When it comes to Miley Cyrus' on screen career, Salvia bongs, stripteases, pole dances and raunchy PDAs are beside the point.
The moment the teen Disney star decided to drop her "Hannah Montana" act, which launched her to fame at the age of 13, was the moment she agreed to take a career hit.
Hollywood.com's box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian believes that the 18-year-old's career will not suffer from her "age-inappropriate" antics, but instead may falter from her attempt to separate herself from a "proven" Disney brand.
"When she's herself or Hannah Montana, that's money in the bank" he told the Daily News. "When the image becomes confusing to the audience, it's a problem."
While Cyrus rose to fame as an actress and singer on "Hannah Montana," she announced in April that she would be hanging up her mic temporarily to focus on her acting career. But it hasn't worked out so well.
In 2008, "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert" became the highest grossing film to be released in under 1,000 theaters. A year later, "Hannah Montana: The Movie" opened at No. 1. But Cyrus' first starring vehicle beyond Hannah Montana, 2010's "Last Song," only took the fourth spot in its opening weekend.
And Cyrus is on track to take more box office hits next year with her newfound career.
According to TMZ.com, the teen star showed up for rehearsals on the set of her upcoming movie,"So Undercover," hours after a video surfaced showing her giggling after taking a puff of the hallucinogenic plant Salvia.
The comedy, which also stars Kelly Osbourne, has Cyrus playing a "street-smart" private eye who goes undercover in a college sorority.
Dergarabedian quipped that it was a good way for Cyrus to build her "street cred," but added that instead of acting out, she could try studying her art a little more.
"I don't know if anyone's going to take her serious as an actor," he said. "It may be about building some credibility within acting community by doing smaller movies."
Cyrus could look to fellow Disney alums Zac Efron and Justin Timberlake for advice. Following his phenomenal success in Disney's "High School Musical," Efron starred in the indie movie "Me and Orson Welles." After Richard Linklater's critically acclaimed indie hit, Efron is now considered a strong enough actor to be considered for the lead role in Warner Bros.' live adaptation of the "Johnny Quest" animated series.
Meanwhile, former "New Mickey Mouse Club" member Timberlake, who rose to fame in the boy band 'N Sync in the mid '90s, forged a successful big screen career via independent fare like "Alpha Dog" which led to his critically acclaimed role in this year's "The Social Network."
Cyrus may be attempting to move into the indie circuit with "LOL: Laugh Out Loud," by little known French director Lisa Azuelos, in which she stars opposite Demi Moore as a teen whose bad behavior is serially overlooked by her doting mother.
But while "LOL" may result in more dividends than raunchy pop music videos or X-rated photographs on Perez Hilton's website, Dergarabedian gave Cyrus props for keeping hold of the limelight.
"The minute they stop talking about you, that's when you really have a problem."
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