20 Pieces of Hollywood Trivia That Will Blow Your Mind!

Thanks to the E! and those TMZ star tours, pop culture enthusiasts think they know everything there is to know about Hollywood. However, Lindsay Lohan's latest scandal and what George Clooney ate for lunch at The Ivy the other day are not what Tinseltown is all about. If you look past the gloss of the tabloids, you'll realize it's a lot more intriguing than that.

What you won't find in the next Us Weekly, you'll find here. From Ryan Gosling almost becoming a boy band member to the serendipitous casting of Harrison Ford in Star Wars, here are 20 Pieces of Hollywood Trivia That Will Blow Your Mind!

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Compiled by Tara Aquino (@t_akino)

Harrison Ford, then 35, was installing a door for Francis Ford Coppola when a studio executive asked him to read lines with actresses who were testing for a new film. The film was Star Wars.

Jon Hamm was once his Bridesmaids co-star Ellie Kemper’s high school drama teacher.

Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were roommates at Harvard. They even started a country music band together while in school.

While filming The Shining, director Stanley Kubrick told everyone in the cast and crew to be actively mean to Shelley Duvall so that the feeling of hopelessness and solitude in her character would be authentic.

Suburgatory star Jeremy Sisto read opposite Kate Winslet for Leonardo DiCaprio's role of Jack Dawson in Titanic.

Channing Tatum's first on-screen gig was bartending in Ricky Martin's video for "She Bangs" in 2000.

Alicia Keys started out as a child actor, not a singer. She played one of Rudy's friends on The Cosby Show.

In Interview with a Vampire, in the night park scene where Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are walking, a trench was built for Pitt to walk in so that it would seem like they were the same height.

Roger Ebert and Oprah Winfrey went on a couple of dates when they both were starting out in Chicago.

Tim Allen was a convicted drug dealer before breaking into Hollywood. In 1978, he was caught smuggling 1.4 lbs of cocaine at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport.

While filming Singing in the Rain, Gene Kelly yelled and cursed at Debbie Reynolds so much for messing up their dance scenes that one day she ran off set, hid under a piano, and cried. Someone walking around MGM noticed Reynolds and offered to help her. That guy was Fred Astaire.

Dolph Lungren, who played Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, is a genius. He graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and was a awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

Pre-fame Bradley Cooper once asked Sean Penn a question on Inside the Actor's Studio.

After Drew Barrymore posed for Playboy in 1995, her E.T. director Steven Spielberg mailed her a note saying, "Cover yourself up," with a quilt and a copy of the magazine with all her pictures edited to make her look fully clothed.

Parks and Recreation star Adam Scott played Griff on Boy Meets World.

The Beatles planned to star as the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and approached Stanley Kubrick to direct it. Kubrick turned them down.

A teenage Ryan Gosling was invited to audition for the Backstreet Boys by A.J. McLean. He turned it down to focus on acting.

Paul Rudd deejayed bat mitzvahs in the early '90s before breaking out with Clueless (1995).

Keira Knightley played Natalie Portman's decoy in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).

Community star Joel McHale earned a Rose Bowl ring as a backup tight end for the Washington Huskies in 1991.