The passing of time has never understood compassion or pity, never has its pulse trembled when it comes to holding back expectations or sinking paper boats which, for a very short time, seemed destined to cover horizons full of fame and wealth. In that sense, every decade has had its victims and its survivors, its discoveries and its burials, its parties and its hangovers. In an industry like Hollywood, a true world of egos and ambition, the knocks happen twice as fast and hurt as if a house of cards were falling on top.

Hollywood is a pretty fickle place. It doesn't really matter how famous you are - you can be forgotten in the blink of an eye. This is precisely what has happened to some of the greatest and most attractive film stars of the 1990s. Although they appeared in major films or TV shows at the time, these actors have come out of the spotlight and we have heard from them again. Many actors have their big moment of fame: a good run, a series of good decisions, the industry and the public were eager to see them. But sometimes, for the most varied reasons, some are forgotten.

Kevin Costner

He made his debut on Shadows Run Black in 1981, but his first starring role was in the Silverado western four years later. Kevin Costner's career took off in the 1980s when he starred in No Way Out, The Untouchables and Field of Dreams. In the early 1990s he continued to enjoy great box-office success with films such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Bodyguard and Dances with Wolves, which he directed and starred in, winner of seven Oscars. Along with Clint Eastwood, Costner is considered to be the filmmaker who revitalized the western genre. However, it was in the mid-1990s that Costner's films began to fail at the box office and failed to impress critics. While continuing to act and direct, Costner has never been as successful as he was in the early 1990s.

Neve Campbell

We imagine that Neve Campbell is still waiting for the call to confirm the next sequel to the Scream saga, the real (and only) lifesaver that the actress could grab hold of to continue breathing in the midst of the shipwreck that her career became after the 1990s. Forever marked by the character of Sidney Prescott, Campbell has continued to work in recent years on B series productions, television films and movies released directly on DVD. No one in Hollywood felt the death of the great screenwriter and director Wes Craven more than she did. And with good reason. Now, the actress has had an acting break as Leann Harvey in House of Cards, with a tertiary role, but, for a long time, Campbell has not played a major role in the industry. Without a doubt, her most successful period was the 1990s, when she worked on Scream, Wild Things, The Craft and Party of Five.

Jeff Goldblum

Jeff Goldblum is an actor of great height (not just physically), with angular factions and, above all, with high levels of versatility that have led him to star, over time, in roles of great weight in contemporary cinema. Jeff Goldblum became famous in the 80's with roles in The Big Chill and The Fly, but it was his performances in Jurassic Park and Independence Day - two of the biggest blockbusters of the 1990s - that made him a Hollywood star. Goldblum's career went cold a decade ago. Although the actor still manages to get small roles in films and television programs, there is no doubt that he is no longer the actor he once was. In fact, with the premiere of Jurassic World a few years ago, many of us expected the actor to appear in his mythical role as Dr. Ian Malcolm, but he did not.

Calista Flockhart

The spectacular success achieved by Calista Flockhart with Ally McBeal made us think that a star had just joined the Hollywood firmament. There were grounds for this hope, as we were dealing with an actress with personality, presence and innate ability to jump from comedy to drama quite easily. However, behind all this popular fame and critical prestige, Flockhart was desperate for the hellish working hours demanded of her by the series, tired of having to live by and for it. That's why, once the series was over, the actress decided to temporarily leave the screen until she returned to television with Brothers & Sisters, but her image will always be tied to Ally McBeal, in a character who was fired from her former law firm because she reported that one of the partners of the touched her ass.

Val Kilmer

Val Kilmer became a star in the 1980s thanks to his role in the big box office hit Top Gun. Although he was still popular in the 1990s because of his performances in The Doors, Tombstone and Batman Forever, during this period he earned a reputation as someone who is very difficult to work with. In the late 1990s, his interpretations also began to suffer. The critics were not at all impressed with the performance of the Los Angeles-born in The Saint, At First Sight and Joe the King. A few years ago, Kilmer expressed his desire to run for governor in the near future, but things became very delicate for him when he himself claimed to have cancer in May 2017. Today the actor is still fighting the disease.

Alicia Silverstone

If your most outstanding film of the 21st century is Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, it's because you've done things wrong. Except if you're Alicia Silverstone, an actress who's been praised and crushed by Hollywood for her weight. And we speak in a literal way. When her participation in Batman & Robin was confirmed, we all understood that it was the exact moment when the actress would become a big star. However, we did not have two key facts to understand the debacle. The first one, and most forceful, the film was grotesque, a circus that took nothing seriously; the second one, and more unfair, was the weight changes Silverstone underwent during the shooting, an anecdote that became a perfect target for poisoned darts that ended up touching and sinking the career of an actress from whom we could expect much more.

Edward Furlong

He got his beginnings in Hollywood on one of the biggest blockbusters of all time: Terminator 2 - Judgment Day. Throughout the 1990s, he worked with some of the biggest names in show business. In American Heart, he worked alongside Jeff Bridges; in A Home of Our Own, he worked alongside Kathy Bates and in American History X he performed alongside Edward Norton. Furlong has been struggling with his alcohol problems for many years and, as a result, his career has been on hold for just over a decade. Unfortunately, the only appearances Eddie's making now are in court. Edward Furlong's case is one of those that hurts: we can feel that thorn in our side of the side when we're in front of a guy with more than enough talent to have built a career that's at least stimulating.

Pamela Anderson

Canadian-American Pamela Anderson captivated the male audience in the 1990s with her sculptural body in the television series Baywatch, playing the lifeguard T.J. Parker. But that was, of course, a long time ago... Pam is now 50 years old, a fact that will make many of us feel quite old, but it is the reality. Time is passing for everyone and one of the most desired women of the last 25 years is in the middle of her adult years after having long been one of the main female icons in the world. In the 1990s, while German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, with her blonde hair and sophisticated figure, represented elegance at its best, Pamela Anderson perfectly embodied the prototype of a stunning, crazy and voluptuous girl. After all, everyone remembers her running in slow motion on Santa Monica’s beaches.

Macaulay Culkin

Watching Macaulay Culkin fall into the darkest abysses of Hollywood was, for some years, one of the most depressing attractions in the industry. The best paid child actor in history, able to chain an unstoppable succession of box-office hits thanks to first-rate family movie proposals, was plunged into a world of demons, family polemics, sentimental break-ups with Mila Kunis, failed marriages with Rachel Miner and a total lack of interest in resuming a career in film. But with the big millions in his possession, Culkin can still breathe easily. Without a doubt, that little boy who made us laugh out loud at Home Alone, My Girl, Richie Rich and Getting Even with Dad there's not much left at all. What a pity, no doubt, since we could be talking about a completely different person if mistakes had not flooded him.

Melissa Joan Hart

For five seasons and 104 episodes, Melissa Joan Hart starred in the Melissa & Joey series, but she'll never be able to get over the fact that she starred in two mythical series of the 1990s: Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Clarissa Explains It All. Thanks to these roles - especially Sabrina's - Hart became not only a youth superstar who would define her style and attitude to life, but also the first crush of legions of people who lived their childhoods in the 1990s. Over the years and with fame, the actress's visits to the Playboy Mansion became a common occurrence.... that's when it seemed that millions and popularity went to her head. Between 2003 and 2010, the end of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and the start of Melissa & Joey, Hart had not been able to find a role that fulfilled her.

Alfonso Ribeiro

The name Alfonso Ribeiro is not at all familiar, but when you mention Carlton Banks, you will almost certainly recognize this one immediately. Ribeiro was the actor who became famous for bringing Will Smith's conceited and refined cousin to life during the time of The Fresh Prince. What the actor never imagined, perhaps, was that many years later everyone would remember more about the beloved character and his famous dance than about himself. His first big break came in 1984, shooting a Pepsi commercial with Michael Jackson. During the clip, little Alfonso appears dressed in a funny way, imitating the dance steps that made the King of Pop famous. In 2014, Ribeiro won the famous Dancing with the Stars dance contest; and in one of his performances, he revived Carlton's famous dance, which could be appreciated as it was performed in the 1990s.

Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz's life is far from the media and the film industry these days. Her last film appearance was in 2014 in the musical Annie, and her low profile was accentuated since she married Good Charlotte musician Benji Madden in 2015. The star, who jumped to fame after being a flamboyant blonde in The Mask, spends her days out of the spotlight, doesn't usually attend public events and the pictures you see of her are occasionally taken by paparazzi who cross her in the street. So much so that her life changed that the days of her romances with Matt Dillon, Justin Timberlake and Jared Leto were behind her, as well as her roles in films such as Gangs of New York and Vanilla Sky, were over at all.

Jason Priestley

The actor has just turned 48 and no doubt his role as Brandon Walsh in the Beverly Hills 90210 series will be forever remembered and, although his profile is now much lower, the same has definitely happened with his career. Jason Priestley was only 26 years old when he achieved worldwide fame with the popular teen series mentioned above. It was the 1990s and he had millions of fans sighing every time they saw him on the screen playing the handsome Brandon Walsh. After this series, Jason has not played an equally important role again, but he has not strayed from film and television. In this last area he has had participations in My Name is Earl and Medium. In addition to acting, he decided to venture as a director and has already led projects on television or in independent films such as Cas & Dylan.

Linda Hamilton

How to forget her hair and her brave style without ever losing sensuality: Linda Hamilton was, for more than a generation, the perfect heroine in a Hollywood where there were no films like Wonder Woman and where only men fight and use guns. The remembered Sarah Connor - who had to take care of her future son from the fury of Skynet, the artificial intelligence that would dominate mankind in the 21st century - remains as one of the icons of pop cinema and owes much to Hamilton, who managed to give her character the necessary dose of tenacity and courage. However, despite having had great success with the original Terminator saga, little is known about her present. In addition to hundreds of thousands of tickets sold with Terminator and its sequel, for Hamilton that shoot also meant an encounter with one of the loves of her life, director James Cameron... but that didn't last long enough.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

Mary-Kate and Ashley, better known as the Olsen twins, are another example of television stars who reached the top at a very young age. In the case of these Californian twins, it was perhaps the earliest success in living memory, as they made their television debut when they were only nine months old in the Full House series, which ran continuously from 1987 to 1995. In that mythical series, the Olsens played Michelle Tanner - due to the strict child labor laws in the U.S., they took turns playing the character - whom we watched grow for years and whose hilarious moments have gone down in television history. That little blond demon the Olsens gave life to was so adorable and capable of doing such funny things at a tender age that she made the whole audience fall in love. But over time, these two girls became increasingly lost from the spotlight of Hollywood.