We suspect you all have your favourite Hollywood actor, but how much do you really know about them? Please cast your eyes below as we present the following 22 fascinating facts about some of our very favourite stars of the silver screen!
Christopher Reeve
1. Superman Producers Rejected Him Three Times
Superman casting director Lynn Stalmaster placed a picture of Christopher Reeve on the list for audition three times, only for producers to reject it every time. However, Stalmaster eventually managed to arrange a meeting between director Richard Donner, producer Ilya Salkind and Reeve.
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2. He Really Did Learn How To Fly
Reeve was actually a qualified hang glider pilot, and it was reported that he used this piloting experience to make the flying scenes in Superman look more believable.
3. Darth Vader Helped Him To Get Fit For The Role
In preparation for his Superman role, Reeve underwent an intense bodybuilding regime supervised by David Prowse, who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy.
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Harrison Ford
4. He’s Often Credited With An Extra Initial
Harrison Ford is often credited as ‘Harrison J. Ford’, to avoid confusion with Harrison Ford, the silent screen actor with exactly the same name.
5. He Has A Facial Scar From A Car Accident
Ford has scar on his chin which he gained when losing control of his car after he tried to do up his seatbelt whilst already driving. The scar been explained away in two of his films: in the River Phoenix intro sequence in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and in Working Girl.
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Jodie Foster
6. She Started Acting Aged 3
Jodie Foster started her acting career at the age of 3 with an appearance in a Television commercial. She had accompanied her mum and brother to the audition and ended up being offered the role!
7. She ‘Came Out’ In 2013
At the Golden Globe Awards in 2013 Foster hinted at being gay without being specific. In April 2014 she married actress and photographer Alexandra Hedison.
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Julia Roberts
8. She Was The First Actress To Be Paid $20 Million For A Role
Julia Roberts was the first actress to receive a $20 million salary, which was for her Oscar winning role in 2000’s Erin Brockovich. She was the highest-paid actress in the world throughout most of the 1990s and also in the first half of the 2000s. Her fee for 1990’s Pretty Woman was $300,000 but in 2003 she was paid a massive $25 million for her role in Mona Lisa Smile.
9. She Practices Hinduism
Roberts revealed in a 2010 interview that she believes in and practices Hinduism, saying she is a devotee of the guru Neem Karoli Baba.
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Macaulay Culkin
10. He Started His Life In A Poor Family
Macaulay Culkin’s family lived modest lives before he hit the big time. He was one of seven children, and they struggled for money during the early stages of his childhood.
11. He Had Little Idea How Much Money He Was Making
Macaulay’s father Kit hid newspapers and dealt with his son’s salaries by himself, as he didn’t want his son to know how much he was earning in case it would ‘affect’ him. Kit was also apparently difficult to deal with and a tough negotiator, especially when it came to contracts for the Home Alone sequels.
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Michael J. Fox
12. People Still Call Him McFly
Michael J. Fox has been quoted as saying that strangers still call him as McFly all the time. And believe it or not this even happened when he was in a remote jungle in the South Asian country Bhutan, located in the eastern Himalayas. Apparently a Buddhist monk looked at him before exclaiming “Marty McFly!”
13. His Foundation Works At Finding A Cure For Parkinson’s
Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991 whilst he was only 29 years old, although this wasn’t revealed to the public until 1998. He has become an advocate for research toward finding a cure, which included creating The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has raised $240 million in research funds for the disease.
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Tom Cruise
14. He Had An Abusive Father
Cruise has described his father as an abusive one, “a bully coward”. He left his mum when he was young, so Tom took up local jobs (like mowing neighbours’ lawns) to help his mum with the bills.
15. He Was A Box Office First
Cruise is the first actor to appear in five consecutive movies that grossed more than $100 million in the U.S. These were A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview with the Vampire, Mission: Impossible and Jerry Maguire.
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Winona Ryder
16. She Was Bullied For Looking Like A Boy
During her first week at High School, Winona Ryder was bullied by other children who mistakenly took her for a scrawny boy, leading to her being home schooled for a year.
17. She’s Petrified Of Water
Ryder suffers from aquaphobia due to a traumatic near drowning incident when she was 12 years old. This caused problems when shooting the underwater sequences in Alien: Resurrection, and meant that some scenes had to be shot numerous times.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
18. He Knew From A Young Age He Wanted To Be A Bodybuilder
Arnie first picked up a barbell at the age of 13 and chose bodybuilding as a career by the age of 14. He was so dedicated that he would break into his local gym at the weekend (when it was closed) in order to train.
19. He Learned English In The East End Of London
Arnie learned English in London’s East End while staying with his coach, Charles Bennett, in Forest Gate.
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20. He Could Have Starred In Die Hard
Unbelievably, Arnie turned down the role of John McClane in Die Hard. Ironically, the film’s eventual star Bruce Willis has a line in the film where he says that the terrorists “have enough explosives to orbit Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
Brad Pitt
21. He Dressed As A Chicken To Make Ends Meet
Before he became successful, Pitt made ends meet by driving strippers in limousines and dressing as a giant chicken whilst working for ‘El Pollo Loco’.
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22. He Broke His Achilles Tendon Playing Achilles
In a massive real life coincidence, Pitt tore his Achilles tendon whilst filming Troy, a film in which he of course plays the character Achilles.
