Not everyone is born a star. For some celebrities, it takes years of hard work, small roles, and persistence to make it in show business.
This was the case for Jeremy Renner, who didn't get his big break until "The Hurt Locker" in 2008 when he was 37 years old.
He went on to become Hawkeye in 2012's $1.5 billion hit "The Avengers" and is now a household name.
And Renner isn't the only late-bloomer when it comes to fame and success in Hollywood.
Jon Hamm almost gave up acting at age 36.
Jon Hamm, 42, spent years starring in minor roles while trying to become an A-list actor. According to his longtime girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt, he almost gave it all up.
"He would just say, 'I’m going to hang it up, it’s not going to work out,'"Westfeldt told The Huffington Post.
However, Hamm landed the "Mad Men" role in 2007 even though he felt he was at "the bottom of the list" and created one of the most interesting characters in the history of television.
Harrison Ford was a full-time carpenter until 35.
For the first half of his life, Harrison Ford was a carpenter.
It wasn't until director George Lucas saw Ford doing some wood-working at a studio while having auditions for a space film he was shooting called "Star Wars" that things changed.
According to Lucas, he knew Ford from working with him on a small role in his previous film, "American Graffiti" and asked Ford to read scenes in the role of Han Solo.
The rest became history in a galaxy far, far away.
Jessica Chastain had trouble getting parts until she was 34 because of her hair color.
In the last three years, Jessica Chastain's career has shot into the stratosphere with award-winning performances in films like "Zero Dark Thirty," but early on she had trouble getting roles.
"Being a redhead and not having very conventionally modern looks, it was confusing for people and they didn't know exactly where to put me," she told the Huffington Post about her early career struggles.
That changed when Chastain landed her breakout role in 2011's "The Help." Next, the 36-year-old will star in Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" alongside Matthew McConaughey.
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