Famous Actors' Embarrassing Early Roles Revealed
by Remy TepnerBuzzFeedBuzzFeed Staff
When you think of successful actors such as Emma Stone or Jacob Elordi, it can be difficult to imagine them as anything less than A-listers. But that wasn't always the case.
Don Arnold / Jamie McCarthy / Via WireImage / Getty Images
Most actors had to take small role after small role in order to get to where they are now. And many of these small roles are interesting, to say the least. Here are 18 of the weirdest early roles your favorite movie and TV stars have acted in:
Kevin Winter / Via Getty Images
1.
Glen Powell, the hilarious yet hunky action star, once played "Long-Fingered Boy" in the children's sci-fi film, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over in 2003.
Dimension Films
In a 2024 interview with People Magazine, Powell recalled his day on the set of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over as unforgettable. He says, "I was 13. I shot my part, and then I hung out behind the camera. The entire crew had the most interesting jobs on the planet. You had endless friends on set. And Spy Kids 3-D was arguably our Dune."
Rob Kim / Via WireImage
2.
His roles in Euphoria and Frankenstein may have briefly wiped it from your memory, but we can never totally forget that Jacob Elordi's breakout role was in 2018's The Kissing Booth.
Netflix
The Netflix rom-com, which also stars Joey King and Molly Ringwald, portrays Elordi as a broody high schooler who falls for his brother's best friend. This goes on for three whole movies and is painfully cringey, but worth watching.
Julian Hamilton / Via Getty Images
3.
Staying down under, Nicole Kidman starred in the comedy-crime BMX Bandits at just 16 years old, before going on to star in critically acclaimed works such as the AMC Theatres commercial.
©Rank Film Organization / Via Courtesy Everett Collection
In a 1983 interview, Kidman described the movie, saying, "It's about three teenage BMXers...we stumble upon a hidden case of walkie-talkies, which leads into involvement with the police and criminals and things...it's all fun, and it's comedy and great stunts."
Gilbert Flores / Via Variety via Getty Images
4.
Before she had featured roles in popular works like Sex Education, Bridgerton, and, most recently, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Simone Ashley had a two-episode arc on CBBC's fourth season of Wolfblood.
BBC / Via filmtvcentral.tumblr.com
She played a journalist investigating whether a viral video was real, which would prove the events in the Bloodwolf book were true. The television show ran successfully for five seasons, garnering several awards and two spinoffs.
Dave Benett/Grant Buchanan / Via WireImage
5.
Another Bridgerton star, Jonathan Bailey, guest-starred in the 2017 British TV show, Chewing Gum, where he played a love interest with a racial fetish.
Channel 4 Television Corporation
One particular clip from this episode has been making the rounds on social media for years, and is where many of us first saw the swoon-worthy Sexiest Man Alive (despite him being decidedly un-swoon-worthy by the end of the episode).
Channel 4 Television Corporation
6.
Several decades before playing villains in Inglourious Basterds and the James Bond films, Christoph Waltz appeared on the Austrian children's show, Am Das Des, in 1977.
ORF / Via youtube.com
This was Waltz's first-ever role and a very silly contrast to the roles he would become known for. The title of the show has a silliness of its own: it doesn't have an actual translation; it's simply a nonsensical children's rhyme like "eeny meeny miney moe."
Amy Sussman / Via Getty Images for Prime Video
7.
Best known for portraying our favorite Targaryen, Emilia Clarke's first feature role was in a 2010 dinosaur film called Triassic Attack. She played the daughter of a museum owner who must stop a dinosaur attack after a local shop owner puts a curse on the town.
SyFy / Via youtube.com
Widely considered a knockoff of Jurassic Park, the television movie received an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Luckily (for us), Game of Thrones began airing the next year, and Clarke became known for that fantastical role instead.
Dia Dipasupil / Via Getty Images
8.
During the golden age of 1980s horror, Sam Rockwell played one of three brothers stalked by escaped mental hospital patients dressed up as killer clowns in the '89 flick Clownhouse.
MGM / Via youtube.com
Rockwell has largely avoided discussing this role, which is unsurprising, given the traumatic events that unfolded behind the scenes: the director, Victor Salva, was convicted of sexually abusing Nathan Forrest Winters, one of the other young actors on set, before the film had even finished production.
Maya Dehlin Spach / Via WireImage
9.
Today, she's known as a two-time Oscar winner, but Emma Stone was once the voice of Ivana Tipton, London Tipton's Pomeranian, in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, where she was credited by her real name, Emily.
Disney+
Stone donned a posh Russian-English accent to voice the most spoiled furry inhabitant of the