People Are Talking About Young Actors Who Are Not The Product Of Nepotism, And It's Honestly Eye-Opening

Barry Keoghan spent most of his childhood in 13 different foster homes.BuzzFeed Staff"Elijah woods parents ran a restaurant in Iowa city and weren’t particularly wealthy."—DigitalFireStormAccording to the LA Times, when he was 8, Wood had been "modeling in Cedar Rapids and came to Los Angeles for a convention." A talent manager spotted him at said convention, asked if he was interested in acting (obviously, the answer was yes), and then he and his family packed up and moved out to LA permanently one week later."[He] grew up on a council estate."—KagomefogAccording to the New York Times, "Born to Ugandan parents, Mr. Kaluuya grew up with his mother and an older sister on a council estate, the British equivalent of a housing project, in north London. (His father lived in Uganda, he said, and he didn’t connect with that side of his family until he was 15.) Although his mother wasn’t particularly interested in the arts, a primary schoolteacher noted that he was a 'very busy' child and recommended acting as an outlet.'""Dev Patel grew up literally around the corner from me, definitely just your average family from North West London."—YeahokitsmePatel's father, Raju, is an IT consultant and his mother, Anita, a care worker. Still, he always had something more to give, and when his mother saw a casting advertisement for Skins, a teen drama that would supercharge the careers of young actors like Nicholas Hoult and Daniel Kaluuya, she prodded him to audition for the role of sex-crazy Anwar.""Grew up in a low-income family and could only make it through Juilliard thanks to a scholarship (actually awarded by a foundation led by Robin Williams, if I'm not mistaken)."—thefrayedfilesChastain's mother is a vegan chef and her father is a fireman. According to the Independent, "At a Juilliard showcase, she was signed to a 12-month holding deal by TV super-producer John Wells, which led to her first screen credit, a small role in an episode of ER.""Grew up in Alabama and Mississippi, he basically only got into showbiz by being signed as a dancer, and he was only a dancer because he used to be a stripper."—Ihateregistering6According to a 2009 article from Elle, "The Tatum family [was] based on a farm in Alabama, but his parents, Kay and Glenn (she worked for an airline, he in construction), moved Tatum and older sister Paige to Tampa, Florida [...] He got a football scholarship to Glenville State College in West Virginia but dropped out and found himself ­doing everything from framing houses to working as a mortgage broker. One of his first jobs was a TV adaptation of Iain Banks’s novel Complicity.""Son of pastor mom and Air Force father."—KagomefogAccording to The Hollywood Reporter, "Born in Lompoc, California, to Texan parents, Majors spent his early years growing up with his older sister, Monica, and younger brother, Cameron, on the Vandenberg military base, where his father was in the Air Force. 'And he resurfaced 17 years later.' His mother moved him and his siblings back to Dallas, and raised them while putting herself through divinity school (she is now a pastor)." Through a troubled youth that involved getting caught for shoplifting, suspension from school, being thrown out of his home, and living in his car while working two restaurant jobs, Majors was able to stick with acting in theatre and eventually attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and then the Yale School of Drama."Taron Egerton's mother worked in social services and I think raised him as a single mother."—letmeusemynameAccording to the Hollywood Reporter, "Egerton grew up in a working-class family. No show biz parents, got her start in theater as a kid."—puppeteer23According to the Sydney Morning Herald, "Her parents, while not technically gifted (her father was a history teacher before joining her mother in finance), heavily promoted the arts within the family pile in Portland, Maine.