Many people dream of making it in Hollywood, and most of them work very hard to get their big break, but there are plenty of actors who found success completely by accident. Breaking into the entertainment industry is notoriously difficult. Without having the right connections, it’s extremely difficult to become a movie star. Still, there are some famous actors in Hollywood who were fortunately on the receiving end of some incredibly good luck and climbed to the A-list by chance.
Whether it was a serendipitous moment where a casting agent bumped into a potential star in the bank or screenwriters spotting potential talent in the city streets, there have been a number of stories about actors who made it without even trying. It’s not just minor celebrities who have found success this way either, as some of the most popular names in Hollywood over the last half century have made their acting debuts due to dumb luck.
10 Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar started acting at just four years old. She was discovered as a small child while she was out to dinner with her family. An agent approached and encouraged them to sign her up (via NY Times). Within just a few weeks, she had booked a role in her first film, An Invasion of Privacy. She also performed in a number of commercials and small parts before landing her breakout role as the title character in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Without that fateful night in a Manhattan restaurant, she might have never gotten into acting.
9 Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson clearly had aspirations of becoming an actor from a young age. When his family moved from America to Australia, Gibson was just 12 years old, but at that early age, he enrolled in the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. He performed in a number of theatrical performances and had some small uncredited roles, but his big break came unexpectedly. When Gibson was 20, he drove a friend to audition for a part. He wasn’t looking to get the role himself, partly because he’d gotten into a fight in the days just before and his face was badly bruised.
Fortunately, the film they were casting for was Mad Max, and they were looking for people who were a little less conventional. Gibson’s bruised face got the attention of the team, and they took some pictures and asked if he’d return in a couple of weeks once his face had healed (via USA Today). The auditions were a success and Gibson ended up landing the starring role and launching his career into the stratosphere.
8 Ellen Pompeo
Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has enjoyed a long career in acting with considerably more stability than some other actors. Since Grey’s Anatomy has been airing since 2005, Pompeo has been able to occasionally act in movies while always having the safety of her starring role to fall back on. This good fortune extends back to her initial break into acting. Pompeo was a bartender with dreams of becoming an actress, but she didn’t know how to get her start in the industry. Luckily, the answer came to her when an agent she was serving approached her and started to connect her to auditions and get her work (via Backstage).
7 Rosario Dawson
As a 15-year-old girl living in New York City, it was easy for Rosario Dawson to blend into the busy city and go unnoticed. Yet Dawson was discovered outside her own front door when director Larry Clark spotted her and suggested she would be perfect for his upcoming film (via Biography). Dawson was cast in Kids, and from there, she was able to land a string of roles before becoming a household name who has starred in a number of superhero and sci-fi projects, including Daredevil and Ahsoka.
6 Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp has had one of the most successful careers in Hollywood. His breakout film, A Nightmare on Elm Street, propelled him into the spotlight before he landed several major roles like 21 Jump Street and later formed a symbiotic working relationship with Tim Burton. However, Depp wasn’t originally looking for a career in acting. He had moved to L.A. with the hope of becoming a successful musician and actually found a degree of success opening for bigger acts like Iggy Pop and The Ramones.
Despite this, Depp’s band wasn’t able to land a record deal before breaking up and going their separate ways, and he needed to find a way to pay the rent. As luck would have it, while Depp was applying for odd jobs, a friend of his, Nicolas Cage, encouraged him to get into acting and said he’d put him in touch with his agent (via Looper). Shortly after that, Depp landed his breakout role in A Nightmare on Elm Streetand the rest is history.
5 Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford had a challenging journey to becoming a successful actor famous for playing iconic roles including Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Rick Deckard. Ford was actively pursuing a role as an actor and managed to get small bit parts, often uncredited in TV and film. However, with the acting work barely trickling in, Ford needed to find a way to make ends meet and support his wife and two children. He began working as a carpenter around Hollywood while still hoping to land a break-out role.
Despite landing a role in George Lucas’s American Graffiti, it still wasn’t enough for Ford to quit his carpentry job, and he continued for years after that project working around Hollywood. Ford was fortunate to have a major supporter in casting director Fred Roos, who conveniently hired the future star for carpentry work as often as possible to try and place him with the right people at the right times in Hollywood. Eventually, in 1976, years after beginning his career as a carpenter, Ford happened to be on set while Lucas was casting for a role in his upcoming space opera Star Wars.
There is a dispute between Ford and Roos about whether the actor was actually working on building something on the set as he claims, or if Roos had just encouraged him to pretend he was building something. Either way, he was in the right place at the right time. Lucas wasn’t keen on the idea of reusing actors from American Graffiti and decided to pay Ford to merely read lines with auditioning actors, but with some encouragement from Roos, Lucas was convinced that Ford was the man to play Han Solo (via 80s Kids).
4 Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall has a distinct look that helped her land and perform memorable roles such as Olive Oyl in Popeye and Wendy Torrance in The Shining. In fact, it’s due to her large eyes, lanky frame, and toothy smile that she was discovered in the first place completely by accident. As a young woman, Duvall attended an engagement party where she was noticed by a pair of location scouts working for prolific director Robert Altman. The scouts and Altman loved Duvall’s look, and despite her lack of acting experience, the filmmaker cast her in a leading role in Brewster McCloud (via Biography).
3 Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence’s star continues to rise in Hollywood. From her leading role in The Hunger Games to her current streak of success as a comedic actor, Lawrence is one of the most recognizable stars out there. However, her acting career all happened with a chance meeting with a talent scout while on a vacation in New York City. Lawrence was in Union Square when she and her mother were approached, and the man took their contact number. He scheduled a meeting with agents, and Lawrence decided to take steps into modeling as long as she could act, too (via MTV). Shortly after, she was cast in commercials and TV roles.
2 Danny Trejo
Danny Trejo had a rough start in life getting mixed up in drugs and crime, which landed him a stint in prison. After being released, Trejo turned his life around and became a sponsor to struggling addicts. One of these individuals Trejo was working with called him for support as he worried about relapsing on the set of a Hollywood film. Trejo came to support his friend and while there was asked if he wanted to be an extra, playing a convict. Trejo responded, “I’m a professional,” and his acting career began (via Today)
1 Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron’s big break came at a moment when she really wasn’t expecting it. At age 18, after working as a model for a couple of years, she moved to Hollywood to pursue acting. After only stringing a few modeling jobs together in L.A., however, she found herself at the bottom of her bank balance.
While trying to cash a check from a job in New York, Theron was disappointed to find out the bank couldn’t process out-of-state checks, and she ended up pleading with the teller to help her. A random man by the name of John Crosby came over to offer some help and as the two left the bank together, he offered her his card. As luck would have it, Crosby was an agent to some fairly famous clients, and he offered to represent Theron as well (via Vogue).
