Before becoming household names, many Hollywood A-listers had to start with tiny roles that most viewers probably never noticed. Some appeared briefly in TV shows or movies, while others played minor characters long before landing the roles that made them famous. Here are 30 Hollywood A-listers’ first small roles.
Harrison Ford (Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round)
Ford’s first credited movie role came in this 1966 crime comedy, where he played a bellhop. He was still years away from Star Wars, and the part was small enough that few people would have guessed the future Han Solo was hiding in the cast.
Brad Pitt (Less Than Zero)
Pitt’s earliest movie work included tiny, uncredited appearances in No Way Out, No Man’s Land and Less Than Zero in 1987. In Less Than Zero, he’s essentially a face in the crowd at a party, just a few years before Thelma & Louise made him famous.
George Clooney (Centennial)
Clooney’s first screen appearance was as an extra in the 1978 miniseries Centennial. It was filmed partly around his hometown in Kentucky, making his first Hollywood job surprisingly close to home.
Leonardo DiCaprio (Roseanne)
Before Critters 3 and Growing Pains, a teenage DiCaprio popped up on Roseanne in 1991. It was the kind of blink-and-you-miss-it television appearance that looks almost surreal now that he’s one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Bruce Willis (The Verdict)
Willis had a completely unglamorous movie debut in The Verdict. He appears as an uncredited courtroom spectator during Paul Newman’s climactic courtroom speech, making it particularly easy to miss him.
Samuel L. Jackson (Coming to America)
Jackson had already done stage work before his film career really got moving, but one of his earliest recognizable movie appearances was as an armed robber who storms McDowell’s restaurant in Coming to America. He gets only a few minutes, but his future intensity is already there.
Tom Hanks (He Knows You’re Alone)
Hanks made his movie debut in this 1980 slasher as Elliot, a college student who gives the protagonist some advice. It’s a tiny early performance that looks especially strange in hindsight considering what Hanks would become.
Matt Damon (Mystic Pizza)
Damon was only 17 when he appeared briefly in Mystic Pizza. He played Steamer, the younger brother of Julia Roberts’ character’s love interest, in what amounted to a tiny stepping stone before School Ties and Good Will Hunting.
Ben Affleck (Field of Dreams)
Affleck had already been acting as a kid, but one of his earliest movie appearances was as an uncredited spectator in Field of Dreams. He was sharing the screen with Matt Damon before either of them had become remotely famous.
Renée Zellweger (Dazed and Confused)
Zellweger is barely in Dazed and Confused. She appears briefly as one of the high school students and doesn’t even have any lines, making her early appearance particularly easy to overlook.
Amy Adams (Drop Dead Gorgeous)
Adams’ first movie role was in the 1999 beauty-pageant comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. She played Leslie Miller, one of the contestants, years before Catch Me If You Can and Junebug finally put her on Hollywood’s radar.
Keira Knightley (The Phantom Menace)
Knightley was just 12 when she played Sabé, Queen Amidala’s decoy, in The Phantom Menace. She was deliberately made to resemble Natalie Portman so closely that even some viewers didn’t realize they were looking at two different actresses.
Natalie Portman (Heat)
Portman had already made her film debut in Léon before appearing in Michael Mann’s Heat. Her small role as Al Pacino’s troubled stepdaughter gave her scenes opposite one of Hollywood’s biggest stars while she was still a child.
Chris Evans (The Fugitive)
Evans’ early screen work included tiny roles in low-budget movies before he appeared on The Fugitive. In the episode “Guilt,” he played the son of a small-town sheriff who gets angry after Tim Daly’s character refuses to sell him alcohol.
Chris Pratt (Wanted)
Pratt’s actual acting debut was the obscure horror short Cursed Part 3, but his first noticeable Hollywood movie role came years later in Wanted. He played Barry, James McAvoy’s obnoxious co-worker and cheating best friend.
Scarlett Johansson (North)
Johansson made her movie debut at just nine years old in North. Her part was small, but it put her in a cast that included Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis and John Ritter long before Lost in Translation turned her into a star.
Jennifer Lawrence (Garden Party)
Lawrence’s movie debut was a tiny part in the little-seen indie Garden Party. She played Tiff, one of several teenagers in the ensemble, and had only a few minutes of screen time.
Charlize Theron (Children of the Corn III)
Theron’s first movie role was almost comically tiny. She appeared uncredited in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest and reportedly had only about three seconds of screen time before getting her first speaking role in 2 Days in the Valley.
Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Molina’s first credited acting role was Satipo, Indiana Jones’ guide in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He gets more to do than a typical cameo, but the character’s career is spectacularly short once he betrays Indy.
Daniel Day-Lewis (Sunday Bloody Sunday)
Day-Lewis was only 14 when he appeared in Sunday Bloody Sunday. He has no major role in the movie and shows up briefly as a troublesome boy vandalizing parked cars.
Joe Pesci (Hey, Let’s Twist!)
Pesci’s first film appearance came way back in 1961, when he was an uncredited dancer in the documentary-style musical Hey, Let’s Twist! He then spent roughly 15 years away from movies before returning in The Death Collector.
Viola Davis (The Substance of Fire)
Before becoming an Oscar winner, Davis was doing extremely small jobs wherever she could get them. One of her earliest screen appearances was as an extra in The Substance of Fire, followed by small television work including NYPD Blue.
Meryl Streep (Julia)
Streep’s first movie was the 1977 drama Julia. Her role as Anne Marie was small, but she was already working alongside Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave before becoming the most Oscar-nominated actress in history.
Robert Downey Jr. (Pound)
Downey’s first screen appearance came when he was just five years old. He appeared in his father Robert Downey Sr.’s 1970 underground comedy Pound, which is about dogs in an animal shelter played by human actors.
Al Pacino (Me, Natalie)
Pacino had already been working in theater when he began getting tiny screen parts. One of his earliest film appearances was Me, Natalie, where he had a small supporting role before The Godfather turned him into a superstar.
Denzel Washington (Carbon Copy)
Washington’s first feature-film role came in Carbon Copy, a comedy starring George Segal. He played Roger Porter, a relatively small part that arrived before his major television breakthrough on St. Elsewhere.
Angelina Jolie (Lookin’ to Get Out)
Jolie made her first movie appearance as a child in Lookin’ to Get Out, which starred her father, Jon Voight. She was only seven when she appeared in the film, decades before she became an Oscar winner herself.
Ryan Reynolds (Ordinary Magic)
Reynolds’ first movie was the 1993 Canadian family drama Ordinary Magic. He was only 17 and played a teenager trying to help save his family’s home, long before his wisecracking Deadpool persona existed.
John Leguizamo (Mixed Blood)
Leguizamo’s first film appearance was a small part in the 1984 crime drama Mixed Blood. He followed it with minor roles in movies including Casualties of War and Die Hard 2 before finally breaking out as a leading performer.
Jennifer Aniston (Mac and Me)
Before Friends, Aniston had an uncredited bit part in the famously bizarre 1988 movie Mac and Me. She was still years away from her first regular TV role and even further away from becoming Rachel Green.
