17 Celebs Who Had "Normal" Jobs Before They Got Famous
1.Sydney Sweeney briefly worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios. She previously explained that she worked a lot in order to help her family afford life in LA. “I watched my parents lose a lot. We filed for bankruptcy, and they lost their house back home on the lake. We couldn’t afford life in LA,” she said.
After several TikTok users claimed she was lying about ever working there, The Hollywood Reporter debunked that claim and found out she'd worked at Universal for about a month before booking an acting job. Because she was only there for such a short time, she attended an orientation shift and a training shift but there's no confirmation she ever led a tour with the general public.
2.Meghan Markle worked as a calligrapher before landing her big break on Suits and then marrying Prince Harry. From 2004–2005, she worked at a Paper Source in LA where she taught calligraphy classes. She even did some freelance calligraphy work on the side and wrote the invitations for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton's wedding.
3.Christopher Briney worked at Trader Joe's in NYC while he attended college at Pace University. "There's a good environment at Trader Joe's," he said. "Everyone's in a great mood." He even shared that his favorite Trader Joe's snack is the chili and lime rolled corn tortilla chips.
4.Tiffany Haddish worked as a member of the grounds staff for Alaska Airlines. “I would like to think of myself as one of the best customer service agents,” she said. “I worked at the gates and my goal was always to bring happiness and joy to people – still to this day.”
She added that whenever there was an announcement to make, she'd try to make it as exciting as possible. “We would have a flight delayed to Mexico or something, people have bad attitudes and stuff,” she explained. And when the flight would finally open, she'd yell: "'It’s time to go to Mexicoooooo!' and everyone would be like 'Yeah!'"
She also said that she'd get written up for making these kinds of announcements because "you’re not supposed to give announcements that incite the boarding area." And was moved to the baggage department.
5.Margot Robbie worked at a Subway and said she was "really good" at making sandwiches for customers. "I think I was really good at it though, because I, you know, would really spread everything out to the edges evenly — the right amount of everything," she explained.
However, she doesn't go to Subway much now that she doesn't work there anymore. "It kills me," she said. "Like, I actually don't go that often anymore, because I watch them make it badly — and I'm upset."
6.Tan France worked as a flight attendant back in the 2000s. He wrote in his memoir that the job was meant to last six months, but he quit after two. "The thirty-day training included some of the hardest moments of my life. It was very difficult, and many people failed," he wrote. "I felt like a glorified waiter."
7.Amy Poehler worked at a local ice cream shop in her hometown. "Hard and physical, the job consisted of stacking and wiping and scooping and lifting," she wrote about the experience. "I took great joy in watching people stroll in after hours, thinking they could grab a late-night sundae. I would point to the dimmed lights and stacked chairs as proof that we were shut. It was deliciously obvious and final."
8.Melissa McCarthy worked as a Starbucks barista in Santa Monica. "When I first moved [to LA] I didn't have a car, so I had jobs I could walk to. So I worked at the [YMCA] and I worked at Starbucks," she explained.
She added that she was totally starstruck when Chris Farley came in to order coffee one day. "At one point, I got so overwhelmed because he was right there, that I started crying," she said. "I was just standing there, making him his coffee, and I know I was just like, 'Stop locking on him!' I was so locked on him."
9.Eva Longoria worked at a Wendy's for six years before she became famous. "What we learned at Wendy's was mayonnaise goes on the bun first, to seal the bun, so the bun stays nice," she explained. "Then you put the ketchup. And [then] mustard goes on the meat, because it brings out the flavor of meat."
10.Adam Driver joined the Marine Corp when he was just 18 and served for two years before getting medically discharged after an injury to his sternum. "I found I loved the Marine Corps the most for the thing I was looking for the least when I joined, which was the people — a weird motley crew of characters from a cross section of the United States that on the surface I had nothing in common with," he said.
Around the time of his injury, his unit was slated to be deployed to Iraq but he had to stay back in the US. "I wanted to go so much. I mean, you were training to do this job for two years with these people," he said "The idea of not going, someone else going in your place or not being there, is not really an easy thing to sit with."
11.Whoopi Goldberg was a morgue beautician, meaning she "did hair and makeup on dead people." She previously went to beauty school and is a licensed beautician. "It's a rough gig," she explained. "You have to be a certain kind of person. And you have to love people in order to make them worthy of a great send-off."
12.Rachel McAdams worked at a McDonalds for "a good three years." Both her siblings worked there with her, too — her sister was even her manager. "It was a great place to work," she said. "I was not a great employee. I broke the orange juice machine one day."
13.Harry Styles worked at a bakery back in the UK. When he was on X Factor back in 2010 he explained that he used to serve the cakes to customers and that Viennese fancies were "always a favorite."
14.Terry Crews worked as a courtroom sketch artist. He explained that as a kid, he loved art and always thought that was a career he'd pursue. He revealed that back in 1987, he worked as the sketch artist for the "worst murder case in Flint, Michigan history." "What happened was the sketch artist for the courtroom was not able to come and they said, 'Terry, we need you to come in, we need you to do this,'" he explained. "And I went in and pinch hit it and I became their sketch artist! It was nuts!"
He explained that when he was a college freshman, his dad went to the local news station and told him Terry was a great painter and asked if they'd offer him a job. "Back in the day, this is before CGI, this is before any computer graphics," he said. "When they had an accident, you actually painted a cop car and a square behind the guy — all the news had graphics. So, if there was a murder, you drew the chalk line, and you show the little body, and you show the police lights. And I did that every night."
15.Steve Buscemi worked as a firefighter and even returned to the job after the 9/11 attacks. He first took the FDNY civil service test when he was just 18 years old and worked as a firefighter for five years before landing his big break.
When talked about returning to the service, he said, "It was a privilege to be able to do it. It was great to connect with the firehouse I used to work with and with some of the guys I worked alongside. And it was enormously helpful for me because while I was working, I didn't really think about it as much, feel it as much."
16.Lil Nas X worked as a ride attendant at Six Flags. One of the kids' rides he supervised was Yosemite Sam’s Wacky Wagons.
17.Finally, Matthew McConaughey was an armadillo exterminator for a country club. He explained that part of his job was also raking the sand traps in the golf course before the patrons came every morning to play.
"We had 77 sand traps, first group tees off at, like, 6:45 in the morning. Especially if they're gonna tee off in the back nine, I gotta have those traps rigged by 7:30. Work started at about 3 a.m.," he explained.