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It's tempting to think the talent of stars is always recognised from the get-go, their success a gift from the heavens at birth.

But often it can take years, even decades of hard work and setbacks before making it in fields like entertainment or sport. That can be the case for so-called 'late bloomers' - people who have achieved their success a bit later in life compared to their peers. If you ever feel like you're too old to follow your dreams, their stories show it’s never too late.

Here are four of them.

Ian Wright

Ian Wright had quite a bumpy journey to his legendary career as a Premier League striker. After being rejected by Brighton and Southend United during his teens, he gave up pursuing professional football to become a labourer. But he continued playing amateur football for Sunday League club Ten Em Bee.

At the age of 21, he was signed by semi-professional Greenwich Borough, and soon after that a Crystal Palace scout offered him a trial. Former Palace manager Steve Coppell was impressed, and Ian signed for the team just a few months shy of his 22nd birthday. As Ian says on his website: "That's old in football years." The rest is history: he became Arsenal’s second-highest scorer of all time, winning the Premier League and being capped for England with 33 appearances and nine goals. He is now a successful football pundit, TV presenter and author.

"You have to remember that for the majority of my football journey, I never thought I'd become a professional footballer. So to do that… and now to receive this accolade, is a true honour," tweeted Ian in April 2022, when he was voted into the Premier League Hall of Fame.

Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle has the sort of voice that can leave a first-time listener speechless. The Scottish singer has sold over 25 million records across the world. She has collected over 120 platinum and gold albums, and her first studio record, I Dreamed a Dream, became the fastest-selling debut album in the UK after entering the charts at number 1 in 2009.

But Susan's talent was largely unknown until she appeared as a contestant on ITV's talent show Britain's Got Talent. She became quite literally an overnight sensation at the age of 48 after years of attempts to make herself known in the music business.

The video of her performance in which she blows away an originally sceptic panel and audience, has been viewed hundreds of millions of times on YouTube. She came second in the final competition but has since become one of the world's best-known and loved singers, with the Newcastle 2012 premiere of the musical based on her life attended by fans from all over the globe.

"I’ve always said it happened at the time it was meant to. I wouldn’t have been ready if I was younger," she said in 2019. "If you want something bad enough, you keep going. It doesn’t matter your age or anything else."

Samuel L. Jackson

You may know him as spy and founder of the Avengers Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or as Star Wars' Mace Windu, the Jedi with the amethyst-bladed lightsaber. American actor Samuel L. Jackson's career is so jam-packed with amazing roles that not many realise he didn't have his big Hollywood break until he was in his 40s.

In fact, he wasn't initially interested in becoming an actor at all. "I grew up in segregation, you know, that didn’t happen… It never occurred to me that I could be a movie star," he said in 2022. Samuel's aunt Edna was a performing arts teacher, and sparked his interest in theatre. This passion was later cemented when he enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta. During his time there, Samuel also became involved in the civil rights movement.

He also had a debilitating stutter as a child, something he says still affects him at times.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was an American poet, novelist and civil rights activist. She had an accomplished career, so it may be surprising to hear that her first book, the autobiographical work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings that earned her international recognition, wasn't published until she was 40.

Maya showed a keen interest in all things writing from an early age, but she trained as a professional dancer. In the late 1950s, when she was living in New York, she secured a role on the international tour of Porgy and Bess, a modern English-language opera by American composer George Gershwin. Around the same time, she began her civil rights involvement and became friends with many prominent writers from the black writer group Harlem Writers Guild.

After living in Egypt and Ghana for a few years, where she worked in publishing, she moved back to the USA and began writing screenplays and dramas, as well as acting and directing. It was during this time that she published her autobiography and several books of poetry. In January 2022, Maya became the first black woman to appear on the US 25-cent coin (also known as a quarter).