These actors have one thing in common – their big break came just in time. Jon Hamm was 36 years old when he finally landed the role of Don Draper in Mad Men. Claire Danes had worked steadily as a young actress, but as she approached 30, prominent roles suddenly dried up. She pondered a career in interior design before landing Homeland at 32.
Other famous actors who wanted to call it quits were either tired of the constant rejection or simply tired of being typecast. Some even wondered how long was too long to wait before the Hollywood dream became an unobtainable delusion, instead of a possible reality. Discover which actors were ready to leave show business and the roles that ultimately saved their careers.
-
-
Joe Pesci – Saved By ‘Raging Bull’
Photo: United Artists
Joe Pesci is a show business veteran. He started singing before elementary school and played guitar in several different bands in and around New York City. The New Jersey-born actor even put out a cover album in 1968 under the name Joe Ritchie called Little Joe Sure Can Sing! In 1976, he got his first role as an actor in the crime movie The Death Collector. He ultimately decided to forgo both his singing and acting career in order to run his friend’s restaurant in the Bronx.
Then, he got the phone call that would change his entire life. It was from Robert De Niro, who had actually seen his low-budget acting debut and thought he would be perfect for the part of his younger brother in the upcoming Martin Scorsese biopic Raging Bull.
Pesci wasn’t amused and thought the call was a silly joke. Eventually, De Niro and Scorsese talked him into doing the movie. Pesci was 36 years old when he took on the role of Joey LaMotta. His performance earned him an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor.
Pesci went on to have a storied career in Hollywood, highlighted by his reunion with De Niro and Scorsese for 1990’s GoodFellas. His role as gangster Tommy DeVito made him an Oscar-winner. Following the violent gangster movie, Pesci made an impact in the comedy world when he appeared as one of the bumbling burglars in Home Alone and in the fish-out-of-water comedy My Cousin Vinny.
He left the Hollywood spotlight in 1999. Pesci would pop up every so often in bit parts. Then, Scorsese and De Niro came calling again to convince him to play wiseguy Russell Bufalino in the 2019 epic The Irishman. Pesci initially declined because he wasn’t interested in yet another mobster role. It would take several phone calls to persuade Pesci to finally take the part that earned him yet another Academy Award nomination.
What do you think?Lucky break?
-
21,101 VOTES
Bradley Cooper – Saved By ‘Wedding Crashers’
Photo: New Line Cinema
Bradley Cooper got his big-screen start in the 2001 comedy Wet Hot American Summer. His steady television gig came that same year in the J.J. Abrams series Alias, where he played a supporting character named Will Tippin. It was all happening for the Actors Studio alum, except his experience on Alias almost made Cooper give up acting.
Cooper’s part on Alias was growing less and less important as the series rolled on. “I would only work three days a week. And then for the second season, I got even more sidelined. I was like, ‘Ugh.’ And then next thing you know, I was like, ‘I want to f*cking kill myself.'”
Even though Cooper did not have any other work lined up, he quit the network series thinking that Abrams was going to fire him anyway. Then, just a couple weeks later, Cooper tore his Achilles. The injury would keep him out of the game for an entire year. During that down period, Cooper also admitted that he was taking a lot of Vicodin.
He was ready to give up acting for good. Cooper said, “At some point, you have to come to terms with The business just doesn’t want you.”
Cooper got himself together and landed the part of the scene-stealing bad guy in the 2004 hit comedy Wedding Crashers. A few years later, his career took off to A-List status when he appeared in the first The Hangover movie. Cooper eventually showed off his Actors Studio drama chops and starred in several acclaimed movies, including American Sniper, Silver Linings Playbook, and American Hustle.
Cooper made his directorial debut in the 2018 smash sensation A Star Is Born, where he also proved he could carry a tune.
Lucky break? -
3576 VOTES
Jon Hamm – Saved By ‘Mad Men’
Photo: AMC
Jon Hamm taught drama for two years at his old high school in St. Louis, Missouri, after graduating from college. In 1995, he decided to take off for Hollywood in pursuit of becoming an actor. A few years went by and Hamm was unable to score anything substantial until finally signing on for a recurring gig on the television drama Providence. The actor also landed additional small roles on TV shows and had a few bit parts on big-screen films like We Were Soldiers. However, his Hollywood career was not taking off like he had hoped.
According to his then-girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt, Hamm was ready to give up his acting dream right before he won the role of Don Draper on Mad Men.
“He had a really long, hard slog in the dark, lean times,” said Westfeldt. “He would just say, I’m going to hang it up, it’s not going to work out.”
She added, “Mad Men came right at the end of a long low for Jon, so it was pretty amazing to see the world catch up with what I always thought about him. It’s long overdue.”
Jon Hamm was 36 years old when Mad Men made him an instant star. The actor earned both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for his turn as the brilliant yet troubled adman.
Hamm has also shown off his comedic chops with appearances on 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Bridesmaids.
Lucky break? -
4671 VOTES
Henry Cavill – Saved By ‘The Tudors’
DID YOU KNOW?Henry Cavill is also ranked #1 of 85 on The Top Casting Choices For The Next James Bond Actor
Photo: Showtime
For Henry Cavill, it wasn’t so much about getting the career-saving role; it was about almost getting it. Cavill had small parts in the films Laguna and The Count of Monte Cristo in the early 2000s. He also had a more prominent role in the British television series The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. However, the English actor did not initially receive the international attention it took to launch a career in Hollywood. Cavill was ready to give up and join the military.
“As far as a full backup plan, it was the British Armed Forces. But being 33 years old, I think I’m too old to join now,” he said back in 2016. “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.”’
Then, Cavill got an audition to star as the world’s most popular spy: “I got the screen test for Bond and thought, my name is out there now, so maybe I should stick around. And I did.”
His resilience paid off. Daniel Craig may have landed the role of Bond in Casino Royale, but Cavill’s screen test put the actor on the Hollywood radar. The following year, Cavill appeared in the sexy Showtime series The Tudors. He played the 1st Duke of Suffolk, who was basically King Henry VIII’s best buddy and eventual brother-in-law.
Cavill acknowledged that it was his role on the The Tudors that launched his international acting career: “Now that there’s an audience somewhere in America that’s aware of who I am, I have more sell-ability, because of The Tudors.”
Cavill is now known around the world as Superman. He appeared as the DC hero in the 2013 blockbuster Man of Steel and in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The actor also went back to his small screen roots on the popular Netflix series The Witcher.
Lucky break? -
5781 VOTES
Melissa McCarthy – Saved By ‘Gilmore Girls’
Photo: Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution
Melissa McCarthy’s true breakout role happened in the 2011 comedy Bridesmaids, which earned the actress an Academy Award nomination. However, it was her role as Sookie St. James on the television series Gilmore Girls that saved McCarthy’s career. In 2000, the comic superstar was struggling to even land an audition and was quickly approaching her pre-set age deadline.
“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 said. “I always said if I don’t get anything substantial by the time I’m 30, I’m done. And a week before I turned 30, I got Gilmore Girls.”
McCarthy was trying to grind out a living and even questioned what made her want to be an actress in the first place. “Things weren’t ‘bad’ but I had been working two jobs and I got to a point where I thought, ‘Why am I doing this? Why am I beating myself up?’ Acting never would have left my life, I would’ve acted in some way, but I’m so fortunate that this is now my occupation.”
Following Bridesmaids, McCarthy became one of the hottest female comedic actresses. She made a string of funny hit films, including The Heat, Tammy, and St. Vincent. She also starred in the long-running television sitcom Mike & Molly. The actress showed off her dramatic chops and nabbed a second Academy Award nomination for her performance in 2018’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Lucky break? -
6480 VOTES
Michael B. Jordan – Saved By ‘Friday Night Lights’
Photo: NBCUniversal Television Distribution
Michael B. Jordan’s first prominent acting gig came in The Wire, where he played a teenage gang member named Wallace. At the time, he had cornrows in his hair. After his character was offed, Jordan took out his cornrows and made an effort to seek out roles that would not typecast him. “With the braids out, I should have more options,” Jordan said. “I’m being thrown urban roles right now, but I don’t plan on doing these my whole life.”
After appearing on the long-running soap opera All My Children for four years, where he felt he was typecast, Jordan moved out West to Hollywood to seek a more varied career in Tinseltown.
He was immediately welcomed to La La Land with so many rejections that he thought about giving up his dream of becoming the next Will Smith.
“I remember when I first came to LA, and me and my mom, we went to all these agencies trying to get representation and they passed on me – WME passed on me, CAA passed on me, Gersh, all these guys f*cking passed on me,” said Jordan.
Jordan ran into fellow The Wire alum Andre Royo (Bubbles) at a party in Los Angeles. Royo describes his encounter with the defeated-at-the-time Jordan:
He was like, “Yo, I’m not working enough, sh*t is crazy, I think I’m going to go back to New York.” And he was really on some “boo-hoo” sh*t. And I was like, “Yo dog, are you kidding me right now? You in your early 20s and you’re around motherf*ckers trying to feed families who ain’t working. Snap out of it.”
Then in 2009, Peter Berg came calling. The producer cast Jordan as the starting quarterback for Season 4 of Friday Night Lights. Hearty and varied roles immediately followed. His first big-time starring role came in Ryan Coogler’s directorial debut Fruitvale Station. In the true story, Jordan played Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African-American man who was fatally shot by a BART police officer in Oakland, California.
Jordan cashed in on his head-turning indie performance. Over the next few years, the actor played the titular role in Creed and then reunited with Coogler to portray the main antagonist in Marvel’s mega-box-office smash Black Panther.
Lucky break? -
796 VOTES
Pedro Pascal – Saved By ‘Game Of Thrones’
Photo: Game of Thrones / HBO
Pedro Pascal had a long journey to becoming a household name. After graduating from New York’s Tisch School of the Arts, he moved to Los Angeles and auditioned for TV roles, landing parts in one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and an episode of CBS’ Touched by an Angel. But just as he was getting his foot in the door, his mother passed away, and he returned to Chile to be with his siblings.
In an interview with Esquire, Pascal recalls:
They were very young kids, so much younger than me and my older sister, so even if they hadn’t lost a parent, we would still feel parental toward them. And I didn’t naively think I could fill a space like that, but I just always wanted to be like, I’m here.
A year later, he moved to New York to continue pursuing acting, but having no immediate family around him and suffering professional setback after setback, he started questioning whether he wanted to stay in the profession long-term. He decided if he wasn’t on his way to “making it” by 29, he’d rethink everything. Pascal said of that timeperiod:
I died so many deaths. My vision of it was that if I didn’t have some major exposure by the time I was twenty-nine years old, it was over, so I was constantly readjusting what it meant to commit my life to this profession, and giving up the idea of it looking like I thought it would when I was a kid. There were so many good reasons to let that delusion go.
Ultimately, Pascal landed some theater gigs and found constant support in fellow (then also-unknown) actors like Sarah Paulson and Oscar Isaac. He did eventually land the breakthrough role he was hoping for when he was cast as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones – in his mid-30s. Luckily for all of us, he didn’t stick to his own deadline.
Lucky break? -
8423 VOTES
Jane Lynch – Saved By ‘Best in Show’
DID YOU KNOW?Jane Lynch is also ranked #8 of 69 on The Funniest LGBTQ Comedians Of 2024, Ranked
Photo: Warner Bros.
Jane Lynch is 6 feet tall and hardly resembles the traditional Hollywood leading lady. In her 20s, the Illinois native honed both her dramatic and comedic skills on the Chicago theater stage. She performed for 10 years with the highly regarded Steppenwolf Theatre Company, as well as for the famous improv troupe The Second City. In 1993, when she was 33 years old, Lynch made her big-screen debut in The Fugitive and set off to fulfill her Hollywood dream of becoming an actress.
Lynch went to work right away with paying gigs on commercials and voiceover spots. Then, she turned 39 and wondered if that was going to be the best that she could do. Lynch was ready to throw in the towel. If it wasn’t for her work in a Frosted Flakes commercial, Lynch’s whole life could have turned out differently. Acclaimed writer/director Christopher Guest liked what he saw in Lynch’s Frosted Flakes spot and cast her in his mockumentary Best in Show. Lynch became a Guest mockumentary staple and also appeared in A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration.
“The man changed my life,” said Lynch regarding Guest. “He blew the doors open for me.”
The award-winning actress has also made an impression on the small screen. Lynch proved she could play the delicious villain when she appeared as Sue Sylvester for six seasons on Glee. She earned both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for her performance as the bully cheerleading coach. She also won an Emmy for her guest-starring role on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
The actress is such a versatile talent that she has over 200 acting credits. Lynch also serves as the host on the popular network game show Hollywood Game Night.
Lucky break? -
9537 VOTES
Gal Gadot – ‘Wonder Woman’
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
An actor often has to deal with a lot of rejection. Sometimes, hearing “no” can sound like a death sentence to a struggling actor. Gal Gadot had found some big-screen success playing Gisele in the Fast & Furious franchise. However, the Hollywood grind was becoming too much for the Israeli-born thespian, and she seriously thought of quitting show business.
“There’s so much rejection in this world that I thought, ‘Maybe it’s not for me,'” Gadot revealed. “‘Maybe I should go back to law school instead of dragging my family with me.'”
Gadot added that she was “as close as it gets” to quitting. It was her role as a superhero that changed her entire career outlook. Gadot took on Wonder Woman in 2017, and it turned her into an immediate household name. The first female-led superhero movie from the DC Extended Universe was a monster box-office success.
“Honestly, the thing is, everything that’s happening right now is so overwhelming,” she said. “I mean, all the way from Russia and Israel to here, red carpets, talking to you, wearing [great gowns]. It’s been such an amazing, crazy ride that I think I’m gonna get what’s happening only in two years from now or something.”
Gadot reprised her role in the Wonder Woman sequel and Justice League movies. She’s even had time to temporarily put away her Lasso of Truth to film the action-comedy Red Notice and star as Hedy Lamarr in the 2020 biographical television miniseries.
Lucky break? -
10355 VOTES
Uzo Aduba – Saved By ‘Orange Is the New Black’
Photo: Netflix
Orange Is the New Black fans know Uzo Aduba as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren from the long-running Netflix series. Just prior to her breakout role, Aduba was ready to ditch her dream of becoming an actress after an endless parade of unsuccessful auditions. “My heart never quit,” she said. “And that was the first time I felt my heart give out on me.”
The actress was ready to give up. Then, Aduba got the phone call that would change her life. She explained:
I was crying on the subway all the way home, and not like, loud, audible crying, but the tears, the ones where you just can’t stop them from coming down your face. I just couldn’t stop it. I was sitting on the train, and I said to myself, “this is it, I’m done.” I had never in my life before quit. Then, 45 minutes later, I got home and I got a phone call. I’ll never forget it for my entire life. I could be 98, and my grandkids can be like, “Grandma, when did you get Orange Is the New Black?” and I’ll say, “5:43 pm. September 14.”
Orange Is the New Black wrapped production in 2019 after seven seasons. Aduba has branched out to several other acting endeavors. She appeared in the 2016 big-screen drama American Pastoral and the Hulu original series Mrs. America.
Lucky break?
-
-
11294 VOTES
Max Greenfield – Saved By ‘New Girl’
Photo: Fox
Max Greenfield was a working actor in the early to mid-2000s. He had guest appearances on Gilmore Girls and The O.C. Greenfield gained even more recognition with recurring roles on Veronica Mars and Ugly Betty. However, he wondered whether or not he should give up his acting dream because he had a family to support. He recalled:
Right before New Girl happened, there were definitely moments of, I probably shouldn’t do this anymore. I just had a kid and at one point was like, At what point does this become selfish? You don’t want to become a dad who is running around and saying, “I just got a callback on a guest star on The Middle.” I just didn’t want to be that guy.
He added, “Just before New Girl, I called a buddy of mine and asked for a job as a writing assistant. Unfortunately I didn’t go to college so I wasn’t qualified for anything else. But [his friend] ran that show and I thought, maybe I’ll start at the very lowest point for a writer and see what happens with that, because this doesn’t seem to be happening as an actor.”
Greenfield’s luck and nagging doubt disappeared after landing the main role of Schmidt in 2011. New Girl became a popular network sitcom that remained on the air for seven seasons and showed off Greenfield’s ability to take a rather unsavory character and make him lovable. Following New Girl‘s long run, Greenfield landed another lead sitcom role as Dave in the CBS series The Neighborhood.
Lucky break? -
12329 VOTES
Claire Danes – Saved By ‘Homeland’
Photo: Showtime
Claire Danes was just a teenager when she burst onto the acting scene. In 1994, she starred as Angela Chase in the now-cult-status television series My So-Called Life. Her portrayal of the angst-filled teen earned the actress a Golden Globe Award despite only being on the air for one season. That same year, Danes played Beth in the big-screen adaptation of Little Women.
Over the next decade-plus, Danes stayed busy. She appeared in several movies such as Romeo + Juliet, The Rainmaker, and Shopgirl. She even found time to attend Yale University for two years. She landed the meaty acting role of Temple Grandin in 2010’s HBO television movie of the same name. Her performance as the autistic animal welfare activist earned Danes both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award.
Then, for two years Danes did not work. The long drought made the talented actress that Baz Luhrmann called “the Meryl Streep of her generation” think about leaving show business for good.
“It was confusing. I got a lot of plaudits, and it didn’t translate into more work. I was really, really struggling during that time,” Danes said. “It was grim. I was very hurt. Two years of not working was brutal. And a point came where I thought, I really like interior design.”
Finally, Danes was offered the role of the brilliant bipolar CIA officer Carrie Mathison on Showtime’s Homeland. She was immediately impressed with the quality of the script. “I was scared of it, and I thought, OK, right, that means I have to do it,” Danes said.
Homeland proved to be a career-defining decision. It remained on the air for eight strong seasons. Danes won two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of Mathison.
Lucky break? -
13314 VOTES
Brie Larson – Saved By ‘United States of Tara’
Photo: Showtime
Brie Larson worked in bit parts as a child actor living in Los Angeles. However, after failing to land any substantial roles, Larson was beginning to wonder if she was really built to be an actress. She described her self-doubt:
It just wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. 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. What’s weird about this profession is that no one can really tell you when you are delusional. I used to wish that I’d wanted to be an athlete, because it’s easy to quantify if that’s working – just measuring your speed!
Larson tried out for the part of Toni Collette’s daughter in the Showtime series United States of Tara. After being passed on, she nearly quit the industry for good. “Toni was my acting hero and I’d really felt, like, ‘Nobody in the world could do that role but me,’ so when I didn’t get it, I felt like I didn’t understand reality any more,” said Larson.
The actress put her efforts into applying for college. Then, she got the call that would change her life. United States of Tara was recasting the role of Kate Gregson. Larson wound up getting the part after all.
Two years after the series wrapped, Larson starred in the criminally underrated indie Short Term 12. Two years, later she scored the career-making part as the main character in Room. Her emotional portrayal of a mother locked in a small room with her young son earned the actress an Academy Award. Larson was just 26 years old.
Larson quickly forged her way into blockbuster territory. Her first summer big-budget film came in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. The actress catapulted into another level of fame when she landed the superhero role of Captain Marvel. The standalone 2019 Captain Marvel movie earned over $1 billion at the box office.
Lucky break? -
14417 VOTES
Millie Bobby Brown – Saved By ‘Stranger Things’
Photo: Netflix
Millie Bobby Brown got the acting bug at 8 years old. She didn’t have any formal training but somehow convinced her entire family (her parents and three siblings) to move from England to Florida to see if she could make a go at acting professionally.
Brown landed a couple of bit parts but nothing substantial. Despite not even being a teenager, she was aware of the daunting odds against any child actor, and was ready to give up on this nontraditional path for a ‘normal’ childhood: “I felt at one point I couldn’t do it [anymore], but then I got this and everything changed.”
Brown is referring to the star-making role of Eleven in the Netflix hit series Stranger Things. Her portrayal of the heroine with psychic abilities earned Brown a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, which made her the youngest person to ever receive a Primetime Emmy nod. She was 13.
The teen made her big-screen blockbuster debut in 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
