1.
For her very first role, Rachel Zegler was cast as MarÃa in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 adaptation of West Side Story. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her performance.
After beating out 30,000 actors, she told BuzzFeed, “The process was extremely long and very stressful. I auditioned for about two and a half weeks shy of a year, which is not very common in things like this.” When asked about her reaction to getting the part, she said, “I screamed a curse word. And then I told Steven that it had been the longest year of my life. He apologized to me and gave me a huge hug.”
He was initially reluctant to even audition for the lead role of Nick Young considering he had so little acting experience. On The View, he recalled, “They were like, ‘Oh, do you want to audition for this role? It’s going to be a big movie.’ I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard of it. It’s going to be fantastic, but it’s for someone else, someone else who is going to bring the A-game, who’s a legitimate actor, who the studio’s going to gamble on. Because it’s such a big deal.'”
3.
Victoria Pedretti only appeared in two short films in college before landing The Haunting of Hill House.
The show was released in 2018, just a year after she graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburg with an BFA in acting. During an interview with Collider, she recalled her first role, saying, “It was really an environment that was conducive to real creativity, and I’m forever grateful… It was a really special way to start off my career.”
4.
Lupita Nyong’o appeared in only a couple of episodes of a Kenyan TV show and a short film before 12 Years a Slave. For her performance, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She landed the role of Patsey right after she graduated from Yale School of Drama. During an interview with Vanity Fair, she said, “It was very difficult to be Patsey, and it was very difficult to leave her alone at the end of the day… But it was a privilege to be in that place of grief; it was hard, but I just felt so privileged to do it because, at the end of the day, my discomfort and my unease were temporary, and hers was not.”
5.
Camila Mendes’s first role was Veronica Lodge in Riverdale.
She auditioned for the show weeks before her graduation from NYU. “Some teachers were really cool about it, and some teachers… weren’t,” she said during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “The goal is for me to be able to pay my loans. I was frustrated that they would get mad when someone’s trying to pursue the career that you’re teaching us.”
6.
After competing in American Idol, Jennifer Hudson was cast as Effie White in Dreamgirls. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
She told Entertainment Weekly that she didn’t even know what a screen test was before this audition. “All of it was just a whole new experience for me,” she recalled. “I felt as if I’m good because no one’s looking for me. You got all these megastars in it from Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jamie Foxx — no one’s thinking about me. So I was able to do my work without having any pressure.”
7.
After high school, Hunter Schafer enjoyed a successful modeling career before she was cast as Jules in Euphoria.
During an interview with V Magazine, she talked about some similarities between her and the character she played. “I know she has dreams, [many of] which she stated in the first episode. Which is just what I did in a way: escaping to New York, and working or interning in fashion…And that was [part of the character] before I was even cast, so it was really freaky to see that written into the script.”
8.
Kunal Nayyar had only played a pizza man in a movie before portraying Raj Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory.
After the announcement of the final season, he told Entertainment Tonight how the role impacted him. “Twelve years ago, I was like, ‘Oh my god! I have a job!’ And now, [I’m] in a position where I’ve been able to change people’s lives for the better and make people laugh in a world that is so polarized. [Having the opportunity] to inspire kids to study science, to become astrophysicists and to help people who are sick, whose last wish was to come and spend time with the cast, those things are all the things that I’m going to hold onto really.”
9.
Gabourey Sidibe made her acting debut in Precious. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actress.
During an interview with NPR, she recalled connecting with the human side of the character despite having very different upbringings. “The thing about Precious is she’s hiding…. And there’s a lot of pain there. And I think that is the most human part of that character. And that’s the most human part of me and the most human part of you and of everyone. We all can identify pain because we know pain. And so all I did was I channeled my own pain.”
10.
Alexis Bledel was only an uncredited extra in a movie before she made her television debut in Gilmore Girls.
On an episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, she shared that her sass helped her win the part after growing frustrated with the drawn-out auditions. “I didn’t know the process,” she recalled. “I grew a tad bit impatient. I had a little attitude, and our boss really liked that a lot. She was like, ‘That’s our girl!’ I was like, ‘Are you guys going to bring me back again…?’ and she was like, ‘I like that, that’s perfect.'”
11.
Barkhad Abdi’s first role was playing Abduwali Muse in Captain Phillips. He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.
During an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, he recalled asking the casting director how he could make acting his career. “She asked me how many Black actors I see in movies each year, and I said, ‘Not that many.’ She then said, ‘Whatever you do in this movie will determine whether you’re going to keep acting or not.’ That was a huge motivator for me and gave me the confidence to really push the battle to the floor and do my best to nail the part.”
12.
After years as a TV host, Jameela Jamil made her acting debut in The Good Place.
During an interview with CNBC Make It, she admitted that she lied to land the role. “I also told the casting director that I had acting experience, which was a lie. I told her I’d been onstage, but I was talking about my school days.” When asked if she had experience with improv, she lied again. “I was like, ‘I love Improv! Did loads of that on the theater in England!'”
13.
And finally, Harry Styles was a global pop star before his role in Dunkirk.
During an interview with This Morning, he was asked who was scarier between Christopher Nolan and Simon Cowell. He said, “I think Chris in that he doesn’t say anything. Like at all. He just sits in the darkness in the back of the room… It’s so intense because you do the audition and go home and obsess over whether people liked you or not.”
Any other celebs who landed a leading role for their first acting gig? LMK in the comments below!