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Gabriel Byrne has a fascinatingly varied CV. Photojoiner/Alamy/RollingNews.ie
career guidance
Quiz: What did this famous person work as before they were famous?
This isn’t meant to be inspirational – just an eyebrow-raising FYI.
MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT Eamon Ryan was in the middle of launching the Government’s big plan to reduce the cost of retrofitting homes to help lower electricity bills and emissions, when he unexpectedly digressed into Gabriel Byrne’s career trajectory.
The Green Party leader mused that just like how the Dublin actor changed careers from a plumber to an award-winning actor, the Government would change the way homes in Ireland are heated.
So – just as Byrne’s The Usual Suspects character Dean Keaton changed jobs from mobster to businessman, and just as Byrne’s character Tom Reagan changed who his mob boss was in Miller’s Crossing, here’s a quiz on famous people’s careers before they were famous.
Gabriel Byrne said on the Late Late Show in 2020 of his time as a plumber's apprentice: "They said after I had been in [a bathroom] and you turned on the light, the water came on". Which of these did he NOT try his hand at?
A trainee priest
An encyclopedia salesman
An archaeologist
A Dublin city tour guide
Harrison Ford also came from humble beginnings. In the early years as he tried to make it as an actor, what did he work as to support his family?
A carpenter
A bus driver
A postman
A pilot
What did US composer and pianist Philip Glass work as before he became world-famous?
A cashier
A taxi driver
A library clerk
A delivery man
Before she married into the royal family, and before she 'made it' as an actor, Meghan Markle had an interesting freelance gig to support herself between acting roles. What was it?
A painter
A calligrapher
A florist
A wedding planner
What job did David Bowie take on as a young teen, in order to save up for saxophone lessons with famous sax player Ronnie Ross?
A newspaper boy
A kitchen porter
A butcher's delivery boy
A gardener
Now regarded as one of the most influential musicians of all time, rapper and producer Kanye West was a sales assistant at what US store when he was a teenager?
Gap
Timberland
Tommy Hilfiger
Under Armour
Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the English new wave band Joy Division, worked as what when the band started out, clocking into the job between gigs?
A civil servant at an unemployment office
A Revenue worker
A car clamper
He was unemployed
Which Irish actor worked on a trawler off Howth when they were a young teen?
Paul Mescal
Saoirse Ronan
Colm Meaney
Domhnall Gleeson
After selling clothes with her father at a stall on the streets of of Barbados as a child, what did Rihanna do for a living when she was 20 years old?
She was a hairdresser
She was an illustrator
She was a receptionist
She was an army cadet
Finally, to finish off where we started, what did Eamon Ryan do before he became a full-time politician?
He founded a cycling holidays company
He opened a bird sanctuary in east Wicklow
He founded a rainwater harvesting company
He set up a potato 'milk' company, that has just recently taken off
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