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You start watching a show. There's an actor on it. Let's call him Terry O'Quinn. As far as you know, you've never seen him before.
You keep watching the show.
Then you see an old rerun of The X-Files. There he is! Or you come upon the movie The Cutting Edge on cable. There he is! Or The Rocketeer. Or Heaven's Gate. Or that other episode of The X-Files he was in, playing someone else. Or Star Trek: The Next Generation, when he played that asshole admiral. Or JAG where he played another admiral. Or The X-Files: Fight the Future. Or the other 94 things he was in.
Point is, you've seen these things before. You just never paid enough attention to the actor to learn his name, or connect one appearance to another, until he finally landed a regular role on a series you regularly watch.
This is what happens when a former Hey, It's That Guy! finally lands a breakout role. It may also include a few minor roles before their Star Making Role. When you just can't shake the image of the other roles, it's Role Association. If the older work is repackaged to accentuate the actor's later successes, it falls into Billing Displacement.
Examples (sorted by last name):
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A-F
- In a variant of this, Kirstie Alley was a contestant on the game shows Match Game and Password Plus before her career started. Both of these episodes have occasionally rerun on GSN.
- Amy Adams made her debut in Drop Dead Gorgeous as a ditzy cheerleader before guesting in an episode of Smallville, and had a short stint on The Office before receiving some critical acclaim for June Bug and later Enchanted.
- She also played one of Tara's hick relatives in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Also popped up in a episode of Charmed as the unlucky Maggie Murphy.
- Jensen Ackles was on an episode of Wishbone back in 1995.
- Nicole Anderson from JONAS, played Tasha in the iNevel episode of iCarly.
- Ashley Argota from True Jackson, VP, was a classmate of the Power Trio in the "iHave a Lovesick Teacher" episode of iCarly.
- Joey Lauren Adams had her first big break on the Married... with Children spinoff Top of The Heap, where she played the jailbait neighbor with a crush on Matt Le Blanc.
- Ben Affleck had a small role as a basketball player in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, several years before he broke out in Kevin Smith movies and Good Will Hunting.
- Don't forget his Jerkass highschool senior role in Dazed and Confused.
- Even before that, he was the young kid and main character in Voyage Of The Mimi.
- Or as the teenage son of Kate Mulgrew in Danielle Steele's Daddy.
- Long before she jumped to fame in Dark Angel, Jessica Alba played a supporting role in The Secret World of Alex Mack. When the DVD set was released in 2011, her appearance was promoted on the boxart. She also guest-starred in an episode of ER.
- Jason Alexander is the hardware store clerk Harrison Ford annoys in the beginning of The Mosquito Coast.
- Presumably it's due to a shared agency or casting director, a few other Lost cast members have appeared on Angel. Sam Anderson, Bernard, in particular is a creep as the head of Wolfram & Hart.
- The first vampire ever staked on Angel is none other than Sawyer.
- Rowan Atkinson starred in Never Say Never Again as an embassy official before he became so firmly attached to his role as Mr. Bean that people forgot his real name.
- Simon Baker's small role as a young and absurdly pretty gay actor (and murder victim) in L.A. Confidential.
- Adam Baldwin played Major Mitchell, a minor yet important role in Independence Day, years before he played Jayne Cobb and John Casey.
- But the first thing anyone saw him in was as Ricky Linderman, the titular bodyguard in My Bodyguard.
- He was also the lead in D.C. Cab.
- He also had a bit part in Predator 2.
- And he had a recurring role as Knowle Rohrer, an alien-enhanced supersoldier, in the final season of The X-Files.
- He also played Animal Mother from Full Metal Jacket.
- Christian Bale as a child actor played Jim Hawkins in an awesome version of Treasure Island with Charlton Heston as Long John Silver.
- Jamie Bamber played a heroic sailor before he played a heroic pilot on Battlestar Galactica.
- Kristin Bauer showed up as one of the members of the bitchy girl clique in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, after which she went on to portray a stripper in Dancing At The Blue Iguana, and now she is known worldwide as the bisexual vampire Pam on True Blood.
- Before her Star Making Role in Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell had a guest spot in an episode of The Shield as a gang member's girlfriend who gets raped by that season's Big Bad, along with another small role in Deadwood as a prostitute.
- Julie Benz was Darla first on Buffy before playing Dexter's wife. Oddly enough, the latter character was killed by exsanguination.
- Rachel Bilson was a potential Slayer before The O.C..
- Jack Black had a lot of surprising small roles before hitting it big: one of the Wasteland Scraps in Demolition Man, the pilot in Waterworld, the bully in The Neverending Story 3, the hero's redneck squaddie brother in Mars Attacks!, an arms dealer in The Jackal and minor roles in an episode of The X-Files and Enemy of the State.
- Orlando Bloom was a victim on Midsomer Murders.
- David Boreanaz once was the "friend for this episode" of Kelly Bundy, and ended up being beaten up by Al.
- He also played a security guard in The Best of the Best 2. He has no lines, but is recognizable. He gets beaten up.
- Before Scrubs, Zach Braff was in an episode of The Babysitters Club.
- Doug Brochu, prior to joining rival series Sonny With A Chance, was Freddie's lab partner in one of the early episodes of iCarly.
- Andrew Bryniarski played Zangief in Street Fighter and Max Shreck's son in Batman Returns, but his first "starring" role was as Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot and its sequel.
- It's hard to tell on some older televisions, but with HD or some good light you can see Gerard Butler in Tomorrow Never Dies, on the submarine that is attacked. If you can't see him, his voice is almost unmistakable. Almost.
- Nicolas Cage has a small role in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, billed under his real name Nicholas Coppola (he changed it soon afterwards, not wanting to ride the coattails of his uncle).
- Watch the Bridget Jones films now without being unnerved that her gay best friend is James Callis.
- Dana Carvey was "JAFO" in the short-lived TV series adaptation of Blue Thunder before he was on the Saturday Night Live cast.
- He also played a mime waiter in This Is Spinal Tap, alongside the already-well-known Billy Crystal.
- Hayden Christensen starred in Higher Ground before the prequels.
- Misha Collins was in NCIS, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: NY, and 24 before landing the role of Castiel in Supernatural.
- If you have a really good eye, you can spot a 13-year-old Phil Collins in The Beatles' audience in A Hard Day's Night.
- Prior to being the Gentle Giant in Harry Potter, Robbie Coltrane had a minor role in Krull.
- Also there were those two James Bond movies.
- Just like Hayden Christenson above, A.J. Cook was in Higher Ground.
- And before that, she played Mary Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides.
- And had a memorable roles the college student George's father starts an affair with in Dead Like Me.
- Dane Cook was Waffle Man aka The Waffler in Mystery Men, a character who only appeared in the Terrible Interviewees Montage.
- Danny Cooksey, the guy who plays John's best friend in Terminator 2, was Budnick on Salute Your Shorts.
- Miranda Cosgrove become widely known due to her role on iCarly, but she was Megan, one of the main characters in the earlier Drake & Josh, a guest on Zoey 101, Summer Hathaway in School of Rock, and finally Young Lana Lang, at the age of 5, on Smallville.
- Near the end of Season One of Highlander in the episode called Nowhere To Run, there is a young woman who's raped by a rich ambassador's son. It's her first ever acting role. Her name? Marion Cotillard.
- Yet another Girl of the Week on Seinfeld: Courteney Cox.
- Blink and you'll miss her, Nikki Cox is the red headed Girl interviewed by the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
- She also played an alien pen pal to Data in an early episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Given that her people were in crisis, her role is fairly significant.
- Ronny Cox has shown up as the villain in any number of movies, from RoboCop to Total Recall, but this editor never really put it together until seeing him as recurring character Senator Kinsey in Stargate SG-1. He was also profoundly surprised when, upon rewatching Beverly Hills Cop, he turned out to be a good guy.
- Even further into the past, there's Deliverance (1972), where he plays the guitar with that banjo-playing hillbilly.
- Somewhere between the two, but not as a bad guy, he played Louden Swain's dad in Vision Quest.
- Daniel Craig and Kate Winslet in the Old Shame example of A Kid in King Arthur's Court.
- Bryan Cranston, before Breaking Bad, or even Malcolm in the Middle, had guest appearances on Seinfeld as recurring character Dr. Tim Whatley and was on three episodes of Murder, She Wrote, portraying a different character each time.
- Denise Crosby, aka Tasha Yar was in 48 Hours, hitting Eddie Murphy in the chest with a baseball bat.
- Marcia Cross aka Bree Van De Kamp as Topanga's mother in Boy Meets World.
- A virtual reality guy that went into the real world and started killing people, facing off with Denzel Washington: Serious Actor Russell Crowe in Virtuosity.
- Jon Cryer in Hot Shots!, which also starred Charlie Sheen.
- Matt Damon had a very tiny part in Mystic Pizza (as the Annoying Younger Sibling) before breaking out in School Ties.
- It was shocking to see how many John Carpenter films Keith David was in before Gargoyles, Pitch Black, and so on.
- Miley Cyrus had a bit part in Big Fish three years before being catapulted to Teen Idol status as the star of Hannah Montana.
- She also played Billy Ray's daughter in Doc.
- Voice actress Elizabeth Daily (Buttercup and Tommy Pickles) was the love interest in Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
- Jeremy Davies (Daniel Faraday from LOST) was Upham, the cowardly translator, in Saving Private Ryan and Lee's fiance in Secretary.
- He also had a small part in the 2002 remake of Solaris, and as a teen he starred in the film "Spanking The Monkey" — and also was in an ill-conceived car commercial in which he declared Subaru was "like PUNK ROCK".
- Before those he also had a small role in Twister.
- Geena Davis is a girl Named Larry in Fletch.
- And another Seinfeld girl Kristin Davis
- Felicia Day had potential before Doctor Horrible and The Guild.
- She was also depressed dancer Penelope in Bring It On Again in between the two roles.
- Before Tim DeKay was Peter Burke in White Collar, he was Senator Patrick Kiley in NCIS, Bizarro Jerry on Seinfeld, and Jonesy in Carnivàle.
- John DeLancie is everywhere, like playing a pollster who steals Joey Lucas from Josh on The West Wing.
- Like many below examples, Judi Dench graced BBC's educational show Playing Shakespeare in the 1970s.
- Leonardo DiCaprio had a tiny part as one of Darlene's classmates on Roseanne, before his larger roles on Parenthood (1990) and Growing Pains.
- Before getting the lead role in Burn Notice, Jeffrey Donovan matched wits with Adrian Monk as a murderous astronaut.
- Kyle Downes in the veritable trope breeding ground Higher Ground.
- After watching Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, it's hard to miss a 13-year-old Kirsten Dunst in Jumanji.
- Eliza Dushku, AKA Faith from Buffy, appeared as Arnold Schwarzenegger's teenage daughter in True Lies. Also in a fun example, she and Amber Benson, AKA Tara in Buffy were both in the movie Bye Bye Love.
- Most Fan Wanky first season appearance on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Clea DuVall as an invisible girl who's recruited as a government spy, before going on to play a recurring FBI agent on Heroes.
- Most people would recognize Jason Earles as Miley Stewart's brother in Hannah Montana. Before that, he played the nerdy Grady in Phil of the Future, and before that, a geeky, virgin bandy trying to get laid and assisted in creating a porn video of his friends in American Pie: Band Camp.
- Clint Eastwood first appears in an uncredited role as a lab technician in Revenge of the Creature, which appeared on MST3K. This is of course lampshaded by the guys, who jokingly pan Eastwood's performance and say "This is his first and last film!"
- Before she was Lisa Cuddy, Lisa Edelstein was George's Girl of the Week on Seinfeld.
- Zac Efron's first acting gig was the role of young Simon in Firefly.
- And he was caught with a stolen cell phone on NCIS.
- The Gong Show contestant and small-time Los Angeles musician Danny Elfman, before hitting it big through his brother, Pee Wee Herman, and Tim Burton.
- Colin Ferguson of Eureka had previously played Christopher Titus's doctor in the coma episode of Titus.
- And Laura Linney's amnesiac love interest in More Tales of the City.
- Conchata Ferrell played one of the women in the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands.
- Nathan Fillion is a Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan.
- Jenna Fischer was on That '70s Show once.
- Laurence Fishburne played a male nurse in a psychiatric ward in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. His name in the credits is given as "Larry Fishburne."
- Jerome Flynn, who plays the sellsword Bronn in Game of Thrones, was previously a regular in the ITV series Soldier, Soldier. During that time, he also starred as one half of the English pop duo Robson & Jerome, who released a series of hit singles that were covers of Silly Love Songs. People who read up on the actor are often shocked when they discover him doing stuff like this
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- Harrison Ford has said his early career was mostly spent playing "the guy who didn't do it" on various cop shows, before he hit it big with Star Wars. This also makes him a great subversion of Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognize these days.
- Jodie Foster had a bunch of roles as a kid, before breaking out in Taxi Driver (while still a kid), e.g. Kung Fu, The Partridge Family, and The Courtship Of Eddie's Father. Plus of course being the Coppertone Girl.
- The Janitor's bit part in The Fugitive. I doubt anyone recognized Neil Flynn unless they saw the Scrubs episode in which JD notices him in the movie.
- Megan Fox had a small role as a mean girl in the Lindsay Lohan feature, Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen about three years before Transformers catapulted her to celebrity status.
- Fox also appeared as a dancer during a montage sequence in Bad Boys II. She pointed it out an episode of '"The Tonight Show With Jay Leno''.
- One of Michael J. Fox's first acting roles was a one episode gig on Beachcombers
- Jason Frank appeared as a bully in an episode of Family Matters, a far cry from fighting evil space monsters as a Power Ranger. For that matter, fans of his current MMA career would probably get a good laugh out of the fact that he loses to Urkel in that episode.
- Before he voiced a badass vampire and an overenthusiastic loyalist to a futuristic city-state, Crispin Freeman worked for Central Park Media, one of the premier dubbing companies in The Nineties, and his first official role was as the moody chimera Zelgadis in Slayers.
- Even though the three actors playing the other three leads (Lisa Ortiz, Eric Stuart, and Veronica Taylor) were also breaking out at the time, all three of them would wind up working for the not-too-fondly thought of 4KidsEntertainment, as did most of the other actors who worked on Slayers; when CPM started to fall under, Freeman rose to stardom working for other companies dubbing more popular, un-Bowdlerised anime, mostly those licensed by Bandai Entertainment.
G-L
- Fans of Alias can find Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) in the oddest places, including a few episodes of The Outer Limits, on the deck of Titanic, as a wellwisher in Sleepless In Seattle - and in one episode of Frasier as the eponymous character's very English butler. He even played Liberace and Ernest Hemingway in '80s biopics. Oh, and he was Christ in Godspell.
- Paul Giamatti had a minor role in the FMV videogame Ripper back when he was still an unknown. Ironically, said game had an All-Star Cast of people still fairly well known today meaning he ended up enhancing it over time.
- Kathie Lee Gifford's first major role was a singer on Name That Tune.
- Darla's victim in the opening scene of the Buffy pilot was played by Carmine Giovinazzo of CSI: NY.
- Carmine also guest starred on the season 2 ep "Revenge is Best Served Cold" on the regular CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, two years before his casting in the spinoff. But Word Of God says they weren't connected.
- The fantastic Summer Glau, before becoming River Tam and Cameron from The Sarah Connor Chronicles, was also on an episode of Angel as a ballerina.
- Before playing Joffery in Game of Thrones, Jack Gleeson had a small role in Batman Begins.
- Before becoming a household name, Philip Glenister showed up in Calendar Girls
- Jennifer Garner once played a nurse in the 2001 turkey Pearl Harbor.
- Which starred Ben Affleck. See, they knew each other before Daredevil!
- Jeff Goldblum is one of the evil thugs in Death Wish.
- Laurence Fishburne also played a thug in Death Wish II
- Goldblum can also be briefly seen in Annie Hall. His only line: "I forgot my mantra!"
- Goldblum also rode around on a motorcycle for most of Robert Altman's Nashville.
- Selena Gomez had roles in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and Spy Kids 2, as well as playing Hannah Montana's arch-rival Mikayla, prior to playing Alex Russo on Wizards of Waverly Place.
- It can be a severely weird experience to first see Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias in Watchmen and then later find him all over the place in quieter fare like Brideshead Revisited and A Single Man, or as the male lead in romantic comedies like Chasing Liberty. (The fact that his Watchmen role had him being stern, middle-aged and German-American in a very convincing blond wig when he and most of his other characters are affable dark-haired young Brits can make this even weirder.)
- Betty Grable appeared in The Gay Divorcee as Edward Everett Horton's unnamed dancing partner, and was a chorus girl in several earlier movie musicals.
- Aubrey Drake Graham was "Jimmy Brooks" on seasons 1-7 (2001-2008) of Degrassi. He now is known as the rapper/singer Drake.
- Prior to Gilmore Girls, Lauren Graham was a one-off love interest on Seinfeld.
- Seth Green in IT deserves a mention.
- Really, watching It as an adult after having seen it as a child results in a massive bombardment of Retroactive Recognition.
- Kathy Griffin in Pulp Fiction. There's also Phil LaMarr, who played a minor character named Marvin known for getting shot in the face.
- Greg Grunberg was in Hollow Man as a fairly major minor character. And in Lost he was the Pilot in the Pilot.
- He also had a recurring role in Felicity.
- And let's not forget about a minute of screentime in BASEketball as a rival player in the baseketball league.
- A very young Jake Gyllenhaal as the son of a Victim of the Week in a Homicide: Life on the Street episode (2x01) directed by his father.
- He also played Billy Crystal's son in the City Slicker movies.
- Journeyman supporting actor/Saturday Night Live standout Bill Hader was a field agent on Punk'd. Avid viewers of the credits of action films (all two of you) may also spot his name as a production assistant on a host of early-2000s films like Collateral Damage and The Scorpion King.
- Long before he became a household name, Tom Hanks appeared in the 1980 slasher flick He Knows You're Alone.
- People familiar with Hanks as blockbuster movie actor would probably have this reaction to his role in Bosom Buddies.
- Alyson Hannigan as Dan Aykroyd's daughter in My Stepmother is an Alien.
- Mark Harmon showed up in The West Wing as CJ's Bodyguard Crush during season three. The character was... rather reminiscent of Gibbs.
- Of course, older viewers remember him as the heartthrob Dr. Caldwell on St. Elsewhere.
- Teri Hatcher was a "Mermaid" (showgirl) in the final season of The Love Boat.
- Keeley Hawes shows up in the two-part finale of The Vicar of Dibley and the voice of a certain female archeologist...
- Lena Headey played a mousy new teacher in the 2007 film St. Trinian's, and Lizzie in The Remains Of The Day. She keeps her actual accent in both, though. And you might also recognise her as Queen Gorgo in 300.
- In the Highlander episode Nowhere To Run, Anthony Stewart Head (credited as Anthony Head) plays an ambassador and friend of Duncan Mac Leod. This is the same episode that features Marion Cotillard in her first ever acting role.
- Audrey Hepburn's silent appearance in the opening scene of The Lavender Hill Mob. The same year she instantly became a smash success with Roman Holiday.
- There is much mockery to be made of future Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman's supporting role in Twister.
- Laurie Holden is well-known these days for her roles in The Shield and The Walking Dead, but she had a number of guest appearances (including many Canadian series) long before then:
- Josh Holloway, like co-star Terry O'Quinn, had a fair number of credits before LOST, such as episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS, and Angel. He's also in the video for Aerosmith's "Cryin'" as the guy who breaks Alicia Silverstone's heart.
- Gabriel Iglesias was on All That for a season several years before Comedy Central specials and Last Comic Standing made him widely famous.
- Jeremy Irons appeared on Play Away, a BBC children's show, in the 1970's. It often crops up in 'before they were famous' clip-shows in the UK.
- Samuel L. Jackson holds up a Burger Fool in Coming to America, and has his ass handed to him by Eddie Murphy, of all people.
- He also appears very briefly in Mean Streets, where he's slapped around by Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. He isn't even credited for this on IMDB.
- He also plays a lawyer on a Season 1 episode of Law & Order... defending Philip Seymour Hoffman, no less.
- Stephanie Jacobsen had a tiny role in the Farscape episode "Incubator" as one of Scorpius's nurses/"assistants", years before her prominent genre roles as Kendra in Battlestar Galactica and Jesse in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
- It's a little creepy to watch Famke Janssen pursue a romantic relationship with Jean-Luc Picard 8 years before hanging out with Professor X at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.
- Scarlett Johansson, usually playing someone’s sister, in many a crappy 90s film. Including North and Home Alone 3 .
- Turns out Cherry Jones (aka President Allison Taylor) played politician Barbara Layton in an episode of The West Wing in 2004. Probably averted for Broadway theatre-goers, as by the time she had already been a huge name on it for years, had won one Tony award and was on the cusp of another for her role as Sister Aloysius in Doubt.
- Milla Jovovich was Parker Lewis' female target in the series pilot.
- As Wil Wheaton regularly reminds us, he got some lip action with a pre-famous Ashley Judd in an ep of TNG.
- Tim Kang acted in a ton of commercials (for Cingular, Home Depot and Dairy Queen) before landing the role of Agent Cho on The Mentalist. He also had a small role on The Sopranos, seen here.
- Stana Katic of Castle once had a bit part as a flight attendant on Alias.
- And as Officer Morgenstern (she of the BFG) in the film version of The Spirit.
- It's a bit of a shock to watch old episodes of Desmonds, and realise that the Token White loser wideboy is Dominic Keating from Star Trek: Enterprise.
- DeForest Kelley was in a black-and-white Perry Mason episode.
- And Gunfight at the OK Corral, which was alluded to in the episode "Spectre of the Gun" in an illusion.
- The 1956 novel The Last Hurrah, which was very loosely based on real events in early 1950s Massachusetts politics, features a character named Kevin McCluskey, who is a telegenic but politically inexperienced candidate with a fancy education, a pretty wife, smiling kids, a respectable war record from his days in the Navy, and more good looks than brains. Reading the book anytime after 1960, the character seems strangely familiar...
- Ben Kingsley showed up on the BBC's Playing Shakespeare in the late 1970s.
- 9 year old Keira Knightley played a pre-teen runaway on an episode of The Bill (as seen in this screencap◊).
- Before he was the main character in NUMB3RS, David Krumholtz was the dorky Jewish kid Joel who had a crush on Christina Ricci's Wednesday Addams in Addams Family Values.
- Mila Kunis played the younger version of Gia, whose older edition was played by Angelina Jolie.
- She was also one of the orphans in Santa With Muscles.
- And she was in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
- Sarah Lancaster, Chuck's sister, looked very familiar to some fans. Turned out she was Gift Shop Girl.
- Before The Human Centipede, Dieter Laser played Mantrid in Lexx, serving as the Big Bad for Season 2.
- In Friends, Hugh Laurie was on the plane Rachel boarded to London. And he called her out on her shit.
- He also played Jasper in the Live-Action Adaptation of 101 Dalmatians. In one scene, he gets outsmarted by a raccoon into getting caught on electrified barb-wire.
- He had already a decades-long career on the other side of the Atlantic, though. For people who know their Blackadder Hugh Laurie's cameo in Friends was just that... a celebrity cameo.
- One of the great things about that episode was that they went to the bother of getting guest appearances from Hugh Laurie, Jennifer Saunders, Tom Conti, and Olivia Williams. To the show's key demographic of young Americans: meaningless nobodies. To the show's British audience: a delightful treat.
- He's also a hapless random French court official in The Man in the Iron Mask, who gets executed on a whim by Leonardo DiCaprio's King Louis.
- He was also the bumbling policeman that John Goodman kept arguing with throughout The Borrowers.
- And was Stuart Little's adoptive dad in the live-action movies.
- Did we forget him as Mr. Palmer in Sense and Sensibility?
- Hugh Laurie really isn't such a great example of this trope - he might not have been a household name (no pun intended) before he became a certain grouchy doctor but as evidenced by the movies above, none of which are direct-to-TV stuff, he certainly got a fair old amount of acting work in Hollywood and as also mentioned above, he was extremely well known in the UK. As well as Blackadder, he was also Stephen Fry's comedy partner for a number of years, with shows like Jeeves and Wooster and A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
- Incidentally, both he and Stephen have been asked a few times if the latter will ever pop up in House. They've said the only way they'd like to do it is if Stephen played a character that is even brighter than House, possibly House's mentor at med school or something. Yes, they want Stephen to play Mycroft to Hugh's Sherlock.
- Before Taylor Lautner was in Twilight, he was a junior world champion karate master, having gotten his black belt by age eight. He competed in an ISKA event at age 11 that was taped by ESPN, which a few years later (but still before Twilight) was riffed on Cheap Seats.
- Jennifer Lawrence played a young girl going to squirrel-hunting lengths to keep her loved ones fed and housed in a Present Day Ozark Crapsack World in Winter's Bone before she played a young girl going to squirrel-hunting lengths to keep her loved ones fed and housed in a dystopian future Appalachian Crapsack World in The Hunger Games.
- Adam Lazare-White, voicing Jacob from Mass Effect 2, should sound familiar to older gamers that have memories of video gaming later in The Nineties. He played 1LT Terrence "Zero" O'Hearn in Wing Commander Prophecy and provided the character's voice in the sequel, Wing Commander Secret Ops.
- Matt Le Blanc of Friends fame had his first big break on the short-lived Fox sitcom Top of the Heap, a Spin-Off of Married... with Children, along with Joey Lauren Adams.
- He also played the same character in a few episodes of Married... with Children and in another show called Vinnie & Bobby.
- Heath Ledger as Patrick in 10 Things I Hate About You.
- Though this was more of a Star Making Role - he parlayed this into more serious fare.
- Pictured above, Bruce Lee playing Kato in the Adam West Batman series for three episodes. This was before his first film by three years.
- Technically, that was a crossover. The Green Hornet series ran alongside Batman for one season, with Kato being the only redeeming quality of the show.
- Ken Leung was a mutant in X-Men: The Last Stand, and kidnapped the girl from Rush Hour.
- Not to mention Dong! (rhymes with flong).
- Even Evangeline Lilly can invoke this, despite having next to no acting experience with dialogue prior to starring in LOST. She worked in Vancouver for a while as a part-time model and would occasionally appear as a mute extra in tv series filmed there, notably in Smallville, where she managed to be in 5 episodes. So if you go on a Smallville binge, expect several moments of, "Hey! Did Kate Austin just walk past the screen?!"
- Chad Lindberg, aka Ash, the computer genius, from Supernatural, started his computer training early: he shows up in the first-season Buffy episode "I Robot, You Jane."
- Sam Lloyd took away Drew's Batmobile and was the Neighborhood Association President in Malcolm in the Middle before becoming Ted Buckland.
- Carl Lumbly played a South African Embassy staff in The X-Files before starring in Alias.
- Jane Lynch has had a whole bunch of small or supporting- yet almost always scene stealing- parts in various movies and TV shows before becoming beloved the world over as Sue Sylvester in Glee.
M-R
- Tobey Maguire in◊ The Wizard.
- Tina Majorino, probably best known for her role as Deb or as Mac, is the MacGuffin Girl in Waterworld.
- Patty Maloney. Because she didn't speak or show her face on Far Out Space Nuts, she likely wasn't immediately recognizable in her many prime-time guest roles of the late 1970s.
- Costas Mandylor had guest appearances on Sex and the City and Charmed before becoming Hoffman in Saw.
- Vincent Martella, who is the voice of Phineas in Phineas And Ferb, was Greg in Everybody Hates Chris. Sort of an inversion, because Phineas and Ferb started in 2007 and Everybody Hates Chris didn't end until 2009.
- Eddie McClintock, best known as Pete from Warehouse 13 is Bones' FBI boyfriend.
- Kandyse McClure is yet another Higher Ground alumnus.
- Gates McFadden, before being known for her role as Beverly Crusher, played a secretary in The Muppets Take Manhattan.
- John C. McGinley: Dr. Cox plays a Corrupt Corporate Executive of the Planetary Shield Company in Highlander II: The Quickening.
- Making anyone under 30 go "Holy crap!", Ian McKellen showed up in the Playing Shakespeare educational series in the 1970s.
- Debra Messing was a Girl of the Week on Seinfeld
- Vic Mignogna voiced minor Tournament Arc villain Uraurashima in the dub of Yu Yu Hakusho, using something very close to the voice he would later use in his breakout role as Edward Elric.
- Monster of the Week on Buffy turned most hilarious when Wentworth Miller of future Prison Break fame played a swimmer-turned-sea-monster; * creepy voice* fiiiiiiiiiish!
- Alfred Molina was Indiana Jones' treacherous guide Sapito in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. At one point, he even has spiders crawling all over him.
- Julianne Moore as Marlene, Claire's friend in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
- Viggo Mortensen has a nonspeaking role as an Amish farmer in Witness.
- And played Satan in The Prophecy.
- Joe Morton, before playing Henry Deacon, the Mechanic-turned convict in Eureka, played Scratch's number two in the classic film Crossroads. He transports them to the guitar head-cutting contest against Steve Vai, who plays Jack "Devil Boy" Butler, the one person Eugene Martone, King of the Hobos has to actually fight.
- Brittany Murphy was a regular in The Torkelsons revamp, Almost Home. She also guested several times in the first season of Sister Sister.
- Sean Murray, who plays McGee in NCIS, was Thackery Binx in Hocus Pocus
- Krull features Liam Neeson in a minor role.
- Eric Nelsen, who played Zeke in the "iDream of Dance" of iCarly, later played the Jerk Jock Brett in 13.
- Famously, Jack Nicholson's debut was a bit part as a masochistic dental patient in the original Little Shop of Horrors.
- John Noble in an episode of Stargate SG-1, now known for his role on Fringe.
- Renee O'Connor, of Xena fame, had a small role in The Adventures Of Huck Finn, starring Elijah Wood.
- One for lefties - Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. was a producer on The West Wing and played President Bartlet's father in a couple of episodes. Now? "Hey, it's Keith's guest host!"
- Masi Oka, best known as the Adorkable Hiro Nakamura from Heroes, had previously played Franklin on Scrubs and had a bit part in Austin Powers where he insisted the monster was most definitely not Godzilla.
- Alex O'Loughlin had the memorable role of the obsessive-compulsive serial killer who tries to redeem himself by helping the blind son of one of his victims on an episode of Criminal Minds.
- Terry O'Quinn from LOST. Part of the failure to recognize can be attributed to slightly altered appearance for the role of Locke. In most other roles, he sported a mustache and balding hair, rather than a totally shaven head.
- He was also a dickish Starfleet admiral in an episode of TNG.
- Don't forget the original (I.E. "better") version of The Stepfather!
- And Howard Hughes (yes, THAT Howard Hughes) in The Rocketeer.
- Emily Osment in an episode of Friends.
- She also played Cassie in one of the Sarah Plain And Tall movies.
- She also appeared on 3rd Rock from the Sun, and played Gerti Giggles in the second and third Spy Kids movies.
- Haley Joel Osment may be most famous for seeing dead people who don't know they're dead, but he made his film debut in Forrest Gump as Forrest's son.
- In 1962, Kerry Wendell Thornley wrote a Roman à Clef called The Idle Warriors about a strange young man he had known while in the United States Marine Corps. His name? Lee Harvey Oswald. For those who don't know, that's one year before the Kennedy assassination.
- Jared Padalecki was a fifteen-year-old in a car crash on ER.
- Keke Palmer from Akeelah and the Bee and True Jackson, VP was Madea's young troubled foster child in Madeas Family Reunion.
- Gwyneth Paltrow played the younger version of Wendy in Hook.
- It's startled quite a few people watching reruns of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit when they see Hayden Panettiere in an episode as a highschool prostitute.
- Either inverted or played straight with Grace Park, who plays GDI's Lt. Sandra Telfair in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. People might recognize her for her previous role as Number Eight on Battlestar Galactica, or for her current role as Kono on Hawaii Five-0.
- Before Legend of the Seeker, Craig Parker played Haldir, a minor elf in The Lord of the Rings.
- Jim Parsons, now known as Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, played Tim, the Klingon-speaking "fast-food knight" in Garden State.
- Simon Pegg appears as an Easy Company NCO in Band Of Brothers.
- That's yet another case which is location-specific - he was already known as a comic actor/writer in the UK by then, though admittedly not as instantly recognisable as he is now.
- So you're watching Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Audrey Hepburn's Love Interest seems bizarrely familiar, and you don't know why. Then you realize that if he was aged up about twenty years and given white hair...Dear God, it's a young Hannibal! (George Peppard)
- Matthew Perry. Before Friends, he had guest spots on a dozen prime time shows, plus a few failed series. Many fans didn't immediately recognize Chandler as Carol's dead boyfriend from Growing Pains.
- His first big break was in a Fox sitcom initially called "Second Chance," then re-tooled as "Boys Will Be Boys," minus the original version's supernatural elements.
- Or Brandon's suicidal classmate in Beverly Hills 90210.
- Robert Picardo appeared in Innerspace.
- One of the ickier episodes of Law & Order revolves around two sisters, one killed by a serial rapist, the other narrowly surviving, turning out to be in league with the killer. Say hello to Ellen Pompeo, best known as Meredith Grey.
- Markie Post was a behind-the-scenes lady on the 1970s game shows Split Second and Double Dare (a quizzer, not the kids' stunt show), and later a card dealer on Card Sharks, before her breakthrough role on Night Court.
- Zachary Quinto, who is Sylar from Heroes and Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie, played a demon in Charmed.
- And prior to both, he hilariously hammed it up playing Tori Spelling's Gay Best Friend on her show So Notorious. Watching that show and then Heroes back to back makes for an especially hilarious experience.
- And he was the forgettable Adam Kaufman in season 3 of 24.
- Following from 24, TJ Ramini gets some billing as Tarin Faroush, but will be more recognised among British audiences as DC Zain Nadir, one of the more famous characters of The Bill.
- Before Twilight and The Last Airbender, Jackson Rathbone popped up in a couple episodes of The O.C..
- Ryan Reynolds was in the original pilot movie for Sabrina the Teenage Witch
- Speaking of Giovanni Ribisi, he had one of those moments in Friends, compared to his recurring role later on the series; he grabs a condom out of Phoebe's guitar case in one episode. Later that season, he plays her half-brother. He also had one of these moments on The X-Files.
- Wayne Robson. You know Mike Hamar, the ex-con on The Red Green Show? Did you notice him in One Magic Christmas? How about the Disney TV Movie Murder She Purred? Cube? Welcome To Mooseport? The Rescuers Down Under?
- Daniel Roebuck, Artz from LOST has been everywhere!
- Seth Rogen appears as a bully in Donnie Darko. He utters the line "I like your boobs"
- Tim Russ aka Tuvok was the black Spaceball who "ain't found shit!".
- He was also one of the crooks in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Starship Mine." He has the Vulcan nerve pinch used on him by Picard.
- He's also a bridge officer on the Enterprise-B at another point. We get a good look at his ears and they're not pointed.
- Interestingly he was retconned in a Voyager episode to actually BE Tuvok (complete with pointed ears in a flashback) as a lieutenant on the Excelsior who had joined starfleet in Kirk's era only to become disillusioned by Sulu's maverick attitude, quitting Starfleet for decades until rejoining in Picard's time.
- Debra Jo Rupp aka Kitty Forman was Josh Baskin's secretary, Miss Patterson, in Big.
- And Jerry Seinfeld's long-suffering (not that she didn't deserve it) agent. And the biological mom of Phoebe Buffay's babies.
- Tim Robbins appears in a 1st season episode of Moon Lighting as an assassin that underestimates an old man and is Curb Stomped with a bedpan.
- Top Gun had a pre-breakout Meg Ryan in it.
- And don't forget the above Tim Robbins as Merlin.
S-Z
- Katee Sackhoff got beheaded in Halloween: Resurrection and was on one season of MTV's Undressed before she became Battlestar Galactica's Ace Pilot Starbuck.
- Adam Sandler was one of Theo's buddies in The Cosby Show.
- He also played Colin Quinn's "delinquent cousin Stickpin" and "The Stud Boy" in Remote Control.
- Peter Sarsgaard in The Man in the Iron Mask, playing a romantic rival to Leonardo DiCaprio and a doomed son to John Malkovich. Undoubtedly he was chosen because of his speaking voice, which uncannily matches Malkovich's, even though nobody else in the film bothers to match accents.
- David Schwimmer made minor appearances on The Wonder Years and Blossom before landing his most famous role as Ross Geller.
- Hey, did you know Tony Shalhoub, TV's Monk, played the guy who set up the "borrowed ladder" deal between Jerome and Vincent in Gattaca?
- Rondell Sheridan was Andre in Cousin Skeeter before becoming well known to kids as Victor Baxter.
- John Simm was in Spaced and Human Traffic before Life on Mars.
- Kurtwood Smith (Red) can have this too, in films such as RoboCop and Deep Impact.
- Matt Smith shows up in a deleted scene of In Bruges as a younger, flashback version of Ralph Fiennes' character.
- Cobie Smulders was a Psycho Ex-Girlfriend of Lex Luthor on Smallville. "Lex go to the mall today!"
- Ian Somerhalder played a Recurring Character for half a season on Smallville, as The Mole whom Lana Lang dates. One of his episodes even features his future co-star Evangeline Lilly (see folder G-L above). They even appear together in the same shot.
- In an episode of Cheers, Diane serves on a jury and manages to get the defendant to break up with his girlfriend when he comes into the bar. The man looks uncannily like a flesh-colored Data.
- What's funny about Brent Spiner is how many of his roles are comedic-ish... Data's the exception, not the rule. The rule is closer to Arik Soong.
- Though he does appear in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent as a creepy therapist.
- Then there are those episodes of Night Court with the hillbilly family. Take a look at the man in that family....
- Spiner played another comedic hillbilly as a rural preacher in the Tales from the Darkside episode "A Case of the Stubborns".
- Cole Sprouse played Ben in Friends, and he and his twin Dylan Sprouse had a part in an episode of That '70s Show before both of them landed on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
- And together, they also played the part of Julian "Frankenstein" McGrath in Big Daddy.
- Another one for Higher Ground: Jewel Staite.
- And again, she was on The X-Files. Seems like that show nurtured rather a few budding actors...
- And before that, she was rainbow-haired Catalina on Space Cases.
- Way back in 1996 she was Becca, the best friend and neighbor of Ben Foster's Tucker on the Disney Channel show Flash Forward.
- Don Stark aka Bob Pinciotti appeared as holographic gangster Nicky the Nose in Star Trek: First Contact.
- Kristen Stewart in Panic Room. Weird to look back on it years later, since she was 10 when the movie was made.
- She also shows up at the very end of Jumper, as the protagonist's half-sister.
- Also in Catch That Kid, which also has Retroactive Recognition of Corbin Bleu and Max Thieriot.
- Immediately pre-breakout, she played the underage love interest in Into The Wild.
- She also stars in the 2004 movie Speak (based on the novel of the same name), being 13 years old at the time.
- Patrick Stewart appeared in the BBC educational show Playing Shakespeare in the 1970s before becoming Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
- He was Leondegrance in Excalibur. Said film also had Liam Neeson (Gawain), Helen Mirren (Morgana), and Gabriel Byrne (Uther Pendragon).
- He also played Gurney Halleck in Dune.
- David Suchet was in the same.
- An actor named Woodrow Strode played the King of Ethiopia in The Ten Commandments. In a later scene, he doubled as a royal slave. Years later, Mr. Strode became mildly well known. This led viewers of Mr. DeMille's epic to conclude that Rameses enslaved the Ethopian king.
- David Suchet played the rival Arab dictator in the first Iron Eagle movie.
- Faran Tahir, prior to becoming Raza or Captain Robau, combined this with You Look Familiar by appearing as two separate characters on 24 - in the second season he was a mosque greeter, and in the fourth season he was a Turkish terrorist on the receiving end of the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique.
- Amber Tamblyn was one of Dawn's friends in the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Amanda Tapping showed up in an episode of Due South a year before Stargate SG-1 aired, playing a scientist with a secret government program that was strongly implied to be tracking UFOs.
- Catherine Tate shows up in an episode of Men Behaving Badly as a woman interested in buying Tony and Gary's flat.
- How about John Terry (Christian Shepard), who played Felix Leiter in The Living Daylights? Oh yeah, and his first-ever film role as Hawk the Slayer.
- Leon Thomas is well known as Andre on the Nickelodeon show Victorious. You might've seen the seventh episode of the second season of another Nick show, Just Jordan two years before that. Watch it present-day and you'll recognize Ronnie as a young Leon Thomas.
- Sam Trammel plays the upstanding owner of a popular bar in True Blood, but way back when in the second episode of Dexter he played a drunk with a persistent hit-and-run problem. He didn't last long.
- John Travolta's first role was in the horror movie The Devil's Rain. He yells "Blasphemer!" and falls down the stairs, and the protagonists see the flashback inside his eyes.
- A young Keith Urban appears in the 1992 video for Alan Jackson's "Mercury Blues". Most Americans probably didn't recognize Urban's face until 1999.
- In Rudy, Vince Vaughn has a minor part as Jamie O'Brien, the under-performing halfback who throws the TD pass in the final game to give Rudy a shot on the field.
- Before she became Major Kira on DS9, Nana Visitor drilled for oil in a season 1 episode of MacGyver.
- In Tank Girl, a lot of viewers have had this with Naomi Watts.
- Before playing Tony DiNozzo on NCIS Michael Weatherly was a one-episode character on Charmed.
- Game show announcer Randy West, despite not having a familiar face, was a contestant on several shows before his announcing career began. Among these were All Star Blitz, Hit Man, and Press Your Luck.
- Vanna White was a contestant on The Price Is Right about three years before she became the co-host on Wheel of Fortune.
- Before his Star Making Role in Moon Lighting, Bruce Willis played a "heavy-of-the-week" in a first-season episode of Miami Vice, and also guest-starred in an episode of The Twilight Zone's 80's revival.
- Speaking of Wheel, Alicia Witt was a contestant on a teen week in 1989. (Incidentally, she later played a Celebrity Edition in 1997.)
- Before her breakout job as a regular on Saturday Night Live, Kristen Wiig played "Dr. Pat" on the first season of The Joe Schmo Show.
- Mark "Arthur Weasley" Williams teamed up with Hugh Laurie in the Live-Action Adaptation of 101 Dalmatians.
- He was also a goofy exterminator in The Borrowers, where Hugh Laurie was a rambling cop and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) was the son in the family of Borrowers.
- Speaking of Williams, watch the first two seasons of Red Dwarf. He was Olaf Petersen. He's very good in bed.
- And then my son helped vanquish the Dark Lord. Which was nice.
- Really, this is similar to the Hugh Laurie example above. Both men had large parts on comedy shows which were huge in the UK (The Fast Show might not have been quite as big as Blackadder, but it was still very popular) - it's just that they didn't necessarily become household names in the States until they took on one particular role.
- Same-TV-show example: Before Michael Wisher was the first actor to play Davros on Doctor Who, he had a fairly minor role as a broadcaster in "The Ambassadors of Death," five years earlier, and then another role the next year.
- He also provided may Dalek voices before playing Davros.
- Elijah Wood was one of the kids that Marty meets in an arcade in 2015◊ Back to the Future Part II. He even spoke.
- Anton Yelchin played a troubled teenager in the Criminal Minds episode "Sex, Birth, Death" several years before he played Chekov in the Star Trek Continuity Reboot.
- He also plays the main child character in the film version of Hearts In Atlantis.
- Billy Zane, who played Cal in Titanic was Match, one of Biff Tannen's Mooks in the first two Back to the Future movies.
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