“I think when I booked Vampire Diaries, I was sleeping on my mom’s floor and I had 86 cents to my name and I would see that commercial and I’d feel like, yeah, I’m worth it, damn it, I’m worth it,” Kat told People. “Mommy, we’re worth it — even in poverty, living in these crappy apartments with no money and sometimes no food.” “…I had to sell [Butkus] for $40 in front of a 7-Eleven store because I couldn’t afford food,” Sylvester wrote on Instagram in 2017. " … Then like A modern day miracle, the screenplay for Rocky sold, and I could buy and buy him back, but the new owner knew I was desperate, and charged me $15,000 … He was worth every penny!" “I had, like, $3 in my bank account,” Annie said on The Kelly Clarkson Show before adding, “I hadn’t worked in close to two years. … And I had just blown my very first screen test.” Although in the moment she felt that these were signs to move on to another career, the experience was the turning point that led to Annie’s acting breakthrough. “I found myself crying in the Pacific Ocean, a very snotty cry,” Annie said. “And the universe was like, ‘Don’t do this anymore. This is not for you.’ But then two days later I got the audition for Schitt’s Creek.” “In 1995 I had $7 bucks in my pocket and knew two things: I’m broke as hell and one day I won’t be. #UCanAchieveAnything,” he wrote. The Jumanji franchise star currently has a net worth of $800 million, and he was named the highest-paid actor in the world by Forbes as of February 2022. “… I was broke when I booked If Beale Street Could Talk,” she said. The performer explained that she traveled to New York for a chemistry read before she was officially offered the role. At the time, she wasn’t sure that she’d have enough money in her account to cover a $100 hold for her hotel stay. “So I gave them my card and they said, ‘Okay, we’re going to put a $100 hold,’” KiKi said. “I said, ‘Ooh … Okay, let’s pray on that.’ So thankfully, we had it … But I went up to my room and I checked my account, and I had $114 total in my account, so now I only had $14 available.” KiKi used the remaining $14 for breakfast the next morning, which left her with no money left as she arrived at the chemistry read. “I think it actually affected the energy that I brought into the room of like, I have to book this,” KiKi said. “If I don’t book this, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” “I had, I think I was down to $11,” Matt said on Conan. “Now that’s holding out too long. Because even if I said at that point, ‘Alright, I’m going to get a waiter job.’ By the time that $11 ran out would have been before the first paycheck on that job. I would have starved.” “It got pretty dark for a moment. I’ll never forget, my wife and I got down to our last $3,” David said to The Times. “We couldn’t go to the hole in the wall because we were at rock bottom.” “And the reason I know it was $3 is because I remember standing in our house and giving her $2 and, almost symbolically, keeping the extra dollar in my wallet. And just feeling like, ‘What did we do coming here? What were we thinking?’” David added. The actor got his big break when he booked the part of Louis Gaines in the 2013 historical drama, The Butler. He has maintained this success with major roles in projects like Selma, Queen of Katwe, and The Water Man. “I am so grateful that I had such an amazing support system, but when I booked This Is Us, I had 81 cents in my bank account,” Chrissy said. “I could cry right now just thinking about it. Getting the role of Kate has changed everything.” “… My heart sunk because, now how do I get to New York? I’ve got $35, man,” Steve said on Oprah’s Master Class in 2017. “I don’t have enough to make it to New York. There’s no way. The one time I could finally get on TV, and I can’t even get to the gig. … I don’t have no money. I can’t eat. I don’t have a place to stay. This is horrible, man.” Steve then double-checked the voicemail, and this time he’d been left a new message with an opportunity to perform at a Florida venue that Friday night for $150. Steve did so well with this comedy set that he was next asked to appear once more at this location on Saturday for an additional $300. “I had 475 bucks. I called Chuck Sutton, I said, ‘I’ll be there,’ got at the Apollo Theater at 2 o’clock, and I went out there and I got a standing ovation,” Steve said. “And man, I was on cloud nine. I mean, it was the greatest moment of my life up until that point. I had killed at the world-famous Apollo Theater, and that was it. I was on TV.” “I remember when you could still get a $5 bill out of an ATM, and I couldn’t get it because [my balance] was under $5,” Melissa said. The Bridesmaids star stated that her parents or her sister would often help her with paying rent during this period. She eventually found stable work as a production coordinator before landing her breakout role of Sookie St. James in Gilmore Girls. “We didn’t have any money,” Billy Bob said during an episode of Oprah’s Master Class in 2014. “We paid $90 a week. You paid by the week for this apartment.” Billy Bob began working at a Shakey’s Pizza restaurant, where he made $96 dollars a week. With the remaining six dollars he had left over after paying the rent, he and Tom would buy powdered donuts and rum on Fridays. Every other night of the week for one year, the two stayed nourished by eating a pizza that Billy Bob was able to take home from his job at Shakey’s. Although they were in “a constant fever of poverty and indecision and desperation,” the two never contemplated going back home, Billy Bob explained. “We weren’t fazed by it. We just kept going,” Billy Bob said. “Because we’d never really had anything anyway. … I mean, it wasn’t like I would be going back to something amazing, so we just stayed out there.” “My advice to anybody who wants to do whatever it is with their life is don’t ever let your dreams die because that’s what keeps an artist alive, and I think it keeps people in general going,” Billy Bob added. “This was my last audition,” Ashleigh told Collider in 2017. “So, I went on the audition, and the next day, I was on my way home from the grocery store with $12 in my bank account. I had to call my mom and ask her for an extra $5 because the last of it went to food at Whole Foods, just so that I could get home.” Her initial audition was well-received, and Ashleigh made it through a series of additional tests before landing the role of Josie McCoy on the fan-favorite CW series. “I had two options: I could either buy one meal or a newspaper and a pint,” Richard said. “It went the other way usually.” “Then I got that phone call [for Game of Thrones], and I was on my last month’s rent,” Richard added. “I asked my agent for an advance, and that helped me get through the next little bit.” “I arrived in New York. I had three bucks,” Sidney told ABC News in 1985. “I had no friends, no family, no relations, no addresses. I knew no one.” Sidney soon took a job as a dishwasher, which earned him food and $4 a night. He would later get his start through roles in films like No Way Out and Cry, the Beloved Country. He went on to star in numerous blockbusters, and in 1964 he became the first Black man to score an Academy Award for his performance in Lilies of the Field. “The director and her producing partner were getting ready to shoot this movie … and I said, ‘I can’t go to LA, I don’t have any money,’” Chris said on the Smartless podcast in 2022. The producer then told Chris that the cost of his flight would be covered, and he “never went back” after this role.
