At this very early stage of the 2014 fall TV season, one new show that critics loathe is NBC’s The Mysteries of Laura.
In the past, that sort of universal deriding might have piqued my curiosity. How bad could it really be, I’d ask myself. Or I’d tune in just to see a train wreck develop. But life is too short now, and there’s too much good stuff on TV to waste even an hour on something that’s terrible. (And The Mysteries of Laura is awful.) Yet I still wanted to check out the show once I heard that Josh Lucas was a co-star on the show, playing Debra Messing’s self-centered, responsibility-phobic husband.
Do you remember Josh Lucas? Maybe that name doesn’t register with you, since he hasn’t been in anything of significance for nearly 10 years. But at one point, Hollywood seemed to peg Lucas as the next big male movie star. Coming off intriguing co-starring turns in A Beautiful Mind and Sweet Home Alabama, studios did what they often do and tried their best to push Lucas in our faces and down on throats.
We’ve seen this before, of course. How’s Orlando Bloom doing when he’s not playing a pirate or elf? Directors keep putting Alex Pettyfer in movies (Beastly, I Am Number Four, Magic Mike), but audiences haven’t bought in. During the 90s, Skeet Ulrich, Josh Hartnett and Gretchen Mol were each pushed as the next big thing. Mol was even on the cover of Vanity Fair after supporting roles in Donnie Brasco and Rounders.
Some might even put actors like Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Renner or Clive Owen on such a list. I think those guys are on a different level. Maybe they can’t carry a movie or a franchise, so they’re not “stars.” But they score plenty of roles in many films, some of which have been extremely successful. (Joel Edgerton may soon fit into this category too.)
Josh Lucas probably could have established a decent career as a leading man (or eye candy for the female lead) in romantic comedies after his role in 2002’s Sweet Home Alabama, playing Reese Witherspoon’s old flame that she just couldn’t quit. He could have continued to play the slimeball opportunist whom audiences love to hate, such as he did in A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Hulk (2003). There would have been no shame in that, even if it might mean he ends up as “that guy” in a several movies.
At least he had one of the weirdest death scenes captured on film, as Ang Lee tried to make the comic page and its panels come to life in Hulk.
http://youtu.be/PSGXERUKBj4
But Lucas understandably aspired for more. With his looks and Southern charm — along with an ability to play drama or comedy, hero or villain — it’s not difficult to see how filmmakers thought Lucas had a star quality to him and cast him as the lead. However, either those roles didn’t come or Lucas made bad choices in the movies he picked.
Lucas played a fearsome bad guy in 2004’s Undertow, and should have gotten more notice for the performance. But as was the case with all of David Gordon Green’s independent non-comedies, hardly anyone saw it. Stealth (2005) gave Lucas the chance to play the square-jawed action hero as a fighter pilot chosen to fly an artificial intelligence-driven combat jet. But the movie was terrible (doing nothing for co-stars Jessica Biel or Jamie Foxx either).
I think Lucas was actually quite good in 2006’s Glory Road, playing Texas Western coach Don Haskins as he put the first all-black starting lineup in college basketball on the floor during the 1966 NCAA title game. But sports movies tend to have a niche audience, especially when they don’t feature a big star, and this story may have felt a bit familiar to audiences.
Poseidon also came out that year, with Lucas as the presumed lead. But the whole point of that movie was to remake one of the 1970s disaster films filled with a bunch of B-list talent that didn’t feature any real movie stars. Maybe this was Lucas accepting his fate in Hollywood, and figuring that he’d at least get a top role in what looked like it could be a cool movie.
Of course, it wasn’t. Poseidon was a major flop, costing $160 million to make yet drawing $60 million at the box office. That was probably the end of any director, producer or studio executive thinking Lucas could carry a big-budget blockbuster or achieve major movie stardom. A look at Lucas’ IMDB page shows that since Poseidon, he’s had supporting roles in movies you’ve never heard of or small parts in movies that you may have forgotten he was in.
A revival looked possible when Lucas was cast in NBC’s 2012 adaptation of The Firm, playing lawyer Mitch McDeere, the role Tom Cruise played in the 1993 film. The series was a continuation of the film, picking the story up 10 years later. In a May 2012 interview with indieWIRE, Lucas explained that he signed on for a darker, edgier series along the lines of Breaking Bad, but network interference turned The Firm into a bland, safe show.
Lucas didn’t sound interested in doing network television after that experience, preferring to work in the edgier fare seen on basic and premium cable if he did TV again. That makes it curious that he’s ended up on something pretty bland and safe like The Mysteries of Laura two years later. And he’s not even in the lead role. I’d argue he’s second- or third-billed, but the pilot indicated that he’ll probably have a larger part in the series.
In the indieWIRE interview, Lucas sounded like someone who would be content to act in smaller, independent films for the rest of his career. Yet those movies don’t make a lot of money, which means talent doesn’t get paid very much. Those economic realities are surely what pushed Lucas back into television, even for what looks like a thankless role as a manchild who might eventually find some redemption and become the husband Debra Messing’s character needs. If the series doesn’t succeed, at least it could get Lucas back on the radar for future work.
It’s not my intention to make fun of Lucas here. Sure, there’s a little bit of snark in pointing out that someone pushed as “the next big thing” ended up on a bad dramedy (if that’s what The Mysteries of Laura even is) in a role meant to make him look like an irresponsible jerk. It’s not necessarily Lucas’ fault that he was pushed as a star in the making, though some of his choices along the way are worth questioning. Maybe he was never meant to be a marquee leading man and big star.
How many of us have taken on work that we hoped would lead to success and fulfillment, only to realize that we’d made a mistake? Jobs that look and sound great can turn nightmarish so fast. How many of us have overreached, aspiring for bigger and better things? Hey, at least you tried. And if you hadn’t, you’d probably regret that. I’m guessing Lucas doesn’t regret still being a working actor in Hollywood.
