Retroactive Recognition / A to F

A

• Danneel Ackles got her start on One Life to Live in 2003 before she broke out because of One Tree Hill. She had bit roles on sitcoms and dramas like JAG, NCIS, CSI, Joey, and What I Like About You
• Jensen Ackles was in the Wishbone episode "¡Viva Wishbone!" back in 1995.
  • The following year, he guest starred as Brad, aspiring photographer and love interest for Jessica, on Sweet Valley High.
  • He guest starred in a wedding-themed episode of Cybill as the groom, David. His voice is so high he almost sounds pubescent compared to the booming bass he currently uses.
  • He was a Camp Gay prisoner in the pilot of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
  • He was also in Season 4 of Smallville as Jason Teague, Clark's football coach and Lana's boyfriend. However, in Season 5, we see a newspaper announce he was killed off-screen in a meteor shower (and the actual death is depicted in a deleted scene from the Season 4 finale where he takes Jonathan and Martha hostage before their house is hit by a meteor). In reality, Ackles was cast in his now-signature role as Dean Winchester in Supernatural.
  • His first major role was as Eric, Sami's twin, on Days of Our Lives.
• Before he shot to stardom thanks to Luke Cage (2016) and Moonlight (2016), Mahershala Ali had a bunch of bit parts and one-off roles in police procedurals like CSI, NYPD Blue and Law & Order: SVU.
  • He also was a returnee soldier in The 4400, back when his name was Mahershalalhashbaz Ali.
  • He was also the Sierra Leonean death squad soldier in Predators and Boggs in the Mockingjay movies.
• 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 (US) before receiving some critical acclaim for Junebug and later Enchanted.
  • She also played one of Tara's hick relatives in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Family".
  • Also appeared in a episode of Charmed as the unlucky Maggie Murphy.
  • And she was on King of the Hill.
  • And she played the resident bitch in Cruel Intentions 2, a sequel to Cruel Intentions so obscure there isn't even a TV Tropes page for it. As per Wikipedia this was culled from the prequel series Manchester Prep (which Fox cancelled without even airing one episode!)
  • She had a guest starring role in a two-part episode of The West Wing.
• 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 LeBlanc.
• 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.
  • He had a Jerkass high school senior role in Dazed and Confused.
  • Even before that, he was the young kid and main character in The Voyage of the Mimi.
  • Or as the teenage son of Kate Mulgrew in Danielle Steel's Daddy.
  • His first Askewniverse appearance in Mallrats also predated his stardom.
• Chris Agos, whom NBC viewers might well recognize as Assistant State's Attorney Steve Kot in Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire, a decade and a half earlier did the irritating Announcer Chatter for the irritating PlayStation game Irritating Stick.
• 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 box art. She also guest-starred in episodes of Chicago Hope and Beverly Hills, 90210.
  • Her first credited role was as one of the kids in Camp Nowhere.
  • And she starred in a remake of Flipper.
• Jaimie Alexander, known for her roles in the Thor movies and Blindspot, showed up in a Season 1 episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as a high school student who seduces Dennis and as Jessi in Kyle XY.
  • She also appeared as a suspect in a Season 4 episode of Bones.
• Jason Alexander is the hardware store clerk Harrison Ford annoys in the beginning of The Mosquito Coast.
• A young Tatyana Ali appeared in the drawing segments of the Jim Henson Play-Along Video "Wow, You're A Cartoonist!".
  • Speaking of The Muppets, a young Raven-Symoné sang to Kermit in the special The Muppets at Walt Disney World.
• Freya Allan was basically unknown prior to landing the role of Ciri in Netflix's The Witcher, but anyone who started watching Into the Badlands after that came out would recognise her when they got to season 3, where she played the Widow in a flashback sequence to the character's early teens.
• Alfie Allen, who is famously known as Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, had a small role in Agent Cody Banks Destination London as a German student who plays double bass.
• 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.
• Simon Amstell appeared as a contestant on Family Catch Phrase and GamesMaster before becoming a presenter on T4 and then hosting Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
• Loni Anderson, best known for WKRP in Cincinnati, guest stars in The Love Boat episode "Lost and Found/The Understudy/Married Singles" as a Dumb Blonde who tries to seduce one of the characters.
• Nicole Anderson from JONAS, played Tasha in the "iNevel" episode of iCarly.
• Samuel Anderson, who played Danny Pink in Series 8 of Doctor Who, had previously been a model, with his face on food trucks transporting Ginster's Cornish Pasties.
• Jennifer Aniston:
  • Her first film was the 1988 E.T. ripoff film Mac and Me, as an uncredited dancer in McDonald's.
  • She had a minor role in an episode Quantum Leap as the future love interest of Sam's current host.
  • She also played Mayim Bialik's evil stepsister in the very short-lived series Molloy (it was cancelled in favor of Mayim's other vehicle, Blossom).
  • She was the female lead in Leprechaun. The DVD release gave her top billing over Warwick Davis, though some people incorrectly believe this is bigger Billing Displacement than it is, as she still is arguably the main protagonist.
• Aziz Ansari had guest roles on Scrubs and Flight of the Conchords and starred in Human Giant before becoming a recognized name through Parks and Recreation.
• Musician Marc Anthony was one of the agents in Hackers before landing his 1999 hit, "I Need To Know".
• Knights of the Dinner Table once featured a column called "A Gamer's Rant on the Movies", in which a guy named Noah Antwiler would give snarky reviews of bad movies. If that name sounds familiar to you, it's because you might know him today as Spoony.
• Filipino actor John Arcilla first starred in a 90s Philippine TV commercial for a brand of bacon in which he uttered "Coffee na lang, dear" (Just coffee, dear) before landing his iconic role of historical figure Gen. Antonio Luna in the eponymous 2015 biopic.
• Emma D'Arcy as Sonia Richter in Hanna, now that House of the Dragon brought them considerable mainstream exposure.
• Ashley Argota (Lulu) from True Jackson, VP, was a classmate of the Power Trio in the iCarly episode "iHave a Lovesick Teacher".
• Richard Armitage had two lines in The Phantom Menace, followed by several years of minor supporting roles on British television that have since been almost entirely forgotten, as well as a minor role in Captain America: The First Avenger. All of this years before his international breakout role as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit.
• Patricia Arquette's film debut had her facing Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.
• Edward Asner's fourth-ever role was as a police sergeant in the Decoy episode "An Eye for an Eye."
• Rowan Atkinson was a regular on Not the Nine O'Clock News. His next stop: Black Adder. A few years after that: Mr. Bean.
• Most people who frequent this site know Edward Atterton as the deeply unpleasant Atherton Wing in Firefly, but before then he lent his dashing good looks to a more dashing figure, namely Peter D'Alembord in Sharpe.
• Before Uncle Phil and before Shredder, James Avery was gittin' down as the voice of wrestler Junkyard Dog in Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling.
  • As well as mechanic Turbo in Rambo: The Force of Freedom.
  • He also appears as a dancer in Maxwell street in The Blues Brothers.

B

• Kevin Bacon is the unlucky victim in the infamous arrow kill scene from the first Friday the 13th (1980).
• Diedrich Bader played an Enterprise officer in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Emissary", and was the antagonist of the Quantum Leap episode "Rebel Without a Clue" years before playing Oswald on The Drew Carey Show and Batman in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
• Penn Badgley did voice work for Mario Golf and Mario Tennis before his Star-Making Role on Gossip Girl. He also co-starred in Drive-Thru with Leighton Meester.
• Before starring as Amy Duncan on Good Luck Charlie, Leigh-Allyn Baker had the recurring role of Hannah Webster during the first season of Charmed.
• Steven W. Bailey is a TV actor most prominently cast as Joe The Bartender on Grey's Anatomy. His first acting role was as Cyrus in the FMV game Phantasmagoria.
• Colin Baker appeared in the Blake's 7 episode "City at the Edge of the World" as the menacing-yet-ridiculous Bayban, four years before his debut as the Sixth Doctor.
• Simon Baker's small role as a young and absurdly pretty gay actor (and murder victim) in L.A. Confidential.
• Tom Baker Chewing the Scenery as a hammy, evil, vaguely-Arab wizard is always a fun experience for Doctor Who fans in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, which (like all the Ray Harryhausen special effects movies) often gets repeated on British television.
• Adam Baldwin was already a fairly seasoned actor before he gained a widespread following as Jayne Cobb and John Casey. Some of his previous roles included:
  • Ricky Linderman, the titular bodyguard in My Bodyguard.
  • Animal Mother from Full Metal Jacket.
  • Major Mitchell, a minor yet important role in Independence Day.
  • He was also the lead in D.C. Cab.
  • One of the military techs in the trailer in Predator 2.
  • And he had a recurring role as Knowle Rohrer, an alien-enhanced supersoldier, in the final season of The X-Files.
• Christian Bale was a child actor before his star-making role in American Psycho.
  • He starred in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, among other soon-to-be-more-famous actors.
  • He played Jim Hawkins in the 1990 adaptation of Treasure Island with Charlton Heston as Long John Silver.
  • He also can be seen in Kenneth Branagh's adaption of Henry V.
  • Also in the much-regretted Newsies.
• From way back: Lucille Ball was one of the love interests in The Three Stooges' 1934 short Three Little Pigskins.
• Jamie Bamber played a heroic sailor before he played a heroic pilot on Battlestar Galactica and he played both before he played a heroic detective on Law & Order: UK
• Iain Banks appeared as an extra in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as one of Arthur's knights in the conclusion of the film.
• Jonathan Banks played the boy in an educational film on menstruation before he played Frank McPike on Wiseguy and he played both before he became best known as Mike Ehrmantraut on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
  • He played an ill-fated cop in 48 Hrs. and the main henchman in Beverly Hills Cop. Curiously, Eddie Murphy was a criminal in the former and a cop in the latter.
  • He goes back a little further than that...he has small parts in a pair of Barnaby Jones episodes.
• Dante Basco played Rufio in Hook starring Robin Williams but modern audiences know him as Zuko and Jake Long.
• Toni Basil, known for the 1980 hit "Mickey", can be seen dancing with Davy Jones in the "Daddy's Song" segment of Head. Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 may also have spotted her dancing to distract The Fifty Foot Beau Bridges in Village of the Giants.
• Angela Bassett was a love interest of Hawk's on Spenser For Hire and briefly appeared as a stewardess in Kindergarten Cop.
• 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.
  • She was also "Man Hands" on Seinfeld.
• Brian Beacock is one of the backup singers during the "16 Reasons" number in Mulholland Dr.. This was filmed before his Star-Making Role in anime as Takato Matsuki.
  • He also appeared on an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien portraying Axl Rose.
  • He was also a performer at Universal Studios Hollywood.
• Several years before Sharpe, Sean Bean appeared in a 1984 episode of The Bill.
• Long before his show on Fox News, Glenn Beck occasionally appeared as an extra in Cheers.
• Lana Beeson voiced Alicia in He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special and Twinkle in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night before filling in as the singing voice of Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go to Heaven.
• Before he starred in Drake & Josh, Drake Bell was in a commercial for Pokémon Red and Blue.
• Before her Star-Making Role as 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. To Frozen (2013) audiences, Veronica Mars might qualify for this trope as well, thanks to Kristen's voice-acting performance as Princess Anna.
• In the 1991 mini-series Love, Lies and Murder, Clancy Brown's character is eventually set up by a Tae Bo-practicing prison snitch oddball (no, seriously). Back then, said oddball was just some guy; nowadays after the Saw franchise began, upon watching it, you may notice that he was portrayed by Tobin Bell.
• Julie Benz was Darla first on Buffy before playing Dexter's wife. She also appeared on an episode of Sliders.
• Gregg Berger is best known for providing the voice of Grimlock, Odie, Orson, The Gromble, and Ripto respectively. Before hitting it big with "Transformers" and "Garfield And Friends", he begun his voice acting career by providing the English voice of Adult Chirin for the 1983 English dub of Ringing Bell (Chirin no Suzu) by Sanrio Animation.
• Almost 20 years before Red John finally appeared on-screen, Xander Berkeley was John Connor's foster dad, Todd, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
• Prior to his Star-Making Role as Shane Walsh on The Walking Dead, Jon Bernthal appeared in, among other roles, World Trade Center and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
• Future President Joe Biden, then-Delaware Rep. in the U.S. Senate, once appeared on an episode of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego.
• Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens) appeared as a jock in Grease.
• Jessica Biel tells David Letterman how she got into an early 90s Pringles commercial.
• Rachel Bilson was a potential Slayer before The O.C.
• Jack Black had a lot of surprising small roles before finally hitting it big:
  • For movies, he was one of the Wasteland Scraps in Demolition Man, the pilot in Waterworld, one of the Nasties in The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia, the hero's redneck squaddie brother in Mars Attacks!, an arms dealer in The Jackal, a Young Republican in Bob Roberts, a bit part in Airborne, a weedhead in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Matthew Broderick's friend in The Cable Guy, and As Himself in his band Tenacious D in Bio-Dome. He was also in Enemy of the State as one of the bad guys.
  • For TV, he had some minor roles in an episode of The X-Files, and some early episodes of Mr. Show. He's also a big fan of Pitfall!.
• Dan Blocker played a space alien in The Three Stooges short Outer Space Jitters. A couple of years later, he took on his breakthrough role as Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza.
• Although nowadays he's perhaps best known for his voice acting in video games and cartoons, Brian Bloom was a teen heartthrob in the 1980s, appearing on shows like As the World Turns and Beauty and the Beast (1987).
• Orlando Bloom was a victim on Midsomer Murders (and not one of the victims who lived past the opening credits, either). His big screen debut was as a "rent boy" in 1997's Wilde.
• Not that Blue Heelers was a small show, in fact around the Turn of the Millennium it was the smash hit Australian TV show, but after it's cancellation it would soon be forgotten. Then came Underbelly based on the real gangland wars which gained publicity unheard of, introducing much of the Heelers cast to a younger audience and causing many older ones to go, "Wait that's Tess, and there's PJ, and Adam, and wasn't Alphonse and Graham in the show a few times... so was that detective, and that guy, and that girl..."
• 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 Best Of The Best 2. He has no lines, but is recognizable. He gets beaten up.
• Before becoming the voice of Lois Griffin, Alex Borstein played Queen Machina in Power Rangers Zeo, as well as several background roles in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. She also wrote episodes of several cartoons before becoming a voice actress, including The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, Histeria! and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain.
• Martial artist/anime voice actor Johnny Yong Bosch was once known as Black Power Ranger Adam.
• Before he was Jackie Robinson or Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman had one-off roles in various police procedurals and crime dramas like Third Watch, Law & Order, CSI: NY and Justified.
• While Devon Bostick's most known role is Rodrick Heffley in Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its first two sequels, he was previously present in many other movies at younger ages. The most infamous case is likely his appearance as Brent Abbott in Saw VI, which led many people in the Internet to joke that they don't remember Brent's scenes from Diary of a Wimpy Kid or that "Rodrick went insane" (since Brent kills main character William Easton at the end of Saw VI).
  • That wasn't his first role in the Saw franchise either (in fact, he's the only actor in the franchise to have played more than one character, asides from Leigh Whannell if you count the original short film). Before that, he played background character Derek in Saw IV. In an interview, he said that Derek was originally going to play a larger role in the movie, but was glad that it was cut so that he could play Brent later.
• David Bowie made a BBC appearance in 1964 on Tonight, speaking out about discrimination against men with long hair.
• John Boyega was a One Episode Wonder as DS Matt Devlin's killer on Law & Order: UK and the star of the cult favorite Attack the Block years before playing Finn in The Force Awakens. He also modeled in some stock photos for schools before he became famous.
  • A year and a half before The Force Awakens came out, he had a recurring role on 24: Live Another Day as Chris Tanner, a man set up to take the fall for an attack on his fellow soldiers and whose name has to be cleared by Jack Bauer.
• Pandora Boxx and Darienne Lake, before they became fan-favorite contestants on RuPaul's Drag Race, were both guests on Ricki Lake. As a couple, no less. The episode's theme was "Get a Grip Doll, You're Too Fat to be a Drag Queen!" Cringeworthy by New 20's standards, but 90's daytime Talk Shows were not known for their class.
• Before Scrubs, Zach Braff was in an episode of The Baby-Sitters Club (1990).
• Amy Brenneman herself isn't an example, but she has joked that she must have some kind of mojo, as she's had a noticeable pattern of this happening with her love interests. Two of them now have followed the unique trajectory of becoming DC Comics superheroes on television. When she was on Judging Amy, one of her love interests was played by Tom Welling, and another on Private Practice was played by Stephen Amell.
• Jeremy Brett, who was known as Sherlock Holmes, is one of the suitors in My Fair Lady.
• Jim Broadbent had small parts in Terry Gilliam films - in Time Bandits as the host of Your Money or Your Life and the plastic surgeon in Brazil. He was also one of the arms dealers in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
• Doug Brochu, prior to joining rival series Sonny with a Chance, was Freddie's lab partner in the iCarly episode "iHatch Chicks".
• Pierce Brosnan appeared in The Long Good Friday in a small yet important role, years before he became James Bond.
  • He was actually chosen to play James Bond off the back of his role as Remington Steele. Once the creators got wind of this casting decision, they decided to renew the show, thus the 6-year wait for GoldenEye
  • He also appeared in an episode of The Professionals as a surveillance operator.
• Millie Bobby Brown makes a guest appearance on Grey's Anatomy in 2015, one year before her Star-Making Role in Stranger Things. Creates an extreme sense of deja vu because initially, her Grey's character only appears as a voice on a phone—making it harder to place her, even if you do recognize the voice.
• Join Full House's Candace Cameron Bure as she looks at some of her old commercials for Cabbage Patch Kids, KFC, Chef Boyardee, and ALF toys.
• Hannibal Buress used to appear in occasional cameos on 30 Rock (a show he wrote for), often as a hobo.
• Richard Burgi, later of The Sentinel, plays a murder suspect and attempted rapist in the Mann & Machine episode "The Dating Game."
• Before playing Max Braverman in Parenthood, Max Burkholder was a child actor, mostly taking on voice roles including Roo in My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Chomper in the television series based off The Land Before Time and World in the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends TV Movie Destination: Imagination.
• Steve Buscemi plays a drug dealer in the Miami Vice episode "El Viejo."
• Gary Busey had a minor role as a construction worker in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
• Rose Byrne has a small role in Attack of the Clones as one of Padme's handmaidens.
• 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 (2003) reboot and its prequel.
  • He had a pretty significant and memorable role in 1993's The Program as the steroid-dependent defensive lineman "Lattimer."
• 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 warship that is attacked. If you can't see him, his voice is almost unmistakable. Almost.

C

• James Caan is in the Get Smart episode "To Sire with Love" as the usurper Rupert of Rathskeller. Caan was afraid that being associated with television would hurt his film career, so the character is credited "As Himself."
• 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.
• John Candy had a minor role in the 1975 film It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. In later years the film was marketed as a John Candy film, even though his role in the film was minimal.
• Peter Capaldi: A quarter of a century before he became the Twelfth Doctor, he also appeared as the gawky Knox Oil and Gas Aberdeen office employee Danny Oldsen in Local Hero. He also appears on Midsomer Murders as an example of retroactive Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognise.
• Jim Carrey: you might recognize him as the Axl Rose Expy in the fifth Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool.
• Helena Bonham Carter appeared in two Miami Vice episodes as Crockett's opioid-addicted girlfriend.
• Before she was the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright voiced several characters on Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and Alvin and the Chipmunks. She also had a live-action role as Ethel in the "It's a Good Life" segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie.
• 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 Spın̈al Tap, alongside the already-well-known Billy Crystal.
  • And an ambulance driver in Halloween II (1981).
• David Cassidy is in the Adam-12 episode "Log 24: A Rare Occasion" as a drug-addled teenager.
• Kim Cattrall's career goes back to The '80s. Highlights include Big Trouble in Little China, the first Police Academy, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and even Porky's.
  • She guest starred on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries as a woman looking for her missing sister.
  • She later appeared in the Starsky & Hutch episode "Blindfold" as someone Starsky accidentally shoots and temporarily blinds.
• One of Powerpuff Girl Cathy Cavadini's earlier gigs was the voice of fairy Glitter in the 1980s cartoon Kidd Video.
• Before Henry Cavill's debut as Superman, he played Charles Brandon in The Tudors and had a minor role in Stardust, where his blond hair and moustache render him almost unrecognisable. Even before that, he played Albert in The Count of Monte Cristo.
• Michael Cera was originally a child actor, with his first role being the bully character Butch in The Noddy Shop episode "Big Bullies". However, most of his career during that period was focused on doing voices for animated characters in children's shows, with his most well-known role being Brother Bear in the first 26 episodes of Nelvana's version of The Berenstain Bears.
  • All of the child actors on The Noddy Shop save for one of them ^note Gil Filar as Boobull qualify for this trope as well, as they were new to the industry with no prior experience. One noteworthy example was Marc Donato and Lauren Collins, who later appeared together on Degrassi: The Next Generation and were cast in this show as Dewey and Roxanne.
• Before she'd booked any onscreen acting roles, Gemma Chan appeared as one of the models in the first series of Project Catwalk, the British version of Project Runway. She later played one of the astronauts in the Doctor Who special "The Waters of Mars," as well as two separate bit characters in The IT Crowd (one of whom was the female Sulu in Douglas' Star Trek: The Original Series-themed sex tape).
• Jackie Chan made his film debut as a mook in Enter the Dragon, getting his neck snapped by Bruce Lee himself.
  • Speaking of Bruce, Chan also appeared in Fist of Fury as a Chinese martial arts student, as well as doubling for the Big Bad when he gets kicked through a window.
• Rosalind Chao, later known as Keiko O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was Cpl Klinger's Korean bride in the 1983 Grand Finale episode of M*A*S*H.
• Dave Chappelle appeared as Ahchoo in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Tom Hanks' business partner in You've Got Mail prior to creating and starring in Chappelle's Show.
• Before voicing Angelica in Rugrats, Cheryl Chase did voice-acting for English dubs of anime, with her playing Pinky in The Noozles, Beezle in The Fantastic Adventures of Unico, Puar in the Harmony Gold dub of Dragon Ball and Mei in the original English dub of My Neighbor Totoro.
• Long before the Ocean's Eleven movies, Hotel Rwanda, Crash, Hou$e of Lie$, or his role as War Machine in the MCU, Don Cheadle showed up in a single episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as one of Will Smith's old friends.
  • Also in a 1st-season episode of L.A. Law ("Gibbon Take") as a defendant employing the SODDI ("Some Other Dude Did It") defense, whose lawyer punches him out.
• Before American Pie, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Star Trek (2009), John Cho appeared as a murder victim ghost in the Charmed episode "Dead Man Dating".
• Hayden Christensen starred in Higher Ground before he turned to the Dark Side.
  • As well as the Goosebumps (1995) episode for "Night Of The Living Dummy III".
  • As well as a bit part in In the Mouth of Madness.
  • As well as the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode, "The Tale of Bigfoot Ridge".
  • As well as Tinka’s date in The Hairy Bird.
  • As well as the The Famous Jett Jackson episode, "Popularity".
  • And Life as a House.
• Julie Christie guest starred in The Saint episode "Judith" as the titular Girl of the Week.
• Emilia Clarke played a minor character named Saskia Meyer in Doctors as well as Savannah in the Syfy Channel Original Movie Triassic Attack, before she was cast as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones.
• George Clooney spent a year on the show Sisters playing second-oldest sister Teddy's love interest and later husband before being killed off so that he could play Dr. Doug Ross on ER.
  • He also had a recurring role in an 1980s sitcom set in a Chicago hospital, E/R.
  • And he was a regular cast member in the earliest seasons of Roseanne.
  • And a main cast member on one season of The Facts of Life.
• Martin Clunes played the villain Lon in the Doctor Who story "Snakedance". One particular clip repeatedly appeared on clip shows for years afterwards because it showed him wearing a rather ridiculous alien religious ceremonial costume.
• Kim Coates was all over the place in the '90s and '00s before getting recognition in Sons of Anarchy.
  • He got his nose punched in by Bruce Willis in The Last Boy Scout and tried to steal Will Smith and Martin Lawrence's car in Bad Boys (1995).
  • He was the crazy drifter in Waterworld, a creepy hitman in The Client, and an ill-fated Delta in Black Hawk Down.
  • Not to mention showing up in all three CSI shows, Prison Break, Smallville, The Outer Limits (1995), and loads and loads of others.
  • He played a biker in the Miami Vice episode "Viking Bikers from Hell."
• Future Goonie Jeff Cohen was one of the kids on the game show Child's Play.
• Nicholas Colasanto, better known as Coach from Cheers, had his first credited role as a gunrunner in the Decoy episode "Around the World."
  • He also played a henchman in the The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Indian Affairs Affair."
    • Colasanto's infrequent acting career was offset by his career as a TV director. He had far more credits as a director than as an actor.
    • He previously was an acting coach, whose students included Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk, among others. No surprise that he directed episodes of both Run For Your Life and Columbo.
• Stephen Colbert did the late 1990s Mr. Goodwrench commercials, and appeared in an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He also did voice-over work for shows like Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
  • He lampshaded his appearance in the Goodwrench commercials on an episode of The Colbert Report, where he asked whatever happened to the young, handsome guy from those ads.
• One of Gary Cole's earliest roles was as a smuggler in the Miami Vice episode "Trust Fund Pirates" before playing a dad from the '70s.
• Before she became famous for her role as Clara Oswald in Doctor Who, Jenna Coleman had a bit part near the beginning of Captain America: The First Avenger as Bucky's date.
  • She also played a lesbian in an Emmerdale story arc.
  • Video Game fans knew her as the voice of Melia Antiqua in Xenoblade Chronicles 1
• Joan Collins guest stars in the Future Cop episode "The Kansas City Kid" as a cheating gambler.
• Misha Collins was in NCIS, CSI, CSI: NY, and 24 before landing the role of Castiel in Supernatural.
  • He was also in a scene of Girl, Interrupted.
  • And a season 2 episode of Charmed.
  • He also appears in 4th season episode of Monk as a crime boss.
• 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.
• Before she wrote The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins was a children's television writer and worked on shows such as Clarissa Explains It All, Little Bear, Generation O!, JoJo's Circus, Clifford's Puppy Days and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!.
• Olivia Colman shows up in one episode of The Office (UK) as a trade magazine journalist interviewing David Brent.
• Future Luke Cage (2016) star Mike Colter appeared in Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing a different character each time. He was also Clint Eastwood's former protege in Million Dollar Baby and Agent J's father in Men in Black 3.
• Robbie Coltrane appeared in Flash Gordon (1980) as a man at the air field and was one of the thieves in Krull.
• Charmed (1998)'s Holly Marie Combs had a starring role in 1994's Dr. Giggles.
  • She also appeared with Tom Cruise in the 1989 Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.
• Steve Coogan, best known as inept, sociopathic broadcaster Alan Partridge in the radio series On the Hour and its TV adaptation The Day Today and its many Partridge-centric spinoffs, appeared in the 1989 series of game show The Krypton Factor as the "resident comedian" in the specially shot sketches for the Observation round.
• Just like Hayden Christensen above, A.J. Cook was in Higher Ground.
  • And before that, she played Mary Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides.
  • And had a memorable role as the college student George's father starts an affair with in Dead Like Me.
  • And she was the main lead, as a brunette, in Final Destination 2.
• Dane Cook was Waffle Man aka The Waffler in Mystery Men, a character who only appeared in the Terrible Interviewees Montage. He was also a recurring character in the mid-'90s TGIF show Maybe This Time, starring Betty White, Craig Ferguson, and Marie Osmond.
• Danny Cooksey, the guy who plays John's best friend in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, was Budnick on Salute Your Shorts. Before that, he played Arnold's best friend Sam in Diff'rent Strokes and, a few years later, voiced Montana Max in Tiny Toon Adventures.
• Before he was famous, Bradley Cooper appeared in an episode of Sex and the City as a guy Carrie met at a bar and almost hooked up with. He also played a slimy lawyer in a two-part crossover between Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
• 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.
• Before Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's major role in Game of Thrones, he appeared in two of Ridley Scott's movies: Black Hawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven.
• Near the end of Season 1 of Highlander, in the episode "Nowhere To Run", there's a young woman who's raped by a rich ambassador's son. It's her first-ever acting role. Her name? Marion Cotillard.
  • Jason Isaacs played the immortal Villain of the Week in The Lady and Tiger and it was likely his introduction for American audiences, as he was only really known in the UK as a lowkey TV Actor back in 1993.
• Before she played the role of Loonette and started her voice acting career, Alyson Court made her acting debut as Ruthie in Follow That Bird in 1985. She also appeared in a few episodes of Mr. Dressup and was Emily Elizabeth in a series of Clifford the Big Red Dog Direct to Video specials.
• Long before he was Colonel Stryker, Jack Langrishe, Captain O'Hagan, Agamemnon or William Wallace's dad Brian Cox appeared in Sharpe as the spymaster Major Hogan.
• Charlie Cox got his big break starring as Tristan Thorn in British cult comic-fantasy film Stardust (which also featured a young Henry Cavill, and Mark Strong - not so young, but it was when he started his long-running habit of playing villains), before going on to play the title character in Daredevil.
• Yet another Girl of the Week on Seinfeld: Courteney Cox.
  • And Ace Ventura's girlfriend.
  • And one of the main Audience Surrogate characters in the 1987 live-action Masters of the Universe.
  • And before that, she was Alex Keaton's girlfriend during the final season of Family Ties.
  • And before that, she was a conflicted telekinetic teenager in the almost completely forgotten series Misfits of Science.
  • And even before that, she was the girl who got up on stage and danced with the Boss in the "Dancing in the Dark" video.
• Blink and you'll miss her, Nikki Cox is the redheaded girl interviewed by the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • She also played an alien pen pal to Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Pen Pals". Given that her people were in crisis, her role is fairly significant.
  • She also appeared in the film Moonwalker as one of the kid dancers in the Badder segment.
• Ronny Cox has shown up as the villain in any number of movies, from RoboCop (1987) to Total Recall (1990). Before his noted turn as recurring character Senator Kinsey in Stargate SG-1, he was a good guy in Beverly Hills Cop.
  • In Deliverance (1972), he plays the guitar with that banjo-playing hillbilly.
  • He also 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.
  • He was a minor villain, Lieutenant Hidalgo, who gets his butt kicked several times by Zorro in the eponymous early 1990s series.
  • He appeared as a minor baddie in the second episode of Sharpe.
  • He was also a hood who gets scared off by George in Drop the Dead Donkey.
  • Played a World War I-era German officer in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in an episode also featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
  • He was also the main protagonist of a 1996 episode of Tales from the Crypt.
• 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.
  • He was also in the The X-Files episode "Drive" as an anti-Semite, dying a slow and agonizing death as a result of secret US Navy ELF transmitters, who takes Mulder hostage. That episode was written by Vince Gilligan, who would later create Breaking Bad; he claims Cranston's performance in that episode is what inspired him to cast him as Walter White.
  • He appeared in the Babylon 5 episode "The Long Night" as the ranger captain who went on a suicide mission.
  • And, as he revealed on an episode of The Colbert Report, he voiced several Monsters of the Week in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. The original Blue Ranger, Billy Cranston, was named for him. This eventually came full circle when he was cast as Zordon in Power Rangers (2017).
  • He's even had a handful of anime dub roles (some under the pseudonym "Lee Stone"), Fei Long in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, including Matti Tohn in Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Eddie in Armitage III, and Isamu in Macross Plus.
  • He's the astronaut "Gus" Grissom on the variety show The Wonders play on near the end in That Thing You Do! He plays "not used to the camera celebrity who does awkward scripted bits" really well. Takes a great actor to play a bad one!
  • If you go back far enough, he previously had central roles in commercials, selling products such as Coffee Mate and Preparation H.
  • Also a noticeable walk-on part in Saving Private Ryan.
  • He played a patient who thought he was Jesus Christ in an episode of Chicago Hope. Turns out, his character was an actor who was playing the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar, and that he was suffering from a brain tumor.
  • Another very early role, as a hillbilly car thief in a last-season episode of CHiPs. His newlywed wife in the episode was played by 1983 Playmate of the Year Kathy Shower.
  • Guest-starred twice on Matlock, once as Matlock's client, a poor schlep that violated a restraining order merely to give his adorable young daughter a special Christmas gift, only to wind up being accused of the murder of his bitchy ex-wife, and later as the murder victim, a marriage counselor with a very, let's say, 'hands on' approach with some of his clients.
  • Two times on Diagnosis: Murder as well, first as a homeless man who helps Dr. Sloan investigate the murders of his fellow street people, another as a pushy government agent.
• Denise Crosby, a.k.a. Tasha Yar, was in 48 Hrs., hitting Eddie Murphy in the chest with a baseball bat.
• Marcia Cross, a.k.a. Bree Van De Kamp, previously played:
  • Topanga's mother in Boy Meets World.
  • Yet another Girl of the Week on Seinfeld.
  • A Rich Bitch patient of Lu Delgado in Strong Medicine.
  • Rebecca's sister on Cheers.
  • A Villain of the Week on Quantum Leap.
• 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.
• Back in the late 60s, Peter Cullen was announcer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Then in 1984...
• About a year before her Star-Making Role in Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis briefly appeared in an episode of Columbo as an annoyed waitress.
• Both John and Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles. John has a featured role, but Joan is a wacky background extra with no lines—just a neck brace.
• 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.

D

• Willem Dafoe made his film debut as an extra in Heaven's Gate. He's visible in the cock-fight. He's also one the youths at the phone booth in The Hunger.
• Shawn Daivari was interviewed by Mike Tenay on the October 19, 1998 WCW Monday Nitro, which was held at the Target Center in Minneapolis, where he praised Ric Flair, about a year before he became a Professional Wrestler himself.
• Burak Dakak plays Mert as a child during flashbacks in Ezel. It was his first television role; he would go on to receive larger parts on Turkish television, such as Şehzade Mehmed in Magnificent Century Kösem, among others.
• Timothy Dalton was in an episode of Charlie's Angels where, hilariously enough, he was compared to James Bond.
• Matt Damon had a very tiny part in Mystic Pizza (as the Annoying Younger Sibling) before breaking out in School Ties.
• Charlie Daniels, best known for his song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and a series of pioneering Southern Rock and Progressive Country recordings, played as part of the backing band on albums by Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen before he was famous.
• It was shocking to see how many John Carpenter films Keith David was in before Gargoyles, Pitch Black, and so on. He also played a bartender in Road House (1989).
• Voice actress Elizabeth Daily (Buttercup and Tommy Pickles) was the love interest in Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
  • And had a cameo as a fan of Ellen Aim and Billy Fish in Streets of Fire.
  • And sang the title song in Better Off Dead.
  • And had a minor hit single (#70 on the Billboard Hot 100) with "Say It, Say It".
  • And had a major part in Valley Girl alongside co-star Nicolas Cage.
  • She also sang "Shake it Up" and "I'm Hot Tonight" on the soundtrack of Scarface (1983).
• Josh Dallas, before he became well-known for portraying Fandral in Thor and Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time, had a brief but memorable turn as "Node 2" in the Doctor Who episode "Silence in the Library". (He was billed as Joshua Dallas at the time; it was one of his first roles after graduating from the Royal Shakespeare Company and before returning to the US.)
• Charles Dance made his film debut in For Your Eyes Only as the henchman Claus.
• Before Grey's Anatomy, Eric Dane was in a Poorly Disguised Pilot episode of Married... with Children, along with Keri Russell.
  • He was also Multiple Man, one of Magneto's henchmen in X-Men: The Last Stand.
  • He has a very brief role as the Decoy Protagonist of the first Feast.
• Hugh Dancy, who is known as Will Graham in Hannibal, played Prince Charmont in Ella Enchanted starring Anne Hathaway.
• Out in the UK, Anthony Daniels had a couple small roles on Jackanory Playhouse, then started making his living as a certain gold-colored droid.
• Paul Darrow appeared in a rather unmemorable supporting role in Doctor Who: "The Silurians", nearly a decade before his debut in his famous role as Avon from Blake's 7.
• Long before he became General Hammond to the nerds of the world, Don S. Davis was a fixture on MacGyver (1985), where he not only played a succession of bit parts (he appears in the first episode driving a bulldozer, among others) but was also the stunt double for Dana Elcar. Funnily enough, this means he got two chances to boss Richard Dean Anderson around, with nearly thirty years inbetween.
• Jeremy Davies (Daniel Faraday from Lost) was Upham, the cowardly translator, in Saving Private Ryan and Lee's fiancé 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.
  • She was also a Classy Cat-Burglar in an episode of Knight Rider.
  • She was also on Family Ties for about two episodes as the Keatons' incompetent housekeeper.
  • And as the personification of Pride in Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin".
  • And as a soap actress in Tootsie.
• Kristin Davis played a Seinfeld girl before her noted turn in Sex and the City. Also Billy's doomed young bride Brooke on Melrose Place.
• Warwick Davis' first film role was Ewok Wicket in Return of the Jedi. Among his later ones were Willow, the Leprechaun and Harry Potter movies.
• Peter Davison made a pre-fame guest appearance in an episode of The Tomorrow People (1973) that involved being manacled half-naked to a wall. He was also the Dish of the Day in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981).
• Rosario Dawson appeared in Kids as Ruby before her acting career truly took off in the 2000s. She also had a brief appearance on Sesame Street at the age of 15 and showed up in a couple of music videos as well.
• Before becoming as popular as he was today, Shane Dawson was a voice actor in The Annoying Orange.
• Felicia Day appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer well before Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and The Guild.
  • She was also depressed dancer Penelope in Bring It On Again in between the two roles.
  • She also had a guest appearance in Monk in its fourth season before said roles.
• Mikey Day, prior to becoming a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live, was a member of the YouTube comedy group ThoseLilRabbits, who famously created the viral "David Blaine Street Magic" parody videos.
• Daniel Day-Lewis had a few minor roles before he started hitting it big.
  • In the 1980 Shoestring episode "The Farmer Had a Wife," he plays a small role as a Radio West DJ.
  • In Gandhi he has one short scene as an Afrikaaner thug who intimidates a young Mohandas Gandhi.
  • In The Bounty, which came out the next year, he has another minor supporting role as one of Captain Bligh's more obnoxious officers. The Bounty, actually, is not only notable for featuring a young Day-Lewis but also featuring Liam Neeson in a small role as Winston Churchill, one of the mutineers.
• Before he was a well-known voice actor, particularly famous for his role as Mandark, Eddie Deezen portrayed Eugene in the movie version of Grease (and its sequel). He was also in a few less-than-stellar B-movies like Laserblast, which the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 happily made fun of.
• Before Tim DeKay was Peter Burke in White Collar, he was Senator Patrick Kiley in NCIS, Bizarro Jerry on Seinfeld, and Jonesy in Carnivàle.
  • And as Corrupt Corporate Executive Larry Deon on SeaQuest 2032.
  • And he played the father of a patient in an episode of Scrubs
• John de Lancie: Who's that debonair guy Alastair who keeps popping up at the party in The Thorn Birds? Why it's none other than Q out of Star Trek.
  • And while he was playing Alistair, he was also playing Eugene Bradford in Days of Our Lives.
• Years before his roles in hit films like The Usual Suspects, Traffic (2000) and Sicario, Benicio del Toro played a young thug on an episode of Miami Vice (and he's not alone in that; there's a slew of actors from that show who fit into this trope, including John Leguizamo.)
  • He also appeared in Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" video as a kid sitting on the hood of a car (albeit for a few seconds.)
  • Most noticeably, he portrayed James Bond's youngest^note at the tender age of 21, a record that remains to this day (and one of his most ruthless) adversaries in Licence to Kill.
• Like many below examples, Judi Dench graced The BBC's educational show Playing Shakespeare in the 1970s. And before that, she appeared as a Girl of the Week in an episode of Z Cars in 1963.
• Deng Lun played a minor character in Princess Agents. A year later he became famous for starring in Ashes of Love.
• Before he became Wesley Wyndham-Price, Alexis Denisof played another useless blue-blooded snob, namely Lord Rossendale in Sharpe.
• Gérard Depardieu had a series of small roles before rising to fame with Les Valseuses, including a mob thug in La Scoumoune.
• You know that guy in the 1984 A Nightmare On Elm Street, the one who gets consumed and pureed by his bed in one scene, his name was Glen? ...That was Johnny Depp, in his very first movie.
• Emily Deschanel was a snarky receptionist in Spider-Man 2. Many now know her as the titular character in the crime drama Bones.
• Emily's sister, Zooey Deschanel, showed up as the main character's older sister in Almost Famous, and as Roz's pretentious cousin in an episode of Frasier.
• Danny DeVito plays a bookie in the Starsky & Hutch episode "The Collector."
• Dragnet 1967 episode "The Subscription Racket" featured later Hanna-Barbera voice actor Jerry Dexter (Alan from Josie and the Pussycats, mostly) as host of his self-titled talk show, where Joe addressed door-to-door swindle ploys.
• Leonardo DiCaprio had a tiny part as one of Darlene's classmates on Roseanne before his larger roles on Parenthood (1990) and Growing Pains. Roseanne featured a number of people who would later go on to bigger, more recognizable parts. Some examples: Tobey Maguire, Alyson Hannigan, Stephen Dorff, Jena Malone, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dot Marie Jones, and several others.
  • When he was five, DiCaprio appeared on an episode of Romper Room, but had to be taken off the set for being disruptive.
• Before playing Amethyst in Steven Universe, Michaela Dietz was the voice of Riff in Barney & Friends.
• Disney Channel Original Movies often featured actors that would go on to much bigger things. Not counting those who rose through Disney and Disney Channel, there's:
  • Emmy Rossum in Genius.
  • Mischa Barton in A Ring Of Endless Light.
  • Alyson and AJ Michalka, as well as Jack Coleman, in Cow Belles, though the former two were starting to make a name for themselves as Aly & A.J. around the same time.
  • Danielle Panabaker in Stuck in the Suburbs and Read It and Weep. The latter film also starred her sister, Kay.
  • Taran Killam also for Stuck in the Suburbs.
  • Sara Paxton in Hounded and Return to Halloweentown, unless you knew her from Summer Land which she did previously.
  • Camilla Belle in Rip Girls.
  • Kaley Cuoco in Alleycat Strike.
  • Kat Dennings in The Scream Team.
  • Pre-Hannah Montana Mitchel Musso in Life Is Ruff.
  • Before the High School Musical franchise, both Lucas Grabeel and Olesya Rulin got their start in the third film ''Halloweentown High''.
  • Jennette McCurdy^note as well as Hayden Panettiere below in Tiger Cruise.
  • Timothy Omundson in The Luck of the Irish, for those who know him better from Psych.
  • Brie Larson in Right On Track.
• Michelle Dockery became a global phenomenon as Lady Mary Crawley, but became the darling of nerds everywhere long before then when playing Susan in the TV movie adaptation of Hogfather.
• Tim Donnelly, best known as Chet from Emergency!, appears in the Adam-12 episode "Log 25: Indians" as a hapless pizza guy. He's also in the Dragnet 1967 episode "The Big High" as a neglectful pothead father.
• Before getting the lead role in Burn Notice, Jeffrey Donovan:
  • Matched wits with Adrian Monk as a murderous astronaut.
  • Was the sleaze in Hitch who likes to "hit it and quit it", who promptly has his ass kicked by the title character.
  • Played Jeffrey in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.
  • Was Jarod's somewhat-unbalanced brother Kyle in a couple of episodes of The Pretender.
• Michael Dorn was CHiPs' own Officer Turner before he became that Klingon on the Enterprise-D.
• D.C. Douglas appeared in a number of TV shows, such as Days of Our Lives, Charmed, and Star Trek: Enterprise before he reached voice-acting superstardom as Albert Wesker and Legion.
• Kyle Downes in the veritable trope breeding ground Higher Ground.
• Robert Downey Jr. made his onscreen debut as a puppy in Pound, a film directed by his father.
• Adam Driver’s first ever role was as a gas station owner in J. Edgar. He also appears as Lincoln’s telegraph operator in Lincoln and as one of Frances’ friends in Frances Ha.
• Just before making it big as the conspiracy-believing FBI agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files, David Duchovny appeared on Twin Peaks as the cross-dressing FBI Agent Dennis Bryson.
  • Duchovny was also the star and host of the Showtime soft-core anthology series Red Shoe Diaries, several years before he began work on X-Files.
  • He also appeared in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
• Hilary Duff played in roles in the Hallmark miniseries True Women, as an uncredited extra in the film Playing by Heart, and in the role of Ellie in The Bone Collector, as well as playing Wendy in Casper Meets Wendy, before landing the title role in Lizzie McGuire.
• Prior to his Star-Making Role as M'Baku in Black Panther (2018), Winston Duke appeared in several episodes of Modern Family as Dwight, a high school football star who briefly moved in with Mitch and Cam. Before that, he played a recurring drug lord in Person of Interest, and also showed up as a victim of a rape by deception in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• Kirsten Dunst appeared in some commercials.
  • She also appears as a child in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Dark Page".
  • She was Tom Hanks' daughter in The Bonfire of the Vanities.
• Eliza Dushku (Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) appeared as Arnold Schwarzenegger's teenage daughter in True Lies. Also in a fun example, she and Amber Benson (Tara in Buffy) were both in the movie Bye Bye Love.
  • Eliza Dushku also played Leonardo DiCaprio's younger step-sister in This Boys Life.
• 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 star as Sophie in Carnivàle and play a recurring FBI agent on Heroes. Also part of the Five-Man Band in The Faculty.

E

• 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!" He's also the bomber pilot in Tarantula! who kills the titular spider.
• Christopher Eccleston was cast as accountant David Stephens in the black comedy crime thriller Shallow Grave before he went to portray the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who.
• Before she voiced Ahsoka Tano, Ashley Eckstein was on The Rerun Show, a short-lived Sketch Comedy series where she portrayed characters such as Laurie Partridge and Samantha Stephens.
• Before she was Lisa Cuddy, Lisa Edelstein was George's Girl of the Week on Seinfeld.
  • She can also be seen in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in As Good as It Gets with Taub and appeared in a couple episodes of Frasier.
  • Appeared in 5 first-season episodes of The West Wing as a prostitute.
    • I think you mean "call girl"...
  • She also had a minor role in What Women Want.
  • And in the '90s, she voiced Lex Luthor's Bodyguard Babe Mercy Graves in Superman: The Animated Series. She reprised the role years later in an episode of Justice League.
  • Interestingly, a year before her first appearance as Cuddy, the highly-successful doctor, she played a highly-successful doctor in an episode of Without a Trace. It gets even weirder, considering that both characters had a longing for maternity, with the latter role going in search of the child she gave up for adoption in her teens, and the former having an extended storyline about wanting to conceive a child.
• Years before he broke out big, Joel Edgerton appeared in Attack of the Clones as a younger version of Uncle Owen from the original Star Wars movie. He also reprised the role in a cameo in Revenge of the Sith.
• Before he was Vaan, Bobby Edner first appeared in a music video for Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal".
• 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.
• A young Billie Eilish appeared in the crowd scenes of two movies based on books: Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Ramona and Beezus.
• A year before his breakout role as Stringer Bell on The Wire, Idris Elba appeared in an episode of Law & Order as a nightclub owner.
• 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.
• Dana Elcar appeared on The Partridge Family as a math teacher.
• Baywatch's Erika Eleniak got a rather moving kiss from Elliott in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She was also Miss July 1989.
• Tom Ellis appeared on Midsomer Murders, Doctor Who, and Poirot before becoming Lucifer.
• Before Michael Emerson was Ben Linus on Lost or Harold Finch on Person of Interest, he was serial killer William Hinks on The Practice.
• Eminem:
  • Em did some work as an extra on the music video for "Got The Life" by Korn before he got famous. You can see him with dark hair and a baseball cap in the crowd scene. The video was retired from TRL 9 days before the video for "My Name Is" came out. He apparently attempted to foist a demo tape on Korn at the shoot, and not signing him is one of the band's biggest regrets.
  • A pre-fame Eminem also has an acting part in the music video for Pacewon's "I Declare War", playing an evil white mayor who has banned hip-hop (a la his corny white characters from the "My Name Is" video). He's also seen playing himself as part of the Outsidaz at the end, with blond hair finally in place.
• Alfred Enoch, who plays law student Wes Gibbons in How to Get Away with Murder, is Gryffindor Hogwarts student, Dean Thomas.
• R. Lee Ermey appeared for a few seconds as a helicopter pilot in Apocalypse Now before his iconic role as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Full Metal Jacket.
• A few years after putting in some time on Rawhide, John Erwin went into voice acting as Reggie in Filmation's Archie cartoons. Further on, he'd become the voice of 9 Lives' Morris the Cat, and a fella by the name of He-Man...
• Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Jessie, and Nashville actor Chip Esten first appeared as a contestant on Scrabble (under the name "Chip Puskar").
• Chris Evans did some modeling as a teenager, with his likeness used for a surfer named Tyler in the board game Mystery Date.

F

• 90s hunk Fabio used to grace the covers of various romance novels - As well as the NES game IronSword.
  • Squee at the baby Fabio in 1961's Atlas Against the Cyclops.
• A young Michelle Fairley appears as the wife of an IRA member who provides information to the protagonists in the 1990 film Hidden Agenda and then Hermione's mother in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
• Peter Falk guest stars in the 1958 Decoy episode "The Come Back."
• Before she was a house bunny, or Sam Sparks, for that matter, Anna Faris did voice work for King of the Hill and was in a 1991 TV movie known as Deception: A Mother's Secret.
• Before being the young Magneto and young Professor X, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy appeared in Band of Brothers. But McAvoy's character ended up dead on his first episode.
  • James McAvoy also appeared in the SciFi 2003 miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune as Leto Atreides II.
• Farrah Fawcett plays a minor role in The Partridge Family episode "The Sound of Money" as a shopper Danny enlists to help prove a Frivolous Lawsuit is fraudulent.
• In the late 1970s, Corey Feldman was Regi Tower in the The Bad News Bears TV series. As for film, one of his first major roles was the voice of puppy Copper in Disney's The Fox and the Hound.
• Get Smart's Barbara Feldon wanted you boys to know that Top Brass hair dressing would make a "tiger" out of you. One of her commercials is included on the season 1 DVD set.
• Norman Fell:
  • He appeared on The Partridge Family as the disapproving father of a college student with a crush on Shirley.
  • He was also in the Starsky & Hutch episode "Shootout" as a sad-sack comedian.
• Before he was Draco Malfoy, Tom Felton played Jodie Foster's son in Anna and the King.
• Colin Ferguson of Eureka had previously played Christopher Titus' doctor in the coma episode of Titus. And Laura Linney's amnesiac love interest in More Tales of the City.
• Stacy Ferguson was the voice of Sally Brown in the 1980's Peanuts specials and a member of Kids Incorporated.
• Conchata Ferrell played one of the women in the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands.
  • Also appeared as the school nurse in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Played Hollywood attorney Susan Bloom in the 6th season of L.A. Law.
  • She played George Clooney's aunt in the 1980s sitcom E/R set in a Chicago hospital.
  • She also had a part in Oscar winning film Network back in the '70s.
• Tina Fey played a couple of parts for the 1997 pinball machine Medieval Madness—the Opera Princess and the Cockney Princess—when she was still working for an improv comedy group in Chicago.
• Ralph Fiennes was The Bishop's Son in The Baby of Macon and the titular English Patient...which was long before he rose to fame and became better known as Lord Voldemort from The Goblet of Fire to the Deathly Hallows two-parter.
• Nathan Fillion is the other Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan.
  • As well as a well-meaning priest in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000, before playing an evil one on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • And playing alongside Ryan Reynolds in Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.
  • He plays the Jerkass ex-boyfriend that tries to sucker punch the protagonist when he turns around in Blast from the Past (1999), only to get counterpunched in the nose. Twice.
• 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".
  • He was also Cowboy Curtis on Pee-wee's Playhouse, a role later played in the 2010 Broadway version by Phil LaMarr.
  • He appeared aged 14 in Cornbread, Earl, and Me.
  • He's also one of the PBR's crew in Apocalypse Now.
  • Was a detective in Red Heat.
  • He was also in an episode of M*A*S*H.
  • He was also a gangbanger in Death Wish II.
• Sean Patrick Flanery played the man himself in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles before taking his most famous role as Connor in The Boondock Saints. He would later appear in Stargate SG-1, Dexter and The Boys (2019).
• 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.
• Neil Flynn's bit part in The Fugitive. It's doubtful that anyone realized it was The Janitor unless they saw the Scrubs episode in which JD notices him in the movie.
  • Also as the F-bombing construction worker in Major League and the Cubs' first baseman in Rookie of the Year.
• Harrison Ford was building sets for The Streets of San Francisco when the producers took a liking to his looks, leading to his being cast in several minor roles. He 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.
  • Pre-Star Wars, he also had a minor role in American Graffiti and plays a villain in The Conversation. You can also catch him as a neighborhood bully in an episode of Kung Fu (1972).
  • He has a minor role on Getting Straight as a college student.
• Gloria Foster, Oracle of the Matrix movies, was Big Bad Medusa in—of all things—Leonard Part 6.
• Jodie Foster had a bunch of roles as a kid, before breaking out in Taxi Driver (while still a kid), e.g. Kung Fu (1972), The Courtship Of Eddie's Father — and, of course, she was the Coppertone Girl.
  • She was in the Adam-12 episode "Log 55: Missing Child" as the best friend of the titular missing girl.
  • She guest starred in The Partridge Family episode "The Eleven-Year Itch" as a Fangirl with a crush on Danny.
  • She also had a voice acting role as the tomboy Anne Chan in The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan.
• Megan Fox was basically the antagonist 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.
  • She was also the second Sydney on Hope & Faith (seasons 2-3).
• One of Michael J. Fox's first acting roles was a one-episode gig on Beachcombers.
  • He had a role as the lead character's younger brother in the scavenger-hunt comedy Midnight Madness.
  • And before that, played "Arthur" in Class of 1984.
• Shayna Fox's first voice role was Amy's sign-language mechanism in Congo. Four years later, she was Reggie Rocket.
• Pre-The Next Generation Jonathan Frakes was on an episode of Matlock in 1986.
  • He was also in the Charlie's Angels episode "Angel on My Mind" as a guy on the beach who tries to help Kris, who has amnesia.
  • Frakes was also in an early episode (sans beard) of Hill Street Blues, playing a drug dealer.
  • He also played one of the main character's brothers in the series North and South (U.S.).
• Pat Fraley's pre-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) voice roles included:
  • The monkeys from the Kangaroo segments of Saturday Supercade.
  • Major Talbot in the 1980s The Incredible Hulk cartoon.
  • Hillbilly Jim in Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling.
  • Jake and his father in the Filmation Ghostbusters.
  • Buddy Blue and Lurky in Rainbow Brite.
• Andrew Francis, the voice of Shining Armor on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, was (according to That Other Wiki) one of the kids on Lamb Chop's Play-Along in the mid-90's.
• Dave Franco, appeared as Greg the soccer player in a very minor role in Superbad.
• Jason David 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 certain vampire, Crispin Freeman worked for Central Park Media, one of the premier dubbing companies in The '90s, 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 4Kids Entertainment, as did most of the other actors who worked on Slayers; when CPM started to fall under, Freeman rose to stardom working for other anime dubbing companies like Bandai Entertainment.
• Years before Morgan Freeman established his acting cred in films like Streetwise, Lean on Me, Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption, he starred:
  • As Mark (a.k.a. "Easy Reader") on The Electric Company. He still considers it to be an Old Shame, even though he constantly gets approached by fans who loved the character.
  • As an uncredited commuter in Where Were You When The Lights Went Out? (which has the distinction of being the second-to-last film Doris Day ever made).
  • As a supporting character in several Soap Operas throughout The '70s and '80s, including Ryan's Hope and Another World.
  • In The Twilight Zone (1985) episode "Dealer's Choice".
• Stephen Fry represented Queens' College, Cambridge on a 1980 episode of University Challenge. You can also spot him as an extra in Chariots of Fire, if you know where to look. In 1984 he played a contestant representing "Footlights College, Oxbridge" on a fictionalized version of University Challenge on The Young Ones.
• Before taking on the role of Cure Custard in KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode, Haruka Fukuhara was the titular character of Cooking Idol Ai! Mai! Main!.

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