45 Celebrities Discovered In Odd Ways To Inspire You To Never Give Up

After serving time in jail, Danny Trejo decided to turn his life around and became a drug counselor for young people with addiction. He was visiting one of his patients on the set of Runaway Train when he was offered a role.

Jason Statham used to sell knock-off jewelry on the streets of London. Later he got several modeling gigs, and his agency introduced him to filmmaker Guy Ritchie. As luck would have it, during the audition Ritchie asked him to impersonate a black-market jewelry seller. That’s how Statham got his first role.

Harrison Ford’s first attempts to become an actor didn’t bring him any luck. He learned carpentry to earn a living but continued auditioning for roles. George Lucas cast him in a small role for American Graffiti and remembered him several years later when he was looking for someone to fill in the part of Han Solo. 

When James L. Brooks was creating the popular sitcom Taxi, he knew exactly how he wanted the character of Louie De Palma to look. He sent his assistant on a search with a sketch in his hands, and that sketch matched Danny DeVito.

At the age of 7, Vin Diesel, who back then still went under the name of Mark Sinclair, and his friends broke into a theater. Caught by a play director, they could have been in a lot of trouble, but instead, the play director cast Vin Diesel in her upcoming production.

Tracy Chapman was studying at Tufts University when she was recording her demos. She also happened to be classmates with Brian Koppelman, whose father was a music executive. One day Koppelman just stole one of her demos and sent it to his father.

Charlize Theron moved across the ocean to try her luck in Hollywood, but she didn’t have any luck until one day she was spotted in a bank, yelling at a teller for not cashing her paycheck.

Young Johnny Depp saw himself as more of a rock star than an actor. But when his friend Nicholas Cage got him an audition for Nightmare on Elm Street, Depp decided to give it a try and was approved for the role by Wes Craven on the advice of his teenage daughter. 

You might recognize Peter Mayhew better under the name of Chewbacca, but before this became his iconic role, Mayhew worked as a hospital orderly. His height of 7'3" and large foot size turned him into one of the subjects of a newspaper article. Film producers discovered him from there and offered him his first role as the minotaur in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

Back when she was 17, Chloë Sevigny was skateboarding in the street one day. She must have been really good at it because a fashion editor who spotted her asked her to model for Sassy magazine. She landed her first film role two years later.

Channing Tatum could have gone to college on a football scholarship, but instead, he decided to take a job opportunity in an all-male revue in Tampa. Someone at the club recommended he try modeling, and surprisingly, Tatum listened. His first commercial led to the leading role in Step Up.  

Pamela Anderson was at a football game, and as it happens sometimes, was caught by a camera. Her face on the Jumbotron instantly turned her into a local celebrity.

A friend of Brad Pitt’s asked him to accompany her to an audition because she needed a partner to play her love. But it was Pitt who caught the agent’s attention during the audition.

When she was still Norma Jeane Mortenson, Marilyn Monroe worked in an aircraft factory. A touring army photographer took a picture of her and later offered her work as his model. Soon after, Monroe started getting other offers.

Jennifer Aniston had played in four failed TV shows and felt like her career wasn’t going anywhere, so she approached TV executive Warren Littlefield at a gas station, asking for advice. A few months later he helped her get a role as Rachel in Friends. 

Matthew McConaughey may not have always wanted to become an actor, but he definitely had no intentions of joining his father’s oil business. It took him some time to figure out what he actually wanted to do, and that’s when he started appearing in commercials and student films. He found his breakthrough at a bar, where he met a casting director who later introduced him to Richard Linklater, who right then was looking for actors for Dazed and Confused.

Chris Pratt worked as a waiter and was living out of his van when a director offered him help with his career.

Gisele Bündchen had no intention of becoming a model; she just wanted a free trip to São Paulo, so she signed up for a modeling course. On the trip, she was scouted by a modeling agent at a McDonald’s.

When Rosario Dawson was 15, there was a commercial shoot taking place outside her apartment. She sat on the front porch, watching the process, when the director and screenwriter approached her and asked if she had ever thought about being in movies.

Jennifer Lawrence was on vacation in New York when she was spotted by a talent agent. She first started as a teen model and later debuted on TV.