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Life before fame: Odd jobs that stars like Harry Styles and Christopher Walken used to do before their careers kicked-started
Some of our most beloved celebrities of all time started their career from absolutely nothing. From picking up odd shifts at the neighbourhood restaurant to working as a lion tamer, many of these big names in the entertainment industry started from a completely different route. From Harry Styles to Christopher Walken, here is a list of some of the oddest career paths celebs have ventured into before they found their calling.
Harry Styles
Before finding his success on ‘X-Factor’ with One Direction, the singer used to work in a bakery in his hometown. The W. Mandeville Bakery, located in Cheshire, England, used to be his former place of work before he started taking singing seriously. While he has left his days as a baker far behind him, the bakery continues to thrive to date. Not only that, but because of Styles, it has also become quite a popular tourist spot for One Direction fans to drop by now and then.
Amy Poehler
Before Poehler found her success on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’, she used to spend her summers in Massachusetts scooping ice cream! During her days as a school student, the actress once worked at a restaurant where she was in charge of scooping and serving ice cream to the customers. In 2013, in an essay that she had published with The New Yorker, Poehler recounted her days at the summer job and how hard it all was. She added, “Summer jobs are often romantic; the time frame creates a perfect parenthesis. Chadwick’s was not. Hard and physical, the job consisted of stacking and wiping and scooping and lifting. At the end of my shift, every removable piece of the restaurant would be carted off and washed.”
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey, best known for his work on ‘Ghosts Of Girlfriend’s Past’, ‘How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days’, ‘Dazed And Confused’, and ‘Interstellar’, once used to work at a golf course. While living in Texas during his younger years, the actor used to be employed at a golf course where he was in charge of raking all of the sand pits that were located on the premises. In 2014, during a GQ interview, he remembered what the job was like and shared, “We had 77 sand traps. First group tees off at like 6:45 in the morning … I’ve got to have those traps raked by 7:30. Work started at about 3 a.m. I’d be out there with a headlamp.”
Cardi B
The Grammy-winning rapper once used to work in a small market area in Tribeca! Before landing one chart-topping hit after another, Cardi B used to be employed at the Amish Market in the New York City neighbourhood. At the time, she was also studying in community college and had to balance various aspects of her life. While talking to The Fader in 2016, she opened up about working in the market and shared, “I was working all week [at the market], and I still was making only, like, 250.”
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken perhaps had one of the most unique and ‘out there’ jobs before he made it as an actor. When he was only 16 years old, he was in charge of caring for and training a lion named Sheba for a circus. While working as a lion tamer, Walken shared during an interview with The Guardian that he had a great experience doing that. Recalling his days as a teenager working in a circus, he shared, “I would come into the cage and wave my whip, and she’d lazily get up and sit like a dog and maybe give a little roar. I like cats a lot. I’ve always liked cats. They’re great company.”
Megan Fox
While talking to Bang Media in an old interview, the actress had shared that during her early years, when she was a mere 15-year-old, she used to work as a mascot for a restaurant. She revealed that she used to put on a life-size banana costume for her job at a tropical smoothie cafe in Florida. She shared, “I would have to go out in the street wearing a gigantic banana costume and dance to try to get customers to come in. There was no anonymity; the costume had a big hole cut out so that everyone would see your face. My friends from school would drive back and forth and yell.”
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Underwood, before her success from ‘American Idol’, worked two jobs to make ends meet. When she was younger, Underwood recalled that while working at a gas station, she also ended up accepting a role with a “creepy” hotel. While featuring as a guest on ‘SiriusXM’s The Highway’, the singer shared that the space was extremely unsettling and compared it to the eerie hotel from ‘The Shining’. She added during her interview that, “My second day there, the girl that was training me just didn’t come in. She was like, ‘Forget this, I’m out of here.’ So I was in charge on my second day, and I didn’t know how to work anything or do anything.”
