With 23 movies so far and counting, and billions in box office revenues, the MCU is an entertainment juggernaut, and the actors who flesh out the stories on screen have enviable careers. It seems like a rocket to stardom for any actor.

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Still, for some the MCU experience has been all too brief. And, while it’s easy to point to today’s success, the road for anyone in the acting world can be long and hard.

To pay the bills, most turn to some other form of work at one point or another.

10 Mark Ruffalo Was A Bartender

Mark Ruffalo
via Syfy Wire

After high school, Mark Ruffalo’s family moved to San Diego and then not long after to Los Angeles. There, he attended the Stella Adler Conservatory, and co-founded the Orpheus Theatre Company, where he wrote, directed and starred in plays before making it to films. Before he could make a living at it, he had a brief gig as a busboy, and then spent almost a decade bartending. At one career low in 1997, he was also considering quitting to go to work sandblasting with his dad.

9 Chris Pratt Worked As A Stripper Among Other Odd Jobs

Chris-Pratt-Guardians-Of-The-Galaxy
via MTV

In 2013, just before Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1 hit movie screens across the globe, Chris Pratt revealed to Buzzfeed that he'd worked at a number of jobs – including as a stripper delivery dude when he was 18. "I was always a very much naked person. I loved to always get naked. I was very free, so I thought, I may as well get paid," he said. He also said he'd cleaned cars, painted murals, flipped burgers, did room service and waited at a snack bar, among other odd jobs.

8 Michelle Pfeiffer Was A Cashier At A Supermarket

Michelle-Pfeiffer-Ant-Man-Wasp
via ScreenRant

In an interview, she told EOnline that she'd stay up late and watch old movies, thinking, 'I can do that.' But, acting icon Michelle Pfeiffer didn't really have an urge to act growing up in Orange County, Cali. She went to stenography school (for secretaries back in the day) and then worked as a supermarket cashier until the job got to be too much. "I remember distinctly standing in the check stand in a fit of desperation and wanting to tell one of these customers where they could shove this cantaloupe."

7 Jake Gyllenhaal Was A Lifeguard Because His Parents Insisted

Jake Gyllenhaal
via Heroic Hollywood

Jake and sister Maggie also grew up in a movie oriented family that is also part of Swedish aristocracy. His father Stephen is a director, and mother Naomi Foner is a screenwriter. Jake himself began acting at age 11, and his talent has been recognized with an Oscar nomination and BAFTA award.

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Still, his parents wanted Jake to get summer jobs and earn his own way, so he became a lifeguard during the summers at Martha's Vineyard. He also worked as a busboy at a restaurant owned by a family friend.

6 Evangeline Lilly Worked As A Flight Attendant – And Hated It

evangeline lilly moviescene
via IndieWire

Evangeline Lilly worked as a flight attendant on Royal Airlines before her big acting break – but it's not an experience she remembers fondly, as she told David Letterman in 2007. “That job has no redeeming qualities. I didn’t like the people. I didn’t like the destinations,” she said. “I didn’t like the recycled air, the crappy food. (Or) the fact that they tell you, before you start your job, to buy your shoes two sizes too big because your feet swell.”

5 Marisa Tomei Worked At A Tony Roma's Steakhouse

marisa tomei as aunt may
via: Beyazperde

Marisa Tomei has an enviable acting resume nowadays, but her start in the biz was, like many, not so impressive. While she was taking acting classes and doing the round of auditions in New York City, she worked as a waitress at Tony Roma's, a steak and ribs restaurant chain, in Brooklyn for six weeks before launching her acting career with her first official movie credit. That credit, though, was for a bit part on the 1984 comedy The Flamingo Kid. She had one line.

4 Gwyneth Paltrow Wasn’t Cut Out For Retail

Gwyneth Paltrow as pepper-potts-helmet
via Wallpaper Flare

It's not clear how exactly Gwyneth Paltrow got a job when she was 12 years old, but she did, according to an interview with Town and Country. She also got fired. “I got fired because I went on spring break, but I didn't tell my boss.

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“I just didn't show up for duty. I thought the world stops when you go on spring break,” she told the magazine. “I was devastated, but it was a good lesson.” Later, she worked in a ski shop.

3 Josh Brolin Stole Cars

Josh-Brolin-Thanos
via YouTube

As a kid growing up in Santa Barbara in the 1980s, Josh Brolin says he ran with a pretty wild surfing crowd that called themselves the Cito Rats, according to a 2014 interview with The Guardian. Part of that wildness was hard drug use, which led to stealing cars to finance the habit. Luckily, he says he realized quickly that drugs weren't for him. By 19 years old, he'd switched to theater. “Most of those guys I grew up with, they're all dead now,” he told the interviewer.

2 Jon Favreau Worked For A Global Financier And Was A Comedian

Jon Favreau in Spider-Man
via comicbook.com

Jonathan Kolia Favreau grew up in Queens, New York, and his parents were teachers. He went to The Bronx High School of Science, a school for gifted kids, and then attended Queens College for three years from 1984 to 1987, but dropped out. He got a job working for Bear Stearns, one of the more prominent global finance firms on Wall Street. But, it was a period of indecision. He quit to go back to Queens College for one more semester, only to quit again, and move to Chicago to pursue improv comedy.

1 Zoe Saldana Studied To Be A Dancer

Zoe Saldana Gamora
Via indiewire.com

After her father sadly died in a vehicle accident when she was nine, Zoe Saldana’s family moved to the Dominican Republic, where she attended the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy. There, she studied various forms of dance, but came to focus on ballet, which she calls her passion. But, the world of professional dance is tough, and Saldana felt that she’d be stuck in the corps de ballet, with no hope of being a soloist. It led her to quit ballet and switch to acting.

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