Alexandra
Daddario’s iconic scene in True Detective
was her first time baring it all in front of a camera, and her decision to do
it literally changed her life within 12 hours of the premiere of the episode.
Before she landed the role she was only known
for her role in the Percy Jackson movies, which are widely disliked by the fans
of the books, and for the awful Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot. She knew she
wanted to make it big and she also knew she had to do something different in
order to get there.
She told Collider: “The tactical
decision was, I went in for the audition and they seemed vaguely interested,
and it was for a different role and I was like, ‘Well, they’re vaguely
interested and I love these actors and I love Cary Fukunaga and I want to be in
this show, so let me force them to hire me.’ I thought I need something on my
resume that shows that I can do something different, or something. I just
thought it would look good on my resume. That was where I sort of was at that
point. And that would look to Hollywood like, ‘Oh, she’s doing something
different.”
When she got the role of Lisa Tragnetti, she
knew she had to film those scenes and even though she was nervous to do them,
she had a goal in mind, and with the help of Woody Harrelson, who was in the
scenes with her, she got through them and waited for the premiere of the
episode.
The morning after the episode aired she got
the surprise of a lifetime when she received a call from her manager: “I didn’t
expect to have what I had happen, which was – it’s a long time ago now –
getting naked on a show where I didn’t have a huge role, I didn’t know what to
expect. And then, of course, that episode aired and my manager called, and I’ll
never forget it, I was sitting on my boyfriend’s couch and she calls me in the
morning after the episode aired and she was like, ‘The phone’s been ringing off
the hook all morning. The phone won’t stop ringing!’ And all of a sudden,
everyone in town wanted to meet with me and then I booked San Andreas. So no, I
would have never expected that from that role. It was tactical, but not that
tactical.”
She took a chance and did something she
hadn’t done before, and thanks to that her career took off and she is on top of
the world.
Another is Jamie Lee Curtis.
After the
release of 1978’s HALLOWEEN brought Jamie
Lee Curtis no substantial offers, John Carpenter wrote a role specifically
for her in THE FOG. From there, she did some modestly successful Canadian
horror films like TERROR TRAIN and PROM NIGHT.
Following her appearance in 1981’s HALLOWEEN
II, Curtis made the conscious decision not to do any more horror movies in the
foreseeable future. By her account, it was and is the only time she put up a
boundary as far as the roles she was pursuing or accepting.
From there,
she was able to branch out to star-making roles in TRADING PLACES, A FISH
CALLED WANDA, and most notably, TRUE LIES. She made a proper return to the
horror genre in 1998’s VIRUS then HALLOWEEN H20, in the role of ‘Laurie Strode’
who started her career.
Yet is Bee
Gees.
The first celebrities that come to mind when
pondering this question are the Bee Gees.
Up until early to mid-1970, the Bee Gees had been singing with their natural
voices and had done sort of mainstream pop music – much like who they
obviously were influenced by, the Beatles.
Then in the mid to late 70s, they – like
everyone else – found themselves in the middle of the disco craze. Barry Gibb
began writing songs with a powerful falsetto sound in mind.
And the rest is history. It not only paid off
big time, but it gave the Bee Gees a status as a legendary band for all time,
down to this day.
Do you know of others? Send in your comments.
