54Kviews
30 Acting Roles That You May Not Know Now-Famous Actors Had Because They Weren’t Celebrities Yet (Part 2)
In the history of cinema, it is almost impossible to find an actress or actor whose career did not include minor roles or participation in obscure films. Even the great English actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who very carefully chose the films in which he starred so that every third of his films brought him an Oscar nomination, still played several lesser roles in his youth.
What can we say about those Hollywood stars who have long and stubbornly walked to the top, filming along the way in sometimes completely disgusting, low-budget and simply uninteresting films and TV shows? An acting career is like a cardiogram, it has its ups and downs, and sometimes the latter are no less than the former. Even for the worldwide recognized movie stars.
The online database IMDb has collected a selection of little-known roles of star actresses and actors whose names are ringing all over the world today. Bored Panda has already made a list of the most interesting and unusual appearances of stars in lesser roles, so here is the second part of our collection for you!
Feel free to scroll to the very end, promise not to be surprised when you see familiar faces in completely unexpected images, and perhaps this post will be an occasion for you to revisit something from the good old ages of cinema, when our world was still very young, and the greatest movie stars were extremely small.
More info: IMDb
This post may include affiliate links.
Natalie Portman And Jean Reno In Léon: The Professional (1994)
Really good movie. Also, don't forget Gary Oldman was in it also.
Christian Bale In Empire Of The Sun (1987)
Leslie Nielsen In Forbidden Planet (1956)
Yep. He was what used to be called a "legitimate" actor - i.e. non-variety - before Airplane.
Jake Gyllenhaal In City Slickers (1991)
Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Harry Basil, And Glenn Withrow In Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Great Coppola movie (Nic was cast in it because, well, his actual last name is Coppola) - he was great in it. Fun little movie. “What's the point of being a teenager if you can't dress weird?”
In fact, various actors' paths to fame turn out to be completely different in length - and almost never does star status come after the very first role. Even John Travolta had nine small roles before his breakthrough in Saturday Night Fever, and Leonardo DiCaprio, before appearing as Johnny Depp's younger brother in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, which brought him an Oscar nomination at the age of seventeen, starred in TV shows and lesser-known films for as many as five years.
Kevin Bacon In National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
Hilary Swank In Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)
Jeremy Renner In National Lampoon's Senior Trip (1995)
Willem Dafoe In Streets Of Fire (1984)
Cary Elwes And Robin Wright In The Princess Bride (1987)
There are a lot of reasons why screen stars take such a long road to fame, and they are all different. Morgan Freeman, for example, became an actor relatively late, at the age of almost forty, and only in his early fifties did he become a legitimate star, having received his first Oscar nomination.
But Nicolas Cage, whose family status seemed to promise a quick rise to fame, deliberately changed his last name to distance himself from his famous uncle, movie director Francis Ford Coppola. But now Cage, if he wants, can rightfully sing after Frank Sinatra "I did it my way!"
Reese Witherspoon In The Man In The Moon (1991)
Meryl Streep In The Deer Hunter (1978)
Sarah Jessica Parker And Amy Linker In Square Pegs (1982)
Loved this show when I was a kid!!! "Square pegs, square pegs. Square square pegs!"
Nicolas Cage In Valley Girl (1983)
Ben Affleck And Pam Potillo In Abc Afterschool Specials (1986)
Of the entire list, this is the only one of which I was totally unaware. Wow.
Ben Affleck in Voyage of the Mimi data:image/jpeg;base64,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
On the other hand, if a person becomes a movie star as a child, this may subsequently not be reflected in the best way for a career. Suffice it to recall, for example, Macaulay Culkin, Mickey Rooney or Shirley Temple, who in adulthood could not even come close to the glory they had in their childhood.
True, Temple subsequently made an impressive political career, but now we are talking about cinema! Perhaps only Christian Bale, who became rather famous in his childhood, managed to make tremendous progress and become a real screen superstar. This is probably the exception that only proves the rule...
Daryl Hannah In Blade Runner (1982)
Jodie Foster In Taxi Driver (1976)
This masterpiece was all Robert De Niro. Jodie did gain fresh notoriety but had done dozens of projects before this - beginning in 1969.
Ewan Mcgregor In Shallow Grave (1994)
Matthew Mcconaughey And Rory Cochrane In Dazed And Confused (1993)
Dude it's the movie he coined his catch phrase in. "Alright alright alright".
Nancy Allen And John Lithgow In Blow Out (1981)
Allen was DePalma's girlfriend, so she always got a role - Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Home Movies, I believe.
In general, according to the authors of The Actors Place, just becoming an actor will take at least two years, and only then, depending on how talented you are and how lucky you are, you will have from several to dozens of little-known roles. And maybe, after many years, you will also fall into our new similar selection!
Jerry O'Connell And Ryan Reynolds In Buying The Cow (2002)
But .... but ... Jerry O'Connell has been "famous" since the 80s. Ever hear of this little movie called Stand By Me (1986)???
Ron Howard In The Andy Griffith Show (1960)
Edward Norton In Primal Fear (1996)
David Hasselhoff And Caroline Munro In Starcrash (1978)
Steve Guttenberg And Krysten Ritter In Veronica Mars (2004)
Anthony Hopkins In Magic (1978)
Charlize Theron In 2 Days In The Valley (1996)
That woman is freakishly s*xy. I'm a straight woman, but would NOT kick her outa my bed
Neve Campbell In Party Of Five (1994)
Emma Stone And Jonah Hill In Superbad (2007)
Carol Kane In When A Stranger Calls (1979)
How about we just retitle, "The Roles that Made Movie Stars Famous"?
Cannot get over that you didn't feature Leonardo DiCaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". I remember being shocked to recognize him when I rewatched the movie 10 years later.
He was on "Growing Pains" for a few years before that. I think he was a fairly well known child actor by the time "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" came along. Or maybe that's how I remember it since my mom loved that show when I was a kid.
Load More Replies...Seriously? More than half of these are the movies and TV shows that made these actors famous.
Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Geena Davies in the 1988 film Earth Girls Are Easy plus music by Nile Rodgers.
He also played a rookie cop in a Golden Girls episode that was a fun surprise when we were watching reruns on streaming recently:)
Load More Replies...I would have suggested Danny Devito in "One flew over the cuckoo's nest"
How about Keanu Reeves in River's Edge? That movie is so bad it's good, I LOVE it. Crispin Glover totally stole the show, but godDAMN I love this movie!
That's one of my all time favorite movies. My best friend and I quote it all the time lol... When it's hot out "It's warm evennnnn" or "about yourself you duuuuumb fuuuuuuck" are some faves, lol. That was also Ione Skye's first movie ever and she was going by Ione Skye Leitch at the time. I live close to where a lot of the locations were and it still looks the same. Oh yeah.. "Do you think this car runs on God's own methane?" is another quote.... or "OH!! He MOVES!!!" lol Great, great movie.
Load More Replies...Hurawatch is a website that provides a platform for users to stream and watch their favorite TV shows and movies online.
I knew all of these except Affleck because that show wasn't aired in my country.
How about we just retitle, "The Roles that Made Movie Stars Famous"?
Cannot get over that you didn't feature Leonardo DiCaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". I remember being shocked to recognize him when I rewatched the movie 10 years later.
He was on "Growing Pains" for a few years before that. I think he was a fairly well known child actor by the time "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" came along. Or maybe that's how I remember it since my mom loved that show when I was a kid.
Load More Replies...Seriously? More than half of these are the movies and TV shows that made these actors famous.
Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Geena Davies in the 1988 film Earth Girls Are Easy plus music by Nile Rodgers.
He also played a rookie cop in a Golden Girls episode that was a fun surprise when we were watching reruns on streaming recently:)
Load More Replies...I would have suggested Danny Devito in "One flew over the cuckoo's nest"
How about Keanu Reeves in River's Edge? That movie is so bad it's good, I LOVE it. Crispin Glover totally stole the show, but godDAMN I love this movie!
That's one of my all time favorite movies. My best friend and I quote it all the time lol... When it's hot out "It's warm evennnnn" or "about yourself you duuuuumb fuuuuuuck" are some faves, lol. That was also Ione Skye's first movie ever and she was going by Ione Skye Leitch at the time. I live close to where a lot of the locations were and it still looks the same. Oh yeah.. "Do you think this car runs on God's own methane?" is another quote.... or "OH!! He MOVES!!!" lol Great, great movie.
Load More Replies...Hurawatch is a website that provides a platform for users to stream and watch their favorite TV shows and movies online.
I knew all of these except Affleck because that show wasn't aired in my country.