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Summary
- Some successful actors, like DiCaprio and Chastain, avoid franchise films to focus on diverse, challenging roles.
- Not being part of a franchise hasn’t hurt the careers of discerning actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, Jessica Chastain, and Saoirse Ronan.
- Several accomplished actors, such as Richard Gere and Sean Penn, prioritize quality and uniqueness over working in franchise films.
Many of the biggest actors in Hollywood have had a long and varied career, but some actively choose to avoid working within movie franchises. The road to becoming an A-list actor is typically a challenging one, that requires actors to pay their dues as they work their way up in Hollywood. While many actors probably have roles they favor and jobs that they enjoy more, sometimes, to keep the money rolling in, they have to take work they find less exciting.
However, there are a few discerning actors who have a strict set of rules around the roles they play, and what they put their name to. For some actors, playing a recurring role in a franchise, tackling the same character more than once is entirely unappealing. Or, they may feel that franchise work is not for them, but whatever the reason, some popular actors have avoided appearing in franchises altogether.
10 Major Actors In Their First Role Vs. Now
Every star had their first role at some point in their careers. Here are how 10 major actors were in their first roles compared to how they are now.
9 Leonardo DiCaprio
Hollywood Enigma
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest celebrities of all time.
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest celebrities of all time, with major roles that have earned critical acclaim, and a hard-earned, long-awaited Oscar win. However, despite DiCaprio’s almost 50 years of acting, and relationships with directors who have helmed some of the biggest franchises of all time, he has never appeared in a franchise film. Instead, DiCaprio has collected a long list of incredible roles throughout his career.
DiCaprio has played Jack in Titanic, one of the highest-earning movies of all time, Cobb in Inception, and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. With ties to James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, and Martin Scorsese and repeated leading roles under each’s direction, DiCaprio could tackle any role he chooses in Hollywood. But despite his enormous success, he opts for new and different projects, becoming a new character and expanding his talents as an actor rather than repeating roles in a franchise.
Leonardo DiCaprio: His First 10 Feature Films Ranked
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest stars in the world, and even his first 10 movies prove how great of a dramatic performer he is.
8 Daniel Day-Lewis
Method Master
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the most well-known and respected actors of his generation. Day-Lewis has been acting in TV and film since 1971, and over that time, he has carefully selected the roles he appears in, having a total of 31 acting credits to his name. Many actors work on multiple projects each year, but Day-Lewis is clearly much more careful and selective in his approach.
However, despite his more conservative and picky nature, Day-Lewis is able to deliver outstanding award-winning performances in every film in which he appears, rather than diluting his work from one project to the next. Day-Lewis has managed to win three Oscars for his work over the years, and a further three Oscar nominations, all for acting in a leading role. Aside from the Academy Awards, Day-Lewis has won nearly 150 awards, which makes an average of about 5 awards per project. Evidently, not appearing in franchises has not hurt his career in the least.
7 Jessica Chastain
Chameleon of Characters
Another Oscar winner, Jessica Chastain, began her career in TV in 2004, when she had various minor roles in shows like ER, and Veronica Mars. She worked hard and landed several more TV roles, and a few small films over the next 6 years, but it wasn’t until 2011 that she had her big break. In 2011, Chastain appeared in six different films, with a few going on to major success, and Chastain’s popularity suddenly rocketed.
Unlike Day-Lewis, Chastain had a challenging time establishing herself as a prominent actor, but her work in The Help saw her nominated for an Oscar at the 2012 Academy Awards. For the next decade and a half, Chastain continued to have more and greater success, and eventually won an Oscar in 2022. Despite never playing a recurring role in a franchise and appearing in multiple entries, Chastain did appear in It: Chapter Two, and a minor role in X-Men: Dark Phoenix.
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6 Sean Penn
Powerhouse Performer
Sean Penn is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, having worked in many different films and TV shows since 1974. While Penn has frequently made minor cameos and roles in TV shows and miniseries’ throughout his career, he has entirely avoided any franchise films. However, Penn was well-suited to take on action roles which would have been great to expand into franchises.
Penn, like many of the actors from his era, has been selective with his roles, and that has paid off in the form of two separate Oscar wins.
Instead, Penn, like many of the actors from his era, has been selective with his roles, and that has paid off in the form of two separate Oscar wins, in 2004 for his leading role in Mystic River, and again in 2009 for his leading role in Milk. Considering the fact that franchises often tie talent down to multi-year contracts and multiple performances, it makes sense that Penn has avoided franchises in order to have more freedom and control over his work (via AP News).
5 Michael Cera
Indie Auteur
Michael Cera is an incredibly talented and focused young actor who has appeared in nearly 100 different roles in the 25 years he has been working. Simultaneously, several of these roles have been in recurring, long-term roles on TV shows, with the most famous being Arrested Development. Despite having appeared in more than 300 episodes of different TV shows, and his nearly 100 distinct roles, Cera has never appeared in a franchise.
Cera may be the second-youngest actor on this list, but his track record and his various performances have made him one of the leading stars in Hollywood. Cera appears to tackle roles for fun and enjoyment rather than looking for critical acclaim. Recently, he played Allan, Ken’s best friend in the Barbie movie, and the film could branch out into a franchise, with the potential for an Allan spin-off movie, but thus far, he has avoided franchise work.
10 Best Michael Cera Movies, Ranked
Across a wide variety of forms and genres, some great movies thrive off the undeniable screen presence and offbeat charm of Michael Cera.
4 Jon Hamm
Breaking The Mold
Jon Hamm may be more than 15 years older than Michael Cera, but he got his start in acting at a similar time, with his first roles coming in 2000. In just four more years, Hamm has also featured in hundreds of episodes of TV shows, with the most popular being his role as Don Draper on Mad Men and nearly 120 credits to his name. His notoriety in Hollywood is still rising, with some of his biggest and best roles coming in the last few years.
Hamm appears to gravitate a lot more to working on TV shows, with dozens of titles, many of which being recurring roles, in his credits.
However, Hamm appears to gravitate a lot more to working on TV shows, with dozens of titles, many of which being recurring roles, in his credits. Hamm has done minor work in franchises like Minions and Top Gun: Maverick, but never in a prominent role. He is slated to voice the character Sentinal Prime in the upcoming Transformers One movie, which will go back to the origins of the Autobots and Decepticons and feature multiple projects, so this could be Hamm’s break into franchise films if his character continues through the trilogy (via ComicBook.com).
3 Richard Gere
Silver Screen Icon
Richard Gere was a major star in the 80s and 90s, frequently appearing in rom-com movies as the handsome heartthrob. Gere’s most popular movies became instant classics, like An Officer and a Gentleman and Pretty Woman. Many times in these roles, he plays a figure who is handsome, kind, and even heroic. However, he has somehow avoided ever working on franchises, unlike many of the other actors of his generation.
The closest Gere has ever come was his role in the sequel film, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but the minor supporting role hardly counts as working in a major franchise or series of movies. Gere has made a point that he is not opposed to appearing in a franchise film such as a superhero title (via Josh Wilding), but he is primarily concerned with quality and uniqueness, which usually means he avoids formulaic films.
Every Actor Who Had Back-To-Back $1 Billion Movies (In Different Franchises)
While billion-dollar movies are becoming increasingly regular in Hollywood, the actors who manage to star in successive entries are very few.
2 Saoirse Ronan
Irish Ingénue
Saoirse Ronan is the youngest actor to appear on this list, but that in no way diminishes her talents and abilities. Before the age of 30, Saoirse managed to rack up four Oscar nominations. Ronan is another discerning individual who carefully chooses her roles to challenge herself and deliver the most impact. However, she could have appeared in the Harry Potter movies playing Luna Lovegood (via Irish Star), which shows she wasn’t always opposed to franchise films.
The course of Ronan’s career has taken her in a direction that is lined with award nominations and critical acclaim.
The course of Ronan’s career has taken her in a direction that is lined with award nominations and critical acclaim, which tends to be separate from many franchise films, despite their quality and popularity. Ronan hasn’t explicitly sworn off franchise films, but it’s likely her focus is elsewhere on the stories she favors and the roles she finds more challenging and innovative. She was recently set to have a small cameo in the Barbie movie, along with Timothée Chalamet, so its possible she could tackle more lighthearted and diverse roles in the future.
1 Charlie Chaplin
Silent Comedy Legend
Charlie Chaplin was a star of the silent film era, and while many of his movies saw him play a similar role, it was never technically a part of a franchise. Albeit, franchises and sequels were less common, but trilogies and series films have existed for nearly as long as movies have. Chaplin commonly adopted the character of a bumbling man in many of his silent films, but as the medium transformed, he transformed along with it.
After a highly successful career in comedy during the silent film era, Chaplin was able to adapt and change with incredible movies like The Great Dictator, which required a great deal of dialogue. Immediately before the release of The Great Dictator, Chaplin’s latest film was Modern Times, which is also regarded as one of his most iconic movies, but due to the physical comedy and nature of silent films, the two are worlds apart.
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