1.
Sydney Sweeney briefly worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios. She previously explained that she worked a lot in order to help her family afford life in LA. “I watched my parents lose a lot. We filed for bankruptcy, and they lost their house back home on the lake. We couldn’t afford life in LA,” she said.
2.
Meghan Markle worked as a calligrapher before landing her big break on Suits and then marrying Prince Harry. From 2004–2005, she worked at a Paper Source in LA where she taught calligraphy classes. She even did some freelance calligraphy work on the side and wrote the invitations for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton’s wedding.
4.
Tiffany Haddish worked as a member of the grounds staff for Alaska Airlines. “I would like to think of myself as one of the best customer service agents,” she said. “I worked at the gates and my goal was always to bring happiness and joy to people – still to this day.”
5.
Margot Robbie worked at a Subway and said she was “really good” at making sandwiches for customers. “I think I was really good at it though, because I, you know, would really spread everything out to the edges evenly — the right amount of everything,” she explained.
6.
Tan France worked as a flight attendant back in the 2000s. He wrote in his memoir that the job was meant to last six months, but he quit after two. “The thirty-day training included some of the hardest moments of my life. It was very difficult, and many people failed,” he wrote. “I felt like a glorified waiter.”
7.
Amy Poehler worked at a local ice cream shop in her hometown. “Hard and physical, the job consisted of stacking and wiping and scooping and lifting,” she wrote about the experience. “I took great joy in watching people stroll in after hours, thinking they could grab a late-night sundae. I would point to the dimmed lights and stacked chairs as proof that we were shut. It was deliciously obvious and final.”
8.
Melissa McCarthy worked as a Starbucks barista in Santa Monica. “When I first moved [to LA] I didn’t have a car, so I had jobs I could walk to. So I worked at the [YMCA] and I worked at Starbucks,” she explained.
9.
Eva Longoria worked at a Wendy’s for six years before she became famous. “What we learned at Wendy’s was mayonnaise goes on the bun first, to seal the bun, so the bun stays nice,” she explained. “Then you put the ketchup. And [then] mustard goes on the meat, because it brings out the flavor of meat.”
10.
Adam Driver joined the Marine Corp when he was just 18 and served for two years before getting medically discharged after an injury to his sternum. “I found I loved the Marine Corps the most for the thing I was looking for the least when I joined, which was the people — a weird motley crew of characters from a cross section of the United States that on the surface I had nothing in common with,” he said.
11.
Whoopi Goldberg was a morgue beautician, meaning she “did hair and makeup on dead people.” She previously went to beauty school and is a licensed beautician. “It’s a rough gig,” she explained. “You have to be a certain kind of person. And you have to love people in order to make them worthy of a great send-off.”
12.
Rachel McAdams worked at a McDonalds for “a good three years.” Both her siblings worked there with her, too — her sister was even her manager. “It was a great place to work,” she said. “I was not a great employee. I broke the orange juice machine one day.”
13.
Harry Styles worked at a bakery back in the UK. When he was on X Factor back in 2010 he explained that he used to serve the cakes to customers and that Viennese fancies were “always a favorite.”
14.
Terry Crews worked as a courtroom sketch artist. He explained that as a kid, he loved art and always thought that was a career he’d pursue. He revealed that back in 1987, he worked as the sketch artist for the “worst murder case in Flint, Michigan history.” “What happened was the sketch artist for the courtroom was not able to come and they said, ‘Terry, we need you to come in, we need you to do this,'” he explained. “And I went in and pinch hit it and I became their sketch artist! It was nuts!”
15.
Steve Buscemi worked as a firefighter and even returned to the job after the 9/11 attacks. He first took the FDNY civil service test when he was just 18 years old and worked as a firefighter for five years before landing his big break.
16.
Lil Nas X worked as a ride attendant at Six Flags. One of the kids’ rides he supervised was Yosemite Sam’s Wacky Wagons.
17.
Finally, Matthew McConaughey was an armadillo exterminator for a country club. He explained that part of his job was also raking the sand traps in the golf course before the patrons came every morning to play.
