Actors Who Made A Comeback In 2023

Very few actors, even the ones at the highest level of celebrity and acclaim, can maintain careers with all peaks and no valleys. A natural ebb and flow happens to pretty much everyone in Hollywood, and many factors play into the fickle nature of the business. Not counting those that experienced some catastrophic, career-tainting controversy, most actors bounce back after a few lean years — which, for the record, are sometimes self-imposed.

Now, it's important to note that not all of the actors in this feature dealt with a significant or long-lasting career lull. In fact, many hadn't been especially far removed from their last noteworthy project. But what unites them all is that 2023 has seen their careers enjoy a renaissance of sorts, with one or more projects that are their most important or acclaimed in a while and follow a period where they'd been either voluntarily flying under the radar or just hadn't appeared in anything that made a sizable impact on the pop culture landscape. 

Josh Hartnett has already launched a couple of "comebacks" in his career. The first came when he appeared in the 2006 thriller "The Black Dahlia," which gave us Hartnett's first high-profile role in several years. He had taken a step back from acting in an attempt to escape being typecast in shallow, handsome-young-Hollywood hunk roles. But that movie ended up being a critical and commercial disappointment, a common occurrence among Hartnett's bigger projects, and he once again backed off for a bit to regroup.

Nearly a decade passed before Hartnett popped up in anything that garnered significant mainstream attention. He initially returned to prominence as a series regular in the well-received horror series "Penny Dreadful" in 2014. A few years later, filmmaker Guy Ritchie brought Hartnett into his fold with a major role in his 2021 heist film "Wrath of Man," though that came and went with little fanfare. This year, however? Hartnett really and truly returned to both acclaim and box office success, playing a pretty sizeable role among a cast of A-listers in Christopher Nolan's massive financial and critical hit, "Oppenheimer." In addition, Hartnett also starred in his second Guy Ritchie film, "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre," and fronted an episode of the 2023 season of "Black Mirror."

After he first went behind the camera with his 1987 satire "Hollywood Shuffle," Robert Townsend quickly reduced his acting output and has been mostly content to spend the last 30-plus years as a writer, director, and producer. His 1995-99 sitcom "The Parent 'Hood" marked his last major mainstream acting role until 2023, with his scant on-screen credits during that timeframe comprised of small indie or made-for-TV films or fairly minor roles in his own projects. And even then, he only has seven non-director credits between 1999 and 2023, one of which was a voice role.

So, for Townsend to take on a prominent role as the father of a main character during Season 2 of FX's acclaimed "The Bear" was a big deal indeed. Many viewers didn't even initially recognize the veteran performer, as it had been so long since people saw him in anything. But Townsend — one of several guest stars who are noted native Chicagoans — proved that he retains his knack for acting, delivering a wonderfully understated performance as Sydney's (Ayo Edebiri) cautiously supportive father, Emmanuel. Don't be surprised to see a guest actor Emmy nomination for Townsend during the next awards season.

A very busy actor in the 2000s and 2010s, Rachel McAdams fired off at least one movie every year for 10 consecutive years between 2008 and 2018. After that, McAdams slowed down a bit, releasing only the Netflix comedy "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" from 2019 and 2022. While it can be argued that appearing in a movie that grossed nearly $1 billion at the box office made 2022 more of a comeback year for McAdams than 2023, Christine Palmer rated as more of a side character in that movie and — unless you're one of the Avengers — you kind of got lost in the crowd during the first four phases of the MCU.

Our argument that 2023 marked the true renaissance of McAdams's career centers on the kinds of roles she's played this year. As the mom of the titular character in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," it's the first time McAdams starred in a coming-of-age film focused on the teenage experience in which she wasn't one of said teenagers but was instead a parent character. And she handled that transition flawlessly. In addition, McAdams appeared in a multi-episode Season 3 stint of FX's "Dave" that cast her as a version of herself, another career landmark that shows that she's at a point where she's comfortable poking fun at herself and her image. 

Despite him being a household name and seeming to be ever-present throughout the '90s, actor and comedian Chris Tucker only has 14 film credits to his name. In fact, in the entire 2000s decade, he made a mere two movies — both of which were "Rush Hour" sequels. The 2010s were no different, with Tucker again only adding two movies to his resume. In an interview with GQ, Tucker brushed off the notion that he's ever taken any kind of a career break. "It's shocking because I guess I'm the last person to know it. 'Cause I'm always working. Stand-up comedy or something else, I'm working," he explained.

Still, in terms of movies, Tucker had clearly grown much more selective about his projects after his '90s heyday, even turning down sequels to his breakthrough hit "Friday." 2016's "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" had been Tucker's last movie, and 2015's "Chris Tucker Live" was his most recent filmed comedy special, certainly giving the impression that he didn't prioritize screen work. But 2023 saw Tucker make a triumphant return to acting when he played Nike executive Howard White in the biopic "Air" about the origins of Michael Jordan's extraordinarily successful line of sneakers, his first film in seven years. And he's got at least one more in him, having already confirmed his involvement in a fourth "Rush Hour" movie — though as of March 2023, the script remained unwritten. So, don't expect it anytime soon.

After spending the first decade of his career known primarily as André 3000, half of the legendary hip-hop duo Outkast, André Benjamin began to scale back on music around the same moment that he started giving acting a serious shot. Following the release of the final Outkast album, "Idlewild," in 2006, Benjamin shifted to primarily being an actor who creates music on occasion rather than the other way around. 

Particuarly busy between 2005 and 2007, Benjamin appeared in nine movies as well as launched and starred in his own animated series, "Class of 3000." Most of his roles were supporting roles, with his first lead film role — the 2013 Jimi Hendrix biopic "Jimi: All Is by My Side" — earning him praise for his budding acting abilities (but being marred by not being allowed to use any songs penned by Hendrix per the late musician's estate). Benjamin seemed to pump the brakes on the acting after that, only turning up in 2018's "High Life." But 2023 saw Benjamin the actor finally come into his own, as he delivered strong performances in both "White Noise" (technically released at the tail end of 2022) and "Showing Up." It apparently takes indie-minded auteurs like Noah Baumbach and Kelly Reichardt to transform Benjamin into the actor he always believed he could be.

To be fair, martial arts legend Jackie Chan never really took anything resembling a real break since his career got going. From 1970 all the way to 2021, Chan put out at least one movie every single year for an astounding 51 straight years. With that in mind, the fact that 2022 came and went without a Jackie Chan movie was a pretty big deal. But that's only a small part of the reason why we are declaring 2023 a comeback year for the multi-hyphenate performer.

In 2018, Chan announced a plan to step back from Hollywood, expressing frustration over how much flak he got from American critics for not possessing a flawless grasp of the English language. For a time, it seemed as though the drama "The Foreigner" (2017) might be his last American production, which makes his role voicing Splinter in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" so noteworthy. In addition, his Netflix buddy action comedy "Hidden Strike" with John Cena proved a surprise hit when it reached the streamer in July 2023, marking the first time in a handful of years that a Chan film gained any significant traction in the U.S. 

Chan certainly seems to be warming back up to Hollywood, as he will also appear in the upcoming fourth installments of both the "Rush Hour" and "Kung-Fu Panda" franchises.