These stars started out in horror movies, some of them quite low budget. Things are different now.
Jamie Lee Curtis
Basically the gold standard of stars who turned horror careers into just plain thriving movie careers, Jamie Lee Curtis starred as Laurie Strode in the original 1978 Halloween and then reprised the role in many sequels, including the recent reboot trilogy. (She even made two small cameos in Halloween 3: The Season of the Witch, which departed dramatically from the Michael Myers storyline.)
Curtis also appeared in many other hits, including Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda and True Lies, before winning an Oscar last year for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
But she hasn’t turned her back on horror movies: Last year she also appeared in Halloween Ends.
Tom Hanks
In 1980 — the same year he starred in the sitcom Bosom Buddies — Tom Hanks appeared in the creepy horror movie He Knows You’re Alone, in which he played Elliott, a young man skeptical of a woman named Amy (Caitlin O’Heaney) who says a mysterious man is following her.
The movie has a bachelor party scene, perhaps a foreshadowing of one of Hanks’ breakout roles. Tom Hanks, a two-time Oscar winner, doesn’t do a lot of horror movies now, sadly.
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore broke out with her childhood role as Gertie in E.T., but her first onscreen role was in Ken Russell’s creepy Altered States, which also marked the film debut of William Hurt. Barrymore was barely five.
She built on her childhood horror cred with starring roles in the 1984 Stephen King adaptation Firestarter and 1985’s Cat’s Eye, based partly on King’s Night Shift. And she had one of the most memorable scenes in horror history with the opening sequence of Scream.
A star across five decades, she now hosts The Drew Barrymore Show.
Johnny Depp
The opening credits for the 1984 Nightmare on Elm Street include the words “Introducing Johnny Depp.” The fresh-faced actor played the skeptical boyfriend of Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), who doesn’t believe that Freddie Krueger exists.
But Freddie does exist, sadly, and proves it by (spoiler alert on a 39-year-old movie) killing poor Glen.
Things worked out OK for Depp, who went from playing the sweet-faced Glen to donning Freddie Krueger-like levels of makeup to play a wide array of alternately appealing and grotesque characters. Though they’re usually in comedies, not horror movies.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus appeared on Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985, but her film debut was in the very weird 1986 horror film Troll. In one scene, her character’s boyfriend (played by her soon-to-be-husband, fellow SNL cast member Brad Hall) arrives at her apartment to find that the troll has transformed her into a nymph.
Louis-Dreyfus of course went on to become one of the most celebrated TV actors ever with Seinfeld, followed by the New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep. She has earned 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, more than any other actor. But in 2013, Tonight Show host Jay Leno made her dissolve into laughter by playing a clip from Troll.
“We never talked about it and there’s a reason for it,” Louis-Dreyfus told Leno, before calling him an a–hole. She added that she agreed to do Troll because it involved a free trip to Rome, joking, “it’s the best moment of my life.”
She doesn’t do horror movies anymore, but she’s excellent in the recent You Hurt My Feelings.
Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette is excellent as troubled teen Kristen Parker in 1987’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, in which she’s almost eaten by a snakelife Freddie Krueger but gets a nice assist from original Nightmare on Elm Street final girl Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp, seen with Arquette above).
In the film, Nancy is working as a psychiatric intern in the facility where Kristen and other young dreamers seek refuge from their very bad dreams.
The movie ends with some terrific heroism from Nancy that feels like a passing of the torch, but sadly Arquette didn’t hold it for long: Another actor, Tuesday Knight, played Kristen in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.
Arquette has gone on to incredible success, including winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 2014’s Boyhood.
Hillary Swank
Hillary Swank made her film debut in 1992’s horror comedy Buffy the Vampire Slayer — the Kristy Swanson film that inspired the Sarah Michelle Gellar TV show — playing the supporting part of Kimberly Hannah.
She would soon go on to star in 1994’s The Next Karate Kid, but proved herself as one of the best actors of her generation with Oscar-winning lead roles in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.
Renee Zellweger
Renee Zellweger had small parts in Dazed and Confused and Reality Bites, but her first lead was in 1995’s The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (aka The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation).
She appeared alongside fellow Dazed and Confused veteran (and fellow Texan) Matthew McConaughey. The film is about four teenagers, including one played by a sometimes bespectacled Zellweger, who run into Leatherface and his family on prom night.
Zellweger’s career quickly revved up: The next year, she starred opposite Tom Cruise in the beloved rom-com Jerry Maguire. She went on to earn two Oscars — one for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Cold Mountain (2003) and another in 2019’s Judy for playing Judy Garland.
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston made her big-screen debut (wearing very cool jeans) in Leprechaun. Laugh if you want, but it made back its million-dollar budget many times over and spawned a cult-classic franchise. Aniston soon found a pot o’ gold with Friends, which debuted in 1994, a year after Leprechaun.
In an interview with InStyle in 2021, she noted, “There’s loads of movies where you’re thinking: ‘Oh god, this is just… how am I going to survive this in my future?’ And then it’s a cult… something because it’s so embarrassing.” She later whispered a clarification: “I was talking about Leprechaun.”
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron’s first role didn’t suggest the massive success coming her way: She had a nonspeaking part as a follower of the deadly Eli in 1995’s Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. She broke out two years later in another horror film, Devil’s Advocate, alongside Keanu Reeves, who played her lawyer husband, and Al Pacino, who plays his new boss, who happens to be the devil.
Things moved fast for Theron from there, and she won the Oscar for Best Actress for playing a serial killer in 2003’s Monster, which is not, despite the title, a horror movie.
Look, we aren’t experts, but we feel like maybe Urban Harvest should have thrown her a couple lines.
Josh Hartnett
Josh Hartnett made his film debut in 1998 in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. He later told HuffPost that he was first offered another horror movie, the terrific 1998 Robert Rodriguez horror film The Faculty:
“The first film that I was offered was ‘The Faculty,’ not ‘Halloween: H20,’” Hartnett explained to HuffPost of his breakthrough gig, joking that he was “a stickler for clarity.”
“Rob Rodriguez gave me my first jump job and they were both Miramax and Dimension at the time. They saw a way to package me and make me sort of their young, new guy. So they said, ‘OK, you can do The Faculty if you do H20 as well.′ So I was shooting them both simultaneously. H20 came out before Faculty, though.”
He added that he “had a great time working with Jamie [Lee Curtis] and I think she’s fantastic.”
He doesn’t do many horror movies now, but was excellent in the horror TV show Penny Dreadful.
Elizabeth Olsen
Though the excellent cult thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene is widely considered her debut, her first two films actually premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on the same day — January 21, 2011. While some might call Martha Marcy May Marlene a drama, and others might call it a horror film, there’s no question that her other Sundance premiere that year — Silent House, above — was in the horror genre.
Olsen, who started out acting at the age of four — notably in her sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley’s projects — quickly caught fire in Hollywood for her grown-up film work, and scored high-profile jobs in films including Spike Lee’s 2013 Oldboy remake.
But she’s of course best known for the role of Wanda Maximoff, aka The Scarlet Witch, which she has played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
She recently reprised the role in Disney+’s WandaVision and in last year’s Doctor Strange the Multiverse of Madness.
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio started out appearing in commercials and TV, but made his film debut in 1991’s Critters 3, playing a character he described two years later as “your average, no-depth, standard kid with blond hair.”
He of course would go on to much bigger roles, including in Titanic — one of the the most successful film of all time — and his Oscar-winning lead role in 2015’s The Revenant. He appears later this month in another film sure to rack up awards attention, Killers of the Flower Moon, which he also produces.
Enjoyed This List of Great Actors Who Started Out in Horror Movies?
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Main image: Elizabeth Olsen in WandaVision. Disney+.