Retroactive Recognition / G to L

G

• Josh Gad appeared in an episode of ER, a couple episodes of NUMB3RS, and The Rocker before becoming well known for The Book of Mormon and Frozen.
• Gal Gadot made her acting debut in the short-lived Israeli television series Bubot as well as further appearances in Entourage, The Fast and the Furious films, Date Night, Asfour and Kicking Out Shoshana. This was all before she was cast as Wonder Woman for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Wonder Woman in the DC Extended Universe.
• Jim Gaffigan had quite a few bit parts in movies before he became a well-known comedian and actor. Highlights include Three Kings (the soldier who cuts Sgt. Troy's handcuffs off), CryBaby Lane (the dad who tries to stiff the undertaker on his bill after a viewing), Super Troopers (the man the Troopers pull over to pull their "meow" prank on), Igby Goes Down (the manager of the Hilton Igby briefly stays at), and 13 Going on 30 (the grown-up Chris after the movie's Time Skip).
• Before his role as Ben Bruckner on Queer as Folk (US), Robert Gant toured the US as the Good Humor Man and appeared in a musical commercial for the brand.
• Fans of Alias and Legends of Tomorrow can find Victor Garber in the oddest places — including a few episodes of The Outer Limits (1995), on the deck of Titanic, as a well-wisher in Sleepless in Seattle, Chairman of the Wool Council on 30 Rock 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 Jesus Christ in Godspell.
• Andy García appeared in the second season of ¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A.? as Carmen's boyfriend before he followed up with The Untouchables (1987) and The Godfather Part III.
• Andrew Garfield appeared in the Doctor Who double episode "Daleks in Manhattan" / "Evolution of the Daleks" three years before starring in The Social Network.
• Renowned Scream Queen and Decoy star Beverly Garland made an early appearance in The Neanderthal Man as a waitress who is raped by the titular monster.
• Jennifer Garner played a nurse in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, which starred future co-star and husband Ben Affleck.
  • She was in one episode of Law & Order and also one of the heroes' girlfriends in Dude, Where's My Car?
• Brad Garrett didn't get his big break until he was cast as Robert in Everybody Loves Raymond, but prior to that, he'd done a fair amount of voiceover work in The '80s and early '90s. Some of his early roles included Hulk Hogan in Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling, Trypticon in The Transformers, Big Dog in 2 Stupid Dogs and Hydro-Man in Fantastic Four: The Animated Series.
  • The ball started rolling for Garrett after he became one of the comedy competition champions on Star Search.
• Taylor Garron was a season 7 cast member of the revival of Zoom before being a contestant on the first season of FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman.
• Anthony Geary played one of the villains of the Starsky & Hutch episode "The Trap," less than ten months before making his first appearance as Luke Spencer.
  • He also guest starred on The Partridge Family, in which he has a Childhood Friend Romance with Laurie.
  • He appeared a few times on Barnaby Jones, most notably in the episode "Death Beat", as Robert Reed's accomplice in creating fake news events. One of their fake news stories, where Geary's character is standing on a bridge ready to jump into the ocean, results in the Accidental Murder of a priest who saw the story on the news and tried to intervene, but was killed when he and Geary lost their footing and fell into the water below.
  • He briefly appeared in the Marcus Welby, M.D. episode "A Passing of Torches" as a guy having a bad drug trip.
• Sarah Michelle Gellar ate at Burger King before she donned the Doublemeat Palace uniform. She actually got banned from McDonald's because one of her Burger King commercials had her criticizing the chain.
  • Before she was blonde, Gellar received her breakout part at age 15 when she originated the role of Kendall Hart, the long-lost daughter of Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) on All My Children, whom the teenage Erica had placed for adoption with the Harts before the start of the series. The naturally brunette Gellar was cast due to her physical likeness to Lucci and ability to act like a young Erica since Kendall shares quite a few similarities, both physically and in personality, with her mother Erica.
• Recognize the blonde girl◊ watching A.J. Soprano vandalize a swimming pool in The Sopranos episode "The Telltale Moozadell"? No? Give up? It's a fifteen-year-old Stefani Germanotta, who would become slightly better known as Lady Gaga about seven years after that episode was aired.
• Gina Gershon was an uncredited dancer in the early Sarah Jessica Parker movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and has a small part as Benny's friend Trombley in Pretty in Pink.
• Paul Giamatti had a minor role in the FMV video game Ripper back when he was still 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.
• Sara Gilbert aka Darlene Conner can be seen in this Kool-Aid commercial.
• Karen Gillan played a Pompeiian soothsayer on Doctor Who a few years before returning as companion Amy Pond. Amusingly, Peter Capaldi also appeared in this episode and later become the Doctor himself.
• Aiden Gillen first became notable in the UK for playing Stuart in Queer as Folk (UK). Beyond this, his memorable roles were limited to those such as the villain Lord Rathbone in Shanghai Knights. Following this, Gillen received his international television breakthrough in The Wire, wherein he played Tommy Carcetti and later, Gillen went on to play Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish in Game of Thrones.
• Elizabeth Gillies was Young Jenny (Adult was Olivia Wilde) in The Black Donnellys. [1]
• Gamers nowadays would know Jean Gilpin from her role as Elenwen in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as well as subsequent roles in The Elder Scrolls Online, or as Knight-Commander Meredith in Dragon Age II. However, over thirty years before Skyrim came out, British audiences recognised from the Dad's Army episode "The Making of Private Pike", where she plays Pike's abusive Girl of the Week.
• Peri Gilpin is best known as Doctor Frasier Crane's radio producer and is a core character in that series; scroll back to parent series Cheers and take a close look at the non-speaking extras who crop up in the bar. Peri isn't the only face there who ends up getting an occassional part on Frasier. Later in the series run she gets two speaking parts; first as part of an enthusiastic audience at a TV psychology show who are asked if they are prepared to sleep with a bad boy like Sam Malone; and secondly in a plot centred on Woody the barman.
• Darla's victim in the opening scene of the Buffy pilot was played by Carmine Giovinazzo of CSI: NY. Carmine also guest starred in the season 2 episode "Revenge is Best Served Cold" of the regular CSI, two years before his casting in the spinoff. But Word of God says they weren't connected.
  • He was also one of two murder victims in the very last episode of Columbo, in the episode "Columbo Likes the Nightlife".
• Summer Glau, before becoming River Tam and Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, also featured:
  • On the Angel episode "Waiting in the Wings" as a ballerina.
  • On an episode of CSI as the crying best friend of a victim.
  • On an episode of Cold Case as the Victim of the Week.
• Before Paul Michael Glaser starred on Starsky & Hutch, he played the young communist Perchik in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof.
• Before playing Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones, Jack Gleeson had a small role in Batman Begins. It wasn't the first time he'd been onscreen with Christian Bale though — he also had an uncredited part in Reign of Fire.
• Before becoming a household name, Philip Glenister showed up in Calendar Girls.
  • He also played a major role one of the final Sharpe episodes, "Sharpe's Justice".
• Sharon Gless was in Switch (1975) as the receptionist Maggie Philbin.
• Danny Glover made his film debut in Escape from Alcatraz as an inmate who hands Clint Eastwood a book.
• Donald Glover had several minor cameos in 30 Rock before Community made him a recognizable star. He was actually a writer and story editor for the series as well, before he left to focus on his acting and rapping.
• John Glover, right before joining the DC universe for such roles as The Riddler, Lionel Luthor, and Sivana's father, was Mr. Clamp in Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
  • Before that, he starred in John Frankenheimer's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 52 Pick Up.
• Jeff Goldblum made his film debut one of the evil thugs in Death Wish — specifically the leader of the "freaks" responsible for the inciting incident.
  • He also played a thug in another Charles Bronson flick, St. Ives. Bronson gets to beat up this one, as well as his buddy played by another example of this trope — Robert Englund, years before he became famous as Freddy Krueger!
  • Goldblum also rode around on a motorcycle for most of Robert Altman's Nashville. (Altman also gave him a seconds-long role in California Split shortly beforehand.)
  • He guest stars in the Starsky & Hutch episode "Murder on Stage 17" as a director.
  • Goldblum can also be briefly seen in Annie Hall. His only line: "Yeah, this is Davis. I-I forgot my mantra."
  • He appears in The Right Stuff as one of the government officials acting as "talent scouts" for NASA astronauts. Notably, he's the one seen rushing down the hallway to deliver the news of the Sputnik and Gagarin launches.
• Joseph Mawle, or Uncle Benjen leads the orcs looking like an long-haired Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette yet again in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
• Selena Gomez had roles in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, as well as playing Hannah Montana's arch-rival Mikayla, prior to playing Alex Russo on Wizards of Waverly Place.
  • She and her childhood friend, fellow future Disney Channel star Demi Lovato appeared together on Barney & Friends as young children. According to one teen magazine, they met as early as the audition process — they were standing next to each other in a lineup of similarly-aged kids.
• Roberto Gómez Bolaños, "Chespirito", best known for El Chavo del ocho and El Chapulín Colorado, started off as a scriptwriter (and later an extra) for Mexican star comedian "Capulina". In fact, many jokes that appeared in the aforementioned two shows can be traced back to Chespirito's times when working with Capulina.
• Gong Jun played a supporting character in Lost Love in Times. Four years later he became famous for starring in Word of Honor.
• Eiza González starred first in the Mexican Telenovelas Lola: érase una vez and Amores verdaderos as a teenager and young adult respectively prior to getting the breakout role as Santanico Pandemonium in the From Dusk Till Dawn series and later becoming a big-name actress in Hollywood.
• Voice actress Barbara Goodson is well-known in the gaming community as Laharl, Rita Repulsa (English voice) in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, and Mother Talzin in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Decades before both Power Rangers and Disgaea franchises hit the American market, she was the English voice of Bobby Bear in the Saban dub of Maple Town, the first voice of Goku in the Harmony Gold Dub of Dragon Ball, Unico the Unicorn in both movies (uncredited) ^note  According to Muppet Performer Karen Prell, who worked on Fraggle Rock alongside Barbara. She claims that Barbara voiced Unico, this could be due to her being a regular in anime dubs throughout The '80s. , and Chirin the lamb (uncredited) in the English Dub of Ringing Bell (Chirin no Suzu) made in the early '80s. Ringing Bell alongside the Unico films is one of Barbara's oldest voice acting roles.
• 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.)
• One of voice actor Barry Gordon's earlier voice roles was Clamhead in the 1970s cartoon Jabberjaw. He would become better known as the likes of Donatello and the NesQuik bunny.
• It may seem somewhat surreal to discover that, prior to his turns in films like The Notebook and Drive (2011), Ryan Gosling starred in several cheesy teenage shows. These included the title role in Young Hercules and as the goofball slacker in Breaker High. He also appeared in episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps (1995) while he was still living in Canada.
• Betty Grable appeared in The Gay Divorcee as Edward Everett Horton's unnamed dancing partner, and was a chorus girl in Follow the Fleet and several other earlier movie musicals.
• Before becoming the starring role of Phoebe Spengler in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Mckenna Grace used to be Jasmine Bernstein (Crash & Bernstein), a bratty youngest daughter who would throw tantrums and let out a scream if things don't go her way. Now, as Phoebe, she has a similar scream, like Jasmine, but as a Battle Cry while fighting ghosts.
• 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.
  • She also had short-lived recurring roles on NewsRadio and Caroline in the City, and was also Benjamin Bratt's love interest in the three-part Law & Order where they go to Los Angeles.
• Seth Green in It deserves a mention. (Though watching It as an adult after having seen it as a child results in a massive bombardment of Retroactive Recognition.)
  • As well as in My Stepmother Is an Alien alongside future co-star Alyson Hannigan.
  • He also voiced Wizard in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, and Jerk Jock Nelson in Batman Beyond.
  • And appeared in an episode of The X-Files and Enemy of the State.
  • And a major role in the Tales from the Darkside episode "Monsters in My Room".
  • And a minor role in an episode of the Weird Science TV show as a hacker whose bogus program almost fries Lisa.
  • And a major role in Airborne.
  • And as Woody Allen's childhood self in Radio Days.
• Clark Gregg became famous playing Agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which makes it very weird to see Gregg in old episodes of The West Wing. In The West Wing Gregg plays FBI Special Agent Casper, whose deferential but sarcastic demeanor makes the two characters seem almost identical.
  • A completely different direction, though, is two episodes as a serial old-lady rapist on The Shield.
  • Gregg also appeared as Mike Tyson's trainer, Kevin, in the 1995 HBO docudrama Tyson.
  • He was also a doctor in The Usual Suspects, though it's the voice that tips it off more than the face.
  • His first credit is for his frequent collaborator David Mamet's 1988 film Things Change. He also appeared in a season-one episode of Law & Order.
• Kathy Griffin in Pulp Fiction. There's also Phil LaMarr, who played a minor character known for getting shot in the face.
• A young Scott Grimes played Slick in Potato Head Kids.
  • He also voiced Pinocchio in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night.
• Following the suicide of Kurt Cobain and dissolution of Nirvana, drummer Dave Grohl went and got himself a new band, Foo Fighters.
• Before Noah Grossman became one of the regular cast members for Smosh, he was a host for Nick Studio 10.
• 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 a minute of screentime in BASEketball as a rival player in the basketball league.
  • He also had a bit part in an episode of Baywatch as a nightclub host.
• Christopher Guest made an early appearance in Death Wish as a police officer.
• Alec Guinness, best known to younger generations as Obi-Wan Kenobi (1977-1983) or Jacob Marley (1970), previously portrayed Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), multiple members of the D'Ascoyne family in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth (1958), etc. Before those, he was a Shakespearean stage actor.
• Danai Gurira briefly shows up in My Soul to Take as a paramedic who gets killed near the beginning of the movie.
• A very young Jake Gyllenhaal appeared 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 Slickers movies.

H

• Olivia Hack played Cindy Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel before she became famous for voicing characters such as Rhonda Wellington Lloyd and Ty Lee.
  • Shortly before those, she was also one of Picard's Nexus children in Star Trek: Generations.
• 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.
  • He was also the pizza guy at the end of the 1998 music video of Janet Jackson's "We Go Deep".
• Voice actress Jennifer Hale known for her roles like Female Commander Shepherd, Naomi Hunter, the Black Cat, Cinderella, and Phoenix, had a brief appearance as one of the women Tate Donovan tries hitting on early on in the 1992 romcom Love Potion No. 9.
• Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley was the voice of young Jamie Boyle in the 1972 syndicated cartoon Wait Till Your Father Gets Home.
  • He also appeared as one of the main baseball players in The Bad News Bears, plus was one of the four main characters in Breaking Away.
  • Also played Dave in the '83 teen comedy Losin' It, alongside Tom Cruise.
• Before she was a huge J-Pop star, a young Ayumi Hamasaki voiced Yuri in the Art of Fighting TV special, and also portrayed the character in several live-action commercials for Art of Fighting 2. In a strange aversion of the Billing Displacement trope, when the movie was released on DVD after Hamasaki became famous, her lines were all dubbed over by another actress, likely to avoid paying her royalties.
• Years before he even played Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill was doing voice work for The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Before his voice-acting career really took off he also had a very brief part in The Little Mermaid.
  • He also guest starred on The Partridge Family as Laurie's boyfriend.
• Long before he became a household name, Tom Hanks appeared in the 1980 slasher flick He Knows You're Alone.
  • His second-ever role was in The Love Boat episode "Friends and Lovers" as Gopher's womanizing former frat brother.
  • People familiar with Hanks as blockbuster movie actor would probably have this reaction to his role in Bosom Buddies.
  • He also guest starred as a drugged out college friend of Jim Ignatowski on Taxi
  • Also, he tried to beat up Fonzie in an episode of Happy Days, and played Robbie in Mazes and Monsters.
  • He was also Elyse's alcoholic brother in a Very Special Episode of Family Ties.
• Alyson Hannigan as Dan Aykroyd's daughter in My Stepmother Is an Alien.
• Adding to the list of well known actors who had small roles in the series, Tom Hardy made his screen debut as Pvt. John Janovec in the last two episodes of Band of Brothers and gets killed off just like James McAvoy.
  • One of his earliest big screen roles was that of The Big Bad in Star Trek: Nemesis
• Stranger Things star David Harbour had a small role in Brokeback Mountain as a closeted man who tried to seduce Jake Gyllenhaal's character.
• Mark Harmon guest starred on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries as a football player.
  • He also filled in as Kent McCord's partner in a last-season episode of Adam-12.
  • He was one of the stars in the Emergency! episode "905-Wild", a Poorly Disguised Pilot about animal control officers.
  • Harmon suffers Death by Falling Over at the hands of Philip Abbott in the series Delvecchio.
• Valerie Harper, many years before her iconic role of Rhoda Morgenstern, was in the musical Li'l Abner (and its filmed version) as one of the Dogpatch wives.
• To those who only know him as Barney Stinson, Neil Patrick Harris in his star-making role on Doogie Howser, M.D. may come across this way. He also voiced Peter Parker in the short-lived MTV Spider-Man cartoon and Max in the Cult Classic animated series Capitol Critters.
• Richard Harris had a brief cameo in The Guns of Navarone as a member of the Australian Air Force.
• Long before he ran the streets of Baltimore as drug kingpin Avon Barksdale in The Wire, actor Wood Harris was an All-American defensive end in the iconic Remember the Titans.
• Before creating cartoons such as The Fairly Oddparents and Danny Phantom, Butch Hartman was a contestant on The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour, and also appeared in a few soap operas, such as Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless.
• Good ol' David Hasselhoff of Knight Rider and Baywatch appeared in a couple episodes of The Love Boat.
• Teri Hatcher was a "Mermaid" (showgirl) in the final season of The Love Boat.
  • Ray Tango's younger sister in Tango & Cash, spunky sidekick Penny Parker in MacGyver, manned the transporter in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a Girl of the Week on Seinfeld.
  • And she was Sam's ex in Quantum Leap, though he changed history and got her in the end.
  • She had a small role in The Big Picture as a starlet who propositions Kevin Bacon's character.
• Keeley Hawes shows up in the two-part finale of The Vicar of Dibley and the voice of a certain female archaeologist...
  • Of course, before then she was best known for being a regular on Spooks. Funnily enough, in The Vicar of Dibley, she plays the sister of Richard Armitage, who would also go on to be in Spooks.
• Brad Hawkins mainly works as a voice actor for Funimation these days, but in The '90s, he had the starring role as Ryan Steele in VR Troopers.
• Nigel Hawthorne made his television debut in the third series premier of Dad's Army as an old man on a bench.
• Allstate spokesman Dennis Haysbert was Pedro Cerrano in the Major League movies.
• Lena Headey played a mousy new teacher in the 2007 film St Trinians, and Lizzie in The Remains of the Day. She keeps her actual accent in both, though. And you might also recognize her as Queen Gorgo in 300 and Queen Cersei in Game of Thrones.
  • Long before any of that, though, she played Queen Guenevere in the Sam Neill miniseries Merlin.
  • Also played as Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles which became Hilarious in Hindsight that her Game of Thrones co-star, Emilia Clarke, became the new Sarah Connor for Terminator Genisys.
  • She also appeared in an episode of the 1997 anthology The Hunger together with Daniel Craig before either had shot to superstardom, and their characters get into a torrid love affair. Yes, Cersei Lannister and James Bond.
• Anthony Head:
  • His first credited screen role is a two-part episode of Enemy at the Door, "The Steel Hand From the Sea"/"The Laws and Usages of War", in which he plays the main character's son.
  • One of his early US TV roles is in the Highlander episode "Nowhere To Run", where he plays an ambassador and friend of Duncan MacLeod. This is the same episode that features Marion Cotillard in her first-ever acting role.
  • He also did a number of coffee commercials
• In Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, the 17-year-old Katherine Heigl played the niece of Casey Ryback. Of course, this was before her role in Grey's Anatomy.
• Simon Helberg was in Old School long before The Big Bang Theory.
  • He also had a role in Joey that was very similar to Howard, but younger.
• Chris Hemsworth: It turns out Thor sired a son, and that son was Captain James T. Kirk.
• Lance Henriksen had small parts in great movies — an FBI agent in Dog Day Afternoon, a lawyer in Network and a construction worker in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• Audrey Hepburn makes a brief appearance in the opening scene of The Lavender Hill Mob as Alec Guinness's paramour. The same year she instantly became a smash success with Roman Holiday.
• When Rina Hidaka was a child, she starred in a commercial for the Futari wa Pretty Cure edition of the children's coloring toy Rakugakincyo. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when she played Laura LaMer.
• Professional harpist Erin Hill had appeared as the Pretty White Girl Who Sings Dave’s Thoughts in the second episode of Chappelle's Show long before she gained online fame.
• Judd Hirsch of Taxi was a radio DJ in an early 1970s Listerine commercial.
• Joel Hodgson could be seen in the "Magic" episode of the Nickelodeon show Out of Control just a few years before Mystery Science Theater 3000 came about.
• There is much mockery to be made of future Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman's supporting role in Twister.
  • He also played one of the teenage boys in Scent of a Woman and was in an early episode of Law & Order.
  • He was also Scotty, the closeted boom operator who had a crush on Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights.
• 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:
  • She played a young girl in an episode of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
  • A guest spot on an episode of Murder, She Wrote.
  • As the shadowy Marita Covarrubias in several episodes of The X-Files.
• Billie Holiday made two uncredited appearances in films before she became famous: as an extra in a nightclub scene in The Emperor Jones, and as a vocalist in one segment of the Duke Ellington musical short Symphony in Black.
• Long before Tom Holland became a certain friendly neighborhood hero, he lent his voice in StudioCanal's dub of Studio Ghibli's Arrietty where he voiced Sho, the sick boy Arrietty (who also appens to be voiced by Saoirse Ronan) befriends.
• Josh Holloway, like co-star Terry O'Quinn, had a fair number of credits before Lost, such as episodes of CSI, NCIS, and Angel. He's also in the video for Aerosmith's "Cryin'" as the guy who breaks Alicia Silverstone's heart.
• American and international viewers will probably know Amalia Holm better for her role on Motherland: Fort Salem as Scylla, rather than as the lead character here in the film of Alena, from her native Sweden.
• Before she became an anime voice actress, Rina Honnizumi sang covers of children's songs from NHK kids' shows such as Okaasan to Issho and Inai Inai Baa! for the company Columbia Nippon.
• A year before his band, Blind Melon, had a major label album and a hit with "No Rain", Shannon Hoon could be seen in Guns N' Roses' "Don't Cry" video, harmonizing with Axl Rose in the performance segments. Hoon sang backup on that song and four others on Use Your Illusion I ^note  the other four being "November Rain", "Live And Let Die", "The Garden", and "You Ain't The First", plus the alternate version of "Don't Cry" on Use Your Illusion II. In the liner notes of both albums, he's credited simply as Shannon.
• Dennis Hopper made his film debut in Rebel Without a Cause as one of the gang members (Goon). He appeared opposite James Dean again in Giant in a much bigger role as the grown-up Jordy.
  • He played Bill Clanton in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
  • He's also one of the prisoners in Cool Hand Luke.
  • He also appeared opposite John Wayne in The Sons of Katie Elder and True Grit.
  • He also played The Prophet in Hang 'Em High.
  • He made guest appearances in Gunsmoke and The Twilight Zone (1959) ("He's Alive").
  • Another of Hopper's notorious TV appearances was in the Petticoat Junction episode "Bobbi Jo and the Beatnik". He probably would have wanted his fans to forget this one, but its inclusion on numerous Public Domain DVD's of that series insure that it will live on in infamy.
• Helena Howard was the lead actress on Don't Look Deeper playing Aisha. She's since become known due to her role on The Wilds'', an Amazon Prime Video Original which started shortly after this.
• The Big Lebowski David Huddleston was Olson Johnson in Blazing Saddles ("Aww, prairie shit...Everybody.") and had the title role in Santa Claus: The Movie.
  • A few episodes each of Bewitched and Gunsmoke too.
• Sammo Hung played Bruce Lee's opponent in the opening scene of Enter the Dragon.
• Charlie Hunnam appears in Undeclared as a British exchange student with a major in theater.

I

• Ice-T appeared in Breakin and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo as himself, several years before he released his first studio album or launched a serious acting career.
• Gabriel Iglesias was on All That for a season several years before Comedy Central specials and Last Comic Standing made him widely famous.
• The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli was one of the expelled students (mullet and denim vest) in 1989's Lean on Me, and had a minor but memorable role as a drug-running mechanic named Jojo in Bad Boys.
• Marty Ingels, the late husband of Shirley Jones, starred with John Astin in a little 1960s series called I'm Dickens, He's Fenster shortly before getting himself a job doing voice acting for Hanna-Barbera. If he was remembered for anything during that time, it was the voice of Pac-Man.
• Jeremy Irons appeared on Play Away, a BBC children's show, in The '70s. It often crops up in "before they were famous" clip-shows in the UK.
• Before becoming an unfortunate widow, a hard-boiled detective, and a defense attorney, Ryo Ishibashi worked for a no-nonsense Japanese organization in American Yakuza.

J

• Remember when tween Janet Jackson was on Good Times?
• Samuel L. Jackson was a character actor appearing in bit parts for several years before he broke out as a star.
  • In A Shock to the System he can be seen very briefly as a three-card monte dealer.
  • He 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.
  • He also has a bit part as a townie in School Daze getting into a heated argument with the film's star, Laurence Fishburne.
  • He also played Stacks Edwards in Goodfellas.
  • He also played the Blind Dream Man in The Exorcist III.
  • As well as the main character’s father in the obscure indie horror flick Def By Temptation.
  • He appeared briefly as one of the wanted criminals who were Lured into a Trap by the NYPD in "Sea of Love''. He's credited solely as "Black Guy".
• Voice actress Renae Jacobs was a contestant on Sale of the Century in the 1980s. Around, if not shortly before the time she got her break as an animated news reporter.
  • She would also spend some time of her own in the game show business as a "Lady of the Maze" in Masters of the Maze.
• 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 Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
• Prior to being cast as Cinderella in the 2015 live-action Disney remake, Lily James was acting in various films and TV shows of the early to mid 2010s such as Just William, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Wrath of the Titans and Fast Girls. She was also Lady Rose McClare in series 3-5 of Downton Abbey.
• 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.
• Before his Black Mirror episode and Get Out (2017) made him famous, Daniel Kaluuya played Posh Kenneth on Skins (a show he also wrote for). He also appeared in the Doctor Who special "Planet of the Dead," as well as in a few That Mitchell and Webb Look sketches.
• Before gaining her first lead role as Donkey Hodie, Haley Jenkins played X the Owl in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, another work that was based off Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
  • She also had an on-camera role in an episode of Helpsters as an "important business board member".
• Ken Jenkins as Paul Stubbs, the bad-tempered astrophysicist from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Evolution", is instantly recognizable as a younger Dr. Kelso from Scrubs.
  • He also appeared as a loyalist EarthForce captain on Babylon 5 and a preacher on a couple of episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210.
• After the success of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", some radio stations chose to ride on her newfound fame by playing "Tug of War". Cue people's jaws dropping when they recognize the song from a few years ago and realize, "Holy shit, that was Carly Rae Jepsen!?".
• Scarlett Johansson, usually playing someone's sister, appeared in many 90s films, including North and Home Alone 3.
• Remember Slink "Murder Mike" Capone from Gangsta Rap: The Glockumentary? He was portrayed by Gerald "Slink" Johnson long before his role as Lamar Davis in Grand Theft Auto V and as the eponymous Black Jesus.
• 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 theater-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.
• Davy Jones guest starred in a 1960 episode of Coronation Street as Ena Sharples' grandson.
• Finn Jones appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "Death of the Doctor" as Santiago Jones.
• More than a decade before he would become the infamous voice of Darth Vader, James Earl Jones was the bombardier in Dr. Strangelove. He wasn't even a notable in theater at the time.
• As a child actor, Michael B. Jordan was one of the kids in the Keanu Reeves flick Hardball, and also showed up in The Wire, All My Children, and a single episode of The Sopranos. Prior to acting, he also modeled in ads for Toys "R" Us and Modell's Sporting Goods.
• Angelina Jolie's first major role was in Cyborg 2, a movie that most likely would've ended up forgotten had it not been for this trope.
• Milla Jovovich was Parker Lewis' female target in the series pilot.
  • And a French foreign exchange student in an episode of Married... with Children.
• As Wil Wheaton regularly reminds us, he got some lip action with a pre-famous Ashley Judd in the TNG episode "The Game".
• The late Raúl Juliá, who concluded his career as Gomez in The Addams Family movies and M. Bison in Street Fighter, was Rafael in a few early episodes of Sesame Street.
  • For the MST3K crowd, he was in the American Playhouse episode "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank'' in 1983.
• Gordon Jump, later of Soap and WKRP in Cincinnati, appeared on The Partridge Family seven times, usually in minor roles.

K

• 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.
• Long before he played King T'Chaka in Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther (2018), John Kani played Willie alongside Matthew Broderick and Zakes Mokai in the 1985 Made-for-Showtime presentation of Athol Fugard's "Master Harold"... and the Boys.
• Erin Karpluk of Being Erica was a young mother in the Supernatural episode "Salvation".
• Stana Katic of Castle once had a bit part as a flight attendant on Alias.
  • As a comatose car accident victim on ER.
  • And as Officer Morgenstern (she of the BFG) in The Spirit.
  • She's the Canadian operative Bond prevents from falling into the Honey Trap at the end of Quantum of Solace.
  • And a three-episode appearance in Season 5 of 24.
• Known across decades for her voice roles on Captain Planet and My Life as a Teenage Robot, Janice Kawaye got her start as Dorothy in the Direct to Video Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz in 1987.
  • Don't miss her telling off a camera crew in Mr. T's Be Somebody...Or Be Somebody's Fool! just a couple of years before that.
• It's a bit of a shock to watch old episodes of Desmond's and realize that the Token White loser wideboy is Dominic Keating from Star Trek: Enterprise.
• Before her Star-Making Role in The Godfather, Diane Keaton appeared in episodes of Night Gallery, Love, American Style, Mannix and The F.B.I..
• A young Michael Keaton worked as a stagehand on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and even played bit parts in a few episode during The '70s.
• Shortly before Stranger Things began, Joe Keery had a bit part in the first season finale of Empire as a....less than talented musician.
  • He also plays a bit role in Molly's Game by the name of Trust Fund Cole.
• DeForest Kelley was in a black-and-white Perry Mason episode.
  • And as Virgil Earp in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which was alluded to in the episode "Spectre of the Gun" in an illusion.
  • He also had an uncredited part as an army medic in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit in which he actually utters the line "This man is dead, captain." In 1955!
• Anna Kendrick had a cameo as an audience member in the 1998 Tony Awards prior to acting.
• Before he was SpongeBob SquarePants, Tom Kenny was a comedian. Because of this, he got to appear in a show where comedians' sketches were animated as conversations with a therapist: Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
• 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...
• Playing a bit part as an airport lab employee in Babe: Pig in the City, Jennifer Kent would later go on to direct films like The Babadook and The Nightingale (2019).
• A few years before having hits of her own, Kesha appeared in Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" video. A prominent pre-fame musical appearance was doing backing vocals for Flo Rida's "Right Round"—she was uncredited at her own request, and someone else lip-synched her part for the video.
• Keegan-Michael Key showed up in a few episodes of Reno 911! as a recurring criminal who would constantly "hypothetically" describe crimes he'd committed to the police, and hosted The Planet's Funniest Animals on Animal Planet from 2005 to 2008. He and his co-star Jordan Peele also showed up in "Weird Al" Yankovic's music video for "White & Nerdy".
• A teenage Nicole Kidman and her hair◊ starred in BMX Bandits. That's "Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman" on the back of the DVD.
• Richard Kiel has a small, uncredited role in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Vulcan Affair," over a decade before he became Jaws.
• Win Ben Stein's Money was the show that introduced us to one Jimmy Kimmel, co-host/announcer from 1997-2000.
• Before her Star-Making Role as Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Pom Klementieff appeared as Sharlto Copley's Bodyguard Babe in the American remake of Oldboy.
• Ben Kingsley showed up on The BBC's Playing Shakespeare in the late 1970s.
• Terry Kiser played a crime lord in the Future Cop episode "Cops and Robin". He also played a blackmailer on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries.
  • He also played a mentally challenged murder suspect in the Barnaby Jones episode "The Eyes of Terror" and a bumbling hit man who tries to take out Steve McGarrett in the Hawaii Five-O episode "Blood Money Is Hard to Wash".
• Long before he was Ted Baxter or Judge Smails, Ted Knight had guest roles on countless TV shows in the '50s and '60s, and even turns up at the end of Psycho as a cop guarding Norman Bates's jail cell.
• 9-year old Keira Knightley played a pre-teen runaway on an episode of The Bill (as seen in this screencap◊).
  • Not to mention her appearance in the 1999 Oliver Twist miniseries as Rose Fleming, where she looks about 3 years older than her actual age of 14.
  • And her appearance as the slutty friend in The Hole, made memorable by the fact that she takes her top off.
  • She was the double for Padmé Amidala in The Phantom Menace (she was cast because of her close resemblance to Natalie Portman).
• Before portraying Dia Kurosawa in Love Live! Sunshine!!, Arisa Komiya played Yoko Usami in Tokumei Sentai Go Busters.
• Martin Kove, best known as Kreese from The Karate Kid, guest starred on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries as an extortionist.
  • He also played one of the villains of the Starsky & Hutch episode "Birds of a Feather".
  • He was a goon in the Charlie's Angels episode "The Sammy Davis, Jr. Kidnap Caper."
  • He has a bit role in Partners (1982) as a model.
  • Also as a boxer character in The Incredible Hulk (1977)
• Jane Krakowski, aged 16, appears in the opening moments of Fatal Attraction as the Gallaghers' babysitter.
  • And as Cousin Vicki in National Lampoon's Vacation.
  • She also did some commercials as a child, one of which was played as part of Jenna's memorial video in an episode of 30 Rock.
• Zoë Kravitz's first film role is as an irresponsible babysitter in No Reservations (2007).
• Long before Alice Krige entered the nerd hivemind as the Borg Queen, she played a Spanish Femme Fatale spy known as La Marquesa in Sharpe. She was also a one-off villain in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210
• 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.
  • Not to mention Mr. Universe from Serenity.
  • And Bernard the elf in The Santa Clause.
  • And the victim of a pedophile in an early Law & Order episode.
  • And Michael in 10 Things I Hate About You.
  • And the guy who stabbed Lucy and Carter on ER.
  • Neil Schweiber's older brother on Freaks and Geeks.
• Mila Kunis played the younger version of Gia, whose older edition was played by Angelina Jolie.
  • She was also, to her regret, one of the orphans in Santa with Muscles.
  • And she was in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
  • She also appeared in two episodes of Baywatch.
  • And an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.
• Before voicing Suki in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jennie Kwan was in a Girl Group called Nobody's Angel and before that, she appeared in the NBC teen drama California Dreams.

L

• Bill Laimbeer, then a high school basketball player, played one of the Sleestaks in Land of the Lost (1974). He went on to much greater fame as one of the Detroit Pistons' "Bad Boys" of The '80s and early '90s, winning two NBA championship rings, and still later became a prominent coach in the WNBA, winning three titles in that role.
• Several years before she had her talk show (and shed a good deal of mass), Ricki Lake was Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray '88. When she was on Oprah in 2010 (along with other talk show hosts^note Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Montel Williams), she even recounted the appearance she'd made to promote the movie.
  • Also the voice of the portly Cleofatra in Gravedale High.
• Sarah Lancaster, Chuck's sister, looked very familiar to some fans. Turns out she was Gift Shop Girl.
  • And the very mature and sexy Ephram's girlfriend in Everwood.
  • And Rachel Meyers in Saved by the Bell: The New Class.
• Michael Landon was a teenage werewolf long before he was in Little House on the Prairie and became an angel.
• Night Court's John Larroquette did the narration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre '74.
• Way before starring in Room or playing Captain Marvel in the MCU, a young Brie Larson appeared in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World as indie rocker Envy Adams. Prior to that, she was also one of the bullies in Sleepover. On the smaller screen, Larson was the teenage daughter in United States of Tara, on the short-lived series Raising Dad with Bob Saget and a retroactive Kat Dennings, and had a recurring role as Rachel (a Greendale student who also dated Abed) on Community in seasons 4 and 5.
  • Way before any of these roles, she was a singer, with one of the songs she performed, "Hope Has Wings", being used as the theme song of Barbie and the Magic Of Pegasus. She also appeared in an episode of Touched by an Angel and the Disney Channel Original Movie Right On Track.
  • She was also one of "The Six Chicks" in 13 Going on 30, which starred her future MCU costar Mark Ruffalo, who was surprised when he realized this many years later.
• Before The Human Centipede, Dieter Laser played Mantrid in Lexx, serving as the Big Bad for Season 2.
• John Lathan was a final season cast member on the original version of Zoom before playing a member of the Engine Crew on Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego.
• 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.
  • He was also Sharkboy in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
  • Remember Youngblood from Danny Phantom? Bingo.
  • Going further back, he was on an episode of My Wife and Kids, playing a bully to Franklin. He would land another role of this type in the animated special He's A Bully, Charlie Brown.
  • His very first acting role was in a commercial for Rugrats Go Wild!.
• Hugh Laurie appeared on Friends flying with Rachel to England◊. There is also a twofer in the live action 101 Dalmatians: Laurie is one of Cruella's henchmen alongside Mark "Arthur Weasley" Williams. While Laurie had been famous in the UK for many years, he wasn't very recognizable to American audiences until the success of House, M.D..
• A very young Jude Law appeared in one episode of Granada's Sherlock Holmes which is Hilarious in Hindsight when he was cast as Dr. Watson in the 2009 film.
• Carol Lawrence, before West Side Story, was in the revue New Faces of 1952, and its filmed version, New Faces.
• Jennifer Lawrence starred on The Bill Engvall Show for 3 years before she was cast in Winter's Bone.
  • She also appeared in one episode of Cold Case as the teenage version of a girl whose mother's body was found in a car that is sunk in the lake.
  • She had a blink-and-you'd-miss-it role on Monk as a mascot, in which she has no lines and only takes off her head for a moment.
  • She also had a bit role on Medium as a ghost of the week.
• Here's actress and author Emmy Laybourne getting a little trick played on her in a segment from the Nickelodeon show Pinwheel, back when her parents were working for the network.
• Adam Lazare-White, voicing Jacob from Mass Effect 2, should sound familiar to older gamers that have memories of video gaming later in The '90s. 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 LeBlanc 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.
  • In the end of the music video for Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open", he appears as a rock musician getting the same tattoo that Eddie (Johnny Depp) got at the video's beginning.
  • One of his first gigs was in a Heinz ketchup commercial where he placed a bottle of the ketchup at the top of a tall building, ran downstairs with a hot dog, and just in time, caught the ketchup onto the hot dog. The ad ends with him giving an admiring girl nearby a very Joey-like wink.
• Before playing several roles in Marvel and DC superhero movies and voiced a certain thief, Zachary Levi played Dave's nephew Toby in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. This resulted in a meme spawning during the release of SHAZAM! (2019) where people would post images of his role as Toby with the text "Is this the Shazam movie you're talking about?" on Twitter. And of course, he played the title character in the cult classic TV show Chuck.
  • And before all of that, he co-starred in the sitcom Less Than Perfect.
• Bruce Lee played Kato in the Adam West Batman (1966) 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.
  • He also appears in the Here Come the Brides episode "Marriage, Chinese Style," in which he uncharacteristically loses a fight with Bobby Sherman.
  • He was also in an episode of Ironside (1967).
• John Leguizamo was one of the terrorists in Die Hard 2.
  • He also popped up in Miami Vice.
• Ken Leung was a mutant in X-Men: The Last Stand, and kidnapped the girl from Rush Hour.
  • Dong! (rhymes with flong).
  • He also plays a detective that gets his head blown off by a shotgun trap in Saw, which coincidentally starred his Lost costar Michael Emerson as Zep.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the kid from the 1994 Angels in the Outfield film.
  • Before that, he played David/Daniel Collins on the short-lived 1991 primetime revival of Dark Shadows.
• Canadian viewers often recognize a pre-Schitt's Creek Dan Levy from his days as a VJ on MTV Canada.
• Before turning up as an inmate in Orange Is the New Black, Selenis Leyva was on the other side of the law, playing a US Customs officer in Maria Full of Grace and a detective in Law & Order.
• Li Dai Kun played minor characters in Cinderella Chef and Princess Silver before becoming famous for his role in Word of Honor.
• You know Andrea Libman, who we all recognize as Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie? Wanna know her first role? She played a little girl possessed by a demon in The X-Files. How's that for Playing Against Type?
  • And before she was on My Little Pony, she was the voice of Madeline and played Emmy in Dragon Tales.
  • There's also her role as a bully in the 1994 dramedy Andre.
• 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 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?!"
  • She even did a stint being the pitchwoman for phone dating service Quest Personals—meaning, for a time viewers might be lead to believe that if they called Quest for a date they'd get Lilly.
• 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".
• Cliffhanger starred CSI: Miami's Rex Linn as The Dragon Travers.
• Before starring on several Disney Channel shows, Peyton List (1998) was in episodes of As the World Turns and Saturday Night Live. She also played a piglet on an episode of Wonder Pets!.
• Before being cast in Kim's Convenience and the Shang-Chi movie, Simu Liu was an extra in Pacific Rim. He also had some minor roles on TV shows shot in Canada, such as bit parts in episodes of Warehouse 13, Orphan Black and Nikita. Additionally, he was Pete Wentz's stunt double for the "Centuries" music video. And, like John Boyega, he sometimes did modeling for stock photos.
• Donal Logue was Deacon Frost's unlucky Dragon in Blade. Before that, he was the scientist behind the Black Box in Sneakers.
• Sam Lloyd took away Drew's Batmobile and was the Neighborhood Association President in Malcolm in the Middle before becoming Ted Buckland.
• Two years before his breakout role in Antwone Fisher, Derek Luke had small parts in two separate episodes of The King of Queens.
• Carl Lumbly played a South African Embassy staff in The X-Files before starring in Alias and as the Martian Manhunter in Justice League.
  • Before that, he played paraplegic scientist turned superhero Dr. Miles Hawkins in M.A.N.T.I.S., but before that he was Michael Kuzak's client Earl Williams, whose murder trial provided a 4th-season Story Arc on L.A. Law. He also played a prospective renter and detective in the suspense film Pacific Heights.
• Joanna Lumley is one of Blofeld's Angels of Death in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Her voice is recognisable.
• 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:
  • She was Dr. Wahler in The Fugitive.
  • She was an FBI agent that got killed and Mugged for Disguise in Collateral Damage.
  • She was Spencer Reid's mentally-ill mother on Criminal Minds.
  • She was the store manager in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
  • She was Julia Child's sister in Julie & Julia.
  • She was a reporter in CJ's press room in The West Wing.
  • She was one of the dog coaches in Best in Show.
  • She was selling the house next to Monica and Chandler's to Janice.
  • She was one of the guests for Thanksgiving dinner at the home of a school headmaster that Frasier and Lilith keep borthering in an episode of Frasier.
  • She was the woman who tries to set George Sr. up when he's in prison in Arrested Development.
  • She was a realtor in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
  • She was the Wicked Stepmother in Another Cinderella Story.
• When she was a child, future Orange Is the New Black star Natasha Lyonne appeared as part of the Playhouse Gang in the first season of Pee-wee's Playhouse.