- 5 minutes ago
From beloved romcom queens to iconic scream queens, these '90s stars took breaks from the spotlight before making memorable returns. Whether through acclaimed TV roles, unexpected film comebacks, or creative new ventures, these actors proved that true talent shines through any era. Join us as we celebrate their journeys back to Hollywood and beyond. Who’s your favorite comeback story? Let us know below!
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00You're one of those actors, you've been working constantly, and yet this is being described as your renaissance.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the 90s icons who had a resurgence after
00:12years away from the limelight.
00:15Oh, there's two of you. Again. I've seen this movie before.
00:20No.
00:22Number 10. Joe Pesci
00:23It's kind of amazing how varied his career was, given his relatively brief stardom.
00:28Joe Pesci had been working steadily in films for years, when he earned an Oscar for one of his most
00:33famous roles in Goodfellas.
00:35What do you mean? You mean the way I talk?
00:37What?
00:38It's just, you know, you're just funny.
00:41From crime to comedy to family favorites, Pesci's 90s were pretty stellar.
00:46Then in 1999, he retired, making only two live-action film appearances over the next 20 years.
00:53He made a triumphant, if temporary, return in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman.
00:57But it wasn't so much of a comeback as a brief visit.
01:00Mr. Scorsese, which is always its way.
01:04Wow. I didn't know that. Well, good luck with it.
01:07Well, thank you very much.
01:08And thanks for having fun.
01:09We don't need luck. We got talent.
01:11He did another film and appeared on Pete Davidson's one-season dramedy Bupkis, leaving us wanting more.
01:16Well, it sounds like you got a rat.
01:19Really? You think someone would rat on you?
01:22Well, you surround yourself with garbage. You attract rats.
01:26No offense, guys.
01:28Nah.
01:28Number 9. Meg Ryan
01:30The rom-com queen of the 1990s made her name on characters who were relatively messy.
01:35I don't actually know him.
01:38Really?
01:41I only know him through the, uh...
01:45You're not gonna believe this.
01:47Oh, let me guess.
01:49Through the internet?
01:50Meg Ryan could have kept going back to that well, but she doesn't just take any part.
01:54She stepped away at the height of her fame, mostly because she wanted to raise her son, actor Jack Quaid,
02:00and live a life away from Hollywood for a while.
02:02In 2015, after nearly seven years away, she returned in Ithaca, a film she also directed.
02:08She wouldn't appear on screen again until the 2023 rom-com What Happens Later.
02:13Please have your boarding pass ready.
02:18Hey, this is for you.
02:21Just get a little hit of magic.
02:23If that weren't enough, she's returning to the genre again alongside Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo in Good Sex.
02:29We made a movie kind of in secret, and now it's just, like, weird feeling putting a movie out.
02:34It's like sending your firstborn child out, like, or your oddest child out.
02:40Number 8.
02:41Alicia Silverstone.
02:43After hitting the heights of mainstream attention in the 90s, the star of Clueless scaled things back once the 2000s
02:49hit.
02:49They're like dogs.
02:50You have to clean them and feed them, and they're just like these nervous creatures that jump and slobber all
02:55over you.
02:56Ew! Get off of me!
02:59Ugh, as if!
03:01Alicia Silverstone consistently pulled back from the rat race of Hollywood.
03:05When she did take film roles, they were often minor.
03:08But it's not like she's ever been totally out of the culture.
03:11Cher Horowitz's influence is still very much alive.
03:14In the past few years, Silverstone has made a quiet comeback.
03:18She returned to our attention via social media, especially with her animal rights activism.
03:22With roles in recent projects like Y2K and Begonia, it's clear we still can't get enough of her.
03:28Now I'm working on, because I'm the producer of Irish Blood, season two.
03:32So I go back to work quite quickly.
03:34Well, I'm working on it now, but I go to shoot it in Ireland soon.
03:37So that's what I'm focused on.
03:39Number 7.
03:41Natasha Lyonne.
03:42The Russian doll and poker face star began her career as early as six years old.
03:46Oaky smokes, man.
03:48That's true.
03:50Throughout the 90s, she worked on numerous movies of varied size and scope.
03:54Natasha Lyonne spent the decade volleying between major projects like American Pie
03:58and smaller ones like Slums of Beverly Hills and But I'm a Cheerleader.
04:03One, two, three, four.
04:05You're the one that I adore.
04:08Five, six, seven, eight.
04:10Don't run from me, because this is fate.
04:13But a tumultuous relationship with her stage parents
04:16and publicized struggles with substance use disorder halted her career in the 2000s.
04:20It wasn't until Orange is the New Black premiered in 2013
04:23that she began the impressive run she's been on for years now.
04:27It's hard to lose a pet.
04:29Especially when you get blown up by your ex-husband
04:32during a botched attempt to murder your neighbor.
04:34It's a tale as old as time.
04:36Number 6.
04:37Matthew Lillard.
04:38In the 90s, the star of Scooby-Doo and Scream carved out a place for himself
04:42as a go-to for young eccentrics, geeks, and outcasts.
04:46Never, ever, ever under any circumstances say,
04:49I'll be right back.
04:50Because you won't be back.
04:51I'm getting another beer.
04:52You want one?
04:53Yeah, sure.
04:53I'll be right back.
04:57Matthew Lillard's filmography is a lot more varied than just those roles, though.
05:01He was one of many young actors who became synonymous with Gen X sensibility.
05:05I was a child.
05:06Spake as a child.
05:07I understood as a child.
05:09I thought as a child.
05:09But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
05:12But once the 2000s hit,
05:14Lillard pivoted to a prolific career in voice acting,
05:17mostly reprising his role as Shaggy in various Scooby-Doo cartoons.
05:21Lillard has returned to major film roles with Five Nights at Freddy's
05:24and a much-anticipated appearance in Scream 7.
05:28It's lovely.
05:29We're the first husbands of horror.
05:31We see each other all the time.
05:32It's incredible to have him in the film.
05:35Every time somebody screams, I'm like,
05:37who showed up in the premiere?
05:38Number 5.
05:39Gina Davis
05:40Even an Oscar winner's career can be brought down by a box office flop.
05:44Gina Davis had the misfortune of being in two,
05:46both directed by then-husband Rennie Harlan.
05:491995's Cutthroat Island was an especially notorious failure.
05:53You're free to go your separate ways.
05:55You could buy a little cottage in Bermuda,
05:59drink chamomile tea on the porch.
06:02On the other hand, we could do what we were born to do.
06:05She only made three films between 1999 and 2006,
06:09all of them part of the Stuart Little series,
06:11and starred in a few series that were promptly cancelled.
06:14In the late 2010s, she returned to starring roles on the Exorcist series
06:18and continued her work with the Gina Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
06:21She was always finding new ways to use my story to make a buck.
06:28This is the path God gave us, sweetie. Use it.
06:32But I ran away from all that.
06:34The best may be yet to come, though.
06:36In 2024, Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers
06:39cast Davis in their next Netflix series, The Burroughs.
06:42I love it now. It's fantastic. I can always see the parade.
06:48So there's a lot of advantages.
06:52She may have become an immortal Scream Queen due to her work as Sidney Prescott,
06:57but Neve Campbell's work began on the teen drama Party of Five.
07:00You know, there's no one to tell me what to do.
07:02Once the Scream series came along,
07:05Campbell felt fortunate but hemmed in by the role.
07:07As the years went by, the scripts she received just weren't exciting.
07:11She didn't just leave Hollywood, she left America.
07:14In the mid-2000s, she was living in relative obscurity in London.
07:17I just wasn't interested in the scripts, and I was feeling a bit,
07:22well, just unhappy with the things that were coming to me.
07:24And I was feeling a little bored of the whole thing,
07:26and I thought, I want a change, so I moved to London.
07:29In the 2010s, she returned via TV on shows like House of Cards.
07:34Her much-heralded return to the Scream franchise in 2022
07:37launched her into an entirely new era.
07:39You might actually be the most derivative of one of all.
07:42I mean, Christ, the same house?
07:44Maybe so.
07:44But you forgot the first rule of surviving a Stan movie.
07:48Never answer the...
07:49I'm bored.
07:50Wait!
07:50Despite well-publicized salary disputes over returning for Scream 6,
07:54she returned for the series' seventh entry in 2026.
07:57Are you going to be all right?
08:00I'll survive.
08:01I always do.
08:02Number 3.
08:04Sarah Michelle Gellar
08:05Few actresses epitomize the 1990s California cool
08:08like Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar.
08:11She was in some of the most iconic movies of the late 90s and early 2000s.
08:15Is it me, or is your heart not in this?
08:18Maybe I'll just go home, destroy the world.
08:20I think Mr. Poyne will have something to say about that.
08:23Come on, let's finish this.
08:25You and me.
08:27After marrying her frequent co-star Freddie Prinze Jr.,
08:30the couple largely stepped away from their prolific careers to begin a family.
08:34The couple rejoined former co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt in a reboot of the 1997 horror classic
08:39I Know What You Did Last Summer.
08:41You're going to die, Danica.
08:43Please!
08:44I just want to wake up!
08:47Stay in the dream as long as you can.
08:49Gellar returned to major roles in Wolfpack for Paramount Plus
08:52and has since signed on to star in and executive produce a Buffy sequel series.
08:57I have no doubt that a 280-pound ram charging right at you is completely terrifying.
09:04It wasn't a ram.
09:06But I wasn't a seven-foot monster with fangs and claws either, right?
09:10Number 2.
09:11Winona Ryder
09:12While she began her career as a quirky Tim Burton ingenue,
09:16Winona Ryder branched out into a wide variety of roles in the 1990s.
09:20Her range was tested in historical dramas, character studies, and timely Gen X comedies.
09:25That is if the doctors will let me go, and I'm afraid they won't.
09:35Linda, I've been sure of something since this morning, and I've been longing to tell you.
09:39But after her very public arrest for shoplifting in 2001,
09:43Ryder's output became less consistent.
09:46Studios deemed her an insurance risk, leaving her almost unemployable.
09:50It's nothing you actually have to, I don't know, work for, is it, Troy?
09:52No, not if you have daddy's little gas card.
09:55You shut up.
09:57You shut up!
09:57I busted my ass to find a job, any job.
09:59You don't even bother showing up for interviews.
10:02Though she secured small roles and lower-profile projects,
10:05she re-entered the mainstream in a big way in 2016.
10:08Her role as Joyce Byers on Netflix's insanely popular sci-fi series Stranger Things
10:13introduced her to a whole new audience.
10:15Where to find you, honey?
10:17Where, where are you?
10:18Can you, can you tell me where you are?
10:21Can you, please, baby, I need to find you.
10:27Tell me what to do.
10:28Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
10:31and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
10:35You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
10:39If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
10:44Number 1, Brendan Fraser
10:51Famous for his persona as the handsome, steady, and good-natured leading man,
10:56Brendan Fraser was one of the most bankable stars of the 1990s.
10:59He could do any genre, from rom-coms to action to historical drama.
11:04Put the old man on.
11:05Yeah, yeah, forget it.
11:07Just let him sleep it off.
11:08All right.
11:09Yeah.
11:10Time's up, y'all, now.
11:13I'm out of dimes.
11:14Box office returns diminished, and Fraser was notably absent from major releases for years.
11:19In the late 2010s, he revealed a disturbing encounter with former Hollywood foreign press
11:24president Philip Burke had affected his mental health and his desire to work in Hollywood.
11:28Fraser's return to widely seen projects began in TV, leading to more major film roles.
11:33This culminated with his Best Actor Oscar for The Whale in 2023.
11:38Does it feel like a renaissance to you?
11:40Every time I hear that, I want to look at the ceiling.
11:44Oh, look, there's Rick O'Connell.
11:45Oh, look, there's George of the Jungle.
11:48It's foreshortening.
11:49Who's a 90s idol you'd like to see make a comeback?
11:52Tell us in the comments.
Comments