10 Times Actors Had Personal Reasons For Taking Film Roles

3. John Cusack Was Desperate To Prove Himself After Say Anything...

John Cusack got his start in light-hearted teen comedies before becoming the awkward schoolgirl crush in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything... His nervous, anxious, earnest performance was unlike any in an 80s high school comedy, and he brought a sometimes misguided maturity to role that any other actor would have played with confidence.

But the fear of typecasting was clearly there. It's a shame Cusack has ended up in Cage's position, taking minor roles in tax-write offs, but he can still bring energy to dreck - such as the constantly vaping hitman in the Australian actioner Drive Hard. He's just off-kilter enough to make the by-the-numbers film a little bit of fun.

Even before Say Anything..., Cusack wanted to be taken seriously. A fan of author Jim Thompson's noir novel The Grifters, he tried to option the rights to the work when he was still in high school. What began as a Martin Scorsese project changed hands to Stephen Frears, with Cusack in the lead as a hotshot con man with Oedipal issues alongside Angelica Huston.

It may be credited to Frears and writer Donald E. Westlake, but the project was Cusack's first of many attempts to break rank.