Top 10 Celebrity Movie Appearances Before They Were Stars
#10: Chris Evans
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“Not Another Teen Movie” (2001) We’re kicking things off with one of the most prolific actors of the superhero era of Hollywood. Before he was Captain America - before he was the Human Torch, really - nineteen-year-old Chris Evans was finding his stride in one of those movie movies. Playing the popular jock archetype in “Not Another Teen Movie,” his character was a direct parody of Freddie Prinze Jr.’s role from “She’s All That,” jet-black hair included. Hardly the best parody movie to ever grace the silver screen - though hardly the worst, if we’re being honest - but Evans’s comedic funny bone is on full display all the same. Now that his tenure in the MCU is ostensibly finished, rewatches of this movie have fans of his saying, “That’s America’s whipped cream bikini.”
#9: Matt Damon
“Mystic Pizza” (1988) Matt Damon wouldn’t get his breakout role until he was twenty-six years old with the advent of “Good Will Hunting.” However, his first film appearance came in 1988’s “Mystic Pizza” where a seventeen-year-old Damon played the younger brother to one of the male romantic interests. Damon’s scene comes when Julia Roberts’s character meets her yuppie boyfriend’s family over dinner, and seeing as it’s a romantic comedy, it doesn’t go well. Apparently what didn’t go well for Damon’s Steamer was the lobster, as he asks his mother if she wants any of his “green stuff.” The cameo is unmistakable, as even over thirty years later, Matt Damon still looks pretty much the same.
#8: Kerry Washington
“Save the Last Dance” (2001) “Save the Last Dance” was quite the box office earner when it debuted in 2001, roughly making back its budget tenfold. However, how many people realized they were in the presence of a future star in a young Kerry Washington, playing the friend to Julia Stiles’s Sara. Washington, who turned twenty-three during filming, gives quite the impassioned performance in her first big role, gracefully conveying the themes of racial integration and squandered youth. Honestly, in comparing this with the Emmy nominee’s work on “Scandal,” it becomes apparent that Washington has been that good for a long time.
#7: Jennifer Aniston
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“Leprechaun” (1993) This one won’t be hard to recognize, as it came out the year before Jennifer Aniston’s breakout role on the hit sitcom “Friends.” What is surprising, however, is how she survived this campy schlockfest, both literally and figuratively. Here she plays the ostensible final girl who uncovers a sadistic leprechaun at a farmhouse in North Dakota that’s definitely not actually in California. From there, the twenty-three-year-old Aniston and the rest of the cast do a lot of running around as the plot tries to figure out how to fill a ninety-two-minute runtime. Still, watching Aniston play off the always energetic Warwick Davis is a real treat. She wasn’t the first actor to get their start in a horror movie, nor will she be the last on this particular list.
#6: Elijah Wood
“Back to the Future Part II” (1989) Wood is so young in this one - and it’s such a small part - that you might miss if you’re not looking for it. Most of us know Elijah Wood as playing Frodo Baggins in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which began filming when he was eighteen. However he was just a mere eight when he debuted in “Back to the Future Part II.” Set in the then-future of 2015, the scene comes when Marty McFly visits a retro diner and notices a couple kids tinkering with an arcade machine. He shows them how it’s done, but they are thoroughly unimpressed. That’s where we get a good look at the future hobbit. They can’t all be PS4s, kid.
#5: Jim Parsons
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“Garden State” (2004) Ever since his first appearance as Sheldon Cooper on the hit CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” in 2007, it’s been difficult to see Jim Parsons play anything other than either a giant nerd, a brainy know-it-all, or both. Apparently that typecast precedes the show, as even before that he was playing Tim, an armored employee of Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Zach Braff’s directorial debut, “Garden State.” The thirty-year-old Parsons even spouts a little bit of Klingon, something that would make the future Sheldon Cooper very proud. Apparently his collaboration with Braff went well, as he would later appear in Braff’s second feature, “Wish I Was Here.”
#4: Amy Adams
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“Drop Dead Gorgeous” (1999) Usually when you star in a teen flick, you figure one or two of your castmates will go on to have a lengthy career, but we doubt anyone figured a twenty-four-year-old Amy Adams would become a six-time Oscar nominee. Sure, the mockumentary “Drop Dead Gorgeous” has a number of notable, young faces, such as Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy, but we’d be damned if we didn’t pick Adams out of the crowd. She plays the hysterically ditzy Leslie, just one of the many contestants in the Sarah Rose Cosmetics Mount Rose American Teen Princess Pageant. Yeah, long title. While she may have only won second runner-up in the pageant, she'll always be a winner in our book.
#3: Alexander Skarsgård
“Zoolander” (2001) These days we think of Alexander Skarsgård as being on the beefier side, whether it be in his breakout role of Eric Northman on “True Blood” or as the King of the Jungle himself, Tarzan. However, twenty-four-year-old Skarsgård was noticeably skinnier in “Zoolander,” at least compared to his male model roommates. It’s one of the funniest scenes in an already hysterical movie, as the roommates bicker and allow their heightened senses of self to warp their worldview. Thankfully they’re able to come together and lift Derek’s spirits over the one thing that’s always sure to do the trick. It’s just a shame they had to die in a freak, gasoline fight accident.
#2: Johnny Depp
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“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) Johnny Depp has made a career out of playing unrecognizably eccentric characters, be it Captain Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, or the Mad Hatter. However, his most unrecognizable role might be his first in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” due to how normal it is. He plays Glen Lantz, boyfriend of main character Nancy Thompson. Despite suffering from nightmares himself and discovering the bodies of two of his friends, he refuses to believe it’s the work of deceased serial killer Freddy Krueger. His doubt proves to be the death of him as he falls asleep on the job and pays the consequences, resulting in one of the bloodiest movie deaths ever. Who could have guessed the then-twenty-one-year-old Depp would have such a storied career? Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Charlize Theron / “That Thing You Do!” (1996) Even Back in 1996 She Was Breaking Hearts Jason Segel / “Can’t Hardly Wait” (1998) Before “How I Met Your Mother” and Pineapples, He Was the Watermelon Guy Seth Rogen / “Donnie Darko” (2001) Here He’s Playing a High School Bully Sandra Oh / “The Princess Diaries” (2001) The Future “Grey’s Anatomy” Star Shines Through as the Vice Principal Samuel L. Jackson / “Goodfellas” (1990) Even Before He Was Always Dying in Movies, He Was Dying in Movies
#1: Tom Hardy
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“Black Hawk Down” (2001) Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” is riddled with rising young talent, from the likes of Hugh Dancy to Orlando Bloom. But for our money the pre-fame role that always tickles our fancy is that of Tom Hardy as SPC Lance Twombly. It’s nice to see him in an action setting without the lower half of his face covered - as we’d become well acquainted with - though amusingly his word delivery is still very distinct. Between traversing the battle-scarred streets of Mogadishu and appearing in HBO’s World War II miniseries “Band of Brothers,” 2001 was quite the debut for the twenty-four-year-old Hardy playing a soldier in two esteemed war projects.
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