More often than not, when an actor becomes famous, they’re best known for their most iconic roles. But everyone has to start somewhere. Even if their early performances aren’t necessarily their best, it’s still fun to go back and see how a big movie star’s career all got started. At the very least, you’ll probably be able to laugh at whatever hairstyle they were rocking at the time of their first big break.
10. Kevin Bacon – Animal House (1978)
Kevin Bacon’s career took off in the ’80s after the release of Footloose, but he got his start in the ’70s starring in the smash-hit comedy Animal House. Bacon plays Omega pledge, Chip Diller. The memorable scene with him getting spanked at the Omega initiation and shouting, “Thank you, sir! May I have another?” has been re-enacted in countless frat houses for decades and has even inspired Bacon to create the charitable social network SixDegrees.org.
Source: Screenshot via Universal Pictures
9. Jack Black – The NeverEnding Story III (1994)
Jack Black had a few minor roles before this—including a part as a taxi driver in the Golden Girls spin-off, Golden Palace—but by far, his most significant early-career role was when he played the despicable leader of a crew school bullies in The NeverEnding Story III. Although the movie itself is pretty bad, even for a second sequel, there is some charm in seeing Jack Black’s character, Slip, get beat up at the end by the kid from Free Willy.
Source: Screenshot via Warner Bros. Pictures
8. Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Roseanne (1993)
A lot of people might remember Joseph Gordon-Levitt from his early roles in Disney’s Angels in the Outfield, and the popular TV show 3rd Rock From the Sun. But even before those parts, one of Gordon-Levitt’s first high-profile roles was a four-episode run on Roseanne where he played an annoying, penny-pinching neighbor by the name of George.
Of course, now Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a straight-up Hollywood star who’s got a lot going for him with significant parts in big-budget Christopher Nolan movies like Inception and The Dark Knight Rises and several other lead roles on the horizon.
Source: Screenshot via ABC/Viacom Enterprises
7. Paul Rudd – Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Surely Paul Rudd is hoping we would all forget that time he went up against a doughy-looking, pale-faced Michael Myers, but thanks to the internet that memory can now live on in infamy forever. Playing a grown-up version of Tommy Doyle, the haunted boy from the original Halloween movie, it’s a little strange to go back now and watch Rudd in a non-comedy role. Still, he manages to bring a severe creepiness and plausibility to what now seems like a pretty silly premise as far as horror movies go. The best part of the film is at the end where Rudd finally does what you would think every character in a Halloween movie would have done from the start—bludgeon the living hell out of Michael Myers with a lead pipe until he’s nothing more than a gooey puddle on the floor.
Source: Screenshot via Dimension Films
6. Jennifer Aniston – Leprechaun (1993)
Even though she grew up in a Hollywood family with her parents both being veteran actors, Jennifer Aniston still had to work her way up the showbiz ladder. While she worked on failed TV shows in the early ’90s, she made ends meet by working jobs as a waitress and telemarketer. Finally, in 1993, she landed her very first film role as Tory Reding in the very cheesy horror movie Leprechaun. The film didn’t receive much critical acclaim, though (it has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 27 percent). The scariest part of the whole movie is seeing Jennifer Aniston perform with her original nose. But we all know that hard work early on in her career paid off as she’s remained a Hollywood A-lister ever since her days on Friends.
Source: Screenshot via Trimark Pictures
