25 Photos Of Famous People Before They Became World-Renowned Celebrities

Robin Williams started studying political science, but realized that this field was not for him and dropped out to pursue acting. He studied theatre for three years at the College of Marin in California. One of the professors, James Dunn, said that he realized how talented Williams was when he was cast in the musical Oliver! as Fagin. When he attended Juilliard, during summers he worked as a busboy. After he graduated, he tended a bar, but managed to work his way up to making his first stand-up performance. Later he appeared in television and one of the shows was Mork & Mindy (1978-1982), which can be credited with making Williams famous.

Keanu Reeves was a successful ice hockey goalkeeper and he was considering becoming a professional ice hockey player, but he made up his mind to become an actor when he was 15. He made his acting debut in 1984 in an episode of the television series called Hangin' In. In the late 1980s, Reeves got some roles in dramas aimed at teen audiences. Reeves also wanted to give music a try and in 1991, he formed an alternative rock band called Dogstar, which was moderately successful and was active until the early 2000s. In 1991, he got a leading role in Point Break and in 1994 he starred in Speed, which established him as an action movie hero and he rose to stardom for playing Neo in the science fiction series The Matrix in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Morgan Freeman made a debut as an actor in a school play when he was 9 years old. He won a statewide drama competition when he was 12. While in high school, he performed in a radio show. He got a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, but he chose to enlist in the United States Air Force instead. After the service, Freeman worked as a transcript clerk at Los Angeles City College and also studied arts there. In addition to that, he worked as a dancer and started getting acting jobs. He became famous in the 1970s for his role in the children's television series The Electric Company.

In school, Joe Biden was class president and played basketball. He also briefly played football in college. When he graduated in 1968, Biden started working at a Wilmington law firm as a clerk. Later, he was admitted to the Delaware bar and practiced law. Joe Biden served in the United States Senate for 36 years from 1973 through 2009. He became a more familiar face not only in the US, but also in international politics in 2009 when he went on to serve as vice president of the United States with President Barack Obama.

Jim Carrey’s family struggled financially, so he and his brother John, teenagers at that time, would work as janitors and security guards at a tire factory. While working at the factory, Jim Carrey dropped out of school and started to perform comedy in downtown Toronto. He was steadily increasing his local Toronto-area popularity as an impressionist stand-up comic, going on a tour and appearing on television. The show that made him more popular and landed him the roles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and The Mask (1994), which skyrocketed his career, was In Living Color.

Susan Sarandon studied drama and, during her college years, supported herself by cutting hair, cleaning houses, and working as a switchboard operator. Not long after she graduated, Sarandon started her acting career in the drama film Joe. Then she appeared in several movies until she landed a part in the musical comedy horror film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). It was a cult favorite and later, her career really picked up the pace when she appeared in The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and Bull Durham (1988).

The moment Dinklage realised he really wanted to pursue a career in acting was in his teen years. In 1984, he saw the production of the play True West written by Sam Shepard and it inspired him so much that it determined the direction of his life. Dinklage went to Bennington College and studied drama there. But at the beginning of his career, Dinklage struggled. He had to work at a data processing company for six years to make ends meet. He wasn't getting any work as an actor partially because he refused roles where the focus of the character would be his achondroplasia. But his time to shine came with the 2003 movie The Station Agent, for which he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for best actor. And the role that made Dinklage's name known worldwide was of Tyrion Lannister in the fantasy drama Game of Thrones.

Tom Hanks decided he wanted to be an actor after reading Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and watching the performance. So he enrolled into the theatre programme at California State University. When he didn’t have to study, Tom Hanks played in the theatre and worked backstage. Eventually he dropped out and went to audition after audition until he started getting small roles. Those roles paved a path to getting a role in Ron Howard's Splash (1984). The movie was a success and after that, Tom Hanks became a recognizable face. But it was with Big (1984) that he became an established Hollywood star.