10 Badass Actors Who Were Bullied In High School
It can seem like Hollywood stars have it all together. They fight robots and aliens on
screen, and still look picture-perfect for the red carpet. But every badass action hero
started out as a high school student, and every high school student has gone through
an awkward phase. These famous actors may seem untouchable now, but back in the day
they were picked on for their looks, their style, and even their early acting careers.
Of course, the best revenge is growing up to be a wildly successful movie star. So here
are 10 Badass Actors Who Were Bullied In High School.
Megan Fox These days, Megan Fox is known for movies
like Transformers and Jennifer�s Body, and she�s been voted the �most beautiful woman
in the world� more than once. But she wasn�t always so popular. Back in high school, Fox
was bullied for wanting to become an actress. Fox says that she spent a lot of her high
school years hiding out in the bathroom to avoid having ketchup packets flung at her.
But, even though she hated high school, she acknowledges that her bullies probably had
insecurities of their own, saying �It's four years of your life and you just have
to remember the person picking on you has their own problems and their own issues, and
you're going to be OK." It seems like Megan has indeed ended up OK.
Jackie Chan Yes, even Jackie Chan, one of the most famous
martial artists in the world, was bullied as a kid. Chan is known for his incredible
acrobatics and fighting skills, as well as his spot-on comedic timing. But as a kid,
Chan says that he was always too scared to stand up for himself, and he got picked on
a lot. It wasn�t until a new kid showed up at school that Chan started to face off
against his bullies. As Chan says, �I was bullied until I prevented a new student from
being bullied. By standing up for him, I learned to stand up for myself.� Starting martial
arts classes probably helped, too.
Tom Cruise Tom Cruise is easily one of the most famous
actors on the planet. He�s starred as an action hero in movies like Top Gun and Mission
Impossible, so it�s hard to imagine him as a bullied teen. But when Cruise was young,
his family moved constantly in search of work, and he was always the new kid at school. Cruise
was small for his age, and was often pushed around. He started fighting back eventually,
but he was never a fan of violence. As he says, �I never liked hitting someone, but
I know if I don�t hit that guy hard he�s going to pick on me all year. I go, �You
better fight.� I just laid it down. I don�t like bullies.�
Chris Rock Chris Rock is one of the most successful comedians
of all time. He�s a former member of SNL, and he�s starred in movies such as Dogma,
Down to Earth, and The Longest Yard. As a kid, though, he was bullied so relentlessly
that his parents pulled him out of school. Rock attended predominantly white schools,
and white students would beat him up, spit in his face, and push him down the stairs.
Rock managed to turn a bleak situation into a source of comedy, though: his sitcom Everybody
Hates Chris was based on his experiences with bullying and racism as a kid.
Christian Bale Long before he was playing the caped crusader,
Christian Bale was getting piled on by other kids in high school. As he says, �They put
me through hell, punching and kicking me all the time.� You might think that his rise
to fame at 13, starring in Steven Spielberg�s The Empire of the Sun, would have made him
more popular. But Bale says that fame as a teenager just made the bullying worse. "It
was an early lesson in how making a film can set you apart,� he says. Of course, all
those bullies are probably kicking themselves now that their one-time victim has grown up
to be Batman.
Mila Kunis Most movie-goers will agree that Mila Kunis
has a perfectly pleasant-looking face. But as a kid, Kunis says that she was constantly
bullied for her looks. Other students teased her for having a �funny face� and �big
eyes.� Kunis says that even she thinks she had a �funny looking face� as a kid and
young teen, but that she grew into it. Her face couldn�t have been that funny, though,
because she was scouted by an agent before her 15th birthday. After years of TV work
she transitioned to film, with roles in movies like Black Swan, The Book of Eli, and Forgetting
Sarah Marshall.
Jennifer Lawrence Jennifer Lawrence has been the reigning It
girl of Hollywood for the past few years, with starring roles in The Hunger Games and
X-Men movies. But before she was charming fans and tripping at the Oscars, JLaw was
a bullied kid. She was bullied so much as a child that she had to change elementary
schools several times. Lawrence says that things got somewhat better in middle school
and high school, but she was still a target. She recalls that one girl asked her to hand
out invitations for a party that Lawrence wasn�t invited to. Lawrence says that she
just �hocked a loogie on them and threw them in the trash can,� though. That�s
the kind of attitude that would make Katniss or Mystique proud.
Winona Ryder In the 80s and 90s, Winona Ryder was the ultimate
high school weirdo. As a teen, she starred in Beetlejuice, Heathers, and Edward Scissorhands,
and most recently she brought the 80s back with the Netflix series Stranger Things. But
Ryder didn�t just play high school outcasts on film: she was also bullied in real life.
In one particularly gruesome incident, Ryder was mistake for a gay boy with her short hair,
and beaten so badly that she needed stitches. After that, Ryder was homeschooled, freeing
up time for her to act in more iconic movies. Ryder eventually got her revenge, too: years
later, one of her former bullies stopped her in a coffee shop to ask her for an autograph.
Ryder reveal that she was the kid he�d beat up all those years ago, and told him to go
f*** himself.
Ryan Reynolds Ryan Reynolds hated high school so much, it
actually cost him an acting job. Reynolds was offered a role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
as a young man, but he turned it down because he �didn�t want to play a guy in high
school,� even though he loved the show. He�d just come out of high school, where
he was tormented by bullies, and he really didn�t want to relive the experience. On
top of being bullied, Reynolds also flunked his high school drama class. He didn�t let
that stop him from pursuing acting, though, and with the release of Deadpool, he�s one
of biggest, most badass stars around.
Dwayne Johnson It�s hard to imagine any high schooler taking
down Dwayne �The Rock� Johnson. But when Johnson was a kid, he was always on the road
with his wrestler father. The family lived in fourteen different states, and Johnson
recalls that always being the new kid in school made him a target for bullies. He says he
was �always getting into fights,� but never starting them. That is, until he joined
the World Wrestling Federation in the �90s. Johnson says that years of being bullied pushed
him into a bad crowd at first, but he managed to find his way to wrestling and acting stardom
anyway.
So there you have it: even the most badass stars of today used to get picked on in high
school. Lucky for all of us, high school doesn�t last forever, and bullies don�t get very
far in life. Were you surprised to learn that any of these actors used to be punching bags?
Let us know in the comments, and don�t forget to subscribe.