20 Surprising Career Changes of the Rich and Famous

Scottish heartthrob Gerard Butler studied law at Glasgow University and then worked as a trainee lawyer. However, he partied too hard and, as he told Esquire Magazine, got fired a week before fully qualifying as a lawyer.

Before he became famous as the frontman for The Police, Sting was Mr. Sumner, English teacher and soccer coach at a primary school in Cramlington. The musician told The Telegraph that his parents thought he was crazy to give up a steady job like that.

Before the crazy make-up and lizard tongue made him famous, KISS frontman Gene Simmons taught 6th graders at a school in Spanish Harlem. He also spent a stint working as a personal assistant to the editor at Vogue and Glamour, which may or may not explain his fashion sense.

Art Garfunkel has a master's degree in mathematics. After Simon & Garfunkel split up at the height of their fame, the blond half of the duo taught math at a school in Connecticut for a while. But, as he told The Telegraph, his pupils would ask him questions about The Beatles instead.

Back in his youth, Irish actor Gabriel Byrne spent five years in the seminary to become a priest. Then he became an archaeologist, a job that he described in an interview with ABC as "being down a hole with a toothbrush, basically. A bit like any other job in a way."

Marcia Cross studied acting at Juilliard and went on to star in Melrose Place for five seasons. Then she went back to school and earned a master's in psychology. She later told Good Housekeeping that she was definitely going to become a therapist when she read the script for Desperate Housewives, and thought a role in the series would be a nice part-time job.

Before a show about a plane crash made her famous, Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly briefly worked as a flight attendant for Royal Airlines. She told David Letterman in a 2007 interview that it was a job "with no redeeming qualities."

It's no surprise really that Chuck Norris would have had a military or crime-fighting career in a previous life. In fact, according to his Wikipedia entry, he was serving in South Korea as an Air Policeman with the US Air Force when he became interested in martial arts.

Before he became an actor, Steve Buscemi spent four years working as a firefighter in New York. In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, he likened the nervousness just before you go on stage to the adrenaline he'd feel while fighting fires.

David Zayas was well prepared for his role as the cop Angel Batista in Dexter. Before he became an actor, he spent 15 years working as a police officer with the NYPD. He told About Entertainment that his police training helped him with many of his roles.

Before he hit it big as the geeky Hiro in Heroes, Masi Oka really was a computer geek, working as a visual effects artist. IMDb lists The Perfect Storm, Star Wars Episodes I to III, Terminator 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as some of the movies for which the actor has visual effects credits.

Mr. Chow from The Hangover is actually a qualified and licensed doctor, but quit to pursue an acting career. As Ken Jeong told AZcentral, "I was making a great living being a doctor, you know, six-figure income, doctor for life, what's not to like? But you just love doing something else, and I just pursued it, took a big gamble."

When Harrison Ford landed the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, he had a very different full-time job. He used to be a carpenter! During a 2013 interview at the Cinequest Film Festival, he said that he initially turned down the role because as a carpenter with a kid to feed, he couldn't afford the pay cut.

As a struggling young comedian, Tim Allen made a really bad career choice. He was arrested for trafficking cocaine and spent more than two years in jail. He said in an article in Esquire that this was when the comic in him showed up and saved his life.

When he was still known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis studied chemistry and worked as a chemical technician. According to the Vatican, he also studied philosophy and taught literature and psychology while he was training to become a priest.

Before he became the king of trashy talk shows, Jerry Springer was a politician who served as Mayor of Cincinnati and ran for Governor of Ohio. After he lost that bid, he was offered a job as a local news anchor because, as he told HuffPost Live, the station thought that as former mayor he would know the city.

When he was 10, Jeff Cohen landed the role of Chunk in The Goonies. It was the most famous of the chubby-kid roles he played before he hit puberty, became a hunk and couldn't get roles anymore. According to the Daily Mail, the young actor then went to law school and is now a successful entertainment lawyer.

"When you're 18, 19, 20 years old, you're not thinking: pop music is a waste of my intellect. You're thinking: this is brilliant." That's what Professor Brian Cox, physicist and host of science TV shows, told The Guardian about his previous life as a rock star.

In an interview with The Guardian, the Reverend Richard Coles said that before his autobiography was published, he had to warn his parish about the contents of the book. After all, back in the '80s he lived the high life as one-half of the very popular band The Communards.

He's had parts in several Canadian TV series, but his most famous role was that of Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the indie movie Smoke Signals. Evan Adams then became a doctor, and in 2014 the First Nations Health Authority in BC announced that they had appointed him as their new chief medical officer.