# Which celebrity surprised you the most by becoming an ENORMOUS star? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649 "2008-03-17T13:40:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/21 "2008-03-17T18:32:51Z")
Adam Sandler. The human equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/22 "2008-03-17T18:36:16Z")
**Adam Sandler**. The guy did bits on “Remote Control” that barely registered on the humor meter, somehow got onto “Saturday Night Live,” and then became a huge star. And I keep asking myself why? how? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/23 "2008-03-17T18:44:55Z")
Damn, **Roadfood** beat me. Well, okay, how about **Stevie Ray Vaughn**. This doesn’t fall under the same category as Adam Sandler, seeing as how SRV actually had talent. I used to go see him at a small club in Austin, and I just assumed that he’d always remained a local or regional star. But when he died, I was living in Chicago, and everybody knew who he was. Until then I never knew how big he’d become. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/24 "2008-03-17T18:48:09Z")
Robin Williams. This guy started out as a cast member in two failed sketch shows, **The Richard Pryor Show** and the 1977 revival of **Laugh-In**. After those, he was cast as a wacky alien on **Happy Days** , but only after John Byner turned down the part. **Mork and Mindy** was a smash hit, but after the series ended, his first two movies, **Popeye** , and **The World According to Garp** , were both box-office flops. It wasn’t until **Good Morning, Vietnam** , for which he earned the first of several Oscar nominations (and finally the award itself, for **Good Will Hunting** ) that his career really took off and he was launched into mega-stardom. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/25 "2008-03-17T19:15:21Z")
James McAvoy. The first time I saw _The Last King of Scotland_, I went: “…Mr. Tumnus?” (This was before I knew about the TV miniseries _Children of Dune_, but the point still stands.) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/26 "2008-03-17T19:19:26Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] **Peter Jackson** When I found out someone had given him enough money to make a three film epic, I was like, “The guy who made **The Frighteners**!?” I thought he would do a good job, admittedly, but it just seemed against standard Hollywood practice to give mucho-money to someone who made pointedly non-blockbuster-type films. Of course these days, they’re calling in all those guys to direct comic book movies so perhaps the success of LOTR and X-Men destroyed that block. [/QUOTE] heh. I remember defending him to people back before the first FOTR came out. I said, they picked him because he’s got three big points in his favor: 1. He’s _from_ New Zealand, where they’re filming the movies, which is a plus. 2. He’s actually a talented director. Granted, it takes some doing to spot the creative visual styling in **Bad Taste** and **Dead Alive** , but the man’s got an eye. 3. He’s accustomed to working on effects-heavy films, so he’ll be right at home in Tolkien’s fantasy world. ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/27 "2008-03-17T19:26:42Z")
I’m gonna vote for **Demi Moore** also. She did a fully nude spread in some men’s magazine back in, oh, maybe 1980 (?); and **OMG** , she was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen in my life! She’s the only girl from a stroke book that I can think of who went on to be a major main-stream movie star. (I’ll be in the, uh, shower.) ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/28 "2008-03-17T19:27:47Z")
Morgan Freeman. I remember seeing him in **Glory** and thinking, hey, it’s Easy Reader from the Electric Company! Cool! It’s good to know that guy got at least one other gig in his life. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/29 "2008-03-17T19:28:24Z")
George Clooney. Usually when I like an actor, it is the kiss of death for that person’s career. When I first saw George Clooney on _ER_, I was so happy that “the guy from _Roseanne_” was getting work. He had previously been known as “I think that guy on _Roseanne_ was on the _Facts of the Life_.” Even when he started getting some attention for being the hot doctor on _ER_, I was a little sad because I assumed that meant he was destined to become “what ever happened to that hot guy on _ER_?” He’s doing pretty well for himself these days. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/30 "2008-03-17T19:35:31Z")
I was very surprised when Arnold Schwarzenegger became a big star in the 1980s. I’d seen him in _Pumping Iron_ and in a TV-movie about Jayne Mansfield (he played Mickey Hargitay). I thought he was kind of interesting, but didn’t see any real star-power there. Boy, was I wrong! ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/31 "2008-03-17T20:14:46Z")
[QUOTE=delphica] …George Clooney… [/QUOTE] I only knew him from the prior-to-the-drama ER _sitcom_, as well as Return of the Killer Tomatoes. I never watched the ER drama and did quite a double take when I heard that he was some sex symbol star. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/32 "2008-03-17T20:28:30Z")
Hillary Swank, from _The Next Karate Kid_ to two Oscars? ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/33 "2008-03-17T20:50:11Z")
[QUOTE=Simplicio] **Jessica Alba**. Dark Angel was a disappointing and unsuccessful show with poor acting from the lead, and yet seemed to have made her a star anyways. [/QUOTE] It’s pretty much just due to her looks, right? I was thinking about it the other day when I saw a trailer for some shitty movie she’s in. Has she ever been in a good movie? Are the Fantastic Four movies the best of her work? ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/34 "2008-03-17T20:53:15Z")
Alba was in Sin City, which is probably the best movie she’s ever been involved with. I just looked at her [IMDB](http://imdb.com/name/nm0004695/) page, and she’s been in a surprisingly small number of movies since Dark Angel, most of them awful. ---
**Author:** ![Tool\_of\_the\_Conspiracy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tool\_of\_the\_Conspiracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tool_of_the_Conspiracy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/35 "2008-03-17T21:06:20Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] heh. I remember defending him to people back before the first FOTR came out. I said, they picked him because he’s got three big points in his favor: \ 2. He’s actually a talented director. Granted, it takes some doing to spot the creative visual styling in **Bad Taste** and **Dead Alive** , but the man’s got an eye. [/QUOTE] I wonder if the same people who saw Peter Jackson’s potential in **Braindead** and **Meet the Feebles** also saw Sam Raimi’s potential in **Evil Dead II** and **Crimewave**. \One of my friends from high school went on to film school, and he said that the two most important films in American history were **Citizen Kane** and **Evil Dead II**. When he came back for summer vacation one year, he told me that one of the guys he had classes with was filming a movie that would make him a big star. It was Brendan Fraser, in **School Ties**.\ ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/36 "2008-03-17T21:23:19Z")
**Garth Brooks** , at least when compared to other artists who debuted the same year. His debut album came out at roughly the same time as **Clint Black** ’s debut. Listened to side-by-side, Black’s debut was clearly superior in almost every way, at least in my opinion. While Brook’s album was composed of fairly generic, professionally-written country songs probably chosen for him by his record company, Black’s album was entirely made up of songs he’d written and composed himself (in fact, I believe the only unoriginal song Clint Black ever recorded was “Desperado”, for an Eagles tribute album). That originality lent Black’s album a “different” quality - i.e. it didn’t sound like every other debut country album coming out at the time. His voice was unique, while at least initially, Brooks didn’t sound all that special. I think the key thing that ultimately led to Brooks’ greater success was the song _The Dance_ on his debut album. That one song was probably the best song on either album, even though every song on Black’s album was better than the remaining tracks on Brooks’ album. On succeeding albums, Black’s songwriting improved incrementally from one album to the next. But while Brooks’ first album was made up of songs written mostly by 3rd- and 4th-tier songwriters, the one big hit meant that on the next album he was handed songs by Nashville’s top-tier songwriters. That put him completely over the top. I mean, let’s face it. Clint Black was an honest-to-goodness country singer who knew how to craft a good country song. Garth Brooks was a wannabe rock singer who didn’t (at least in the beginning) know the first thing about picking a good country song. But thanks to one big hit, he ended up having great country songs dropped in his lap. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/37 "2008-03-18T04:41:32Z")
Will Smith and Queen Latifa. Even Ice Cube’s moderate mainstream success shocked the heck out of me. I can’t help thinking of hip-hop artists as ‘mine’…so it is like one of my own has made the big time. I know…that’s stupid. Who’da thunk that the rapper that rapped over a beat-box of the Sanford and Son theme song would have become such a huge star? ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/38 "2008-03-18T05:05:10Z")
Not quite the same, but Spongebob Squarepants. I remember seeing about 5 minutes of an episode when I was in high-school, thinking “God… I need to tell people about this ridiculous piece of junk I just saw.” Within the semester, the Spongebob craze had taken off. I just looked it up on Wikipedia, and I guess the craze hit here a little later than elsewhere. It was popular by 2000, but I know I saw the episode a while after I started grade 9, that year. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/39 "2008-03-18T05:10:36Z")
> [@](#): > > My thoughts have already been expressed. Tom HankS? It’s not just “Bosom Buddies” – he seemed like a romanic comedy lightweight in most of his early flicks. Who thought he’d become a major star in flicks like Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump and others? It’s interesting to compare Hank’s career to his _Bosum Buddies_ co-star Peter Scolari’s. Scolari said after doing the series, they kept running into each other at casting calls; they were being auditioned for the same type of roles. But Hanks’ career eventually took off and Scolari’s didn’t (although he has been a successful actor by most standards). And Hanks’ career wasn’t an overnight success story. As Cal noted, his career in the eighties was in some pretty lightweight films. He had a couple of early successes like _Splash_ and _Big_ but he also made _The Man with One Red Shoe_, _Volunteers_, _The Money Pit_, _Nothing in Common_, _Every Time We Say Goodbye_, _Dragnet_, _Punchline_, _The Burbs_, _Turner & Hooch_, and _Joe Versus the Volcano_ - all of which would be forgotten if Hanks hadn’t later became a superstar. It wasn’t until 1992 that Hanks started consistently having hits and opening movies as the lead (_A League of Their Own_, _Sleepless in Seattle_, _Philadelphia_, _Forrest Gump_, _Apollo 13_) ---
**Author:** ![Surbey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Surbey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surbey)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2008, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649/40 "2008-03-18T05:19:58Z")
Adam Carolla Was a wacky voice on a radio show in the morning. Went on to have several television shows, two nationally syndicated radio shows, hosted network specials, all kinds of things. If you have ever heard him read his Social Security history and see that he made something like 60 thousand dollars over 15 years before he made it, many of the years he declared 0 dollars for pay. It’s quite remarkable that he is not, in his words, literally a millionaire. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-celebrity-surprised-you-the-most-by-becoming-an-enormous-star/441649.md?page=3)