1.
Before becoming a Marvel superhero, Simu Liu dressed up as Spider-Man for children’s birthday parties. On an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!he said, “I would go to these kids’ birthday parties and get mugged by them for an hour because no one ever believed I was the real Spider-Man.”
“I worked for a company that was a bit stingy. I feel like if you got a movie-quality costume and showed up, some kids might believe it. I had less Marvel, more from Walmart. … It was terrible.”
2.
During Oprah’s Master Class, Whoopi Goldberg shared that she was once a beautician at the morgue. “I’ve done hair and makeup for the dead. There was an ad in the newspaper! And I’m also a certified beautician, because I went to beauty school. … It’s hard work. You have to be a certain kind of person. And you have to love people in order to make them worthy of a great farewell.
Whoopi recalled her boss playing a prank on her when she started work. He asked her to join him downstairs for a meeting, but when she came downstairs, a drawer seemed to open on its own. Then her boss appeared and said, “Hello, there.” Whoopi was so scared she ran straight into a doorway and knocked herself out. When she came to, he said, “Now the worst thing you can imagine has happened. That’s it. It’s the worst thing that can happen. It’s happened before. … You want to still working?”
3.
Tan France worked as a flight attendant when she was 19. weird eye star – who is of Pakistani descent – faced racism from passengers. In his memoirs, he wrote, “It was a few years after 9/11, and they had no qualms about openly referring to my people as The Terrorists. The flight would start out pretty well, but by the end of the flight it would be clear that they weren’t so happy that I was the one serving them.”
He lasted two months in the role before he had enough. On his last trip the ‘noisy people’ were so ‘aggressive’ and ‘rude’ that he broke down and told them to ‘get their own coffee’ before telling the senior flight attendant that he resigned.
4.
Growing up, Taylor Swift and her family lived on a Christmas tree farm. “We all had jobs,” she told Esquire. “Mine was to pluck the praying mantis pods off the trees, scoop them up so the bugs wouldn’t hatch inside people’s homes. … The only reason it was my job was because I was too small to help lift trees.”
5.
Gabourey Sidibe worked as a telephone sex operator for three years until she landed the lead role in Precious. She told People, “I knew it when people asked me, ‘So, did you go to any acting school?’ my acting school was on the phone, pretending to be a super young 21-year-old student named Melody. I know it was my game! But I felt too stupid to say it.
6.
Vera Wang started figure skating as a child and competed nationally until age 20, when she failed to qualify for the 1968 Winter Olympics. “I was devastated when I didn’t make the Olympic team,” she told Post magazine. “I had a nervous breakdown and ended up doing a semester in Paris, where I realized I had a passion for fashion.”
Throughout her career, Vera has combined her love for figure skating and fashion by designing costumes for Olympic skaters like Michelle Kwan and Nathan Chen. “It’s not for the faint of heart,” Vera told People. “If a strap were to break, or the sleeve bead got stuck when they turned around, all of their Olympics would be over. It’s such a big deal.”
seven.
Megan Fox’s first job was at a smoothie store. On an episode of the Ellen DeGeneres showMegan said: “My only real job I ever had was working at a little smoothie shop in Florida. And I was mostly working behind the register, but once a week someone had to dress up as a fruit and get out and stand by the highway… I was a banana, a giant banana.”
8.
At 14, Tom Hanks was selling snacks in a baseball stadium. On an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!Tom said: “I came down to sell peanuts and sodas, and I thought it would be a bit like being on a TV show where everyone helps the young kid. … First of all, I Got robbed twice Personal note: Hide those wads of cash. Don’t walk around with a wad of cash sticking out of your pocket.
“Then I ran into some professional sellers who didn’t like the fact that there were kids. So, I’m 14, and a guy probably in his late 50s is shouting, ‘Hey, kid! That was my sale! was walking down the aisle. You took my sale, kid!'”
9.
In 1988, Matthew McConaughey won a scholarship that allowed him to spend a year in Australia as an exchange student. Although he spent it cleaning chicken coops, he fondly remembers that time. “It was a life-changing year because I was taken off all the crutches I had in my life,” he told The Australian Way.
“I depended on myself – tripped, fell and survived. It was a great year to get to know myself. I’m an extrovert, and it was a very introverted year and has a lot to see with who I am right now – one of the best things I’ve ever done,” he concluded.
ten.
At the age of 16, Christopher Walken worked as a trainee lion trainer at the circus with a lion named Sheba. “Who’s going to refuse this? he asked in an interview with the Guardian. “I would walk into the cage and wave my whip, and she would lazily get up and sit like a dog and maybe let out a little roar. I’m very fond of cats. I’ve always loved cats. They’re excellent company.”
11.
Before gaining worldwide fame with The hangover, Ken Jeong was a doctor specializing in internal medicine. On an episode of NPR All things Considered podcast, he said: “During the day I was a doctor. At night, you know, I was a comedian. And that was really just to let off steam. It just became my golf, you know, at many ways. Most doctors have golf as a hobby. Mine was doing comedy.”
“I never implied that I was a comedian,” he continued. “I never acted. It was really important to me, like, not being Patch Adams. I was so super serious as a doctor. I was barking orders at my nurses. I was hardcore I wanted to make sure I did my I was perfectly trained to be a doctor. You know, it was no accident. I worked hard for it.
12.
In the 80s, Victoria Beckham played a cum on roller skates for a BBC educational show called The body matters before becoming a Spice Girl.
13.
During First we feast interview, Ashton Kutcher revealed he had a lot of “blue-collar work” growing up, including washing dishes and butchering deer at a butcher shop. But the most surprising? “I worked in a cereal factory sweeping up Cheerio dust.”
“I think the most important thing it taught me was appreciation,” he said. “When you have a job like that, when you come home at the end of the day, you crumble from physical exhaustion… collapse from mental exhaustion from, for example, sitting in a office all day seems easy, and being an actor seems even easier.”
14.
Lucy Liu worked as a secretary, hostess and even an aerobics instructor. “I was working seven days a week,” she told the Seattle Times. “I knew I needed the money if I was going to be an actor because I probably wasn’t going to make a lot of money right off the bat. … For me it was grueling work, but I was excited by the idea of why I was doing the work.”
15.
Before Meghan Markle became famous with Combinations, she was freelancing in calligraphy to pay rent. During an interview with Esquire, Meghan said: “I went to a Catholic girls’ school for six years when the kids had handwriting lessons. I always had a propensity to master cursive pretty well. It was my job as a pseudo-waitress when I was auditioning. I didn’t serve tables. I did calligraphy for invitations, for example, for Robin Thicke and Paula’s wedding. Pattons.
“I used to do this for Dolce & Gabbana celebrity correspondence on holidays. I would sit there with a little white sock on my hand so no hand oil would end up on the card. , trying to pay my bills during the audition. I’m glad that in the country where no one seems to appreciate a handwritten note anymore, I can try to keep it alive,” she concluded.
Are there any other surprising or random jobs that celebrities had before they became famous? LMK in the comments below!