Celebrities Who Had Huge Careers Overseas but Not in the US

For every famous actor with a well-known name, there's a sea of would-be celebs, licking their entertainment wounds and languishing in obscurity somewhere, forgotten. Even rarer, however, are the stars that once burned bright before falling, only to rise again in a market oceans away. Some celebrities manage to salvage their star power and have huge careers overseas.

There's no doubt that star power is a fickle thing, subject to shifting tastes and trends. The next big thing one day is the washed-up has-been the next. Even worse, some celebrities say one wrong word on a hot mic and find themselves very quickly out of a job.

Let's take a look at several celebrities who had huge careers overseas but not in the US. At least, not for long.

This post was updated June 24th, 2025, to reflect additional information.

Back during the turn of the millennium, Halle Berry was everywhere. She starred in blockbuster movies and quickly found herself catapulted to the A-List. Her career reached its zenith, however, after she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 for "Monster's Ball."

Usually, an Academy Award is a ticket to longevity, but this wasn't the case for Halle Berry. Be it Hollywood sexism or just poor film choices, Berry became a ghost in Tinseltown. It took a new light in China to bring her back to glory. The Chinese market loved her, giving her a Huading Film Award and financing her independent film "Kings."

No matter how you slice it, Sylvester Stallone has had an interesting career. An unknown, he wrote, directed, and starred in "Rocky," which made him a Hollywood legend. This inertia brought him tons of blockbuster roles through the 80s and early 90s, but the phone stopped ringing.

Besides some top-billed cameos in the 21st century, Stallone's career was as good as gone. Luckily for him, Russians felt otherwise. His 2013 project "Grudge Match" sold incredibly well in Russia. The State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg even treated him to a Stallone-inspired art show.

Suffice it to say that American audiences haven't shown Lou Ferrigno much love since the 1970s gas crisis. Back then, he was a household name thanks to his feature role on the "Incredible Hulk" TV show.

Despite ongoing movie and television cameos in the ensuing decades, he just couldn't keep up the clout. Fortunately for Ferrigno, Japanese audiences hold old shows like "Incredible Hulk" near and dear. He can't find much work in America, but Ferrigno has found a second life in Japan.

For a while there in the early aughts, comedian Kevin James was everywhere. He starred in the long-running and much beloved sitcom "The King of Queens" and had sizeable roles in movies like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." A few years later, however, it seems James' career plummeted.

American audiences may have grown tired of his lovable everyman schtick, but German audiences still eat it up. "The King of Queens" earned unheard-of ratings in Germany, and his films cleaned up. What's more, the underperforming "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" made almost a third of its foreign box office sales in Deutschland. Perhaps it's his German descent?

Compared to other actors on this list, John Travolta is a unique case. He was on top of the world in the '70s with outsized roles in films like "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease." This didn't last, however, and he waited in the wings for a while before a career revival in the early nineties with films like "Pulp Fiction."

Since then, Travolta's star power has oscillated between massive and tiny. Several bad films in the new millennium saw him take the direct-to-video route. While he's likely to make another comeback considering his track record, Travolta has paid the bills in the interim years overseas with lucrative commercial contracts in countries like Brazil and Japan.

Say what you will about Nicolas Cage, but he puts his heart in every role it takes, no matter how unhinged, subdued, or outright ludicrous. His acting showcases are so over-the-top that he's become a bit of a living meme in stateside. This passion, however, has found new life overseas in places like China.

Besides winning an Award for the Best Global Actor at the 2013 Huading Awards, Cage made the ranking that same year for China's 20 Most Engaging Foreign Celebrities. That's probably a good thing, too, as Cage is a notorious spendthrift. It's likely that Cage has bills to pay when he shows up in increasingly obscure and eye-rolling films each year. He may be washed-up in some respects, but he's truly respected in others (see China).

From the '80s to mid-'90s, John Cusack was everywhere. He served as a lovable if mysterious heartthrob in teen romance films and as a wisecracking, but hopeful misanthrope in indie dramas. This led to a pretty robust career as the years progressed. After the release of "Hot Tub Time Machine" in 2009, however, Cusack's American career seemed to stall.

Luckily for him, his films found a new life in China. He seemed to lean into this overseas celebrity, too, as his Chinese historical epic "Dragon Blade" made a whopping $54 million in its opening weekend in China. By comparison, "Dragon Blade" made a paltry $74,000ish in the United States. Cusack may have worn out his American welcome, but the Chinese audiences can't get enough of him.

In a way, singer Kelly Rowland had the cards stacked against her from the outset of her career. Though she served as one part of the incredibly successful Destiny's Child trio, she spent most of that period in Beyoncé's shadow. Once Destiny's Child dissolved, Rowland tried her hand at solo stuff and even acting, but American audiences weren't buying it.

In response, Rowland headed overseas to jolly ol' England. There, she got a well-deserved chance at the spotlight by serving as a judge on the hugely popular singing competition show "The X-Factor." This made her so popular, she got a judging job on the ill-fated American version. When this failed to deliver, she found a third life judging for the Australian version of the singing show "The Voice."