Funny how there's a large gap between the first job and second between age 19 and 37. Most of the list is after 37. Makes you think that the best years of your life for some people doesn't come after your 40s.
He was in Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever, two of the most talked-about films in urban America in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Wikipedia claims that his role in the latter film even drew attention at Cannes, so he wasn’t entirely no-name, even if Pulp Fiction made him a big star.