History Main / TheCastShowoff

* Let's not forget Nichelle "Lt. Uhura" Nichols of the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}''. She is the only actor of the original series who should be allowed within 3 feet of a microphone. Also, the fan dance sequence in ''Film/{{Star Trek V|The Final Frontier}}'', included due to another of Nichols's real-life talents.
** According to his biography, [=DeForest=] Kelley could sing, and quite well, too. Dr. [=McCoy=], however... well, not so much.
** GeorgeTakei and his fencing skills (though they had to get Sulu drunk on an alien disease to do it). He gets to show them off in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' as well as [[BadassGrandpa Kaito]] [[TooCoolToLive Nakamura]].
*** George Takei didn't know how to fence prior to being cast for ''Star Trek'', though he said he could to better his chances at landing the role. Upon landing the role of Sulu, he went out that weekend to learn fencing. When he was young, Takei was enamored of Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood; as luck would have it, the man he learned from turned out to be the choreographer for that same movie's fencing.
*** According to another account, Takei had suggested fencing for Sulu for the episode ''The Naked Time'', as the writers had originally intended Sulu to be running around with a katana playing samurai, and Takei felt that was all a bit too stereotypical.
** Likewise from ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', MasiOka (playing Kaito's son, Hiro) is the other half of that fencing scene. He's a kendo hobyist in real life.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' did this ''a lot''. The Doctor (a hologram) gets to sing in every third episode, sometimes accompanied by former Borg and severe hottie Seven of Nine. Neither were exactly Broadway- or opera-caliber, though they could certainly carry a tune without use of a bucket.

* Seasons four and five of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' increasingly called on Anthony Head's services as a singer and guitarist, which just serves to illustrate how drastically his character changed with time.
** The MusicalEpisode, "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling Once More With Feeling]]" reportedly was written after JossWhedon discovered how many of his cast could sing well during an after-shooting karaoke party; the episode was written specifically to show off the cast's various talents. Notably, Michelle Trachtenberg, who'd had dance training, got a scene where she danced with the BigBad's {{Mooks}}, and AlysonHannigan sang about two lines without accompaniment; her other lines were mostly filler. She reportedly begged Joss not to give her many singing lines because she hated her voice.
*** Though when she heard how good she sounded after post-production, Hannigan regretted giving up so much singing time. Most notably, the Tara solo Under Your Spell was supposed to be a duet with Willow.
** "What's My Line, Pt. 1" showed off Creator/SarahMichelleGellar's ice skating talents.
*** As for the other episodes she was in (um, all of them), [[ActionGirl let's just say her taekwondo and kickboxing came in handy]].
*** She also got to use her juggling skills as one of the things Buffy does to distract the attendees at Anya and Xander's wedding.

** The MusicalEpisode, "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling Once More With Feeling]]" reportedly was written after JossWhedon discovered how many of his cast could sing well during an after-shooting karaoke party; the episode was written specifically to show off the cast's various talents. (Notably, Michelle Trachtenberg, who'd had dance training, got a scene where she danced with the BigBad's {{Mooks}}, and AlysonHannigan sang about two lines without accompaniment; her other lines were mostly filler. She reportedly begged Joss not to give her many singing lines because she hated her voice.

** The MusicalEpisode, "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling Once More With Feeling]]" reportedly was written after JossWhedon discovered how many of his cast could sing well during an after-shooting karaoke party; the episode was written specifically to show off the cast's various talents. (Notably, Michelle Trachtenberg, who'd had dance training, got a scene where she danced with the BigBad's {{Mooks}}, and AlysonHannigan... sang about two lines without accompaniment. And her other lines were mostly filler. She reportedly begged Joss not to give her many singing lines because she hated her voice. But hey, she acted the shit out of her scenes.)

* Many scenes from ''MorkAndMindy'' were completely random excuses for RobinWilliams to let loose with his improvisational comedy act. Considering that Williams' manic act was considerably funnier than the average episode's script, this was an improvement obvious enough to the producers to have [[HarpoDoesSomethingFunny specific gaps in the scripts]] where he could improvise to his heart's -- and the audience's -- content.

* TomCruise is an odd variation of this: he's one of the very few actors who's confident about his ability to sprint on-camera. Hence why so many of his movies--especially the ''Film/MissionImpossible'' series--have dedicated scenes literally showing off his sprinting ability.

* In ''Film/PsychoBeachParty'' Lauren Ambrose did her own singing, it was amazing.

* Wentworth Miller was a competitive swimmer in school, apparently the only reason he's swimming on a first-season episode of ''PrisonBreak''.

* In ''HighFidelity'' Jack Black shows off his singing skills, nailing Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On." Black's had been singing in TenaciousD for a few years by that point, but was far from a household name, so the quality of his performance played as a nice surprise for most audience memebers.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Epic}}'' Steven Tyler of {{Aerosmith}} gets to sing as Nim.

* RobertDowneyJr is a practitioner of Wing Chun martial arts, so Tony Stark has a Wing Chun dummy in his garage which he is seen dealing out a few strikes to in ''IronMan3''.

* Michael Vartan's hockey skills in ''Series/{{Alias}}.''

* Lisa Kudrow is fluent in French (and is married to a French advertising executive), and that's a key element of a 10th season ''{{Friends}}'' episode, when Phoebe tries to teach French to Joey (BTW, though Joey's positively hopeless, his actor, Matt Le Blanc, is also fluent in French). On another episode, Chandler is seen playing tennis quite well... of course: Matthew Perry (the actor who portrayed him) is a former (semi-?)professional player. Matthew also played a tennis player on ''BeverlyHills90210''.

* Series/{{House}} is not only the world's greatest diagnostician, he sings, plays the guitar and the piano, and is an amateur magician. Of course, the same applies to Hugh Laurie, who plays him -- except for the "diagnostician" bit. The writers' success at not making it too blatant varies. They have at least succeeded at not making House a novelist (that we know of). Which Hugh Laurie also is, of course. Basically, there's not much Hugh Laurie doesn't seem to be doing, so that some of it would rub off on his character seems inevitable.

** In the episode "Shindig", River deconstructs the mobster Badger, all in a Cockney accent -- again utilizing SummerGlau's knack for accents.

* The ''{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Bookstore" allows John O'Hurley to show off his dancing skills, later to be demonstrated quite thoroughly in the first season of ''DancingWithTheStars''.

* AndyKaufman had to be convinced to do ''{{Taxi}}'' in the first place, and over time became increasingly bored with his character [[FunnyForeigner Latka]]. The final episode of Season 3 thus had Latka choosing to remake his personality, becoming the suave jerk Vic Ferrari and temporarily forgetting who he really was; the following season revealed Latka had developed multiple personalities, allowing Andy to take on other persona in addition to Latka's. (For those unaware, playing multiple persons was a large part of Kaufman's shtick.) This plot thread was wrapped up by the end of the season (though in the process, another change came -- Latka got married).
* BruceLee as Kato in the TV adaptation of ''Franchise/TheGreenHornet''. In prior versions of the property (a radio series and two film serials), Kato was merely Reid's valet and the Hornet's sidekick, and he did not demonstrate any notable fighting skills, much less martial arts mastery. Owing to Lee's status as a martial arts master, his Kato was given every chance to show that mastery on the air. This has influenced subsequent adaptations of the property; it is probably now unthinkable for Kato ''not'' to be a martial arts master in any new adaptation of ''Film/TheGreenHornet'' in any medium.

* Several ThatGuyWithTheGlasses contributors
** DougWalker is a very talented singer, and has been known to show it off whenever possible. [[TGWTGYearOneBrawl The First Year Anniversary Brawl]] opens with him singing a parody of "[[{{Oklahoma}} Oh What A Beautiful Morning]]", and it has an operatic quality.

* In the book ''TheLordOfTheRings'' most of the characters sing more or less all the time, but this was scrapped for the film versions. Though after hearing Billy Boyd sing ''Delilah'' at a karaoke bar, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens decided to let Pippin sing. Boyd picked a song from the books, wrote a tune for it, and the result was the scene where Pippin sings to Denethor. Funnily enough, when Denethor in the books ask Pippin to sing him a song, Pippin does not comply. The vocals are included on the three-disc expanded sets for each film, so if you want to hear LivTyler singing you know where to go.

** Parodied with Konata in a few of ''LuckyStar'''s endings. She has a beautiful mature singing voice when she tries, but then there's the SoBadItsGood rendition of [[Manga/DragonBall Cha-La Head-Cha-La]]...

** Yeardley Smith gets to show off her [[AudioErotica almost erotic]] singing voice in several episodes, as well as several albums.

* The entire motorcycle sequence in ''TheGreatEscape'' was included due to the insistence of Steve [=McQueen=], an avid motorcyclist. Note that the scene also involved [=McQueen=] playing one of the German pursuers, as the only person on the set capable of riding a motorcycle on the level of Steve [=McQueen=] was Steve [=McQueen=].
* The chase scene in ''{{Bullitt}}'', where [=McQueen=], also a ''car'' enthusiast does quite a bit of his own stunt driving. He made a point of sitting far to the left in the driver's seat, without a seatbelt, so that his face would be clearly identifiable during the stunts.

* John Goodman is an adept impressionist, as seen in his many ''SaturdayNightLive'' hostings, so ''{{Roseanne}}'' frequently had Dan launch into one-line impressions or whole routines as anybody from De Niro and Brando to all [[TheThreeStooges Three Stooges]] or even Julia Child. It worked pretty seamlessly as Dan was a film and TV buff and usually just being the fun dad for his kids and wife.

*** And play the banjo.

* While ''{{Glee}}'' is made to show off the entire cast's singing abilities, there are a few scenes that show Heather Morris (Brittany), Harry Shum Jr. (Mike), and Matthew Morrison's (Will) dancing abilities. Even when the whole group is dancing in unison, if you watch Morris and Shum, their moves are always far cleaner than the rest of the cast. Morris was actually cast after she was brought on to teach Chris Colfer the Single Ladies dance, as she had recently finished touring with Beyonce.

** It was pretty obvious that Gwyneth Paltrow and later Kate Hudson's guest starring roles were mainly used as a tool for the actresses to show off their singing (and in the latter case's dancing) abilities.

* ''WheelOfFortune'' co-hostess Vanna White is more than just a pretty face. She's also a pretty good singer, as seen on a series of Christmas Week episodes in 1996 where she promoted her Christmas album.