One of Michelle Pfeiffer's last major roles before her lengthy acting hiatus was 1995's Dangerous Minds. The crime drama adapted real teacher LouAnne Johnson's powerful 1992 memoir My Posse Don't Do Homework, about her four years teaching at-risk students at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California. The gritty drama was a massive financial success - making more than $179 million at the box office - but there was no shortage of controversy surrounding the film. Critics accused director John N. Smith and screenwriter Ronald Bass of exploiting harmful racial stereotypes with a subplot revolving around gang violence. Respected critic Roger Ebert also accused the filmmakers of whitewashing Dangerous Minds' true story to make it more palatable for a wider audience. "What has happened in the book-to-movie transition of LouAnne Johnson's book is revealing," Ebert wrote in his 1996 review. "The movie pretends to show poor Black kids being bribed into literacy by [Bob] Dylan and candy bars, but actually it is the crossover white audience that is being bribed with mind-candy." '80s Stars: Where Are They Now? Johnson eventually went public with her own complaints about the 1995 movie and short-lived TV spinoff. Keep scrolling for a look back at the controversy and where the cast are now. Michelle Pfeiffer Buena Vista Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection; Pfeiffer's portrayal of Johnson received critical praise even if Dangerous Minds itself was divisive. She told Reuters in 1995 that it was important for her to present Johnson's story authentically. "This was really the story of the kids," Pfeiffer insisted. "The book is really the story of the kids and LouAnne's main concern was always that their [the kids'] story get told." Pfeiffer followed up Dangerous Minds with several more box office hits, including starring opposite George Clooney in 1996's One Fine Day, lending her voice to The Prince of Egypt and facing off against Harrison Ford in 2000's supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath. Pink Ladies and Cool Riders! 'Grease 2' Cast: Where Are They Now? By the early 2000s, Pfeiffer took an extended acting break so she could fully devote herself to raising her and husband David E. Kelley's two children, Claudia, born in March 1993, and John, born in August 1994. She admitted to People in 2023 that she never expected to take such a long hiatus from Hollywood. "I was having babies and relocating the family - I really underestimated what that meant," the actress said. "It's challenging no matter where you raise kids. I didn't set out to stop working or it wasn't my plan, but I became so difficult in terms of my prerequisites, in terms of, 'Well, where does it shoot? How long does it shoot? What time of year does it shoot? Can I bring the kids? Is it during the school year?' And then it was just too difficult to hire me, honestly. And I was okay with that." Pfeiffer dabbled in acting here and there with supporting roles in Hairspray and New Year's Eve before making a full-fledged comeback with recurring appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Janet Van Dyne. She even collaborated with husband Kelley on the upcoming Apple TV+ streaming series Margo's Got Money Troubles, also featuring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning. George Dzundza Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection; Kathy Hutchins / Hutchins Photo/MEGA The noted "character actor" had a rare leading role in Dangerous Minds as Johnson's co-worker Hal Griffith. Dzundza had been an original Law & Order cast member in the early 1990s and continued working steadily in TV after Dangerous Minds. In the 2000s, Dzundza was cast as Dr. George O'Malley's (T.R. Knight) hard-nosed dad, Harold, for a multiepisode arc on Grey's Anatomy that explored familial reconciliation. He retired from acting following the release of 2011 TV movie Danni Lowinski. Courtney B. Vance The accomplished stage and screen actor, who played straight-laced Principal George Grandey in Dangerous Minds, followed up the 1995 drama with a memorable leading performance, opposite Whitney Houston, in The Preacher's Wife the following year. Vance won a Tony Award as part of the original cast of the late Nora Ephron's Broadway play Lucky Guy in 2013. He followed his Tony Award win with an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie for playing O.J. Simpson's criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochran in The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Vance has been nominated for a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award throughout his career. In 2025, Vance played scheming CIA agent Cobra Bubbles in Disney's live-action remake of Lilo & Stich and joined the cast of Disney+ streaming series Percy Jackson and the Olympians as the Greek god Zeus. (Vance replaced the late Lance Reddick in Percy Jackson following Reddick's death in March 2023.) Robin Bartlett After playing school official Mrs. Nichols in Dangerous Minds, Bartlett landed her biggest movie role to d