Wonderful but Underrated
I think he's one of the most wonderful actors of the new generation but why do we see so little of him?
shareWell for awhile, Billy Crudup reserved himself mostly to independent films. He had the opportunity to audition for the lead in Titanic but turned it down because he didn't want the fame that would come with it. Apparently he's actually done that for many films including Ang Lee's Hulk.
Nowadays he's popping up in more mainstream movies which probably wasn't a hard transition because most filmmakers know how great of an actor he is. However, studios like certain people for leads and it's very, very hard to convince them that they should gamble on a new actor to lead a film. So the chances of Crudup getting a lead role in a commercial movie are very slim unless one of the top directors in Hollywood (Spielberg, Nolan, the Coens, etc.) decides that they want him.
Along with this, he's always been very selective of the roles he chooses. Part of the reason he kept to the indie circuit was because he was being offered more interesting or complex roles. In a recent interview I saw with him, he stated that he'd be up for a lead role in a big movie "if it was challenging enough".
So really, both the system and himself are keeping Billy Crudup from being a household name.
Without heroes we're all plain people and don't know how far we can go.