Some actors learn their craft over agonising years of training and tuition. Others though, are best known for doing something else entirely – yet they still manage to deliver impressive on-screen turns.
We're not talking about child actors, or actors like, say Brendan Gleeson, who used to be a teacher but is very much now an actor. No, these people were either entirely unknown in the acting world, or are much better known for their day job.
1. Mariah Carey in Precious
Best known as a spangly diva, Carey impressed as a steely social worker in Lee Daniels' bleak and highly acclaimed drama. The part was originally planned for Helen Mirren, which tells you something.
2. Dave Bautista in Guardians of the Galaxy
Not his first acting role but his first leading part in a massive blockbuster. Bautista nailed it from the off as Drax, demonstrating deft comic timing and bringing an emotional heft as well as a physical one. He's also one of the best things about Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2.
Also, fun fact: he collects novelty lunch boxes.
3. Haing S Ngor in The Killing Fields
Actually a Cambodian doctor banned from practicing by the Khmer Rouge, who had been tortured and imprisoned before emigrating to the States, he was cast in Roland Joffe's drama as a Cambodian journalist after a talent scout spotted him at a wedding. The part meant he had to travel to Thailand to film and essentially relive things that he'd actually endured.
He won a best supporting actor Oscar for his performance.
4. Björk in Dancer in the Dark
It was a notoriously fractious shoot that saw Björk fall out with director Lars von Trier and claim she wouldn't act again (she pops up in her then-partner Matthew Barney's art movie Drawing Restraint 9, but hasn't taken a major role since). Yet it produced an amazing performance by the Icelandic singer.
She's so good in fact, that we never want to watch the movie again because it's so utterly traumatising.
5. Eric Cantona in Looking For Eric
Several footie players have attempted the transition from the pitch to screen, but by far the most interesting is Cantona. He was decent in the role of a French ambassador in Elizabeth but he's great in Looking For Eric, as a sort of imaginary-meta-version of himself, spouting strange aphorisms that reference his media persona. Eat your heart out, Vinnie Jones.
6. Stephen King in Creepshow
It's not a massive role, and it's not going to win anyone any Oscars, but King blended in nicely as the title character in the segment The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill in George Romero's anthology movie. That he wrote the screenplay for the movie presumably meant he could avoid any chewy lines, but the renowned horror writer at least doesn't jar as the yokel who gets overrun with alien vegetation from a meteorite. His son, author Joe Hill, is in it too as a little kid.
7. John Matuszak in The Goonies
Matuszak was a highly successful American footballer for (mostly) the Oakland Raiders until he retired and moved into acting. His standout performance was as Sloth, the deformed and brain-damaged younger brother of the criminal Fratellis, who befriends Chunk and saves the day.
8. Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple
This was Winfrey's debut performance as an actress and it's an undeniably powerful one. She plays headstrong Sofia in Spielberg's drama, who tries to stand up for herself against repeated beatings and subjugation. It's a tough role, and she delivers.
9. Tom Waits in Bram Stoker's Dracula
Best known as a gravelly, growly experimental musician, Waits being cast as a crazed, fly-eating disciple of the Count in Bram Stoker's Dracula was inspired. It's a suitably unravelled performance in a gorgeous, cheesy epic. And he's way better than Keanu as Jonathan Harker.
10. Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives
Russell was a WWII veteran who lost his hands in accident while making an army training film. He opted for replacement hooks and became highly skilled as using them, featuring in a video helping other injured vets to rehabilitate. Best Years of Our Lives director William Wyler saw his performance and cast him as an amputee vet. Russell won a best supporting actor Oscar for the turn.
11. Lenny Kravitz in The Hunger Games
Kravitz first made an impact as an empathetic nurse in Precious, though as The Hunger Games' Cinna he took on a major recurring role. He's well cast for the part – sympathetic and fabulous as Katniss' costumier and ally in the revolution.
12. Roddy Piper in They Live!
The pro-wrestler actually took on a number of acting roles, but outside his career as "Rowdy" Roddy Piper it's definitely John Carpenter's They Live! he's best known for. Taking the lead role as the drifter who discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see that the world is being run by aliens, he's actually really good. And his sporting prowess doesn't go to waste during the famously ridiculous extended punch-up sequence either.
13. LeBron James in Trainwreck
This was his first ever narrative movie role, and although he's playing LeBron James, he's playing a comedy version of himself and actually has a significant part in the narrative. It could have been cringe-making but James is actually very natural and charismatic – a brilliant deadpan comic – and not embarrassed to laugh at himself.
14. Dean Brooks in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is Brooks' only acting credit. In fact, he was the superintendent of Oregon State Hospital who gave permission for the movie to be shot there. He plays Dr Spivey, the head of the hospital, and he is, perhaps unsurprisingly, very good at it.
