Stars Who Used to Be Bartenders: Jon Hamm, Ellen Pompeo and More

Credit: Chelsea Lauren/WWD/Shutterstock; Michael Buckner/Variety/Shutterstock

Stars Who Used to Be Bartenders: Jon Hamm, Ellen Pompeo and More

From behind the bar to in front of the camera! Before making it big in the entertainment industry, several of today's most successful stars got their starts making martinis and crafting cosmopolitans at bars across the globe. Take Amy Schumer, for example. The Trainwreck star worked for nearly a decade at bars in New York City before becoming a comedian. She's mentioned her previous line of work several times on Amy Schumer Learns to Cook — her Food Network show with her chef husband, Chris Fischer — that premiered in May 2020. "The most important part of every meal is the drink," Schumer declared before making some peach bellinis during one episode. As she pulled out a cocktail stirrer to combine the peach purée and the champagne she quipped: "This is called, for those who aren't bartenders, a long spoon." Additionally, since the Emmy winner spent many years working behind a bar, she's keenly aware of how taxing the job can be and has a habit of generously tipping those who make drinks for her. In fact, the New York native made headlines in March 2016 when she left a $1,000 tip on a $77 bar tab for the bartenders when she went to see the Broadway hit Hamilton. [jwplayer Lu7jykEf-l3ahXupL] Bartender Madeleine DeJohn shared an Instagram photo of Schumer's receipt as proof of the good deed and told the New York Daily News at the time: "I was very touched, it was just something so generous and so kind that you don’t see every day." When DeJohn thanked the star, Schumer acknowledged her own bartending past and said, “I’ve been there, I get it." Another famous face who got her start behind a bar is Ellen Pompeo. But as the Grey's Anatomy actress told Playboy in January 2007, she wasn't great at the gig. "I wouldn't say I was a good drink maker, but I was a very good hustler. I'd abuse the customers, yell and scream at them and make them wait. If they put money down on the bar and it wasn't enough, I'd go wait on someone else who was giving me enough money," she explained at the time. "If they put another five down and I made them wait longer. Pretty soon there would be $20 on the bar. Then I'd come over and give them a drink." Scroll down to see more stars who used to be bartenders!

Credit: Chelsea Lauren/WWD/Shutterstock; Michael Buckner/Variety/Shutterstock

Stars Who Used to Be Bartenders: Jon Hamm, Ellen Pompeo and More

From behind the bar to in front of the camera! Before making it big in the entertainment industry, several of today's most successful stars got their starts making martinis and crafting cosmopolitans at bars across the globe. Take Amy Schumer, for example. The Trainwreck star worked for nearly a decade at bars in New York City before becoming a comedian. She's mentioned her previous line of work several times on Amy Schumer Learns to Cook — her Food Network show with her chef husband, Chris Fischer — that premiered in May 2020. "The most important part of every meal is the drink," Schumer declared before making some peach bellinis during one episode. As she pulled out a cocktail stirrer to combine the peach purée and the champagne she quipped: "This is called, for those who aren't bartenders, a long spoon." Additionally, since the Emmy winner spent many years working behind a bar, she's keenly aware of how taxing the job can be and has a habit of generously tipping those who make drinks for her. In fact, the New York native made headlines in March 2016 when she left a $1,000 tip on a $77 bar tab for the bartenders when she went to see the Broadway hit Hamilton. [jwplayer Lu7jykEf-l3ahXupL] Bartender Madeleine DeJohn shared an Instagram photo of Schumer's receipt as proof of the good deed and told the New York Daily News at the time: "I was very touched, it was just something so generous and so kind that you don’t see every day." When DeJohn thanked the star, Schumer acknowledged her own bartending past and said, “I’ve been there, I get it." Another famous face who got her start behind a bar is Ellen Pompeo. But as the Grey's Anatomy actress told Playboy in January 2007, she wasn't great at the gig. "I wouldn't say I was a good drink maker, but I was a very good hustler. I'd abuse the customers, yell and scream at them and make them wait. If they put money down on the bar and it wasn't enough, I'd go wait on someone else who was giving me enough money," she explained at the time. "If they put another five down and I made them wait longer. Pretty soon there would be $20 on the bar. Then I'd come over and give them a drink." Scroll down to see more stars who used to be bartenders!

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Amy Schumer

The comedian typically starts each episode of Amy Schumer Learns to Cook by making a drink. As she was whipping up an old-fashioned in the premiere she explained: "I bartended for almost 10 years at disgusting places all over Manhattan and some fancy ones."

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Sandra Bullock

"I learned a lot of accents as a bartender,” the Oscar winner told the AP in 2017. “A lot of girls came in looking for rich husbands. I learned to imitate them."

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Ronda Rousey

Before Rousey was a super successful UFC star, she was a bartender at the Redwood Bar Grill in L.A. “When she came, her bartending skills were not very good,” bar owner Christina Frizzell told MMA Junkie in November 2015. “But like with everything else she does, she honed in ... and within a few weeks she was as good as anyone else."

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Jon Stewart

From 1984 to 1987, the talk-show host worked as a bartender at City Gardens punk club in New Jersey. "It just reeked of possibility, along with God knows what else, whatever other secretions and body fluids that were there," he told Vulture of his experience in February 2014. "It was very, very special."

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Mark Cuban

The Shark Tank star used to bartend at a Dallas bar called Elan while splitting a $750-a-month apartment with five other guys. “But bartending wasn’t my end goal. I wanted to start my own business,” the tech entrepreneur told Forbes in March 2013. Should the billionaire ever hypothetically lose his fortune, he would bartend all over again. “I would get a job as a bartender at night and a sales job during the day,” he told NBC in December 2016. "I would start working.”

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Bruce Willis

The Die Hard star was apparently a very popular bartender before making it big as an actor. According to the Pulp Fiction actor, there's a logical reason why he was beloved by so many customers. "I didn't charge anyone," he said during a February 2013 appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

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Jon Hamm

The Mad Men alum worked as a bartender prior to starting his acting career. Not surprisingly, the Emmy winner was a hit with the ladies. "All of the women would be lined up at the bar like alcoholics just to see him shake his martini shaker,” actress Kelly Lynch, who frequently hired the Missouri native to bartend at her parties, told Entertainment Weekly in March 2012.

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Michael Fassbender

The Assassin's Creed star was having second thoughts about his career choice after he started dabbling in acting. "I was thinking, what if this doesn’t work out? I haven’t been to university, I’m not the most academic person ... but then I thought, well, I do know the catering industry, so I’m going to learn as much about making cocktails and running a bar," he told The Telegraph in August 2011. "So I started managing a bar and then suddenly I was getting auditions."

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Ellen DeGeneres

Before her comedy career took off, the Finding Nemo star worked as a bartender in New Orleans. She also has a job as a vacuum cleaner salesperson prior to becoming one of the most well-known figures in the entertainment industry.

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Ellen Pompeo

The Grey's Anatomy star told Diane Sawyer in April 2005 that she was working at a bar in New York City's SoHo neighborhood when she was discovered by an agent. "It was quite a long time ago, but it's true," she explained. "I thought [the agent] was trying to pick me up at first ... [acting] came to me."

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Dave Matthews

From 1987 until the formation of the Dave Matthews Band in 1991, the musician worked as a bartender at a pub called Miller’s in Charlottesville, Virginia. "I’d meet people who would shatter your faith in the world. There was one fella whose wife was deathly ill. He spent everything he had, sold his business in New Jersey, because they couldn’t get medical insurance. I watched this man crumble," he told Rolling Stone in August 2002. "Years later, I saw him working the early shift at Dunkin’ Donuts."