragon" and "Angel Heart") was electrifying. I was disappointed when he started making poor films, and sad when he disappeared for a few years. Then came the news of his comeback in "
The Wrestler" and I got excited for the return to the world stage of one of the greats. Then I saw "The Wrestler," and, though Rourke was plainly fantastic in it, there's no mistaking the once-in-a-lifetime quality of the part. Also impossible to mistake: the ravages of plastic surgery on the man's face. The idea is to retire with dignity, if only to ensure it doesn't all happen again.
Russell Crowe
He just seems so angry. Maybe if he retired he could relax a little? He used to be such a great actor. Why all the
Sturm und Drang?
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet was an obvious star right out of the gate in her debut,
Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures." She was irreverent, incandescent and, most of all, idiosyncratic. And though the evolution has been gradual, with several rewarding stops along the way ("
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Hideous Kinky" and "Sense and Sensibility" among them), Winslet has arrived at a point of total blinding blandness. With her turns in "The Reader" and "
Revolutionary Road," following on from her work in "
Little Children," "
All the King's Men," "
The Life of David Gale," "Finding Neverland" and other creakers, she has proved that she is professional and talented beyond measure. But she has also bleached out all the fire and weirdness that made her such an original presence to begin with. (Notice I don't even mention "
Titanic," which is where the trouble obviously started.) If she retires now, we may never have to see her get all-the-way skinny and play Mary Poppins. One can hope.
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Steve Martin
A truly great comedian, a talented comic actor, an inspired screenwriter and, in his own way, something of a legend, Steve Martin hasn't made a truly good, funny movie since "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" in 1988, or, if you're being gentle, "Parenthood" in 1989. Yes there are brilliant moments in "L.A. Story" (1991) and "Bowfinger" (1999), but they don't sustain themselves. Martin gets points for his strong work in more challenging dramatic roles in "The Spanish Prisoner" and "Novocaine" (though not so much, one might mention, in "Grand Canyon" or "Shopgirl"). And, not for nothing, he was the only actually funny person to host the Oscars since Johnny Carson stopped doing it. Martin is one of the funniest people of the second half of the 20th century, but this is the 21st century, and maybe if he retired he could spend more time writing books, stories and essays, which seems to be where his heart lies these days. Unless you want to believe that it lies in "
The Pink Panther 2" and "
Cheaper by the Dozen 2." I don't.
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Again, this is more along the lines of a personal favor. I can't stand Aniston. I tried to watch "Friends" a couple of times and she made it impossible. She tried to ruin "Office Space," but the film's inherent genius pulled through. So I put these two questions to you, dear reader: (1) has Jennifer Aniston ever been in a good film (not counting "
Office Space" or "
The Iron Giant")?; and, (2) has she ever been good in a film? Discuss. Or don't. I still think she could stand to retire, because, like, how is she going to follow "
Marley & Me"? As an artist, I mean.
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This one is tricky, because I not only respect Sean Astin, but I also really like watching him act. I liked him in "The Goonies," I liked him in "
Rudy," hell, I even liked him in "Please Don't Hit Me, Mom." But let's be serious: It's his work in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy that is at issue here. Astin was fantastic as Samwise in those films, partly because you would never have imagined him in the role, and partly because his natural sweetness burns through the screen, making it impossible to imagine anyone else playing it. And making it impossible to imagine him playing any other part ever again. It's not quite to
Christopher Reeve levels, where the portrayal was so iconic that the actor literally had to become paralyzed before anyone was capable of thinking of him out of his costume . But, for reasons that are as mysterious as cinema itself, Astin does embody hobbitness, and to a far greater extent than his hobbit co-stars. Were he to retire now, he might spare himself the maddening prospect of a lifetime of frustrated typecasting attempts, a middle age without a Middle Earth to call home.
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Miley Cyrus
I say this with all due respect, but if this lovely, talented girl retires now, we might be spared her inevitable drug, fame or sex addiction. We might be spared her fall from grace, her comeback attempts, her money troubles, her dubious marriages, her slow-eyed children, her hacked BlackBerry, her attempts at emancipation. If she stops now, she, too, will be spared these awesome spectacles, as well as the loss of dignity that she may or may not know is waiting just around the corner, when her show is canceled, when her record tanks, when her audience grows up. But most of all, if she retires now, she can avert the worst potential disaster of all: She can avoid turning into her father.
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Retirement Age: celebrities that should hang it up
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