For actors, having extracurricular skills on their résumé can be useful.
Whether it’s a musical hobby or an athletic ability, these unique talents can make all the difference when it comes to auditions. Find out what talents these celebs have been hiding below!
1 – Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is a skilled ping pong player and even turned her love of the sport into a business! In 2009, she also helped found a ping pong bar called Spin which has locations all across the United States. “Ping pong cuts across all body types and gender – everything, really – because little girls can beat big muscley guys. You don’t get hurt; it is not expensive; it is really good for your mind. It is one of the few sports that you can play until you die,” she told The Guardian.
2 – Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo learned to ride a unicycle when he was a kid and continued to practice the sport into adulthood. During an appearance on “The Graham Norton Show” he proved that the old adage that you never forget how to ride a bicycle also applies to unicycles when he hopped on and took off! “I think it’s been almost 25 years since I’ve done this!” Mark said on the show.
3 – Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris has been a fan of magic since he was a child, and he fell in love with it while watching David Copperfield on television.
He learned how to perform tricks by checking out magic books from the library and practicing them at home. “There’s a big connection between magic and acting” he said once. “Because if you think about it when you’re watching a magician perform a trick, he’s explaining the facts of what’s happening…Those may not be the actual facts. And so in enacting there are facts of a script but you’re able to act around it and fill it in. There are facts of things that happen and it’s our job as humans to process what those facts mean to you and embellish upon it”.
4 – Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie has some talent when it comes to using knives. She once shared her skills on “Conan.” “I’ve collected weapons since I was a little girl. I went to the Renaissance fair when I was a little girl and…it reminds you of history and there’s something beautiful and traditional about them. Different countries have different weapons and blades and there’s just something beautiful about them to me.”
5 – Jeremy Renner
Jeremy Renner is actually a talented makeup artist and made a career out of it while before becoming an actor. “I was a makeup artist. I could do makeup because I did theater…I could paint and I could draw, so I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll do makeup on girls all day.’ It bought me a lot of free time to go audition when I needed to because I only had to work a few hours a week. I didn’t have to wait tables, so it was actually a great gig,” Jeremy told Access Hollywood.