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FORECAST The smartest thing an actor can do is work with good directors. Neil Jordan and Woody Allen aren't a bad start.
SYLVESTER STALLONE
THE PROBLEM His last three action pictures--The Specialist, Judge Dredd, and Assassins--barely made enough money to keep Schwarzenegger in cigars for a month. And unlike Arnold, he's shown zero facility for comedy (remember Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot?). Plus, at 50, he's getting too old for his usual brand of pumped-up big-stunt entertainment.
HIS SOLUTION He's aiming to become a serious ak-tuh by working for scale in a low-budget, high-status indie flick called Copland. Stallone even gained 35 pounds for the role, much like Copland costar Robert De Niro did for Raging Bull. It's a switcheroo strategy lifted directly from the Bruce Willis playbook (no accident that Stallone's new agent is the William Morris Agency's Arnold Rifkin, the man who signed Willis for Pulp Fiction). But Stallone took the plan one step further, actually holding a press conference where he renounced his previous career. Making action movies, he told reporters last March, felt "very hollow, like you are just part of an Erector set." Of course, that didn't include Daylight, due Dec. 6, in which he'll save a bunch of New Yorkers trapped in a collapsed commuter tunnel. Nor, presumably, does it include The Hunter, a Predator-style action flick Stallone is considering for Universal.
THE EXPERTS SPEAK "I don't think he's going to be able to change his image," predicts the actress. "Willis is able to swing back and forth between action and smaller movies, but Stallone is locked into the action-hero perception." The director deducts points for the press conference: "It's not smart to announce, 'Look at me! I'm working for no money! I'm not the person you think I am!' People aren't stupid." But the producer is more optimistic. "You have to remember that this guy is the Energizer bunny," he says. "He bombs in one movie and comes back, bombs in another and comes back." The agent adds: "With Copland, he's surrounded himself with wonderful actors and a wonderful director. He's an open-and-shut case. You can even see the changes in him on talk shows. He seems more human and less bionic."
FORECAST Copland sounds promising, but Stallone should have kept his mouth shut. By pumping it up, he set himself up for a fall. And you know the old saying: The bigger they are...
JIM CARREY
THE PROBLEM Okay, so he's a genius at doing Tarzan yodels through his butt cheeks--but that's hardly the backbone of a lasting film career. Carrey has to prove he can attract a grown-up audience by broadening his range beyond playing arrested adolescents and goofball psychotics. Otherwise, he's a Jonathan Winters waiting to happen.
HIS SOLUTION He's trying to do what Robin Williams did with The World According to Garp and Good Morning, Vietnam: pick more mature projects that demonstrate his control over his powerful comedic talents. In other words, he's hoping to prove he can actually act. The Cable Guy was a good try, but it didn't make Carrey seem any more serious--just more nasty. And its $60 million gross did little to justify his $20 million paycheck. He hopes for better luck with the just-finished comedy Liar, Liar, in which he'll play a lawyer who must endure an entire day without telling a fib. But his big push toward New Seriousness is The Truman Show, a trippy Peter Weir film in which he'll play an insurance salesman who gradually discovers that his whole life is actually an ongoing TV series. Carrey was so eager for the part, he took it for a paltry $12 million.
