Do you know that there are actors that didn’t go to acting school? Yes, it’s true. Some actors became the best due to their skill and passion for acting.
Thus, this article will explain the top actors that didn’t go to acting school but are doing extremely well in the business of acting.
Actors that didn’t go to Acting school
Tom Cruise:
Tom is the sole child of Mary Lee (Pfeiffer) and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, both special education teachers. His ancestors are German, Irish, and English. By the age of 14, Tom had attended 15 different schools in the US and Canada.
A year later, he moved to Glen Ridge, NJ, to be with his mother and her Tom aspired to be a priest in high school, but he acquired an interest in acting and left out of school at the age of 18.
His following 15 years are legendary. As one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school, beginning with a modest role in Endless Love (1981), he quickly established a strong appeal to both male and female audiences.
Mel Gibson:
Columcille Gerard Gibson was the sixth of eleven children born to Hutton and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson in Peekskill, New York (who died in December of 1990). His mother was from County Longford, while his father is largely Irish.
On Mel’s paternal grandmother’s side, the contralto opera soprano Eva Mylott, Mel, and his family relocated to Australia in the late 1960s.
Mel attended the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he shared a stage with future cinema stars Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.
Mel did some theater work and TV work after graduation. He was cast in the films Mad Max (1979) and Tim (1979) with Piper Laurie.
Tim earned an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor for his role in the low-budget Mad Max (equivalent to the Oscar).
Later, he starred in Gallipoli (1981), for which he received another AFI Award for Best Actor. He married Robyn Moore in 1980 and had 7 kids. Mel debuted in America in 1984’s The Bounty, with Anthony Hopkins.
Mel then starred in his hallmark series, Lethal Weapon (1987), as “Martin Riggs”. In 1990, he starred in the critically acclaimed film Hamlet. He also directed Forever Young (1992) and The Man Without a Face (1993). (1993).
Braveheart (1995), for which he won two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, cemented his fame as “Sir William Wallace.”
Mel Gibson is one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
Evangeline Lilly:
Evangeline Lilly, born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, was discovered by the famous Ford modeling agency in Kelowna, British Columbia.
Despite deciding on a modeling career, she signed with Ford to help pay for her University of British Columbia tuition. Her university’s global development and human rights committee.
Volunteering with children’s initiatives since she was 14 in the Philippines’ jungles in a grass hut with a missionary group. For money for education, she did advertisements and extra labor on film sets before starring in Lost (2004).
Her father is a Canadian home economist. Mom was a cosmetician and operated a daycare before becoming a middle school secretary. She studied international relations at UBC. Her portrayal as Kate Austen on Lost halted her studies (2004).
She is one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
Nicholas Hoult:
Nicholas Caradoc Hoult was born on December 7, 1989, in Wokingham, Berkshire, England. Glenis Hoult teaches piano and Roger Hoult is a pilot. He has two sisters and one brother.
His great-aunt was Dame Anna Neagle, a prominent actress at the time. He studied acting at the Sylvia Young Theatre School.
In About a Boy (2002), he co-starred with Hugh Grant as Marcus Brewer. In 2005, he starred in The Weather Man as Nicolas Cage’s son.
At 17, he was cast as Tony Stonem in the BAFTA-winning British teen drama Skins (2007). After being found by filmmaker Tom Ford, he played Kenny Potter in the Oscar-nominated picture A Single Man (2009).
Nicholas Hoult is one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
Read more: Top 10 Best Acting Schools in the World | 2022
Jennifer Lawrence:
As one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school, Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 15, 1990, to Karen (Koch) and Gary Lawrence, both construction workers. Her ancestors are English, German, Irish, and Scottish.
Her career began when she was fourteen and dropped out of 8th grade. Agents told her stage mother she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan after her first cold read.
An agent saw Jennifer shooting an H&M ad after she left the agency and asked to take her picture. The next day, the agent called and invited her to a cold-read audition.
Again, the agents were blown away and urged her mother to let her spend the summer in NYC. As fate would have it, she did and went on to star in commercials like MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16” and the film The Devil You Know (2013).
Her career took her and her family to Los Angeles, where she appeared in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007) and in films like The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2010).
Matthew McConaughey:
McConaughey grew up in Uvalde, Texas. Mary Kathleen (McCabe) is from NJ. McConaughey’s father owned a gas station and supplied oil pipes. English-Irish-Scottish origins Matthew grew up in Longview, Texas, and (1988).
Matthew, disillusioned with his father’s oil company, spent a year in Australia washing dishes and digging manure. Returning to America, he studied law at UT Austin. The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino inspired him to change his major from law to film.
He began acting in Texas student films and commercials in 1991 and directed Chicano Chariots (1992). Don Phillips, the casting director, and producer, introduced him to Richard Linklater in his Austin hotel bar.
Linklater cast Matthew in Dazed and Confused in 1993 after he grew out his hair and mustache. Linklater asked him to improvise his character’s three scenes. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation co-starred Renée Zellweger (1994).
Later in 1996, Matthew appeared in two high-profile films with Sandra Bullock and Kevin Spacey, Lone Star (1996) as a murder suspect sheriff, and A Time to Kill (1996) as an idealistic young lawyer.
Matthew McConaughey is one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
Channing Tatum:
Channing Tatum grew up in Cullman, Alabama, 50 miles north of Birmingham. He is the son of Kay (Faust) and Glenn Matthew Tatum, both construction workers. His parents chose to put him in activities including track and field, baseball, soccer, and football to keep him out of trouble as a child.
He went to Catholic school in ninth grade. There he realized his love for football and his desire to acquire an athletic college scholarship. In his senior year of high school, Channing was recruited and earned a full athletic college scholarship to a West Virginia school.
Tatum has acquired belts in Kung Fu and Gor-Chor Kung Fu, two forms of martial arts. Channing dropped out of college and worked as a carpenter, stripper, mortgage broker, and salesman.
The model has been in ads for American Eagle, Pepsi, and some highly popular Mountain Dew commercials.
More so, he is regarded as one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
Read more: Top 10 Best Acting Schools in Nigeria | 2022
Marilyn Monroe:
Marilyn Monroe was a model and actress. Her winsome personification of the Hollywood sex icon and her terrible personal and career struggles are well known. Her death and life are still questioned.
Norma Jeane Mortenson was born on June 1, 1926. Gladys Pearl Baker worked at CFI. Marilyn’s father was unknown. The fact that Gladys was emotionally and financially unable to care for Marilyn Gladys re-adopted Marilyn when she was 7 years old.
When Gladys lost custody of Marilyn, she became a paranoid schizophrenic and was institutionalized. Gladys spent the rest of her life in hospitals, never seeing Marilyn. Marilyn, an adult movie star, engaged Inez Melson to monitor Gladys’ progress.
Gladys’ best friend Grace Goddard adopted Marilyn and placed her in the Los Angeles Orphan’s Home in 1935. Even though the Orphanage was a decent place to live, Marilyn was scarred.
Marilyn went back to Grace Goddard in 1937, but Grace’s husband started pestering Marilyn. Marilyn then moved in with Grace’s ailing aunt Ana.
Johnny Depp:
Johnny Depp is one of today’s most versatile actors and one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
John Christopher Depp II was born June 9, 1963, in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue (Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer.
Depp is a Floridian. He got out of school at 15 and fronted several garage bands, including ‘The Kids’. A ballpoint pen salesperson by trade, he married Lori Anne Allison (Lori A. Depp).
Depp’s film debut came in the low-budget horror picture A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) when he played a youngster who falls victim to dream-stalking demon Freddy Krueger.
In the hit TV series 21 Jump Street, he played undercover detective Tommy Hanson, replacing Jeff Yagher (1987).
Depp’s first of a few excellent collaborations with director Tim Burton came in 1990’s Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following the film’s popularity, Depp established himself as a serious, dark, distinctive actor, choosing roles that startled both reviewers and audiences.
He continued to earn recognition and critical praise by appearing in many films before reuniting with Burton as Ed Wood (1994).
He starred in Donnie Brasco (1997) with Al Pacino, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) with Terry Gilliam, and The Astronaut’s Wife (1999) with Tom Cruise (1999). In Sleepy Hollow (1999), he reprised his role as Ichabod Crane, opposite Burton.
Depp is one of the actors that didn’t go to acting school.
Henry Cavill:
Cavill was born in Jersey, a British Crown territory in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne (Dalgliesh), is of Irish, Scottish, and English descent. Henry’s father, Colin Richard Cavill, is English (born in Chester, England).
Henry is the second son out of four. He attended St. Michael’s Preparatory School in Saint Saviour, Jersey, before moving to England’s Stowe School.
Early school plays include Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Sonny LaTierri in “Grease.” He also directed and appeared in the BBC documentary “40 Minutes” as Hamlet.
Casting directors looking for a young boy to play Albert Mondego in The Count of Monte Cristo discovered Henry at the age of 17. (2002). He went on to star in Vendetta (2001), The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2001), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002), and Midsomer Murders (2001). (1997).
As a 20-year-old, Henry acquired stardom in I Capture the Castle, Hellraiser: Hellworld, and Tristan + Isolde (2006). He also appeared in Stardust (2007) with Sienna Miller and Ben Barnes.
Henry starred in The Tudors (2007) as Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk from 2007 through 2010. The series was a hit, earning a Golden Globe nomination in 2007 and an Emmy in 2008. “Most Dashing Duke” according to EW.
Conclusion:
Many performers will tell you that in order to thrive in Hollywood, you must take acting classes or enroll in an acting school.
Acting is unlike any other profession. Is it true that taking acting classes improves your chances of earning a part? Perhaps, but a number of A-list actors never attended acting school.
You might be surprised to learn that your favorite celebrity skipped class and headed straight to set.
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