Brad Pitt

Pitt dropped out of the University of Missouri just short of graduating with a journalism degree and drove to Los Angeles to pursue acting, taking odd jobs — including driving strippers and moving refrigerators — while auditioning through the late 1980s.

Twitching, rapid-fire and Oscar-nominated as asylum radical Jeffrey Goines, his was the performance that proved the pretty boy could act. He reportedly built the character's manic verbal tics and physical stutter by watching hours of footage of animal-rights activists and asylum patients, and shot most of his major monologues in only a handful of takes.

The role earned him his first Academy Award nomination and marked a deliberate turn away from the straightforwardly handsome leading-man parts that had made him famous, opening the door to the more challenging character work he pursued for the rest of his career.