The humiliating first roles of A-List stars: All the bit-parts the celebs want you to forget

Daily Mail​

4 days ago

They say there's no such thing as a small role, which, as an actor, may be hard to believe when one is playing an unnamed character for a few precious seconds of screen time.
While everyone loves an overnight sensation like Edward Norton - who was nominated for an Academy Award for his first ever film role (1996's Primal Fear) - the truth for most is that the road to stardom is paved with many unforgiving roles.
The fact is that TV guest-starring role or one-line role in a movie can often secure the Screen Actors Guild card for an up and coming actor.
The hope is that those small roles can ultimately lead to bigger and better things, and even show a progression of one's acting skills as they hone their craft throughout the years.
While many find success early in their careers, just as many (if not more) huge stars built their careers one small role at a time before that big break.
We're exploring some of the smaller and perhaps forgotten roles that household names toiled away before they were among the Hollywood elite.
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BEN AFFLECK - 'BASKETBALL PLAYER #10' IN BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)
Ben Affleck's journey from Boston to Hollywood, alongside childhood friend Matt Damon has long been legendary.
Many fans know how they both appeared as extras at their beloved Fenway Park - home of the Boston Red Sox - as uncredited extras in the 1989 baseball classic Field of Dreams.
One of the lesser known stops on that journey was a role that involved another sport - 'Basketball Player #10' - in the 1992 cult classic film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the film written by Joss Whedon that would ultimately spawn his much-more-popular TV series of the same name.
His one scene came during a high school basketball game, when a player on the other team (Sasha Jenson) approaches him and the hoopster realizes his opponent is a vampire.
Terrified, he casually flips him the ball and tells him to 'take it,' but the actor revealed on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2023 that the director actually dubbed over his voice.
'I went to see the movie with some friends, and I sounded very different, and I realized they re-recorded my lines,' he revealed.
'I was so bad - they needed me to be in the scene - but the director obviously was like, 'I can't hear the voice again!'
The next year, Affleck and Damon starred in the 1993 film School Ties, and Affleck also starred in Dazed and Confused a year later (alongside Jenson as well), three years before Ben and Matt's breakthrough with 1997's Good Will Hunting.
SIGOURNEY WEAVER - 'ALVY'S DATE OUTSIDE THEATRE' IN ANNIE HALL (1977)
There aren't many actors or actresses who can say they made their feature film debut in a Best Picture winner, but Sigourney Weaver has that distinction with her small role in Annie Hall.
With just one TV role to her credit, Weaver portrayed an unnamed character who went on a movie date with writer-director-star Woody Allen's Alvy at the end of the film.
'My first job on screen was I was Alvy's date at the end of Annie Hall. Diane Keaton was with Walter Bernstein, and I was with Woody Allen,' Weaver told the American Film Institute in 2009.
She added, 'I'm still so proud of it today, because I think Annie Hall is such a modern movie, because it is about a relationship that is also a friendship.'
'It's about the evolution of these two people, so I think we still watch that feeling it could happen to us, now,' she added.
Unlike many of her acting brethren, she didn't have to toil in relative anonymity for much longer after her Annie Hall role.
She landed a role as Laura Wheeler in the 1977 miniseries The Best of Families, and a 1978 role as Gale in Madmen, along with a 1978 Pepsi commercial.
Just another year later, she landed the role of a lifetime: Ellen Ripley in the 1979 classic Alien, which launched her into superstardom.
AARON PAUL - 'WASTED GUY' IN VAN WILDER (2002)
Aaron Paul toiled in relative obscurity for a decade in small movie roles and guest-starring TV spots (plus a now-viral spot on The Price Is Right) before landing Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad.
He guest-starred in hit shows of the time such as Beverly Hills 90210, Suddenly Susan and 3rd Rock From the Sun, plus small roles in films like Whatever It Takes and K-Pax.
One of his more memorable pre-fame roles came in 2002 as 'Wasted Guy' in the collegiate comedy Van Wilder, which starred Ryan Reynolds as a super-senior forced to graduate college.
He only has a few lines with the title character's father, played by Tim Matheson, who is trying to find his son at two packed parties, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the film.
During his first scene, Vance Wilder Sr. asks Paul's 'Wasted Guy' where he might find his son, and he responds, 'In the Guinness Book of World-F***ing Records, man, under the Raddest F***ing Dude Alive,' before telling Vance he's, 'in any one of these three rooms, gramps.'
At the end of the film, during Van's big send-off, Vance encounters the 'Wasted Guy' again, but this time Vance asks, 'Do you know where I can find the Raddest F***ing Dude Alive?' He responds, 'Yeah, by the pool, gramps,' before stumbling into someone and saying, 'Hey, I know you man!'
That role ultimately lead to more TV shows like Sleeper Cell, ER and CSI: Miami to name a few, plus movies like Perfect Opposites and Mission: Impossible III, where he plays Rick, the future brother-in-law of Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt.
Just a few years later, he became known around the world as Jesse Pinkman alongside Bryan Cranston's Walter White in AMC's groundbreaking drama series Breaking Bad.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON - 'MOLLY PRUITT' IN HOME ALONE 3 (1997)
Scarlett Johansson was just 10 years old when she landed her first movie role as John Ritter's daughter in the 1994 film North, but many will likely forget her role in 1997's Home Alone 3.
The sequel was the first to not feature any cast members from the first two movies, and served as the directorial debut for Raja Gosnell before he would go on to make Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs.
Johansson was 13 at the time, playing Molly, the older sister of the main character Alex (Alex D. Linz), who uses his ingenuity to fight off a group of terrorists while he's home sick from school.
The actress hilariously brought up the movie during a kids interview for her animated film Transformers One, when the child interviewer asked the worst movie she and co-star Keegan Michael Key ever made.
While she didn't name a movie, she did say, 'Well, I was in Home Alone 3, which I wouldn't say was the best Home Alone.'
'There were better Home Alones. It's not probably the worst film of all time, but there were better ones,' Johansson admitted.
She began to earn critical acclaim in a pair of 2001 movies - Ghost World and The Coen Brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There.
She became a household name after starring alongside Bill Murray in the 2004 classic Lost In Translation before joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2010's Iron Man II.
TOBEY MAGUIRE - 'HITCHHIKER' IN FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998)
Tobey Maguire started acting as a teenager, with roles in shows like Roseanne and films like This Boy's Life, where he met longtime friend Leonardo DiCaprio.
Roles in Pleasantville alongside Reese Witherspoon and Cider House Rules with Michael Caine helped put him on the map, before becoming a household name as the first big-screen Spider-Man in 2002.
Just four years before he donned the red tights - and the same year as his Pleasantville role in 1998 - Maguire had a small but memorable role in the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas alongside Johnny Depp.
Directed by Terry Gilliam (12 Monkeys, Brazil), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas followed a fictionalized version of Thompson, dubbed Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (real name Oscar Zeta Acosta) as they drove to Las Vegas from Los Angeles to cover a desert motorcycle race… while taking a wild mixture of various drugs.
Early on in their drug-addled journey, they come across a young man hitchhiking, played by Maguire, and they decide to give him a lift, to which Depp's Duke famously says, 'No, wait! We can't stop here, this is bat country!'
His scene only lasts a few minutes, consisting of him reacting to Duke and Gonzo's wildly erratic behavior, including offering him beer and ether.
When Gonzo stopped the car, screaming for 'medicine' (i.e. amyls), the young hitchhiker decided to make a break for it, hopping out of their red Cadillac convertible.
After his star-making turn as Peter Parker in Spider-Man, Maguire's small role faded into obscurity.
JENNIFER ANISTON - 'TORY REDDING' IN LEPRECHAUN (1993)
Just a year before becoming a household name thanks to her role on Friends, Jennifer Aniston helped launch a schlocky horror franchise in Leprechaun.
Aniston played Tory Redding, a young woman who encounters a vengeful leprechaun (Warwick Davis) while renting a farmhouse for the summer.
While the film didn't exactly set the box office on fire ($8.5 million from a $900K budget), it did start a low-budget franchise, with seven sequels produced over the years.
Of course, Aniston didn't return for any of them, since she landed the role that launched her career in Friends just a year later.
She spoke of her experience on the film in a 2021 interview, stating, 'There's loads of movies where you're thinking: 'Oh god, this is just… how am I going to survive this in my future?' And then it's a cult… 'something' because it's so embarrassing.'
Leprechaun writer-director Mark Jones opened up about casting Aniston in a 2023 interview with Yahoo!
'She walked in and there was something about her. Obviously. I mean, she became a superstar, and you don't get that just by acting, even though she's a terrific actress,' he said.
The director added, 'You get it by [having] some kind of charisma, some kind of magic. And I looked at [co-producer Michael Prescott] and I said, 'Boy, I hope she can act,' because I didn't know who she was.''
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. - 'IAN' IN WEIRD SCIENCE (1986)
More than two decades before he gave his career new life with Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. was still cutting his teeth as a young actor.
One of these supporting roles was a high school jock named Ian in the 1986 comedy Weird Science, alongside Robert Rusler's Max.
They torment computer nerds Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), who decide to create a 'virtual woman' on their computers… that results in the creation of Lisa (Kelly LeBrock).
Back in 2014, Downey Jr. addressed a rumor that he used to defecate in Kelly LeBrock's trailer to stink it up as a prank, though he said it wasn't true.
'Myself and my co-star Robert Rusler had been threatening that we were going to drop a three-coil steamer in someone's trailer on a long portion of the shoot,' he said, adding he did it, 'because we were nuts.'
He also debunked a rumor that he did it because he was angry with writer-director John Hughes, adding they were, 'doing donuts with rented Camaros in the producer's parking lot.'
He said that it wasn't even Kelly LeBrock, but added they did, 'take a dump' in the trailer of another actress, Babette Props… adding they didn't do it in the toilet.
'I think it was her set chair, because we're crazy, and we're gonna let everyone know how off the wall we are,' Downey admitted.
SHARON STONE - 'CLAIRE MATTSON' IN POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL (1987)
Sharon Stone is the perfect example of an actress people think was an 'overnight star' after Basic Instinct hit theaters in 1992, but her journey to that role took over a decade.
Stone spent the 1980s working in Maybelline and Coppertone ads, appearing in episodes of TV shows like Silver Spoons and Remington Steele.
She played a hot dog stand worker/actress that sparked a divorce battle in 1984's Irreconcilable Differences and Jesse Huston in King Solomon's Mines and Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold.
She also joined the beloved comedy franchise Police Academy in 1987's Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol, where the Police Academy turned to ordinary citizens for a volunteer police force.
The actress admitted in a December 1992 Playboy interview that she took the role because, 'I really needed a job, and I really needed a break.'
Still, she said the project, 'changed me tremendously, for the good, really for the good,' because of the cast.
'I worked with 12 stand-up comedians every day. Not actors, but stand-up comedians,' she said of the hilarious cast.
'You've no idea what a joy it is to go into a room and hang out with those people—the brilliance and the politically astute, fun, intellectual, strange, inspirational conversations you'll have with them,' she added.
CHRIS EVANS - 'JAKE WYLER' IN NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE (2001)
While he's known now as Marvel Studios' first Captain America, Chris Evans' first leading role was a spoof comedy, 2001's Not Another Teen Movie.
The film from Joel Gallen which spoofed films like American Pie, Varsity Blues, 10 Things I Hate About You and many more, centered on Evans' character Jake Wyler, loosely based on Freddie Prinze's Jr.'s Zach Siler from 1999's She's All That.
The film wasn't a huge hit at the box office - grossing just $66.5 million worldwide from a modest $15 million budget, but it helped establish him as a leading man, which would serve him well a decade later when he starred in Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011.
While many stars of his caliber deflect talking about oddball roles from their past, Evans still embraces the experience.
He said in a 2020 Esquire interview, 'You know, it was early days in my career. You do what you gotta do. You earn your stripes.'
'At the time, I was, you know, so thrilled to be a part of the movie. It didn't even cross my mind as sort of like an artistic compromise or something,' he clarified, adding, 'I thought it was hilarious, at the time.'
After leading roles in Cellular and The Perfect Score, Evans entered the superhero universe for the first time, playing the cocky Johnny Storm in 2005's The Fantastic Four.
When he was cast as Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America just six years later, he joined the rarified air of actors who have played two different Marvel Comics characters.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY - 'SABE' IN STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)
Keira Knightley caught the acting bug at an extremely young age, first appearing in various commercials when she was just six years old.
As a teenager, she joined the massive production of the first Star Wars prequel, 1999's The Phantom Menace, playing the role of Sabe, one of Naboo Queen Amidala's (Natalie Portman) handmaidens who serves as her decoy.
She was cast because of how strikingly similar she looked to Portman, with their own mothers reportedly having difficulty telling them apart when they were on set in full costume and makeup.
The actress confirmed that in a 2004 interview, revealing, 'I remember one incident where I was running down the corridor in full makeup and Natalie's mom was running after me calling, 'Natalie! Natalie!' When I finally turned around she said, 'What is it with you?' I remember her stunned face and saying, 'Oh, it's Keira.''
Knightley herself even revealed that she didn't fully realize the scope of her role until the last day of shooting.
'I didn't realize what I was doing until the last day of shooting when somebody said, 'She's a decoy,' and I was like, 'Oh, am I? That's what I was supposed to do?' Nobody had told me,' she said.
The young actress added that she had to sign a 'secrecy agreement' and she was only given her parts of the script on the days she was filming, adding, 'it took several people to help me get dressed every day.'
Just three years later she would be cast as Jules in the indie hit Bend It Like Beckham and a year later she became a household name after playing Elizabeth Swann in 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
VIN DIESEL - 'PRIVATE CAPARZO' IN SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)
The rise of Vin Diesel from an unheralded filmmaker and actor to an indie sensation to a household name was quicker than most, but it didn't happen overnight.
Mark Vincent had struggled for years as an actor before he adopted his stage moniker Vin Diesel, as he juggled acting with working as a bouncer and telemarketer.
He decided to make his own films to try and get noticed, writing, directing and starring in the 1995 short film Multi-Facial and his 1997 feature Strays.
Multi-Facial was selected for the Sundance Film Festival, where director Steven Spielberg took notice, and cast him as Private Caparzo in his 1998 World War II epic Saving Private Ryan.
Caparzo is part of the group tasked with bringing Private Ryan (Matt Damon) home, after the U.S. Government learns that his three brothers had all been killed in action.
Diesel revealed in a 2017 interview with Yahoo that Spielberg had actually written the Private Caparzo role specifically for him.
'I get this call after Sundance, after Strays, after my film was at Sundance in '97, and it's my agent, and my agent says, 'You know, Steven Spielberg just saw Multi-Facial,'' Diesel said.
'I went, 'What? He saw my short film.' And I'm jumping, I was living in North Hollywood, and I remember jumping up on my bed, and I had to be careful because I almost hit myself and knocked myself out,' he said.
A year after Saving Private Ryan, he was cast to voice The Iron Giant, and two years after that, he starred in 2001's The Fast and the Furious, which sent his career into the stratosphere.
AMY ADAMS - 'LESLIE MILLER' IN DROP DEAD GORGEOUS (1999)
Amy Adams was working at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater in Minnesota when she took a local audition for an indie, her feature film debut: 1999's Drop Dead Gorgeous.
The film - a biting satire mockumentary on beauty pageants - followed a group of young Minnesota girls all vying for the same beauty crown.
Adams played Leslie Miller, a cheerleader who is one of the entrants in the beauty pageant, ultimately finishing third behind Amber (Kirsten Dunst) and Becky (Denise Richards), though Amber is ultimately crowned after Becky dies in a freak accident.
The film also featured acting icons like Ellen Barkin and Kirstie Alley, the latter of which encouraged her to continue pursuing acting and to move to Los Angeles.
She said in a 2008 interview with The Washington Post, 'I thought maybe I could get on a soap opera, maybe get to do some commercials.'
'When I moved out here, I must have, somewhere in my heart, believed in abundance -- meaning that the work of acting in film and television is not meant for special people,' she added.
'There's not an exclusive amount of it that only goes to the most beautiful, the most talented, the most special people in the world,' she said.
Adams continued to find work in films like Catch Me If You Can, Serving Sara and Cruel Intentions 2 before earning her first Oscar nomination for the 2005 indie Junebug, the first of her six Oscar nods.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON - 'HOLD UP MAN' IN COMING TO AMERICA (1988)
Before he became the highest-grossing actor in history with his movies grossing a whopping $27 billion at the box office, Samuel L. Jackson was still trying to find a foothold in Hollywood.
The same year he appeared in his first Spike Lee 'joint' - 1988's School Daze - he played the small role of Hold Up Man in the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America.
The story follows Akeem (Eddie Murphy), the prince of a wealthy African company, who heads to Queens, New York with his servant (Arsenio Hall) to find his bride-to-be.
He decides to present himself as a non-wealthy commoner, taking a job at a fast food place called McDowell's, where he meets his beloved Lisa (Shari Headley).
One of the incidents that helps win her heart is when Akeem removes a broom handle and disarms a violent man trying to rob the restaurant, played by Samuel L. Jackson.
The actor said in a 2019 interview with Esquire, 'It was like, all right, I have to make the dude compelling. He can't be just a motherf***er running in here with a shotgun.'
'It's got to look like he's desperate. He's got to look like he's serious in the middle of this comedy, and he's got to be dangerous,' he added.
Jackson would go on to star in Spike Lee's breakthrough 1989 hit Do The Right Thing along with Menace II Society and Jurassic Park before his first Oscar-nominated performance in Quentin Tarantino's indie sensation Pulp Fiction.
KRISTEN STEWART - 'SARAH ALTMAN' IN PANIC ROOM (2002)
Years before becoming a household name in The Twilight Saga movies, Kristen Stewart first caught audiences attention at just 12 years old in Panic Room.
She played Sarah Altman, the young daughter of Jodie Foster's Meg Altman, who both utilize the impregnable panic room in their New York City apartment when thieves come looking for a lost fortune… which happens to be in a safe within the panic room itself.
The role was just her second credited movie role, following uncredited roles as 'Ring Toss Girl' in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas and Girl in Fountain Line in the TV movie The Thirteenth Year, and her feature film debut, 2001's The Safety of Objects, where she plays the daughter of Patricia Clarkson.
The film - from director David Fincher and writer David Koepp - fared well at the box office, taking in $96.3 million domestic and $197 million worldwide from a $48 million budget.
Back in 2016, when her movie mom was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Stewart revealed Foster was her favorite actress before she was cast in Panic Room.
'Jodie Foster was my favorite actress before I was cast as her daughter in a movie called Panic Room when I was 10,' Stewart said at the ceremony.
Stewart added, 'She did everything young, she kicked Yale's a**, she won Oscars, she became a filmmaker herself, she created a family and still is just normal and cool and kind.'
She continued to work regularly in films like Cold Creek Manor, Undertow, Zathura, Into the Wild and Jumper before she was cast as Bella Swan in the 2008 film Twilight.
JIM CARREY - 'MARK KENDALL' IN ONCE BITTEN (1985)
There have long been rumors that Jim Carrey will never talk about this movie in any interview because he hates it, and while that's never been confirmed, you won't find many interviews of him talking about it either.
Once Bitten was Carrey's first leading role, playing Mark Kendall, a high school student who becomes seduced by a 400-year-old vampire (Lauren Hutton).
While the Countess is immortal, she must drink the blood of three virgins by each Halloween to keep up her youthful appearance, a task she finds more difficult with each passing year.
The film - which also stars Karen Kopins, Cleavon Little and the second film appearance by Megan Mullally - earned just $10 million at the box office from a $3.2 million budget.
Carrey said in a 1985 interview before the film's release, 'If people go and see this movie, it won't change their lives. But it will change mine.'
When asked back in 2017 about his first on-screen kiss, Carrey made some rare comments about the film.
'Gosh, my first screen kiss had to be in Once Bitten with Karen Kopins, I believe. And yeah, it was always a good thing. Always a good thing,' he said.
'I like– I really enjoy other genders. Let's just say that. Kissing in general is just a good thing,' he added.