I was actually 'discovered' at a party in NYC. I must have looked pretty 'Russian,' because a stranger approached me and said he needed a Russian guy for a scene in an action movie he and his friends were shooting in upstate New York that weekend.
I traveled three hours to shoot that one scene, in which, incidentally, I only had one line! Apparently, I didn't screw up that line too bad, since I was invited to star in the next three super low budget action movies shot over the next few weekends. It was a production boot camp for me - I acted, operated the camera, built sets, wrote my own dialogue - it was so much fun and addictive! A few months later an agent showed that footage to [director] John McTiernan, who immediately cast me in [1990's spy suspense thriller] 'The Hunt For Red October'.
