In Their Own WordsActors' firsthand accounts of their work and personal lives as described in press junkets, talk shows, the red carpet, and their own personal media.
Updated November 2, 2021 2.2k votes 466 voters 52.4k views
List Rules
Vote up the stories that prove everyone starts as no one in Hollywood.
To "make it" in Hollywood is to become a star in the entertainment industry. Few people achieve that goal, and soon you'll understand why. It takes talent, money, nerves, luck, and blind optimism. Other lists have dealt with the talent and luck aspects, so here we've focused on nerves. The following actors dealt with starvation, homelessness, demeaning jobs, disgusting accommodations, vandalism, shoot-outs, prejudice, and even a house fire while pursuing their dreams. Despite all this adversity, they kept on going.
They were right to keep going; now they're the biggest stars in the world.
After graduating from high school, Ryan Reynolds moved to LA with fellow Canadian actor Chris Martin. They checked into a cheap motel, but tragedy struck within the first hour:
My Jeep was stolen, but then it was just rolled down a hill around the corner. They removed the doors, took the stereo, and I was left with this shell that was my car. I spent four months in LA without doors on my Jeep - in the rainy season. So I was slugging my way to auditions in the freezing cold. Contrary to popular belief, LA is actually kind of cold in the winter.
Reynolds's big break came a couple years later, when he landed a lead role in the ABC sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. That's a far cry from One Guy, a Jeep and Zero Doors.
On The Graham Norton Show, Chris Pratt recounted a time in his early acting career when he worked as a server at a "terrible restaurant," making $20 to $30 a day and eating leftovers from diners' plates:
A lady would come in, and she’d be like, "What do you recommend?" And I’m like 32 oz. porterhouse. I would always tell them, I would say, "Listen, here’s how you want it - medium-rare with some mushrooms on the side, get you some mashed potatoes, you’re going to love this, ma’am!"
Whatever the person couldn't eat, Pratt would eat in the "safe zone" between the dining room and the kitchen.
The trouble came when the aforementioned lady asked to take the leftover steak (which Pratt had already consumed) home for her dog. Pratt lied, saying he had thrown it out, but the woman asked him to dig through the garbage for it. Instead, Pratt covertly asked the cook to make a new steak.
It worked out for Pratt, though:
She ended up being so, like, happy that I would be willing to dig through the garbage for her dog that she gave me a giant tip... And she left early because she couldn’t wait for the steak to be done, so I got another steak!
It's hard being racially ambiguous in Hollywood. Vin Diesel learned that when he tried to make it as an actor in the early to mid-'90s. The industry wanted people who could fit into marketable ethnic boxes. Diesel, who still hasn't disclosed his full ethnicity, gave up on LA and moved to New York, where he made a short film based on his multiracial struggles. It's called Multi-Facial.
None other than Steven Spielberg saw the film and hired Diesel for Saving Private Ryan. In the following years, he starred in The Iron Giant, Pitch Black, and The Fast and the Furious.
Dion Ray, a guy who booked bands at the Palace, in Hollywood, thought we should come out. He wanted to manage us, so he pitched me some money, and we saved up some money and we drove out there.
On how difficult it was to get gigs, Depp said:
It was horrible. There were so many bands, it was impossible to make any money. So we all got side jobs. We used to sell ads over the telephone. Telemarketing.
He made $100 a week as a telemarketer. Although the band eventually earned some cash, it paled in comparison to what Depp made when he turned to acting.
Age: 59
Birthplace: Owensboro, Kentucky, United States of America
When I got off the plane, I asked the cabdriver to take me to the cheapest hotel in Hollywood. He took me to the Farmer's Daughter, which is not the Farmer's Daughter of today [with quaint furnishings and celebrity galas] - no Maxim magazine parties. Back then, the hotel could be rented by the hour. But I'd lived in worse model apartments. I took a bottle of bleach and some rags, and I cleaned up my room and stayed there for a couple of weeks.
The hotel cost her $28 a day. Theron lived off the modest checks her mother sent her, and at one point was so desperate that she stole bread from restaurants. Her luck changed when her check was denied by a bank teller, and a stranger stepped in and helped get it cashed. That stranger was talent agent John Crosby, who set her on the path to stardom.
Canadian sensation Jim Carrey moved to LA in 1983 but didn't have the quick success that he had back home. Over the first few years, he booked minor TV shows and crappy comedies and got rejected by SNL. As a result, he was prone to bouts of meta-fantasizing:
For years, I used to drive up to Mulholland Drive every night and look at the city and sit and imagine myself with all this money and being sought after.
He also wrote himself a check for $10 million for services rendered from acting, which he post-dated for Thanksgiving 1995.
