Here Are 17 Actors Who Were Dead Broke Or About To Give Up Acting Before They Landed A Huge Role

    "I always said if I don't get anything substantial by the time I'm 30, I'm done."

    Sam Cleal
    by Sam Cleal

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Hollywood success stories aren't always filled with glitz and glamour from the start. Many of today's most celebrated actors faced financial hardships and almost gave up on their dreams before landing that one life-changing role.

    Freeform

    From scraping by to sleeping in their cars, these actors defied the odds and turned their lives around. Here are 17 famous actors who were dead broke or on the verge of giving up acting before they struck gold...

    1. Melissa McCarthy – Gilmore Girls

    Taylor Hill / FilmMagic/The WB / Via Getty Images

    Melissa may be part of the Tinsel Town furniture at this point, but back in the day the actor made a pact with herself that if she didn't get anything substantial by the time she was 30, she was done. "Acting wasn't working out, I was getting rejection after rejection, I wasn't even getting auditions – I couldn't get a job to save my life", she told Heat Magazine. It just so happened that the day before she turned 30, Melissa got cast as Sookie St. James in Gilmore Girls.

    2. Jacob Elordi – Euphoria

    Taylor Hill/HBO / Via Getty Images

    In between The Kissing Booth and Euphoria, Jacob was living in his car and had $400 to $800 left in his bank account. The actor planned to return to Australia to make some money and recuperate, but ended up being cast in the 2019 show as Nate Jacobs. Soon enough, he was being put up in the Standard in West Hollywood. "I got really lucky, which is just an LA story, you know?", he told GQ.

    3. Laverne Cox – Orange is the New Black

    Steve Granitz / FilmMagic/Netflix / Via Getty Images

    Before she broke out in OITNB, Laverne was in all sorts of trouble financially and considered quitting acting altogether. "I was in rent arrears on my apartment, I had rolled back rent and I was in all kinds of debt and I was going to give up acting actually", she told Gio Benitez during a Paley Center pride month panel. Laverne recalled being "devastated" by turning 40 and her acting dreams not coming true. She was about to quit and go to grad school when she got the audition that would change her life.

    Laverne's role on OITNB broke all sorts of records, including her being the first openly trans actress to be nominated for a primetime acting Emmy.

    4. John Krasinski – The Office

    Mike Coppola / NBC / Via Getty Images

    After telling her he was going to pursue acting, John's mother made him promise to "pull [himself] out" of the industry if he didn't make it in the first few years. Two and a half years later, John called his mother during a shift waiting tables: "I was ready to [give up], I was telling her to come get me", he told Stephen Colbert. She suggested he wait until the end of the year before quitting, and three weeks after that call, he landed his breakout role in The Office as Jim Halpert.

    5. Robert Pattinson – Twilight

    Lia Toby/Summit Entertainment / Via Getty Images

    He'd already starred in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but before his true breakthrough in Twilight, Rob considered throwing the towel in. Rob told Today that his audition for the role of Edward Cullen went terribly, and that he called his parents afterwards and told them, "I'm done, I can't torture myself anymore". Basically, his agent had told him to bring a guitar into the audition: "I just walked in and they were like, 'Oh. You brought a guitar. Do you want to play us a song,' and I was like, 'No. This is the worst decision I ever made.'" Despite the awkwardness, producers asked to see him again and the rest is history!

    6. Brie Larson – United States of Tara

    Angela Weiss/AFP / Showtime / Via Getty Images

    Brie moved to LA when she was seven years old and began nabbing TV roles, but in her teenage years, she began losing faith in acting as a profession. "It just wasn't working the way I wanted it to", she told The Sydney Morning Herald. "All the kids I went to school with were going to college and I was still trying to do this thing called 'acting' and not going very far." Brie put her acting career on hold after she failed to get her dream role in United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette. However, the role was soon re-cast in favour of Brie, and after that she never looked back!

    7. Will Smith – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

    Neilson Barnard / NBC / Via Getty Images

    Will had had some success as a rapper before The Fresh Prince, and released his first album – Rock the House – in 1986 in collaboration with DJ Jazzy Jeff. Despite earning prestige in the form of a Grammy in 1989, Will was soon in some serious debt thanks to his splurging, and owed the IRS $2.8 million in tax debt. Rock the House had gone triple-platinum, but unfortunately his next album went "double-plastic", according to Will.

    He was struggling financially in the early '90s when NBC decided to approach him to formulate a sitcom around him. The show was successful and launched Will's TV and film career.

    8. Max Greenfield – New Girl

    Alberto E. Rodriguez / NBC / Via Getty Images

    Before he lit up our screens as the hilarious Schmidt in New Girl, Max considered jacking in acting in favour of becoming a family man. Indeed, he had "already quit" and was "looking for other employment" when he went into his audition, he told Kelly Clarkson. He further clarified in an interview with The Wrap that he had "just had a kid and at one point was like, 'At what point does this become selfish'?" Despite this thinking, Max booked the role, which ended up earning him nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Critics' Choice Television Awards.

    9. Hong Chau – Downsizing

    Mike Coppola/Paramount Pictures / Via Getty Images

    Hong told E! that she though about quitting "so many times" before her breakout role in Downsizing, for which she received nominations at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. "I've been doing this for 10 years now, and Downsizing is only my second movie", she said back in 2018. "Luckily I didn't quit and stuck with it", the actor added. Since then, Hong has had major roles in The Whale, The Menu, and Asteroid City, to name a few projects.

    10. Matt LeBlanc – Friends

    Noam Galai / NBC / Via Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival

    Before he became world famous as Joey in Friends, Matt was seriously broke. "I had, I think, I was down to $11", the actor told Conan O'Brien. "That's holding out too long because even if I'd said at that point, I'm gonna go get a waiter job, by the time that $11 ran out, it would've been before the first paycheck [and] I would've starved", he added. Matt couldn't even afford to get dental work done and ending up doing it himself! Cut to 2002, and Matt was earning $1 million per episode of Friends.

    11. Halle Berry – Jungle Fever

    Frazer Harrison/Universal Pictures / Via Getty Images

    Halle Berry has been a Hollywood A-Lister for years now, but before she cracked the industry, the actor had to stay in a homeless shelter and a YMCA whilst living in New York. "I took my modelling money [and] three months later I was out of my cash", she told People magazine. "I called my mother and I asked her to send me some money and she said no... That's probably one of the best things she did for me because it taught me".

    Two years later, Halle got her breakthrough role in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, and the following year landed a leading role in Boomerang alongside Eddie Murphy.

    12. Noah Centineo – The Fosters

    Gary Gershoff / WireImage/Freeform / Via Getty Images

    After Noah relocated to West Hollywood with his mum at 16, he began auditioning A LOT and almost quit after a bad experience shooting a pilot. "I had this six-month contract that didn't allow me to audition for anything [else]", he told The Hollywood Reporter. "My purpose was just to act, and you take away someone’s purpose and you kind of deteriorate them." By 18, however, he'd nabbed on the Freeform drama The Fosters, and could fill his 10-week hiatuses with whatever he wanted, including his breakout role in To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

    13. Annie Murphy – Schitt's Creek

    Gregg DeGuire/CBC / Via Getty Images for Turner

    As the story goes, before she stole all of our hearts as Alexis Rose, Annie was far from the glamorous socialite she plays in the CBC comedy. The actor told Kelly Clarkson that her life before Schitt's Creek was "quite bleak", and she wanted to quit acting altogether. "My house had just burnt down, I had like, $3 in my bank account... I hadn't worked in close to two years." Despite all that, just two days after deciding she should move from acting, Annie got an audition that would change her life!

    14. Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out

    Momodu Mansaray / WireImage/Universal Pictures / Via Getty Images

    Before Jordan Peele reached out to Daniel to star in his 2017 hit film, the actor "had stopped acting for like a year and a half." In conversation with Jordan for Essence Magazine, the actor described feeling "disillusioned with acting", adding that, "I wasn't getting roles, because racism and all this kind of stuff—so you reaching out was like, Okay, I'm not crazy. It's proper. It's going to be all right."

    15. Chris Pratt – Parks and Recreation

    Nathan Congleton / NBC / Via Getty Images

    Before he became the star of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, Chris was basically homeless. As a teen, he lived out of a van in Hawaii doing odd jobs to make ends meet. He soon moved to L.A. to work on a movie, but ended up waiting tables there and would get busted for eating off of customer's plates. After landing a role in Everwood, Chris appeared in The O.C. before securing a role in Parks and Recreation, which catapulted him to stardom.

    16. Henry Cavill – The Tudors

    Mike Marsland / WireImage

    Almost unbelievably, Henry struggled to attract the right attention at the beginning of his acting career, and has admitted he considered quitting acting for the Army. Per a report in Fandom Wire, Henry said there "were plenty of times I thought it wouldn't happen. At one stage I was like, 'If this next movie doesn't do well then I'm out, I'm going to join the Armed Forces'."

    After being rejected to play James Bond in Casino Royale, the actor pondered a career change, but decided to "stick around" because there had been decent press coverage around him becoming 007. A year after that, he broke out with his role in The Tudors, which he played from 2007 to 2010.

    17. Charlize Theron – The Devil's Advocate

    Jon Kopaloff/Warner Bros. / Via Getty Images

    Charlize moved to Los Angeles from South Africa with just $400 to her name; indeed, she once ended up in an altercation with a bank teller who wouldn't cash a check she desperately needed. Talent agent John Crosby witnessed the incident and decided to give her his card, and this led to Charlize's first (non-spreaking) role in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. Two years later, Charlize starred in The Devil's Advocate, which is largely considered her breakout role.

    Did we miss anyone out? Did any of these surprise you? Let us know in the comments below.