Lady Gaga has become more known for House of Gucci than for her discography, making it clear that a good performance is a good performance, regardless of professional acting experience. Audrey Hepburn, one of Hollywood's greatest actors once said, "Nothing is impossible because the word itself says, 'I'm possible!'", a quote that highlights the incredible performances by real people with no formal training in the arts.
It's not just Lady Gaga who's turned out to be quite the actor — it's wrestlers, doctors, and kids on the street who end up being used by directors to make their movies more authentic. Some of them even get nominated for (and win!) Academy Awards for their performances, proving that it's not impossible to act without knowledge of the craft.
Gary Poulter as Wade Jones (Joe)
In 2013, Nicolas Cage starred in an independent drama called Joe, portraying a former convict trying to make a quiet life for himself in the Oregon wilderness by poisoning trees for a lumber company. When he becomes an unlikely father to a teenager looking for work, the boy's father, an already malevolent man used to stealing his son's wages and physically abusing him, is determined to destroy both their lives.
For the role of the boy's father, Wade Jones, director David Gordon Green hired Gary Poulter, a homeless man from Austin, Texas. Poulter brought the exact kind of authenticity the movie needed, having lived a life as hard as his character's. Poulter's ability to vacillate between quirky, spiteful, and bone-chilling, sometimes in a single scene, is nothing short of mesmerizing. He died shortly before Joe's release, and Green dedicated the film to him.
Roderick Toombs Nada (They Live)
By now everyone's familiar with the success wrestlers can find in Hollywood through the filmographies of Dwayne Johnson and Dave Bautista. They were preceded by Roderick Toombs appearing as the drifter simply known as "Nada" in one of Live, about a man who discovers certain everyday people are actually aliens intent on keeping the human race docile and complacent.
What's special about Piper's performance is that, unlike the aforementioned wrestlers, his size and physical condition aren't the focus of his role. He's an everyman who's quick-thinking, resourceful, intelligent, and isn't nearly as brash as his Rowdy wrestling persona.
Haing S. Ngor - Dith Pran (The Killing Fields)
As versatile as actors are in transforming themselves into other people, sometimes a person's lived experiences can't be replicated. That was certainly the case for casting Dr. Haing S. Ngor to play journalist Dith Pran in The Killing Fields. Ngor had actually experienced the real killing fields, proving there's no substitution for the real deal.
Ngor ed when the Khmer Rouge killed anyone labeled an intellectual during the Cambodian Civil War. According to VICE, when Ngor's pregnant wife went into labor while they were interred in one of the death camps, he couldn't give her the C-section that would have saved her life because his status as a doctor would have been discovered and had to watch her away. For his completely believable performance, Ngor won the Academy Award for Best ing Actor.
Abraham Attah - Agu (Beasts Of No Nation)
Imagine one minute you're playing soccer with your friends, and the next minute, you're starring in a movie opposite Idris Elba. According to Indiewire, that's what happened to Abraham Attah, just a normal teenager kicking a soccer ball around when a casting director for Beasts of no Nation approached him about appearing in the film.
Attah plays Agu, a boy in West Africa who gets swept up in civil war and is forced to become a child soldier. Forced to do truly unspeakable things, Agu's innocence is slowly drained away with each act of atrocity, a metamorphosis that would be a challenge for any actor to successfully convey, never mind one with no acting experience.
Frank Silva - Bob (Twin Peaks)
It's not surprising that Twin Peaks, the surreal mystery series from provocative director David Lynch, features a villain who is what nightmares are made of. But the real surprising part? That he's played by Frank Silva who, until he was picked for the part, was the series set dresser.
Bob is malevolence personified, and while Silva isn't given much to say, he makes the most of his very expressive face. Knowing how to emote effectively, as well as contort his body in just the right haunting ways, ensured that Silva made Bob an iconic character and contributed to the scariest scenes in Twin Peaks.
Barkhad Abdi - Abduwali Muse (Captain Phillips)
"Look at me. I am the captain now." With that phrase, Barkhad Abdi made an indelible impression on audiences watching Captain Phillips, the true story of how Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by pirates off the Horn of Africa, led by Abdi's Abduwali Muse.
Despite having no training as an actor, the former cab driver manages to hold his own in tense scenes with Tom Hanks as Captain Philips, bringing a confidence and intensity that really sells the threat of the Somali pirates. For his work, Abdi was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best ing Actor.
Harold Russell - Homer Parrish (The Best Years Of Our Lives)
Made in 1946, The Best Years of Our Lives chronicles the different issues three men face after World War II while trying to reintegrate into civilian life, and one of them is played by real veteran Harold Russell. While it wasn't uncommon for Hollywood actors from the '40s to the war like James Stewart or Clark Gable, it wasn't so common for veterans to go to Hollywood.
Harold Russell plays Homer Parrish, who has difficulty adjusting to life after losing both hands. According to EW, Russell lost his hands in an accident involving TNT while training paratroopers, and opted for hooks rather than prosthetics because of their functionality. Not only does his performance capture Parrish's vulnerability and frustration, but it also captures his joy over life's simple pleasures worth fighting for, and he took home the Academy Award for Best ing Actor.
Ted Thin Elk - Grandpa Sam Reaches (Thunderheart)
In the fascinating mystery Thunderheart, based on the real FBI investigation of murders on a Native American reservation, Val Kilmer plays Agent Levoi, whose quarter Sioux heritage helps him gain the trust of its people. He shares many moving scenes with Grandpa Sam Reaches while on the case, a tribal elder played by Chief Ted Thin Elk.
Thin Elk, Sicangu Lakota Sioux of the Rosebud Indian Reservation, had never made a movie until he was cast at the age of 72. Appearing very comfortable on camera with just the right amount of cryptic charisma to add mystique to the film's plot, he can't help but be a scene-stealer.
Dean Brooks - John Spivey (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest)
In 1975, Jack Nicholson made a little movie called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which he plays McMurphy, a man looking to avoid jail time by getting himself committed to a mental hospital. Overseeing his evaluation is Dr. Spivey, the head of the hospital, and the real-life superintendent of the Oregon State Hospital where the movie was filmed.
The authenticity of Dean Brooks' performance makes Dr. Spivey one of the best movie psychiatrists. His lack of formal acting experience was more than made up for by his experience in mental health, and he chose to interview McMurphy as he would any patient, resulting in a tour de force two-hander scene.
Dil (The Crying Game)
In the early '90s, director Neil Jordan needed to find the perfect person to play the enigmatic and mesmerizing Dil, a young London woman courted by an IRA freedom fighter after the death of her soldier boyfriend. Despite having no acting experience, Jaye Davidson was cast in The Crying Game, which he discovered was for the part of a transgender woman.
These days, the casting would be different, but Jaye Davidson's performance was as truthful as he could make it, and Dil is a resilient, strong, and charming character that earned him a nomination for Best ing Actor, the very first British person of color to be nominated.
