Christopher Lambert: Which Films Influenced the Actor's Career (13 photos)

I think many of you remember the Highlander series of films, where the main role was played by actor Christopher Lambert. And of course, many of you have watched other popular films with this actor. But despite the popularity of these films, Christopher Lambert was never able to break into the first-rate actors.





Short biography

As always, let's start with a short biography of the actor. Christophe Guy Denis Lambert (yes, this is the actor's real name) was born in New York, where his father, a French UN diplomat, was serving at the time. But when the boy was two years old, his family moved to Switzerland.



It was in Switzerland that the future actor spent his childhood. His parents sent him to a boarding school, but he had some difficulties there. Because of his shyness, he could not communicate normally with his classmates. Plus, because of his myopia, Christoph was forced to wear glasses with thick lenses, which clearly affected his communication with his peers for the worse.

Feelings literally boiled up inside the schoolboy, because of which his psyche could not withstand. He began to disrupt lessons every now and then, because of which he was eventually expelled from the educational institution. Even changing schools didn't help, because every time he did something similar, because of which he was expelled from the educational institution again. As a result, during his entire education, the boy changed 11 schools.





But he still managed to stay in one school, because it was there that he first became acquainted with the theater, thanks to which he realized who he wanted to become in the future, which, however, did not suit his father, because his dad wanted to make a financier out of his son.

After studying for six months in London, Lambert returned to his father with a paper stating that he was not suitable for the banking sector. Only then did the father leave his son alone, telling him that he could do whatever he wanted. Well, Lambert, realizing that he did not want to study various sciences, decided that he simply had to become an actor.

Beginning of a career

Christopher Lambert began his acting career in 1979 in France, when he was 22 years old. It was then that his first films were released, such as "Bye, Boys!" (1979), "Criminals of the Night" (1980), "Asphalt" (1981), etc. However, I think that few of you have even heard anything about these films.

Achievements

Only in 1985 Lambert in the film "Subway" by Luc Besson, which essentially became the starting point for the actor. This film did very well at the French box office, grossing $22 million on a $2.6 million budget. Everyone won here - both director Luc Besson and Christopher Lambert himself, who was starting to get noticed.



"Subway" (1985)

And already in 1986 Lambert was invited to play the lead role in the film "Highlander". And it is worth noting that the film did very poorly at the box office. But due to sales of the film on video media, the film was able to not only recoup its $16 million budget, but also become a real hit, which in the future would turn into a whole franchise.



"Highlander" (1986)

Failures

But despite the actor's initial successes, his career did not go well. Films such as "The Sicilian", "Why Me?", "Kill the Priest" and "I Love You" turned out to be failures. Although, personally, I simply adored the film "Why Me", where Christopher Lloyd also played. I had this film on videotape, and I watched it more than once.



"Why me?"

Well, in 1990, the second part of the film "Highlander" was released with the subtitle "Revival". However, the film turned out to be an even bigger failure than the first part. In this case, video cassette sales did not help either.

As a result, Lambert was almost immediately no longer invited to big cinema, which is why he was firmly entrenched in second-rate films that were released directly on video cassettes. Among them are such films as "Flower by the Road", "Fortress", "Knight's Move", "Max and Jeremiah".



"Fortress" (1992)

By the way, Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally supposed to play the main role in the film "Fortress", so the budget for the film was quite impressive, and they planned to show it in cinemas. But when Arnie left the project, the budget for the film was sharply reduced, and Lambert was signed for the main role. Because of this, the film did not even go to cinemas.

Well, in 1994, the next (already the third) part of "Highlander" was released, which again and again failed at the box office, collecting only 12 million dollars with a budget of 26 million.

New success

And probably Christopher Lambert's career would have fallen to the bottom much earlier, if in 1995 the film "Mortal Kombat" by Paul Anderson, based on the cult game "Mortal Kombat", had not been released. Here Lambert played a minor role of Lord Raiden, but this role was very important for the film. As a result, with a budget of 20 million dollars, the film collected 122 million at the box office.



"Mortal Kombat" (1995)

New Failures

After the success of "Mortal Kombat", the actor was again of interest, offering him to star in various films. However, Lambert clearly made the wrong choice, since such films as "Northern Star" (1996) and "Arlette" (1997) failed miserably at the box office. Moreover, no one really bought them on video either, which is why "clouds began to gather" over Lambert again.

The film "Nirvana" (1997) showed itself more or less, but since the film was Italian, it was not very successful in the USA.



"Nirvana" (1997)

And then came probably the most high-profile failure in Christopher Lambert's career, which he still does not want to remember. Yes, we are talking about the film "Beowulf" (1999), which managed to collect a pitiful 100 thousand dollars at the box office with a budget of 20 million. Although, many involved claim that the budget was simply "sawed off", and much less money was spent on the production of the film. Moreover, the film did not even reach the American distribution, being content with only some European cinemas. Hence such small box office receipts.



"Beowulf" (1999)

In 2000, Christopher Lambert returned to the role of Connor McCloud in the film "Highlander 4: Endgame". But as one could guess, the film was a failure.

Career death

Constant failures in cinema provided Lambert with participation only in second-rate films (category "B"), which, as a rule, were not even released in cinemas. Moreover, most often he starred not even in American, but in European films.

I'm even sure that many of you won't remember such films as "Snipers" (2001), "Absolon" (2003), "Metamorphosis" (2007), "Limousine Driver (2008)", "Bedridden" (2009), etc.



"Metamorphosis" (2007)

Yes, if you look at Christopher Lambert's filmography, it will seem quite impressive, but all these films are unknown to anyone, and they were practically not shown in cinemas. And if Lambert did occasionally pop into big-budget projects, he usually got third- or even fifth-priority roles.

In 2018, he even got into the film "Sobibor", where he played the main villain. However, this did not save his career.



In 2019, the last project with Christopher Lambert was released. We are talking about the series "The Blacklist". And even then, he appeared there in only one season, and in a secondary role. And it is unlikely that we will ever be able to see Christopher Lambert in any major project again.