Celebrities Who Found Their Inspiration in Others
Sometimes, all it takes is one special person to remind you that your dreams are possible. For these celebrities, while they may seem at the top of their game now, there was once a time when their ambitions were still just dreams. And thanks to the stars they once looked up to, the course of their lives changed forever. Here are some famous faces who have shared who inspired them.
Jason Momoa
Jason Momoa has credited acclaimed Māori actor Temuera Morrison as his idol who inspired him to become an actor. “Once Were Warriors was a huge movie for me,” Jason shared. “What he did in that movie was just so complex and unbelievable, and it’s what I channeled in Game of Thrones.” The two later worked together on the Aquaman films with Temuera playing his father, and reunited once more for The Wrecking Crew.
Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Chalamet was 12 years old when Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight inspired his career trajectory. “I petitioned my mom and grandma to see Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight with me,” he recalled. “I left that theater a changed man, and I’m serious about that. Heath Ledger’s performance in that film was visceral and viral to me, and I now had the acting bug.”
Jacob Elordi
Another actor to cite Heath Ledger as a career motivator is Jacob Elordi. He told Gwyneth Paltrow on Variety’s Actors on Actors that Heath in The Dark Knight inspired his “obsession” with acting. “I was about 12. I realized he was from Australia,” he said. “Then the cog started turning that it was viable. It was a thing that you could do, and it was something that like, I could do.”
Julie Chen
Big Brother host Julie Chen is one of the most prominent Asian American broadcast personalities today. In the ’80s, her inspiration for her career path was seeing a face that looked like hers on television. “There was a broadcaster by the name of Kaity Tong on ABC back then doing the 5 o’clock news,” she told. “And back then, any time you saw any Asian face — I’m Chinese, but it didn’t matter if the person was Korean or Japanese or whatever — it was a very big deal. It was a special moment.”
Chase Infiniti
Similarly, Chase Infiniti told Elle how Zendaya “embodied possibility” for her. She said, “I remember being like, this girl looks like me. She is mixed. She is singing, acting, dancing, doing the thing that I want to do just in a different format that I didn’t even think about.” She also cited Zendaya’s career as the one she admires most.
Keke Palmer
For Keke Palmer, who was a child actor with her own show, True Jackson, VP on Nickelodeon, it was a fellow child star who resonated with her. She counts Raven-Symoné as someone who inspired her career goals, especially due to the widely popular Disney Channel show, That’s So Raven. “I grew up thinking I would love to be like Raven-Symoné,” Keke told People. “It was so cool to have my own show.”
Steven Yeun
When starting out in his career, Steven Yeun told Korean Kontext how he remembered thinking John Cho was “doing really well.” But as Steven started out in the comedy field and trained with the renowned Second City group in Chicago, he counted Steve Carell, a fellow alum of the program, as another pretty big influence. “I think for me, my influences were more like people who were good at what they were doing,” he said. “I really looked up to Steve Carell.”
Meryl Streep
For the screen legend that is Meryl Streep, back when she was a student at Yale drama school, it was a future fellow screen legend who blew her away. After spotting a young Robert De Niro in a movie and thinking his performance was “incredible,” she later came across his star-making turn in Mean Streets. “The second time I saw Robert De Niro, I said to myself, that’s the kind of actor I wanna be. That’s what I wanna do. And I wanna do it with the commitment and the passion and the skill and the beauty with which he applies to it,” Meryl said. “And he’s been my beacon for 50 years.”
Michael B. Jordan
Early in his career, Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman almost crossed paths on the soap, All My Children. According to lore, Chadwick was hired for the role of Reggie Porter, but when he shared his thoughts on the character’s racial stereotypes, he was reportedly fired a week into the role. Michael ended up replacing him, though Chadwick’s fight led to some of his “suggestions” being heard. Upon the late actor’s passing, Michael wrote on his Instagram, “When I was 16 years old you paved the way for me. You showed me how to be better, honor purpose, and create legacy. And whether you’ve known it or not…I’ve been watching, learning and constantly motivated by your greatness.”
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson is quite legendary in terms of his career, conquering the wrestling world and then Hollywood. His grandfather, Peter Maivia, was a very influential WWWF pro wrestler and actor, and his father, Rocky Johnson, was also a professional wrestler. When The Rock suffered an injury while playing professional football, he then turned his sights towards the family business as “Rocky Maivia.” He even shared that for the character Maui in Moana, he channeled his grandfather for the role.
Yerin Ha
Bridgerton’s Yerin Ha also counts her family, particularly her grandmother — Son Sook, a veteran actor in South Korea — as her inspiration for becoming an actor, especially after seeing her perform on stage. “When I was little, I watched my grandmother’s plays every time I came to Korea, and the one I remember most is her one-woman show,” Yerin told Korea.net. “One scene had her cry like a baby while hugging a pillow, and the audience cried along. I recognized the beauty of being an actor, being able to offer empathy and comfort through theater. I was greatly inspired by my grandmother.”
Jenna Ortega
The film, Man on Fire, starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, “changed the entire course of my existence,” Jenna Ortega once told Vanity Fair. Seeing Dakota, who was just 9 years old at the time, led Jenna towards the acting world. She launched her career as a child actor with minor roles until her breakout in Netflix’s You, and later, Wednesday.
Eiza González
Mexican actress Eiza González counts Salma Hayek as someone who made her Hollywood dreams seem like they could become a reality. “Born and raised in Mexico, [Salma] was someone that I really related to and looked up to,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “Since I was really young, no one was really crossing over besides Salma [Hayek], and she did it way before I even started working,” she said to V Magazine.
Riz Ahmed
For Riz Ahmed, it wasn’t one but three actors who inspired his career. To Vanity Fair, he said he views Denzel Washington as someone who is “unapologetically himself.” He then credited Jackie Chan as someone who “put forward a complicated and layered mold of manhood,” and lastly, he counted Irrfan Khan as “one of the first actors to truly bridge East and West.” They “didn’t fit the mold,” Riz said.
Jon M. Chu
Director Jon M. Chu wrote about how impactful Steven Spielberg’s films were for him in his youth. In his memoir, Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen, he recounted early memories of seeing films like E.T., Jurassic Park, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The films had “taken him outside myself,” he wrote. Later, his student film, When the Kids Are Away— a musical about what mothers do when they have time to themselves— led to a call from the very person who inspired him. The meeting kick-started Jon’s career as a 23-year-old film school grad who loved musicals. Jon, of course, most recently adapted the Wicked musical for the screen.
Aziz Ansari
Aziz Ansari was “obsessed” with Chris Rock growing up, he told Vulture, and knew all the words to Chris’s comedy specials, Bring the Pain and Bigger & Blacker. Later, when the two became friends, Aziz shared that he still finds their friendship to be a “very cool, very surreal thing.” He said, “At a certain point, someone like Rock comes over and is like, ‘Hey, you’re funny,’ and it’s a gradual thing, but you realize, ‘***! This is someone I’ve looked up to for a long period of my life, and now we’re friends, and I can call him for advice.’”
Emma Stone
Emma Stone told W Magazine how Diane Keaton, who passed away in 2025, would always be her “North Star.” She said, “She taught me about not wanting to emulate anyone else, including her. She taught me how valuable it is to the world to realize who you are and what you can contribute.” She continued, “She was just so herself,” adding, “She’s the person who really made me realize that the most valuable thing you can be is yourself, authentically. She was the best ever.”
Chase Sui Wonders
If The Studio star Chase Sui Wonders’s name sounds familiar, that’s because her aunt is famed designer Anna Sui. Chase told L’officiel how having her aunt working in the creative space has been an inspiration to her since she was young. “It was very cool to have a woman in my family who not only left the cultural desert of Detroit to pursue a creative career, but did well at it,” she said. While growing up, she was a tomboy who didn’t fully understand her aunt’s fashion shows, but today, “I’m obsessed with her clothes, and she’s let me wear some pieces from her archive on red carpets.”
Margot Robbie
In a BBC Radio 2 interview, Variety reported that Margot Robbie revealed she used to study Rachel McAdams’s audition tape for The Notebook for her own auditions. “She’s so good, and she’s so charming and real,” Margot said. “I used to watch it before I’d go to an audition, I was like, ‘OK, just try and be as good as her.’” Later, the two worked together in About Time, where Margot had a brief supporting role. “I was absolutely no one back then, and she was so lovely to me and my brother,” Margo shared. “I’ll never forget how she’d go out of her way to be so kind. I just love her.”
