14 Famous Actors Who Are Entirely Self-Made

A lot of the biggest players in the film and TV industry have parents or other family members who helped pave the way for them. However, there are also plenty of successful actors who don't have relatives to help them get a foot in the door.

Here are 14 actors who made it big without family connections in the industry:

1.Viola Davis spent her childhood "in abject poverty and dysfunction" and lived in "rat-infested and condemned" apartments. When she was 2, she was taken to jail with her mother, a civil rights activist, who was arrested during a protest. She studied acting at Young People's School for the Performing Arts, Rhode Island College, and Julliard.

At the beginning of her professional career, Viola was in onstage productions both on and off Broadway. She also played small roles in TV shows and movies, then her breakout came with her Oscar-nominated performance in Doubt.

She went on to become an EGOT winner, making her only the 18th person in history to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

2.After losing his mother at 12, Barry Keoghan and his brother lived in 13 different foster homes over five years until his grandmother was able to raise them. As a kid, he snuck into the movie theater with his friends so often that he got banned, but when he grew up, one of his movies premiered in that very theater.

With his brother's unwavering support, he decided to pursue acting after seeing a casting call for Between the Canal, a crime drama, in a store window. Afterward, he started studying at a local workshop.

He told the Guardian, "I was looking for something. I was looking to mess around, to joke. And get paid! But on a deeper level, it was very therapeutic for me. I could be someone else. I think you get to release a few of your problems there through being another person."

He's nominated for an Academy Award this year.

3.Sarah Jessica Parker grew up with seven siblings, and her family didn't always have money for electricity, phone service, Christmas presents, or birthday celebrations. Sarah and two of her siblings began acting as children, and she got her first major breakthrough playing the lead in Annie on Broadway at 14.

After booking her career-defining role as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, she remained conscious of her spending habits and financial well-being.

She told the New York Times, "My friends know me so well, and they know how terrified I am of being broke, and they think it is hilarious and humorous. ... In the case of the entertainment industry, actresses have this window, and the window closes every day a little bit more. The earnings potential falls and the window is closed, and I am really cognizant of that. I have no illusions of who I am or what I look like or what I have to offer."

4.Growing up, Halle Berry was "a Black child being raised by a white woman," and "finding [Black role models] on television and through movies became very, very crucial to [her]." Diahann Carroll's performance in Julia inspired her to pursue acting. When she moved to NYC, she ran out of money after three months, and after her mom refused to help her, they didn't speak for a year.

She told The Jess Cagle Interview, "That's probably one of the best things she did for me. ... She said, 'If you want to be there, then you work it out.' And I had to work it out. ... It was to prove to her and everybody else. It took me right back to my high school years. 'You say I can't, watch me. I'm going to figure this out.' And shelter life was part of figuring it out for a minute until I could get a waitressing job. Then I got a bartending job, and until I could figure that out, that's what I did."

Later that year, she made her acting debut in Living Dolls.

5.When she was 12, Sydney Sweeney wanted to audition for a small movie production that came to her hometown, so she convinced her parents to let her with a five-year business plan. The following year, her family sold their house in Washington and moved to LA, and they "lived in one room," where Sydney and her mom shared the bed while her dad and brother shared the couch.

However, they faced financial strain as well as judgment from the people they knew back home. It took a toll on them.

Sydney told the Hollywood Reporter, "I thought that if I made enough money, I'd be able to buy my parents' house back and that I'd be able to put my parents back together. But when I turned 18, I only had $800 to my name. My parents weren't back together, and there was nothing I could do to help."

She didn't have a truly successful audition until she booked Sharp Objects in 2018.

She said, "I had no idea getting into this industry how many people have connections. I started from ground zero, and I know how fucking hard it is. Now I see how someone can just walk in a door, and I'm like, 'I worked my fucking ass off for 10 years for this.'"

6.The daughter of two teachers, Annie Murphy found a passion for acting in high school and studied theater in university. She had a few minor TV roles and a leading role on a web series in Canada before moving to LA. However, after not booking any roles for two years, her house burned down, she was down to $400, and she'd "absolutely shat the bed" at her first screen test. Two days later, however, she was called in to audition for Schitt's Creek.

Annie went on to win an Emmy and a SAG Award for the role of Alexis Rose.

She told Fashion Magazine, "I realized that there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel; you just don’t quite know when you’ll be bathed in it."

7.Misha Collins' family "was so poor when [he] was growing up [they] were homeless at times." At one point, they lived in a tent in the woods and used a galvanized tub filled with cool water as a fridge and cooked over a campfire. He didn't start acting until his 20s, first earning his degree in social theory from the University of Chicago and even interning at the White House.

As an actor, he spent several years playing small movie roles and recurring TV characters. His breakout role was Castiel on Supernatural.

He's also the cofounder and board president of Random Acts, a charity organization that was created to inspire random acts of kindness. It supports multiple causes across the globe.

8.When Leighton Meester was born, both of her parents were in prison for their involvement in a drug smuggling ring. Before giving birth, her mom moved into a halfway house, then delivered her in a hospital. After three months, Leighton was sent to live with her grandma until her mom finished her sentence. Her parents divorced when she was 6. A few years later, she started acting at a local playhouse in Florida, then her mom got her an agent and moved the family to New York.

When Leighton was in high school, her family relocated to Los Angeles, where they lived in "the slums." She began booking TV and movie roles.

Her breakout role was, of course, Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl.

9.After their father died, Bella Thorne and her three siblings were raised by their single mom "with debt...nothing to [her] name." She became a child actor to help support her family, accepting the part of Cece Jones on Shake It Up because they were "living off Stouffer's coupons" and were "about to live physically on the street if [she] didn't have that role."

She told the Happy Sad Confused podcast, "I didn't want to audition for Shake It Up. I literally said in my audition, 'I don't sing. I don't dance. I'm basically tone deaf, and I'm not funny. So I don't know why I'm here.' And everybody just started laughing. They all thought it was a joke."

10.Jessica Chastain grew up "with a single mother who worked very hard to put food on our table" and "there were many nights when [her family] had to go to sleep without eating." She was a first-generation college student who attended the prestigious Julliard on a scholarship.

TV super-producer John Wells signed her to a 12-month holding deal after seeing her perform in a Julliard showcase. The contract led to her first TV role, which was a bit part on ER.

She continued booking roles both on screen and on stage. Playing the titular character, she costarred in the play Salome with Al Pacino, who advised director Terrence Malick to cast her in The Tree of Life. Terrence brought her to the attention of Steven Spielberg, who cast her in The Help, as well as Jeff Nichols, who cast her in Take Shelter. All three of those movies came out the same year, cementing Jessica's status as a silver screen star.

11.Selena Gomez's mom, Mandy Teefy, who was 16 when she had her, "gave up everything for [her] and had like three jobs." The two of them would dig through the car to find quarters to pay for gas. As a kid, Selena also accompanied Mandy to her play rehearsals, which inspired her to be an actor.

She made her onscreen debut in Barney and Friends at 7, then booked her first Disney Channel pilot at 12.

Though that show wasn't picked up, she played guest roles on Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody until she booked the lead in the hit series Wizards of Waverly Place.

12.Hilary Swank grew up in poverty in Washington, then when she was 16, she and her mom relocated to LA and lived out of their car for a time. She dropped out of high school because she "felt like such an outsider" and "didn't even feel like the teachers wanted [her] there." However, she found a sense of belonging in acting.

When Hilary was 20, she landed her first starring role as Julie Pierce in The Next Karate Kid.

A few years later, she got her big break when Kimberly Peirce cast her as the lead in Boys Don't Cry. She won an Oscar for the role.

13.When Mila Kunis was 7, her family moved from Ukraine to California "with literally nothing." Her parents were initially against her becoming an actor because it's an "unstable and unpredictable profession." She balanced public school with acting from age 9.

After That '70s Show was picked up her freshman year, she was kicked out of her high school for missing too many days due to her filming schedule. So, she found a different school that was able to work around the show.

She told Interview Magazine, "I didn’t want to be home-schooled. For my parents, I wanted to graduate on a stage with everyone else. So I was like, 'Look, I can’t go to class when I’m working. It’s impossible. But on my hiatuses, I will come to school. I have three teachers and I have other tutors.' And the school was very supportive. The only class that I had to attend every day was biology when we were doing dissections. I would take an 8 a.m. bio class, dissect my animal, and then run to work."

14.And finally, as kids, Jennifer Lopez and her two sisters all shared a room. When she was 18, she moved out and started sleeping in the office of her dance studio because her mom didn't approve of her choosing a dance career over college. However, eventually, the success she found as a dancer helped her break into acting and music as well.

Her biggest dancing gig was a Fly Girl on In Living Color. Her fellow dancer's husband was a producer, and he saw Jennifer talking during a behind-the-scenes segment and decided she was the perfect fit for a pilot he was writing.

Afterward, she decided to pursue acting more seriously, which led to her breakout role as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in the biopic Selena.