Anthony Michael Hall won the Golden Ticket when he was cast as Rusty Griswold in 1983's National Lampoon's Vacation. But his career hasn't always been like Walley World.
He won a second Golden Ticket when he became one of Hollywood's shining new faces with all his fellow newcomers who were taking showbiz by storm. They were known as the Brat Pack. Actors like Hall, the Sheen brothers, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy were the core members. Still, pretty much any teen who starred in a John Hughes film or any other teen drama was unofficially counted as part of the group.
Hall was fortunate to star in Hughes' Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science, which became staple '80s teen dramas. Breaking out of the Brat Pack, Hall took leading roles in Out of Bounds, Johnny Be Good, and A Gnome Named Gnorm. Into the '90s, he played the villain in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.
You'd think all of this success would set Hall up for an even more successful career into his late '20s and beyond, but that didn't exactly happen. Let's just say he didn't turn out as successful as Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp into his adult years. In fact, a lot of the Brat Pack lost their success once they grew up.
So what happened to Hall's adult career? Well, there were a couple of different variables that led to his career's downward spiral.
He Developed A Drinking Problem
After Johnny Be Good in 1988, Hall took two years off reportedly because of a drinking problem. Around this time, he tried to establish himself as an adult actor. He started small with the low-budget film Into the Sun in 1991 and found success in Six Degrees of Separation in 1993. In 1994, he made his directorial debut on Hail Caesar, in which he also starred.
But after this, he mainly starred in TV movies, low-budget films, or guest appearances in various television shows. He had one last success in the '90s with 1999's Emmy-nominated TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, where Hall played Bill Gates.
Into the 2000s, he went back to starring in low-budget TV movies and films. Looper wrote, "Hall was at a professional low point in 2002 after starring in the much-maligned Freddy Got Fingered." Still, after that, he managed to get a role in the David Cronenberg adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Dead Zone.
Hall played Johnny Smith, "a man who wakes up from a coma with psychic powers," for six seasons of the series and even directed an episode during its run. But once again, his career plummeted. He only gained small roles here and there and guest appearances on shows like Community, Murder in the First, and more recently, Riverdale, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Blacklist, and The Goldbergs.
Within the last four years, his roles have been few and far between because of a couple of legal issues.
He's Come Under A Couple Of Assault Charges
In 2017, Hall was sentenced to three years probation and 40 hours of community service after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges after assaulting his neighbor during an argument the following year. Their argument turned physical when Hall pushed Richard Samson to the ground, and Samson broke his wrist.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Samson and Hall allegedly had a few run-ins with each other in the past.
"[Hall] got into a tussle with someone else in the complex. I heard yelling out my front door and walked out to see what was going on," Samson told People. "I told him, 'You need to calm down.' Within two seconds, he was in my face and said some very unpleasant things to me. He then shoved me, and I fell to the ground."
This wasn't the first time Hall has faced charges for altercations with neighbors. In 2011, he also received a misdemeanor charge for disturbing the peace after fighting with his neighbors when they found him ripping up the plants in the common area of his condominium.
Then this past year, he was videotaped cursing out a couple of people in a pool at the South Congress Hotel in Austin, Texas. According to TMZ, Hall arrived at the hotel's pool with his wife and assistant and proceeded to blast music, disrupting other guests and cursing. When the other guests confronted him about the noise, Hall got angry, cursed them out, splashed them, and even called one guest "Rosie O'Donnell."
The guests called hotel security, and Hall and his entourage (he actually did guest star on Entourage) left the area. Fortunately for Hall, who can't afford another misdemeanor charge on his record, security did not call the cops.
Later he released a statement apologizing once the videotape footage was leaked. "As a result of a misunderstanding and miscommunication between myself and some hotel guests, the situation needlessly and regrettably escalated," Hall told TMZ. "I am deeply sorry for my words and actions and ask for forgiveness from anyone who I may have offended."
So with his recent legal issues and angry outbursts, you can imagine why studios are less than likely to cast him nowadays. But there is a silver lining. He's been cast in Halloween Kills, the sequel to 2018's Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis. He also has the upcoming Zero and The Class, a high school drama ironically, where he will also be the executive producer. So at least Hall's career isn't completely in the dead zone.
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