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Why was Peter Weller never a bigger star?

posted 8 years ago by TMC-4
21 replies | jump to latest

You'd think that with RoboCop being such a huge hit, studios would be knocking down his door trying to sign him up for a film. He still had a decent career, but he's still not exactly a household name.

Is it because he's kind of quirky and has a bit of a laidback downplayed style? Or is it because he was already kind of a late bloomer when he first he hit it big with Buckaroo Banzai and later RoboCop? To put things kindly, Weller never really possessed leading man looks and arguably always looked 15 years older than he was.

Then again, maybe Weller simply just wasn't that interested in being a big star. Acting is just one gig for him. He was likely too busy working getting his post-graduate degrees in Roman and Renaissance Art to become a star.

[–] Aylmer (416) 3 months ago

I think Weller took roles most interesting to him, which were mainly offbeat genre roles and unfortunately too many of them ended up losing money or being box office disappointments. It doesn't matter how good of an actor you are; if your big starring vehicles bomb out at the box office, you either have to go back to smaller movies, smaller roles, or TV like James Spader and Gary Sinise.

I worked for a music video director once who had directed two feature films. He said that the whole reason his feature film career died in its tracks was because his second feature utterly bombed at the box office (and it was supposedly over bad press of one of the stars and not any fault of his own). It doesn't matter how well you directed the movie; just the fact that your name is on something that lost money dries up practically all similar opportunities. The same goes for actors.

[–] AnthonySocksss (444) a month ago

Most of his movies were flops.