Handsome guy... good actor... why couldn't he parlay his success from Titanic into a more substantial career?

I've thought the same thing about Edward Burns.

Didn't suck enough dicks to get ahead.

Could be several things:

1. His agent is feeding him crappy scripts.
2. He's making his own crappy choices for roles.
3. He's not actually that great an actor.
4. He is a good actor, but his previous roles have left casting directors leery of having his name associated with their project. I mean, what is he known for? The Phantom and the asshole from Titanic.
5. He simply doesn't want to be a bigger star. Maybe he wants to sit at home and make homemade preserves for the townsfolk. Who knows.

I was thinking the same thing last night after watching Titanic. He had just come off of The Phantom which didnt do the business it deserved. And then he played an asshole on the biggest movie of all time. So maybe #4?

Interesting though, one of of the special features, they showed the recent London 3D premier, and when he was introduced he got a bigger reaction than everyone else, including Kate and James.

Maybe he is just a working actor. According to IMDB he did 6 movies this year, and wiki says he does some indy stuff.

Looking around, there was some controversy with him being in this movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Wolves:_Iraq
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/th...06/film-threat

Has he worked with any big name director since TITANIC?

Zane had still been around for years prior to that, though. He was in Sniper with Tom Berenger and he was also in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, and in Tombstone.

Maybe he just said fuck it and decided to do anything that came along his way just for the paycheck?

Because he lost his hair.

First time I saw him was in "Dead Calm". Underrated film.

Just noticed he had a small role in Back to the Future.

This.



Just plain terrible. Even Catherine Zeta Jones couldn't save the film from box office disaster.

Wow....i never heard someone say Ed Burns is a good actor before. He has been terrible for me in everything i have seen. 15 Minutes being a perfect example. Glad his career seems to have died.

Billy Zane has always been ho-hum to me as actor. He will not make me want to see a movie because he is in it, and he doesn't seem to have that much of a range as an actor really. Having said that, i did enjoy Sniper and even found The Phantom to be silly fun. Maybe he should try getting back into villain style roles. He could mark out a niche from that i am sure.

Hes not likeable. Even as a a protagonist he always seems dickish to me. Hes good at playing bad guys though.

He's not a very good actor.

He's not. I think that's the real reason why he isn't a bigger star, not because he was on Titanic.

I didn't realize he was that old.

this.

I don't know how much stock I can put in acting ability. The biggest stars aren't necessarily the best actors, and some lesser actors have done very well with their careers. When Ben Affleck had star status in the late 90s-early 00s, he wasn't exactly knocking it out of the park in his performances, was he? (I just wanted a less obvious example than Keanu Reeves.)

Another possibility: maybe he's difficult to work with? I have no idea, and I'm not accusing him of that. But if he is, that may be a factor.

You should listen to your friend Billy Zane. He's a cool guy.

I don't know, but he was on Twin Peaks, so he gets a pass from me.

This was my first thought as well. Too bad he wasn't the Titanic victim who fell and hit the propeller. That might've garnered a cheer from the audience.

He looks like a young Col. Kurtz in this picture.

Now I'm imagining a prequel with James Franco in the Dennis Hopper role.

It would be terrible but I'd watch it.

What post-TITANIC movies can you suggest that would have been better and/or more successful had Zane been in them instead of any of his peers (Cruise, Depp, Pitt, Reeves, Hawke, Downey Jr., Ruffalo, et al)?