Here are 12 young actors who made it without family connections — just hard work and tons of talent.
Margot Robbie
Raised in Australia by a single mom, with three siblings, Barbie star Margot Robbie had some very normal jobs before becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest young actors who made it without family connections — she cleaned houses, and worked at a surf shop and at the Subway sandwich chain, as she told MovieMaker in a 2020 interview.
As a teenager, she landed a guest role on the Australian soap Neighbors, but impressed everyone so much that she ended up becoming a series regular. In her Wolf of Wall Street audition, she caught Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s attention by spontaneously slapping DiCaprio. (You have to take risks when you don’t have connections.)
The 34-year-old recently told Vanity Fair that fame arrived faster than she expected: “Something was happening in those early stages and it was all pretty awful, and I remember saying to my mom, ‘I don’t think I want to do this.’ And she just looked at me, completely straight-faced, and was like, ‘Darling, I think it’s too late not to.’ That’s when I realized the only way was forward.”
Her film Barbie, which she also produced, was nominated for eight Oscars, including for Best Picture. It won for Original Song.
Jenna Ortega
One of the fastest-rising young actors who made it without family connections, 22-year-old Scream and Wednesday star Jenna Ortega told MovieMaker she broke into the industry by pleading with her mom, a nurse, starting at the age of six. She grew up in the Coachella Valley, the fourth of six children.
“I initially wanted to start acting when I was six years old, but my mom said no. So I kind of pleaded with her for a while, and to shut me up, she got me this monologue book she got at Barnes and Noble,” Ortega said. “I did this monologue for her about my mom dying of cancer, and she taped it and she put it on her Facebook as a joke. I think she captioned it something similar to, ‘Oh, my little drama queen.’
“And a casting director just so happened to watch the tape and contacted my mom and said, ‘Hey, I have a friend who’s an agent. I think that your daughter should meet with them.’ So my mom kind of dug her own grave with that one.”
She most recently appeared in the hit sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and also recently appeared in Finestkind (above).
Zendaya
A child of two teachers, Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman appeared in a Black History Month play at her school in Oakland, California. She later joined the California Shakespeare Theater, where her mother had a summer job as the house manager.
She soon started getting modeling jobs and Disney roles. Now she’s starring in Euphoria, Dune and the Spider-Man franchise, placing her among the most A-List of A-Listers, and out-achieving many, many better-connected young actors.
Last year, the 28-year-old starred in the blockbuster Dune: Part 2 and the acclaimed Luca Guadagnino film Challengers.
Barry Keoghan
Saltburn star Barry Keoghan, 32, had a very tough childhood. His mother was a heroin addict, and he stayed in 13 foster homes between the ages of 5 and 12. His mother would visit him and his brother — until she died.
“It was the worst day of my life,” Keoghan told Ireland Unfiltered with Dion Fanning. “I was about 12 but there was something in me that I just took it and it made me stronger.”
He started appearing in school plays, and scored his first film role in in 2011 when he answered a casting notice for a film called Between the Canals, which was released in 2011. He went on to appear in films including Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, as well as Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin — for which he recived an Oscar nomination — and Matt Reeves’ The Batman in a small but unforgettable role as The Joker.
He recently starred in Apple’s Masters of the Air. In addition to being on our list of young stars who made it without family connections, he’s also an amateur boxer.
Daniel Kaluuya
The 35-year-old Judas and the Black Messiah Oscar winner was born in London and raised by his Ugandan mother in British public housing. When he was in school at age 9, “the teacher said I was difficult, and I thought, ‘I’ll show you,’” he told The New York Times in 2018.
He wrote a play, and it won a local competition and was performed at the well-respected Hampstead Theater, where Kaluuya went on to write and perform as a teenager.
He soon landed a role and became a writer on the British series Skins, which opened more doors. His breakthrough was Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and his latest, NOPE, is a return to collaborating with Peele.
He will soon make his directorial debut with Netflix’s The Kitchen, making him not just one of the young actors who made it without family connections, but also a filmmaker who did so, which carries its own challenges.
Selena Gomez
The Only Murders in the Building star’s mother, Mandy Teefey, was 16 when she gave birth to the future singer-actor. She and Gomez’s father, Ricardo, were married, but split when Gomez was five. “I blamed my mom a lot because I wanted a family so bad,” Gomez once said on an E! special. “I wanted to have my mom and dad together. I remember just being angry with my mom.”
But she came to appreciate her mother’s sacrifices: “My mom gave up everything for me and had, like, three jobs.”
Now 32, she’s starring in Emilia Perez, which is generating significant Oscar buzz.