"Candy" hit radio in 1999 when Mandy Moore was fifteen years old, and it went platinum before she ever read for a film. Her label pitched her as the sweeter counterpoint to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. She only moved into acting with 2001's The Princess Diaries, three years after her music career started. By then she'd already released two albums. | © Walt Disney Pictures
Nick Cannon was cracking jokes on stage in San Diego comedy clubs before he was old enough to drive legally in every state. Nickelodeon signed him in 1998, which led straight to All That. He got his own show, The Nick Cannon Show, in 2002, years before he was doing romantic leads in films like Love Don't Cost a Thing. Television made him a name first. | © The Diary Of A CEO / YouTube
Rap came first for Mos Def, and it came early. He formed Urban Thermo Dynamics with his siblings in the early 1990s, then dropped Black on Both Sides as a solo artist in 1999 to widespread acclaim within hip-hop circles. That album went gold. His film career, including 2002's Brown Sugar, started after critics had already called him one of the genre's sharpest lyricists. | © Paramount Pictures
Before there was an Oscar for Ray, there was a stage name built entirely to get past a booking system. Jamie Foxx started as Eric Bishop, and he chose Jamie Foxx because open mic nights called performers alphabetically and gender-neutral names got picked more often. It worked well enough that In Living Color hired him in 1991. He was a working comedian for years before Hollywood took him seriously as an actor. | © Universal Pictures
Queen Latifah picked up a mic under that name back in New Jersey, and by 1989 she'd released All Hail the Queen on Tommy Boy Records. The album went gold and made her one of hip hop's first commercially successful female voices. She didn't move into film until Jungle Fever in 1991, two years after critics were already praising her lyrics. Music built the platform first. | © Miramax FIlms
Donald Glover was writing for 30 Rock at 23, hired by Tina Fey straight off a submission packet in 2006. He picked up an Emmy nomination with that writing staff before most viewers knew his face. Childish Gambino came later as a stage name, not the other way around. Acting on Community in 2009 was actually his second act, not his first. | © CBS Films
O'Shea Jackson spent his teenage years writing rhymes on a school bus in South Central, which is where "Ice Cube" started as a nickname. N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton dropped in 1988 and he'd already written most of it by 20. He left the group a year later over money and went solo with AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. Hollywood didn't get him until Boyz n the Hood in 1991, three years after the album made him a name. | © CBS
Calvin Broadus took the name Snoop Dogg from a childhood nickname his mother gave him for loving Snoopy cartoons. Dr. Dre put him on The Chronic in 1992, and Snoop's drawl carried half the record. His own debut, Doggystyle, hit number one in 1993 before he'd acted in anything. Movie roles like 2001's Training Day came after the rap career had already peaked. | © CBS
Marky Mark had a platinum record before Mark Wahlberg had an agent. His group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch went platinum with Good Vibrations in 1991, and he was better known then for dropping his pants onstage than for any film role. Calvin Klein put him on a billboard the same year, boxer briefs and all. Acting didn't start seriously until 1994's The Basketball Diaries, years after MTV had already made him famous. | © Paramount Pictures
Fifty bullet wounds and nine actual gunshots separate the man from the myth, but Curtis Jackson survived being shot nine times in 2000, well before Hollywood came calling. His mixtape run afterward caught Eminem's attention, and Shady Records signed him in 2002. "In da Club" then sat at number one for three weeks in 2003. Acting arrived later with 2005's Get Rich or Die Tryin', a movie built entirely around a story that already existed. | © FLAGRANT
Two number-one albums came before Tupac Shakur ever stood in front of a camera for a script. Me Against the World hit the top of the Billboard 200 in 1995 while he was in jail on an assault conviction. His first real film role was 1992's Juice, but the music had already made him a target and a name. Poetry classes at the Baltimore School for the Arts shaped him before any of it. | © MGM
Wrestling paid Dwayne Johnson's bills for eight years before Hollywood ever called. He won his first WWF Championship in 1998 under the name The Rock and packed arenas long before The Mummy Returns gave him a movie deal in 2001. Vince McMahon signed him in 1996 based partly on his family name, since his father Rocky Johnson and grandfather Peter Maivia had both wrestled before him. The muscles were real, but so was the crowd he already had. | © Netflix
Six Grammy nominations sit on Will Smith's shelf for a career that started in rap, not film. He and DJ Jazzy Jeff won the first-ever Grammy for Best Rap Performance in 1989 for Parents Just Don't Understand. NBC didn't put him on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air until 1990, a full four years after his music career began. By the time he got to Hollywood, he was already famous enough to play a version of himself. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
Before any studio noticed her, Jennifer Lopez was already working as a Fly Girl dancer on In Living Color starting in 1991. That gig came before her breakout film role as Selena Quintanilla in 1997's Selena, a part she landed after Selena's own father watched her dance reel. She'd trained as a dancer since childhood in the Bronx, not as an actress. Music and film came later, once people already knew her face from the stage. | © MGM
George Clooney spent five years playing Dr. Doug Ross on ER before movie audiences took him seriously. The show premiered in 1994 and turned him into a television name first, one that NBC reportedly paid him well to keep. His film career had actually started much earlier with flops like 1988's Return to Horror High, roles nobody remembers now. It took a decade of television and forgettable movies before 1996's From Dusk Till Dawn pointed him somewhere else. | © Paramount Pictures
Plenty of today's screen stars built their fame elsewhere, in music, modeling, sports, or TV, long before Hollywood came calling. Here are 15 stars who were famous well before they became movie stars.
