How Adam Brody, Pam Anderson have mastered the art of the comeback…
Everybody needs this.
Lately, a slew of celebrities have had comebacks.
Adam Brody is having a renaissance as a romantic lead. Josh Hartnett is in the midst of “The Hartnettaissance.” Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Coolidge, Noah Wyle, and Brendan Fraser have all seen second winds to their careers.
“There’s not many things that Americans love more than a nostalgic comeback,” Troy McEady, host of the celeb gossip podcast “Beyond the Blinds,” told The Post.
Kristen Bell, left, and Adam Brody in a scene from “Nobody Wants This.” AP
Jennifer Coolidge poses with the award for Best Supporting Actress – Television Limited Series/Motion Picture for “The White Lotus” at the eightieth Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 10, 2023. Getty Images
But, not all comebacks are the same, and there’s no set method to it.
For occasion, Brody never went wherever. He rose to fame as the nerdy yet dreamy love curiosity, Seth Cohen, on “The O.C.” After that present resulted in 2007, he still appeared in a number of films and TV reveals, such as “StartUp” and “Fleishman Is In Trouble.”
Now, the Netflix rom-com “Nobody Wants This,” (returning for Season 2 on Thursday) sees him play a rabbi falling in love with Kristen Bell’s agnostic character.
“His comeback is based in how we preferred him, in the first place,” McEady famous.
Adam Brody as Noah in “Nobody Wants This.” STEFANIA ROSINI/NETFLIX
Rachel Bilson and Adam Brody in a 2005 episode of “The O.C.”
Noah Wyle accepts the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award for “The Pitt” onstage during the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater in LA on September 14, 2025. Getty Images
Brody’s roles after “The O.C.” had been largely not romantic leads, so “Nobody Wants This” is a return to type. For Wyle, who just lately gained an Emmy for playing a doctor on “The Pitt,” it’s also a bounce again, since audiences first bought to know him as a doctor on “E.R.”
Anderson’s resurgence, however, is its personal animal.
“Pam’s [comeback] is a rejection of nostalgia, a rejection of everything that we’ve known. She’s sort of stripped away all the stuff that a person would typically rely on to come back,” McEady said, referring to how Anderson was a ‘90s sex symbol, but she’s shown up with no make-up to current crimson carpet appearances.
“She’s reinventing herself. And I think that’s really cool… it’s like a radical thing to do.”
Pamela Anderson in “The Naked Gun.” ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
Pamela Anderson at Pandora Celebrates Talisman Collection Launch in NYC on September 8, 2025. FilmMagic
He famous that the 2023 Netflix documentary, “Pamela, A Love Story,” helped the public “reimagine” Anderson in a new light past the “sex symbol” picture. That led to her renaissance in films like 2024’s “The Last Showgirl” and this 12 months’s “The Naked Gun” reboot.
“Even people who hadn’t thought deeply about her in the past now have these nuanced feelings about her celebrity,” said McEady.
In the doc, the former Playboy mannequin recalled how, when her infamous 1995 intercourse tape with ex-husband Tommy Lee leaked, it squashed her goals of being taken critically in Hollywood.
“I think people are excited to give her that opportunity,” McEady said. “I also think we’ve learned a lot, when it comes to the way we treat women that we idolize. We’ve had a lot of trial and error.”
Nicole Eggert and Pamela Anderson on “Baywatch” in 1992. Getty Images
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson in “The Naked Gun.” ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
Fraser, meanwhile, was big in the ‘90s, with “The Mummy” and “George of the Jungle,” and pale from the highlight for years before he gained an Oscar in 2023 for “The Whale.”
In a 2018 GQ interview, Fraser alleged that former Hollywood Foreign Press President Philip Berk sexually assaulted him in 2003, which led to the actor retreating.
“After that interview, people just had such a space for him, emotionally,” McEady said.
Brendan Fraser, winner of the Best Actor in a Leading Role award for “The Whale,” at the ninety fifth Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood on March 12, 2023. Getty Images
Brendan Fraser in 1997’s “George of the Jungle.”
He famous that Fraser’s resurgence reminds him of the method that followers adore Keanu Reeves, who misplaced a child along with his late girlfriend Jennifer Syme, and later misplaced Syme in 2001 to a automobile accident.
With celebs such as Reeves and Fraser who have “sad stories attached” to them, McEady explained, “People like seeing him be happy. And, the reasons people support him are steeped in that, as well.”
Winona Ryder’s return when “Stranger Things” premiered in 2016 was in an identical class. She stepped again from Hollywood after her 2001 arrest for shoplifting, however “there’s general goodwill towards her,” McEady said.
Winona Ryder in “Stranger Things.” Courtesy of Netflix
“She had a scandal that was very salacious, but she didn’t hurt anyone. She didn’t do anything that affected anybody, really. It was just kind of a weird, unwell moment.”
Because it was primarily a victimless crime, people are “rooting” for her, as she’s moved on from it and returned with “Stranger Things” and 2024’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
Josh Hartnett’s “Hartnettassaince” is also distinctive.
Hartnett was a heartthrob in films like 2001’s “Pearl Harbor” and 2002’s “40 Days and 40 Nights,” however he intentionally stepped again. He’d later tackle idiosyncratic roles (such as “Penny Dreadful,” which noticed him play a gunslinging werwolf, 2024’s “Trap” which noticed him play a serial killer, and “Oppenheimer,” which noticed him play a physicist).
“He never really leaned into the teen magazine box they tried to put him in,” McEady told The Post. “It seems like he pulled back, and then re-introduced himself as a grown man. He was always a great actor, but he kind of removed himself from the heartthrob conversation.”
Hartnett has confirmed in interviews that he had no real interest in “celebrity culture.”
Josh Hartnett with Ariel Donoghue in “Trap.” Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
Josh Hartnett on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in NYC on May 7, 2025. Todd Owyoung/NBC through Getty Images
For her half, Coolidge initially rose to fame on “American Pie” and “Legally Blonde.” She was still lively in “2 Broke Girls,” however she didn’t have a resurgence until “The White Lotus” premiered in 2021. She’d go on to win two Emmys and a Golden Globe.
“I think she’s a good example of, sometimes it just takes someone presenting you to the world the way that your fans see you,” said McEady.
He thinks that “The White Lotus” creator Mike White, “is good at taking actresses and actors that we have appreciation for, and sort of presenting them in the way that we like.”
Jennifer Coolidge in “The White Lotus.” Mario Perez/HBO
Jon Gries and Jennifer Coolidge in “The White Lotus.” Fabio Lovino/HBO
Because of the disparate causes for these actors re-entering the highlight, there’s nobody path on the way to do it. And while some comebacks is likely to be “extremely strategic,” others are merely a cheerful shock.
“I don’t know if we view a celebrity’s comeback the same way they view it. I don’t always think they know that they’re having a comeback,” McEady said. “I remember, whenever Britney [Spears] was releasing a new album, they’d ask about her comeback, and she’d always say, ‘Well, I haven’t really gone anywhere.’”
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