There is certainly a lot of privilege in Hollywood. Age, looks, and who you know can all play a big role in who gets cast in what. But not all stars started out rich with connections and legs up in the industry. In fact, these 15 celebrities were basically broke before they hit it big. Some of them had literal pennies in their bank accounts or experienced homelessness and had to live in shelters or in their cars.
Performing isn't a guaranteed career by any means, even for the most talented people. It can take years of hard work to find success in music, film, TV, or comedy — and many people consider leaving or giving up entirely. But thankfully, these stars stuck it out through the hard times, and now they're all worth hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars.
Quite the financial glow-up, huh?
The Rock
As his new show Young Rock explores, Dwayne Johnson's life was not always action movies and big bucks. In fact, he once only had $7 to his name after getting cut from the Canadian Football League. He later named his production company Seven Bucks Productions as a reminder of how far he's come from that moment.
Kelly Clarkson
The singer rarely had any money to her name before she made it big on American Idol, and when her apartment burned down, she was forced to briefly live in her car. Even now that she's famous, she's never lost that hardworking drive she once needed to survive.
"I did anything that paid," Kelly told CNBC about her early career. "I made any job work. … Even now, when people are like, 'I can't find a job,' I'm like, 'Well, then, you're not looking.' Because if you're hungry enough and you want electricity, you'll work anywhere, and so I did."
Matt LeBlanc
Friends was a major breakout moment for Matt LeBlanc. Prior to getting cast on the hit show, he only had $11 in his bank account. He even had to skip a trip to the dentist to file down a tooth because it was $80. Instead, he said he filed it down himself with drugstore emery boards. That's a very Joey move, to be honest.
Chrissy Metz
Before she was cast on the hit show This Is Us, Chrissy had just 81 cents in her bank account. Now she said she's fortunate to be thriving financially while working in her dream career.
"I don't have to lie and say, 'Oh I can't go to dinner tonight because I'm not feeling well,' because now I can pay for dinner or I can take friends out. And that's really important to me," she told CNBC.
Richard Madden
Game of Thrones turned Richard Madden into a star, but he almost didn't make it as an actor. "I was on my last month's rent," he told Jimmy Fallon of the time right before HBO cast him. "I asked my agent for an advance and that helped me get through the next little bit."
That next little bit ended up including his role on GoT.
Jennifer Lopez
Early in her career, J.Lo found herself homeless after she decided against going to college. "I wanted to try dance full-time,” she said.
In order to do that, she had to sleep on a couch at her dance studio, but her hard work eventually paid off and she landed her breakout role on In Living Color in 1991.
Steve Harvey
As a stand-up comedian, Steve Harvey often had to live out of his car when his gigs didn't offer lodging. It took him three years to get a stable living space.
After this "rock bottom," as he's called it, he turned to his faith to get him through — and he's made it to the other side in a big way. Now he's the host of practically everything.
Mila Kunis
According to Today, Mila moved to the United States as a child after being born in Ukraine. She never had it easy and has described eating "ketchup soup" while growing up.
When she landed her role on That '70s Show at age 14, things started to turn around for her. But she's since said that she plans to raise her kids to understand their privilege — the kind she didn't grow up with herself.
Daniel Craig
The star synonymous with James Bond is now worth a reported $160 million, but it didn't start out that way. The Independent reported that Daniel had to sometimes sleep on park benches early in his career as an aspiring theater actor. At the time, he simply had nowhere else to go. He's certainly come quite a long way since.
Halle Berry
Halle is now an Academy Award-winning actress with a reported net worth of $90 million. But when she was 21, she was living in a homeless shelter.
"I called my mother and I asked her to send me some money and she said no," Halle recalled. "And I had to work it out. You say I can't? Watch me. I'm going to figure this out. And shelter life was part of figuring it out for a minute."
Sylvester Stallone
Earlier this year, Sylvester Stallone posted a throwback photo of himself from a tougher time. "This is exactly what an unemployed, going nowhere fast, 22-year-old actor/writer living in a $71 a month apartment looks like," he captioned the pic. "There's always a way out if you want to get out. There's always a way up if you want to REALLY go up."
Hilary Swank
After Hilary Swank's parents broke up, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles to help Hilary pursue her love of acting. But before she had her big break, she had to live in her car for a while. Even after starring in Boys Don't Cry, she admitted that she didn't have health insurance for a long time.
Annie Murphy
Schitt's Creek has propelled Annie Murphy's career to new heights, something she may never have even imagined when she had just $3 to her name prior to booking the show. She almost quit acting entirely before that fateful phone call. Imagine if we just didn't have Annie's iconic rendition of "A Little Bit Alexis." It would be a true tragedy.
Sarah Jessica Parker
It's hard to imagine the Sex and the City star as poor, but her family experienced tremendous hardship when she was a child. "We were on welfare," she told the New York Times. "We didn't have electricity sometimes. We didn't have Christmases sometimes, or we didn't have birthdays sometimes, or the bill collectors came, or the phone company would call and say, 'We're shutting your phones off.'"
Now, Sarah Jessica is worth around $150 million.
Kat Graham
Vampire Diaries star Kat Graham had just 86 cents when she landed her role on the supernatural show. But even that didn't provide enough security for her. "I thought I was gonna get killed off, so I wanted to save my money," she said, according to the Huffington Post. "So I stayed in a place that was $500 a month."
