The No. 1 example? Gene Hackman. The two-time Oscar winner (The French Connection, Unforgiven) last made a movie in 2004 – Welcome To Mooseport. It was so bad that he simply walked away from the business. Now 79 years old, Hackman makes big bucks doing commercial voiceovers for outfits like Lowe’s.
The runner-up would be Goldie Hawn, 63, who won an Oscar for her first movie, Cactus Flower in 1969. She hasn’t made a film since The Banger Sisters in 2002.
Goldie’s lack of ambition extends to her life partner, Kurt Russell, who’s only 58. Russell rarely works anymore unless someone comes knocking. He starred in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof in 2007, but altogether averages less than one credit a year. Hawn and Russell are simply very well-fixed at this point.
Warren Beatty can also be added to the list. Never a prolific actor, Beatty last appeared on screen in the famous flop, Town And Country some eight years ago. The Oscar-winning director (Reds) has always been picky and choosy. He passed on playing the title role in Kill Bill.
Robert Redford has slowly joined this club, too. Busy with the Sundance Film Festival and other endeavours, Redford did direct and star in Lions For Lambs in 2007. Otherwise, the Oscar winner for Ordinary People has made only four films this decade.
Redford’s The Way We Were co-star Barbara Streisand works even less, at least in film. She hasn’t made one since The Mirror Has Two Faces back in the mid-’90s. This decade she’s made just one film, Meet The Fockers. She may turn up in its sequel, Little Fockers.
There are plenty of others, too, not just Oscar winners but popular faves: Joe Pesci, for example. His first part since Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998 was a small one in The Good Shepherd (2006). Otherwise, he’s on the golf course. And a lot of younger actors – in their late ’40s and early ’50s – have become more selective. Debra Winger, Matthew Modine, Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Helen Hunt and Jeff Bridges all take their painstaking time making solid career choices.
We needn’t worry though. Scads of veterans are working somewhere all the time, from Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Sally Field and Dustin Hoffman to Clint Eastwood (the ultimate overachiever). Meryl Streep (right up there with him) and Robert De Niro (the Energiser bunny).
