These Famous Celebrities Almost Became Priests and Nuns Before They Were Famous

Not every celebrity followed a straight line to stardom. For some, the dream that came first had nothing to do with cameras or crowds, it had everything to do with faith. Choosing a life devoted to God is rare enough on its own, but walking away from that path to pursue entertainment makes these stories all the more fascinating.

These are the familiar faces who once stood at a very different kind of crossroads.

Anne Hathaway

Long before she was charming audiences in The Princess Diaries (2001) or Alice in Wonderland (2010), Anne Hathaway grew up with a quiet but genuine desire to enter religious life as a nun. Faith was central to her upbringing in a Roman Catholic household, though her relationship with the Church gradually shifted — particularly after her brother opened up about being gay.

Eva Mendes

In a candid 2001 conversation with the Daily Mail, Eva Mendes revealed that becoming a nun was her very first dream. Practical reality, however, got in the way rather quickly. As she put it: “But my sister informed me that nuns didn’t get paid, so I soon went off that idea. Then I wanted to be an opera singer and an astronaut.”

Martin Scorsese

Few would guess that the man behind some of cinema’s most celebrated work once seriously considered a life in the Church. Following high school, Martin Scorsese enrolled in a preparatory seminary, spending a full year there before things did not go as planned. It was that turning point that redirected him toward film — and the rest, as they say, is history.

Michael Moore

Growing up in a devout Roman Catholic family in Michigan, Michael Moore absorbed a strong sense of faith from an early age. He attended parochial school as a boy and later spent a year at seminary before eventually moving on to a conventional high school. The pull toward the priesthood was real, even if it ultimately gave way to a very different kind of vocation.

Jack White

Before Jack White became the driving force behind the White Stripes, he came surprisingly close to a life behind the pulpit rather than behind a microphone. Speaking on 60 Minutes in 2005, he recalled: “I’d got accepted to a seminary in Wisconsin, and I was gonna become a priest, but at the last second I thought, ‘I’ll just go to public school.'”

Dan Aykroyd

Raised within the Catholic Church in Canada, Dan Aykroyd spent much of his youth fully intending to enter the priesthood — a plan that held firm right up until the age of 17. His path eventually led him to university, where he studied criminology and sociology, though he left before finishing his degree and found his true calling in comedy instead.

Tom Cruise

While Tom Cruise is now synonymous with blockbuster roles like Rain Man (1988) and his well-documented commitment to Scientology, his early years told a different story. Based on accounts found across multiple entertainment biographies, Cruise is believed to have attended seminary as a young man with genuine thoughts about the priesthood — something he himself has never publicly addressed.

Carson Daly

For Carson Daly, the idea of entering the priesthood was not a passing thought — it was something he genuinely wrestled with. During a 2019 segment on Today with Hoda and Jenna, he reflected openly on that period of his life, telling Hoda Kotb: “I was willing to take an oath of poverty. I almost was gonna become a priest. I really was. I really thought about it.”

Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle, the British filmmaker who brought Trainspotting (1996) to the screen, came from a deeply Catholic background. He spent eight years serving as an altar boy, and his mother held strong hopes that he would one day become a priest. It was actually a priest himself who nudged Boyle in a different direction — a moment Boyle has recalled with characteristic wit: “Whether he was saving me from the priesthood or the priesthood from me, I don’t know. But quite soon after, I started doing drama.”

Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston’s desire to become a nun was all the more striking given that her father was a committed atheist. She attended convent school as a girl and, far from feeling like an outsider, found herself drawn to the very life her father had asked the nuns not to impose on her. In 2012 she told the Daily Mail: “I went to a convent school where I was a bit of a peculiarity because my father, who was an atheist, told the nuns I was not to be indoctrinated. But I longed to be indoctrinated.”

Gabriel Byrne

For Irish actor, director, and producer Gabriel Byrne, the seminary was not a brief flirtation — it was five years of his life. Raised by parents for whom Catholicism ran deep, Byrne entered with what those around him assumed was a genuine calling. In time, though, he came to see things differently. As he later reflected: “I spent five years in the seminary and I suppose it was assumed that one had a vocation. I realized subsequently that I didn’t.”

John Woo

Hong Kong-born director John Woo, whose Hollywood career produced films like Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), once set his sights on becoming a Christian minister rather than a filmmaker. Raised in a Christian home, Woo carried that aspiration for a time — until church elders, by his own account in various interviews, gently steered him away, suggesting his creative instincts were better channeled elsewhere.

Andrea Jaeger

After retiring from professional tennis in 1987, Andrea Jaeger channeled her energy into charitable and humanitarian work for many years. In 2006, that journey of service took a formal spiritual turn when she became Sister Andrea upon joining an Anglican Dominican order. The commitment, however, proved short-lived — she departed the order three years later in 2009.

Dolores Hart

Of everyone on this list, Dolores Hart is the one who actually followed through. She arrived in Hollywood with a promising career, making her debut opposite Elvis Presley in Loving You (1957) and completing ten films across five years. Then, in the early 1960s, she walked away from it all. She entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis, a Benedictine monastery in Connecticut, and has been there ever since — living out the very calling so many others ultimately chose to leave behind.