What Does Not Kill You Trivia Quiz

Answer: Matthew McConaughey

"How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days" (2003), "Failure to Launch" (2006), "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009); what do these films have in common? They're all rather middle of the road rom-coms in which Matthew McConaughey managed to take off his shirt. All reasonable money spinners, for sure, but they did little to showcase Matthew's ability to portray complex characters and reveal his true skills. They're films that could have consigned him to a career of mediocrity. It all started to turn around for Matthew when he scored the lead in "The Lincoln Lawyer" (2011). Then he drew critical plaudits for his work in "Mud" and "Magic Mike" (both 2012) as well as his brief but memorable stint in "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013). Hollywood began to take notice.

"Dallas Buyer's Club" completed what has become known as the "McConaissance". He would seal this rise with his role as Detective Rust Cohle in HBO's "True Detective" series, which has provided Matthew with a Best Actor Emmy to share the shelf with the Oscar.

Answer: Shoplifting

Ryder first caught Hollywood's imagination with her portrayal of Lydia Deetz in Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" (1988) and then enhanced her reputation with Academy Award nominations in "The Age of Innocence" (1993) and "Little Women" (1994). When "Alien Resurrection" (1997) and "Girl, Interrupted" followed it appeared Winona was riding high (ugh, those puns are killing me). Ryder then made off with a little over $5,000 worth of designer clothing from Saks Fifth Avenue and her moment amongst the stars was stolen away from her. Admittedly Ryder was not in a good place at the time; her relationship with Johnny Depp was proving a boon to the tabloids, she was fighting bouts of anxiety and depression and was accused of taking certain medicinal drugs without the proper authorisation.

Her climb back from the darkness was slow but it gathered momentum in 2006 when she garnered critical acclaim for her efforts in "A Scanner Darkly" which was followed by another strong performance in "The Ten" in 2007.

Her off-beat role in 2009's "Stay Cool" led to strong support roles in "Star Trek" (2009) and "Black Swan" (2010) and a starring role in television's "Turks and Caicos".

Answer: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Rule number one - "You don't kill off your star in the opening scene". Someone forgot to tell Wes Craven, the director of "Scream", and Drew Barrymore was forever grateful. Those scenes were designed to shock, draw gasps and remain in the memory for years to come.

They helped turn the film into a cult horror classic and, in the process, re-ignited a career. The world had previously fallen for Barrymore's wide eyed performance in Steven Spielberg's delightful little alien picture and for Drew it must have felt like a millstone around her neck.

She tried hard to shake that image but the choices were forgettable; "Poison Ivy" (1992), "Waxworks II" (1992), "Doppelganger" (1993), "Bad Girls" (1994) and somebody please stop me. The worst part was that her off-screen life was almost a mirror of those of her on-screen characters; substance abuse, sessions in rehab, making headlines for all the wrong reasons, it was enough to make you want to scream. Well she did and she soon found herself playing the girl-next-door in a number of light-hearted comedies such as "The Wedding Singer" (1998) and "Never Been Kissed" (1999) and resurrected her career.

Answer: Francis Ford Coppola

If Brando had been truly untouchable it was during the 1950s. It was a time when he was nominated for five Best Actor Oscars, winning it for "On the Waterfront" (1954), and where his approach to acting and attention to detail almost revolutionised the game. Films such as the aforementioned "On the Waterfront", "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) and "The Wild One" (1953) began to read like a Hollywood "best of" list.

Unfortunately, then came the 1960s and movies such as "Burn!" (1969), "The Appaloosa" (1966) and "The Chase" (1966), none of which succeeded at the box office.

When you add to this Brando's mood swings, his constant demands and that legendary attention to detail directors were now confronted with long delays and costly budget overruns with no chance of seeing a return.

It was little wonder that studios were treating him as persona non grata. Coppola rightly felt that Brando was perfect for the role of Don Vito Corleone in his adaptation of Mario Puzo's award winning novel, the problem he had was that Paramount were terrified of employing Brando and denied the request. Brando, at this point in his career, refused to do screen tests but Coppola managed to talk him into one on the guise that they were testing out lighting and makeup and when Paramount saw the results they got excited.

The rest is history. Brando's performance is the stuff that legends are made of. It earned him a second career Oscar, returned him to grace in Hollywood, led to a triumphant performance in "Last Tango in Paris" (1972), a much talked about role as Captain Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" (1979) and a massive payday for a short sequence in "Superman" (1978).

Answer: Argo

Affleck seemed destined for a stellar career in movies when he shared a Best Writing Oscar with his good friend Matt Damon for "Good Will Hunting" (1997). Whilst Damon's star continued to rise and earn critical acclaim Affleck soon found that being a good writer meant you were not necessarily a great judge of film roles. For quite some time in the early 2000s most of what Ben touched turned to mud. "Pearl Harbor" (2001) was dreadful, as was "Daredevil" (2003) and I am staggered that he even put his name against "Gigli" (2003).

After failing to come up trumps in front of the camera Ben decided to try his hand from behind it as a director. Here he was a natural. He has shown a surprising subtle touch and an ability to generate genuine tension on screen that has earned him high praise for "Gone Baby Gone" (2007) and "The Town" (2010).

Then came "Argo", a historical drama into which he managed to combine suspense with dark humour and riveting action with a thoroughly compelling and fast paced storyline. Perhaps, with this directorship, there comes a maturity as the subtlety he has put into guiding a movie is now starting to reveal itself in the roles he's portraying on screen.

Answer: Alyssa Milano

Milano was twelve years old when she stepped into the role of Samantha and there must have been hundreds of teenaged young boys around the world thinking the same thing - tomboy, cool. Seven years on, Milano is nineteen, and those same teens are thinking "Sam is starting to smoke" and by that I don't mean that she's puffing on a cigarette. I get this feeling that Milano, at this point, began to see the "girl-next-door" types of roles as her destiny.

Her options were to embrace it and enjoy success in much the same way as Meg Ryan or Jennifer Aniston or grow into more womanly roles in much the same way as Marisa Tomei or Demi Moore.

She chose the third of two options and decided she would shatter that image with "Embrace the Vampire" (1994). "Embrace" was a stinker that went straight to video. All it succeeded in doing was to give Milano a chance to get her clothes off and suddenly "Sam is smokin'" took on a whole new meaning.

This wonderful choice was then followed by "Poison Ivy 2" (1996), another that went straight to video "Public Enemies" (1996) and, suddenly, a not so pretty picture was developing. Fortunately for Alyssa the opportunity to play Phoebe Halliwell presented itself and, while it hasn't quite rocketed her to super stardom, it has certainly drawn her out of the mire she was starting to sink in.

Answer: John Travolta

John was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar as Tony Manero in "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) and a Golden Globe for his turn as Danny Zuko in "Grease" (1978) but after these came "Urban Cowboy" (1980), "Two of a Kind" (1983) (where his character was appropriately named Zack Melon) and "Perfect" in 1985.

In between these illustrious offerings he turned down the opportunity to take the lead in "American Gigolo" (1980), "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) and "Flashdance" (1983). Later he would even turn down Quentin Tarantino for a role in "Reservoir Dogs" (1992). Fortunately for Travolta Tarantino was not so easily deterred and he was convinced that John, as Vincent Vega, was the ideal man to partner Samuel L. Jackson's bible quoting shooter, Jules Winfield, in his 1994 film "Pulp Fiction".

The role gave Travolta a tough image, he got his "cool" back, was nominated for a second Academy Award, it placed him back on Hollywood's A-List and opened the door to such hits as "Get Shorty" (1995) and "Face/Off" (1997).

Answer: Robert Downey Jr.

Downey Jr. gave us an early preview of his exquisite acting skills with both "Chaplin" and "Natural Born Killers" (1994). However, it was his predilection for heroin, cocaine and booze that was drawing newspaper headlines rather than his thespian qualities. To most it seemed like the waste of a great talent.

However, in between stints in both rehab and prison, Downey found his way onto the set of the television series "Ally McBeal" (season four, 2000-01) and soon Hollywood was starting to warm to him again.

Then came 2008 and a stark reminder (terrible pun, I know) of his immense talent with his up-tempo portrayal of billionaire superhero Iron Man and his "off-the-wall" performance as a method actor in "Tropic Thunder". There was a left-of-centre adaptation of "Sherlock Holmes" in 2009 and Downey elevator was on the rise.

Answer: Ingrid Bergman

Bergman's stunning performances in "Casablanca" (1942) and "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945) is the sort of stuff that legends are built upon. By the time she'd completed Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946) she was Hollywood's darling and could do no wrong.

Then came the trip to Italy to film "Stromboli" (1950), Rossellini's baby and suddenly a lot of unpleasantness hit the fan. Now in today's more permissive times we may think "What's the big deal?". This, however, was the 1950s, Bergman was married to someone else and so was Rossellini, and they were in a country where the Catholic Church and its teachings were sacrosanct.

The outrage was palpable and the attacks on Bergman were vicious. She was denounced in the US Senate and was described as "a powerful influence for evil".

She kept away from Hollywood until Anatole Litvak was able to coax her back to play the heroine in his 1956 film "Anastasia". It proved to be an inspired move and a welcome comeback. Her superb performance saw her collect her second Academy Award.

She would go on to win a third for her work in "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974).

Answer: Rocky Balboa

When you think about movies such as "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" (1992), "Judge Dredd" (1995), "The Specialist" (1994) or that disastrous re-make of "Get Carter" (2000) and then try to reconcile those thoughts with the words "Sylvester Stallone" and "good actor" in the same sentence you'd probably reach the conclusion that someone had taken one too many blows to the head. But don't laugh, don't even snigger. Stallone has shown that he has some serious acting chops but his biggest problem is that he has made a career out of portraying characters with little or no depth. Think of John Rambo, not big on the syllables but he could lift heavy things and blow stuff up better than anyone. That proved that Sly could get bums on seats but it certainly didn't earn him kudos as a thespian. "Rocky", on the other hand, had some serious depth (in his first outing at least) and it earned Stallone an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately the subsequent revivals of the character become a quest to see how brainless and emotionless they could possibly make him. This fever then seemed to extend to all of Stallone's other movies (see above) and it almost appeared that every time we went to see a new picture of his that we were seeing a continuing gag about the man himself. Now "Rocky Balboa" (2006) does not shake the trees in the same way as the first film did and I will agree that its premise borders on being ridiculous, but the boxing is not what it's all a-bout (bad pun alert). There is a plot here, there is some depth of character and once again Stallone is called upon to find something that he'd discovered back in 1976.

... and just when we thought it was safe to go back to the cinema he introduces us to Barney Ross and "The Expendables" I, II, III ...