Star Debuts

God, he was so great as a heel during the "Die, Rocky, Die" period.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"

It wasn't his debut, quite, coming the year after "This Boy's Life," which was also good, but I don't think I'll ever forget him in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" You knew -- just knew -- this kid was going to be around, and was going to be big, in the very near future.

 

Cardale.

 

River Phoenix in "Stand By Me." Wasn't that his first big role?

 

Brad Renfro was pretty good in "The Client." But then he went too far.

 

He actually did quite a bit of stuff prior to both of those, much of it on TV.

 

Carrie Underwood on American Idol. It was the only time I saw a first audition and knew that person would win.

 

On the flip side of this, Brad Pitt was pretty terrible in his early roles -- absurdly handsome but a pretty awful actor. His improvement really is quite remarkable.

 

I thought the same thing after hearing Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. on America's Got Talent several years ago. He hasn't had the success of Carrie Underwood, however.

 

My wife surprised me by suggesting we see the first X-Men movie while we were on vacation. She really didn't like those movies, but she knew I wanted to see it. We got to the scene after Wolverine lets Rogue into his truck. She asked him if it hurt when he popped his claws and he responded, "Every time."

At this point, I heard a soft "awwwww" from my wife. For a moment, I thought she was actually into the movie! It wasn't until I heard her talking to her sister about it later that I realized that she had suddenly become interested in a comic book movie. It was all about Hugh Jackman.

Jackman's performance in that movie certainly fits the thread. Nobody had heard of him until he was cast in the role. All I knew was that he was too damn tall to be playing Wolverine, but he carried a very big part of that movie. He held his own with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan.

 

First track...
First album...

 

Second and third songs on debut album.
For the life of me, I don’t know why that album didn’t lede with Eruption.