Hollywood is hard, just ask the stars themselves. Before getting their big break in TV shows and movies, Millie Bobby Brown, Katherine Langford, Noah Centineo, Kristen Stewart, Emma Watson, Robert Pattinson and more almost quit the entertainment industry.
“I was just very disheartened by the rejection, which is something I tell everyone,” Millie said during an October 2020 interview on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. The young star went on to tell host Jimmy Fallon that two months before finding out she nabbed the role of Eleven on Stranger Things, she almost quit acting for good.
While reflecting on their amazing careers, these stars, just like Millie, remembered a time when they almost said goodbye to the entertainment industry forever.
If it wasn’t for her role on 13 Reasons Why, Katherine, for one, would have returned to her native Australia and said goodbye to Los Angeles.
“One of the biggest lessons I think I’ve ever had was when I got into drama school after three years of auditioning. I was asked to test for two projects in the US and the UK. So I turned down drama school to do them and was rejected from both,” she told Glamour U.K. in July 2020. “I came back to Australia not being able to go to school, without a job and had to call all my bar jobs back. It was that moment where I was just at rock bottom. I didn’t know what I was going to do, if I was meant to do this or if it was even possible.”
The actress continued, “I kept auditioning and it was a couple of weeks after that that my first project, which turned out to be 13 Reasons Why, came through. That for me was a huge turning point. I had to harness a lot of strength to keep doing it. I nearly quit. I think I nearly wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t kept going. I’m very grateful and thankful that it all worked out and young Katherine kept doing her thing.”
As it turns out, most of them have similar stories, and all it took was one big role to keep their passion alive. Scroll through our gallery to uncover all the actors who almost quit acting before getting famous.
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