9 Actors Who Were Plucked Right Off the Street

How do you convince a casting director that you’re perfect for a beer-drinking smooth talker in Dazed and Confused? Get drunk with them, get kicked out of a hotel bar and then convince the manager to apologize to you.

A daily annoyance turned into probably the most important moment of Charlize Theron’s life. How about this for a sentence that won’t make sense to anyone under 30: Theron was begging the teller at the bank to cash an out-of-state check, when a talent agent gave her a business card.

There’s a reason Danny Trejo looks like he’s seen some shit: he has. Trejo never planned to be an actor, and only ended up on set because he was a youth drug counselor and someone had called him to come help them avoid doing the cocaine that was apparently very available. Trejo was also not only an ex-convict but a prison boxing champion, which led to a fellow ex-convict on set to recognize him. In a remarkable bit of luck, there was a scene in the movie that required the star to box… in prison. 

Why audition actors when you’ve got a guy standing around who actually did it? Trejo got the part, and trained the star on how to box.

Ke Huy Quan kinda, sorta stole his iconic role in Indiana Jones from his own brother. His brother was auditioning for Short Round, but had to bring a young Ke Huy Quan along. When Quan started giving his brother notes during his audition, the casting director decided they were watching the wrong kid.

Norman Reedus plays a very particular sort of character, and it’s not far from his natural disposition. After he was fired from his job at a motorcycle shop, he got drunk at a party and started jawing off at anyone in earshot. Not polite, but apparently entertaining enough for another partygoer to cast him in a play. Reedus was the understudy, but the actor missed the first show and the Boondock Saint’s fate to one day grace the wall of every college dorm room in the country was sealed.

In pretty much the only way this story ever ends well, a drunk Charlie Hunnam was shoe shopping on Christmas and noticed an older woman staring at him. He decided, in any other situation inadvisably, to blow her a kiss. She turned out to be the production manager on Byker Grove, a teen drama shot in the area, and Hunnam landed a role.

I didn’t say this was a list of good people, okay? Mel Gibson went to an audition for Mad Max, but it wasn’t his — he tagged along with a friend, and happened to have a beat-up face from a bar fight the night before. Which, for Mad Max, is like coming in full makeup. Only way it could have been better is if he showed up in a car with a giant claw on it.

Now, you might be arguing, Terry Crews was an NFL player before he started acting. That’s true, but Crews was out of the NFL at the time and working security for movie sets, including on Training Day. The director noticed Crews and likely his physique, asked him if he wanted to be in the movie, and told him to take his shirt off and get on camera as an extra. Sharing his first scene with Denzel Washington was just a bonus.

For a last entry, let’s look at a bit of casting that’s not nearly as out-of-nowhere as people claim. Maybe the most iconic “guy off the street” casting story is Harrison Ford’s casting as Han Solo. While he was working as a carpenter, the fact is Ford had not only already been in movies, he’d already been in one of George Lucas’ movies: American Graffiti. The reason Lucas didn’t want him at first was because he didn’t want repeat casting. Not to mention their “random” meeting was all a set up by his friend, Hollywood casting director Fred Roos.