You've seen them on the big screen, watched them on the red carpet, and applauded their performances, but do you know the unbelievable ways some of Hollywood's famous actors were first discovered and cast?
From working as a carpenter for a famous director's home renovation to fighting a bank teller, some of these stories will make you believe movie magic happens in everyday life. Read through this list of the most unbelievable ways in which these famous actors and actresses were cast.
Mel Gibson
Hollywood honcho Mel Gibson, an Australian, had a little theater experience in Sydney before his big break in Hollywood. He had his break after giving a friend a ride to an audition for Mad Max.
Mad Max, Not "Bad" Max.
Gibson was involved in a bar fight the previous night. The Director, George Miller, thought he would be a good fit for the role of the villain in his post-apocalyptic sci-fi film. A few weeks later, Gibson returned with a clear face and the Director changed his mind and cast him as the hero instead. Mel Gibson is now considered as one of the world's most famous Superstar actors.
Click 'next' to learn the crazy ways these actors got famous:
Sarah Michelle Gellar
How great would it be to be spotted at random by a talent agent who would then turn you into a star? This is precisely what happened to Sarah Michelle Gellar when she was four years old. She was spotted in her hometown of New York City while eating in a restaurant.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
She landed her first acting job a week later, which was followed by various small roles on TV. She is best known for her role as the hero in Buffy the vampire slayer, and she also starred various movies and series all through the '90s.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp never had any intention of beco,ing an actor while growing up. On a boring day, Depp decided to accompany Jackie Earle Haley, his buddy at the time, to an audition for Nightmare on Elm Street. Haley didn't get the part, but director Wes Craven saw Depp loitering around the set and asked him to audition.
From Nightmare To Hollywood Dream Boat
Depp got the part and ended up playing Glen, who is involved in one of the most horrifying death scenes in horror history. A good start, right? Depp is now one of the most famous actors in Hollywood.
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron came to Hollywood at the age of 18. She lived of the dwindling savings she earned while modeling in New York and support from her mother. She had various meetings with Hollywood agents which were unsuccessful.
A Fortunate Argument
One day, while the South African native was trying to cash a $500 check from her mom which the teller refused. They started to argue, and eventually, a kind gentleman helped resolve the issue. That kind gentleman was John Crosby, a talent agent. He offered to represent the blonde beauty and also sent her to acting classes. She got her first role within a year.
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey wasn't interested in the family business; which was the oil industry. He decided he wanted to be an actor and thereby, turned his back in the stereotypical Texan career choice. He got roles in a few student films and commercials before his big Hollywood break.
(Almost) Too Handsome
The Oscar winner got his big break at a hotel bar in Austin, where he met a producer who later introduced him to Richard Linklater. Linklater was casting for the iconic high school comedy "Dazed and Confused".
Linklater, the director, originally though McConaughey was too handsome to play the role of an older creep who partied with much younger high school girls, but changed his mind after a little makeup of a simple mustache and a surfer hairdo.
Jennifer Lawrence
Can you believe Jennifer Lawrence is only 25years old? It's hard to believe, right? Considering that she has already won an Oscar for her role as Tiffany in Silver Linings Playbook. However, her most famous role must be that of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (One of the biggest movie franchises in Hollywood History). In addition, she was the world's highest paid actress in 2015 and 2016. But how did it all start?
A Vacation Which Led To A Career
The Kentucky native's big break was accidental. She was spotted by a talent agent while vacationing in New York. With the help of the agent, she became a successful teen model and she made her TV debut on the TV seies Mon in 2006. From here, she went on to the big screen to star in movies like The Hunger Games, X-Men and various other films.
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson. She spent most of her childhood shuffling between foster homes and orphanages. She is the most iconic blonde sex symbol in Hollywood history.
Blondes Do Have More Fun
Monroe's caught her break by sheer luck. She was working at a factory for the U.S. military when her picture was taken by a photographer and put in a magazine. From there, she dyed her hair blonde, found success as a model and eventually starred is several Hollywood classics..
Eva Mendes
With her stunning looks, Mendes certainly could have been a model if she wanted to. She wanted to make a career in marketing when a talent agent saw a photo of her by chance.
2 Fast 2 Furious
The agent came across her photo while looking at the portfolio of her friend. The agent became captivated by her and they both met. This meeting propelled Mendes into minor movie roles like Ghost Rider and 2 fast 2 furious. She later took acting classes to high profile roles.
Peter Dinklage
Peter Dinklage is a 49-year-old New Jersey native. Dinklage worked an office job and performed in a punk-funk-rap band called 'Whizzy' long before he played the role of Tyrion Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones and became beloved by everyone who watches the show.
Not A 9 To 5 Person
Though it was clear to Dinklage that the 9-5 life wasn't for him, he worked at an office called 'Professional Examination Services'. "I still don't know what the company did", Dinklage said, " I just like, plugged information into a computer... i called in sick every Friday because i would go out Thursday night with my friends".
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep was never really interested in pursuing an acting career even though she knew she had the talent for it from her numerous roles in high school plays during her teen years.
"She Really Taught Herself"
While at Vassar College in 1969, Streep became popular across campus for her role in the play Miss Julie. Her career blossomed in excellence from there on. “I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting," a Vassar drama professor said, " she really taught herself".
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson was a fitness instructed in the 1980s before she found fame. The blonde Hollywood star got her break when she wore a Labatt’s T-shirt to a Canadian football game. Her picture appeared on the big screen and the crowd went crazy over her that they called her down to the field.
Home Improvement & Baywatch
She got a contract from a brewer, and then came a Playboy gig and Hollywood after that. The iconic blonde beauty played in a few TV shows before playing Lisa on Home Improvement and C.J. Parker on Baywatch.
Ashton Kutcher
Can you imagine being a simple college student – and an engineering student at that – and being approached by a talent scout? That’s what happened to Ashton Kutcher at the University of Iowa. The agent encouraged Kutcher to enter a modeling competition, and Kutcher ended up winning.
That '70s Show
He went on to compete in different modeling contests and in a short while, got jobs in commercials for designers like Calvin Klein and Versace. His big break came from his role in That '70s Show. He is now an Icon among the world's most famous actors.
Rosario Dawson
Rosario Dawson is perhaps the luckiest of them all. She didn’t even have to leave the comfort of her house to be approached for a role. When she was just 15-years-old, a screenwriter spotted her hanging out on her porch and was struck by her presence.
She's Got Game
She auditioned for his movie, kids, which the screenwriter was planning to make, and she got the role of Ruby. She also landed a role on a Spike lee movie "He Got Game" a few years later. She has since featured in countless box-office hits.
Jason Statham
Jason Statham looked nothing like an actor before his talent was discovered. The competitive amateur high diver sold jewelry out on the streets in London to pay his bills. The gruff looking Statham was noticed by a talent agent while he was working out, and that led to an audition for Guy Ritchie.
Lock, Stock, And Barrel.
The director happened to be working on his future debut film Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and saw Statham as exactly what he needed to complete the film. Ritchie asked Statham to impersonate none other than a street vendor selling fake jewelry – just Statham’s luck. Statham landed the gig and became one of Hollywood’s most iconic action actors.
Harrison Ford
Just like Cinderella, the Star Wars icon was a carpenter to support his family and was hired by legendary director George Lucas to build cabinets in his home.
Gleaming Without Varnish
It would prove to be the job of a lifetime because Lucas took a liking to his carpenter. He offered Ford a role in American Graffiti, and his career skyrocketed from there. The brilliant stroke of luck turned Ford into one of the most famous actors ever.
Wilford Brimley
Wilford Brimley was a real-life cowboy working on a ranch and as a blacksmith – he wasn’t a city boy waiting tables hoping to land an acting gig. But because he could ride a horse and actually look like a cowboy, he was cast as an extra in several Westerns.
A-List Advice
The famous Robert Duvall, a good friend of Brimley, persuaded him to get more serious about acting. The Oatmeal spokesman was cast in 1969’s True Grit and a few years later as Horace on The Waltons.
John Wayne
Among the top box-office draws for three decades, John Wayne was in a bit of a pickle after he was disqualified from his college football scholarship due to an injury. He didn’t have enough money to continue paying for college and needed to find a job – desperately.
Friends With Benefits
After his application to various companies was unsuccessful, he started working for Fox Studios, in the props department. Wayne decided to forget about going back to school and he used his new job to propel himself to fame. He managed to befriend director John Ford and eventually landed his first film, Stagecoach.
Estella Warren
Estella warren was a swimmer on the Canadian National team for years and she had been training since she was twelve, but all these were long before she starred in movies such as Planet of the Apes and Kangaroo Jack.
High School To Hollywood
She stopped her swimming career when a talent agent noticed her in her high school fashion show and offered her a modeling opportunity. This led to various commercial appearances and eventually, she got acting roles on both TV and films in Hollywood.
Danny Trejo
Danny Trejo kick-started his acting career exactly how you’d expect. The gruff actor had a rough time figuring out the world as a young man, and his antics landed him in prison several times. But Trejo was able to kick his toxic habits through an organized program – and became a boxing champ while he did it.
From Inmate To Action Star
Trejo was speaking at that program when he was approached by a young man who wanted to cast him as an extra in a movie. A screenwriter who had done time with Trejo and remembered his talent for boxing also happened to be there. Trejo was paid to train some of the people on set, and eventually, the director gave him a real role in the film. He has been in the limelight ever since.
Christoph Waltz
Until 2007, Austrian-born Christoph Waltz was lucky to be able to get by and support his family doing behind-the-scenes stage work and playing small-time TV roles. That was before legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino came knocking at his door.
Tarantino The Kingmaker
Tarnatino's Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained are the best known lead roles played by the actor and director. He was 51 years old when he was cast as Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds, which shot his Hollywood career into the limelight.He has won two Oscars since and rightfully earned his place as one of the most famous actors in Hollywood.
Alexis Bledel
Kimberly Alexis Bledel always wanted to become a model before she became a world famous movie star, and this dream became a reality when she was scouted at a mall. Her modeling career wasn't as thrilling as she expected it to be as she was earning enough money she needed to pay her tuition at NYU.
Lucky She Didn't Call In Sick
Bledel knew that modeling was the only profitable career option for an attractive and talented young woman. As a way to make quick cash, she applied for lots of jobs ranging from waitress to actress, and she ended up auditioning for Gilmore Girls, which was her big break. She didn’t put much effort into the audition and even showed up with the flu. She was very lucky that Amy Sherman-Palladino decided to cast her despite that.
Alden Ehrenreich
Like they tell you in college, having connections pays off. It certainly paid off for Alden Ehrenreich, who recently took on the role of Han Solo in the Star Wars spinoff Solo: A Star Wars Story. Ehrenreich’s father was Steven Spielberg’s accountant, and that played in his favor.
A Bat Mitzvah Home Video
Ehrenreich was discovered by Spielberg when he saw his daughter act in a comedy video with Ehrenreich at their friend's Bat Mitzvah. Spielberg reportedly loved the video and immediately got Ehrenreich an agent. “That’s how it all began,” Spielberg later said.
Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt wasn’t discovered as a model, nor was he approached on the street by a talent agent. He wasn’t discovered in New York or Los Angeles, either. Pratt was a waiter at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company in Maui, often spending his nights on the beach with his pals.
Worth The "Wait"
They say you meet interesting people serving bars and waiting tables. Well, Pratt met director Rae Dawn Chong at Bubba Gump, and she decided to cast him in a horror movie she was directing. Pratt's decision to stay in LA panned out and his acting career has skyrocketed ever since. He is one of the most famous actors in the world.
Evangeline Lilly
It’s not uncommon for an agent to approach an attractive young woman with an offer to represent her. The Canadian beauty was strolling around British Columbia when she was stopped by a talent agent from Ford Modeling. Modeling wasn’t something she had considered before, but she needed the money to pay for college.
Commercials To Lost
Not long after, she appeared on the Sex hotlines commercial for Canadian singles. She progressed to the small screen for small TV roles and she finally got her big break in 2004 when she got cast for the role of Kate on the TV series LOST.
Kristen Wiig
Everyone has that one teacher who brought out the best in them and propelled them forward, and in Kristen Wiig’s case, that teacher’s prodding led to Hollywood fame. Wiig’s teacher encouraged the talented beauty to pursue acting after college, and clearly, she did.
Saturday Night Live
Few years later, Wiig moved to Los Angeles. She joined The Groundlings Improv group and became one of the cast members. She did a few of shady jobs while trying to work as an actress and making ends meeting. She got her big break in 2006, at the age of 32. She became a member of the Saturday Night Live show.
Sharlto Copley
This South African talent is one of the very few people on this list who actively wanted a career in acting. He studied drama in college and played different roles in school plays, but eventually gave up and took the business track.
Paying It Forward
Copley was very ambitious; he was so ambitious that he had already co-founded several companies by the age of 19. At 24, he was Africa's youngest television producer. During that time, he allowed a young Neill Blomkamp to borrow his computers. Blomkamp never forgot that favor and repaid Copley by casting him as the lead in District 9.
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone’s is a true “rags to riches” Hollywood tale. The go-to strongman was a dirt-poor struggling actor and screenwriter in the 1970s, at one point even scavenging for places to sleep, because he couldn’t afford rent.
His One Condition Was His Best Move
Stallone was a typical definition of a struggling artist - or he would have been if he wasn't so determined to succeed. That all changed when Stallone said goodbye to his twenties. His Movie script Rocky, which he wrote a draft for in three days, was picked up. Stallone agreed to sell the script if he was going to play the lead role. This shot him into the limelight and he is one of the biggest Hollywood stars today.
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson‘s reputation precedes him as one of the world’s most famous actors. He has a monumental presence in any film he takes part in, most notably in films like Django Unchained and Pulp Fiction, both films directed by the iconic Quentin Tarantino.
A Royale Without The Cheese
Jackson was 45 when he got his big break. The movie Pulp Fiction put him on the map as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. The director, Quentin Tarentino took a special liking to him. Jackson’s talent, Tarantino thought, would simply go to waste if he didn’t propel him to fame.
Morgan Freeman
Freeman always loved acting and watching films. As a kid, he would scrap up every penny he could find so as to watch movies. In his teenage years, he took a career in the U.S. Air force, thereby, turning down a partial drama scholarship.
Driving Miss Daisy
Eventually, in 1959, Freeman came to the realization that acting was his true passion and he moved to Hollywood to see what he could do. Freeman first received some recognition for his work in Another World and a TV series, but his big break came from his brilliant performance in Driving Miss Daisy when we were 52! As far as famous actors go, Freeman is among the best.
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