Kevin Paul · CC BY 4.0

Was a Hollywood carpenter doing supporting parts in American Graffiti and The Conversation before George Lucas cast him as Han Solo in 1977, a role that made him, within a few years, one of the most bankable actors alive. He went on to originate Indiana Jones and Blade Runner's Rick Deckard, franchises still running four decades later, and earned his only Oscar nomination for the quieter role of a Philadelphia detective hiding among the Amish in Witness (1985) — proof, before the action-hero label stuck, that he could carry a film on restraint.