But that's exactly what happened to Sean Maguire, whom most people know as the hunky warrior from Meet the Spartans.
The Irish actor enjoyed a whole different career before he arrived in the US eight years ago.
Now that he's here he finds himself back in the tunic and breeches and slashing a sword of a different kind in Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, a hilarious fantasy epic on Prime.
Maguire plays a battle-challenged semi-hero who must save the world from evil domination with a motley crew of hopelessly inept recruits.
While he wasn't ready to once more play an ancient warrior, the witty script and satirical jabs convinced Maguire to fight again.
He has acted since he was 5. He became a child star in British TV series Grange Hill, and by the time he was 17, he was a household name for his performance in the evergreen series, EastEnders.
"One of the things I'm very grateful for is the clarity of my choices," he says, seated on a chrome chair in the lobby bar of a hotel.
"I remember being on the set at 5 years old, being in a car with Alan Bates, and the camera crew around, and them saying, `Action'.
And Alan said, `Am I OK, can I move back now?' I said, `No, there's a camera crew behind you.' And he said, `Stop, stop, stop.
You have to ignore all of that.' And I thought, `Oh, so this is pretend? OK.' In a child's mind I thought, `Pretending in front of a bunch of adults? Yeah, this is me'."
The decision was simple, the act wasn't.
"I've had many sleepless nights, even at 10, 11, and 12 years old," he says. "Even as a small kid I knew the odds were against you . . .
"With the assuredness of the choice of occupation also comes this terrible insecurity that, `Now I've fallen in love with this thing, how do I know it will love me back?'."
It did love him back, until he was 21. He'd finished recording several hit records, but his heart wasn't in it.
"I felt I'd sold out. I'd made pop records I wasn't proud of, and I was just a little bit lost and not very happy.
"When that ended and I broke up with a girl I'd been with for four years, and I got done for drunk driving and spent the night in a police cell - all of it sort of came very close to each other and I found myself - I had to sell my flat and had to stay at my Mum and Dad's because I couldn't drive because I had no licence.
"And I remember thinking, `Wow, I had the world at my feet at 18 and I'm done at 21. Nice going, kid'."
He says he prayed a lot.
"I just said, `I don't want to be a superstar. I don't want to be rich. If I can just make a living out of being an actor, if I can just pay the rent that will be enough. I promise I won't ask for any more.' And by the grace of God I managed to get a job and another job."
But that first job almost defeated him too.
He was to play Romeo in a fringe theatre off the West End.
"I wasn't terrifically educated and wasn't a naturally mentally gifted child, so picking up Shakespeare for the first time at 21 was incredibly difficult.
"I kept putting the book down and saying, `I don't understand. This is too difficult.' And then I made a decision.
"I thought, `You've either got to do this now and invest yourself 100% or you will go away from this knowing you didn't have it in you, didn't have the stamina or whatever'."
He laboriously mastered the Bard and went to the United States to try his luck.
"To be on a pedestal and have money and fame and attention at such a young age and constantly growing to the point where I got quite big - and then for it all to just kind of go [he snaps his fingers] and then to try and have to rebuild yourself and be strong and not have those things define me, it was tough to not make that choice, `Oh, I'll just get drunk or take drugs'."
Laughing, he says, "Like all kids I got drunk plenty. But I never chose to escape through alcohol and drugs because I knew the reality would be waiting for me the next day and I didn't want to run away from that. I was ready to stand and fight."
He went to Hollywood to audition for a film, but his agent shopped him around.
A casting director at Warner Bros liked him and Maguire was called to the studio president's office.
"'We'd like to hire you. We're going to give you some money, so you don't go work for anyone else.' I was 24.
"I remember saying, `Thank you,' and was in my manager's car and he said, `They just phoned and said they're going to offer you X amount of dollars to not work for anyone else.
"Go phone your Mum.' I remember phoning my Mum and trying to explain Warner Bros was going to pay me thousands of dollars - not to work, just not to work for anyone else.
"I started crying on the phone. She said, `What does this mean?' I said, `I don't know. I'm here in Hollywood and somebody called a president is paying me thousands of dollars not to do anything, just to stay here on standby.' It was so overwhelming.
"I thought to myself, `You've got to remember this moment because it'll get tough again'."
• Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire screens on Fridays at 9.05pm on Prime.
