Today, these stars are all household names, but when they first started out it wasn't in Hollywood or on prime-time TV, but rather on daytime soap operas which, to our surprise, prove to be quite the breeding ground for some iconic talent. From Alec Baldwin and Brad Pitt to Gal Gadot and Naomi Watts - take a hilarious trip down memory lane with some of our favorite actors.
1. Julianne Moore
Moore got her big break in 1985, with the dual role of half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina Hughes from As The World Turns. In 1988 she earned an Emmy for Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series, and later that year left As The World Turns for a career on Broadway.
The Oscar-winning actress came back for a cameo on the soap opera’s final season in 2010.
2. Leonardo DiCaprio
DiCaprio appeared on NBC's Santa Barbara in only one episode, and also made appearances on Roseanne and the short-lived sitcom Parenthood.
His big outbreak in the cinema world was in 1993 with This Boy's Life and What's Eating Gilbert Grape? - the latter got him his first Oscar nomination. (He won the honourable award only in 2015 for his efforts in The Revenant.
3. Michael B. Jordan
Jordan was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020, but did you know he started his career in a soap opera?
On All My Children he played Reggie, a gang member who winds up being the stepson of famed soap diva Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). The show ran for 41 years, 3 of them were graced with his presence before he moved on to greener pastures.
4. Tommy Lee Jones
The 74-years-old actor and filmmaker is known for his roles in Men In Black, No Country for Old Men and Lincoln - but before that, he played Dr. Mark Toland on One Life to Live.
Dr. Toland was first presented as charming and romantic, before transforming into an evil con artist. In the end he was shot in the head - bad luck for Dr. Toland but good news for Jones, who continued to have a very honourable career in film and TV.
5. Elizabeth Banks
Banks appeared in All My Children - albeit only in one episode of the series, where she played a waitress charmed into paying for Josh Duhamels' meal.
That was in 1999, when she was just getting started as an actress, and before she was recognisable as Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games film series (although Effie would absolutely loathe this iknd of hairdo) and Gail Abernathy-McKadden from the Pitch Perfect film series.
6. Marisa Tomei
Tomei's three years in As The World Turns were quite lucky - at least for her character, Marcy Thompson, who married a prince, Lord Stewart Cushing, and moved to England, where she became Lady Marcy Cushing.
In 1985 she left in favour for a role in the sitcom Different World, and would become the Academy Award winning actress we know today, who also plays a surprisingly comic character in Marvel's Spiderman's franchise.
7. Chadwick Boseman
The late actor, far better known for his starring role in Black Panther, was cast as Reggie in All My Children. After a few episodes in January 2003 he was replaced by Michael B. Jordan with no explanation.
Boseman and Jordan would work together again on the set “Black Panther”, and would not be keen to discuss this “All My Children” situation in interviews.
8. Robin Wright
We know her as Claire Underwood from House of Cards (and before that, as Jenny Curran from Forrest Gump), but this super talented actress first gained attention from her role in a soap opera.
Wright played Kelly Capwell in NBC's Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1988, and was even nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her efforts - no less than three times.
9. Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt didn't know he would become an A-list star (and also the star of some real-life soaps alongside ex Angelina Jolie) when he was cast as a young basketball player named Chris in “Another World” back in 1987.
Started in a soap opera, turned into one of the most influential and powerful people in the American entertainment industry (and also a sex symbol, if you excuse us) - life is full of surprises.
10. Kathy Bates
She won an academy award for her role in horror film Misery and was nominated for 14 Emmy awards - but when she was young she played a role so small that she wasn’t even credited for it.
Bates appeared in four episodes of The Doctors, where she played Phyllis Gillette - but two of these four appearances weren’t even credited.
11. Naomi Watts
Watts appeared in a number of sitcoms and commercials in Australia before become a regular in the daytime soap Home and Away in 1991.
Ten years later she gained worldwide fame for her role in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, and continue to play in movies like 21 Grams and The Impossible, both of which bought her Academy Award nominations for Best Actress.
12. Susan Sarandon
Sarandon spent two years on two different daytime soaps. In 1971 she played in short-lived A World Apart, then landed a role on Search for Tomorrow the following year.
Now, of course, we remember her for playing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Thelma & Louise and Dead Man Walking, which bought her an Oscar for Best Actress in 1995.
13. John Stamos
Uncle Jesse from Full House kicked off his career as a "street kid" named Blackie Parrish in General Hospital (hey, he was nominated for an Emmy for that!).
He also starred in NBC's ER, and reunited with his friends from the Full House days to act in Netflix's Fuller House, which he also executively produces.
14. Morgan Freeman
During the early 80s, before taking up a career in movies, Freeman appeared on two daytime soaps: Ryan’s Hope and Another World. His accolades, though, were received for his work in movies like Million Dollar Baby, Invictus and Driving Miss Daisy.
(Surprisingly, his work in The Shawshank Redemption only got him one single win: Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor).
15. Alec Baldwin
Like Kathy Bates, Baldwin also appeared in The Doctors. From 1980 to 1982 played Billy Aldrich, a character who was eventually killed by two separate men, unbeknownst to each other, at the same time.
From there he preceded to play in another soap opera, Knots Landing, which first gained him recognition. He then followed it with a series of action packed movies all through the 1990's and made his TV comback in the critically acclaimed 30 Rock.
16. Justin Hartley
Before starring on This Is Us, Hartley played Fox Crane on Passions, one of the weirdest soap operas ever made, which had an orangutang, an actual witch and an enchanted doll among its characters. Oh, and he was also in The Young and the Restless.
The actor told Glamour that he’s not offended by people who think of him as a "soap opera actor": "I love acting, and so whenever I get the opportunity to act, I'm happy”.
17. Lindsay Lohan
Lohan got her first recurring role at the age of 10 - but by then she was already working as a child Model. She played the precocious Alli Fowler on Another World, before playing the twins in rom-com The Parent Trap in 1998 and becoming one the early 2000's biggest teen film stars.
Lately, if you wonder, she’s returning to music and acting, with an upcoming album and several upcoming films.
18. Gal Gadot
Israeli model Gal Gadot is now known worldwide as Wonder Woman (as well as an A-class it girl). Two years before her Hollywood breakthrough in Fast & Furious 4 in 2009, she played in Israeli soap opera Bubot (Dolls), as a girl who leaves her strict, religious home in order to pursue a career in modelling.
And although Bubot isn't considered to be a commercial success, the huge platform and the fact that she was seen acting pretty much on a daily basis helped her transition from being a model to a full pledged actor.
19. Brittany Snow
Snow's career launched in 1998, when she played troubled teen Daisy Lemay on Guiding Light. She stayed in the role for three years.
Now we know her for her roles in movies like Pitch Perfect and Someone Great - her working as a child actor probably helped her jump-start her career and get these roles, but she also said it left her struggling with depression and an eating disorder.
20. Ryan Phillippe
Phillippe got famous for playing in movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions, without which the 90s would not be the same. One of his earliest roles was on One Life to Live as Billy Douglas - one of the first openly gay teenage characters on TV.
"I didn't have a full understanding of how important it could have been, but I'm proud to have done it," he told Too Fab. "I'm proud that that's something I can say was a part of my career."
21. Hayden Panettiere
She got famous at 10, for her role in drama film Remember The Titans - but by then Panettiere already had years-long experience as an actress. At just 4 years old she landed the role of Sarah Roberts on One Life to Live, and three years later she headed over to CBS’s Guiding Light.
She was just a child, but her plot-lines were crazy! As she said in an interview on The Late Show in 2017: "They threw me down a well, I got leukemia not once but twice, I was kidnapped, I shot my mom's boyfriend…” That’s a lot for a girl who’s not even 10!
22. Sarah Michelle Gellar
Before she was Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar also played in All My Children. She was Kendall Hart - the long-lost daughter of Erica Kane (soap icon Susan Lucci), a role the got her a Daytime Emmy in 1995.
In 1997, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer told the New York Times about her crazy plotlines: "I seduced my stepfather, and when he wouldn't sleep with me, I slept with the stable boy, cried rape and my mother stabbed him with a letter opener. Then I went to jail for perjury, burned my parents' divorce papers and locked up my little sister. I think that was all in the first week”.
23. Kelly Ripa
The talk-show host also started her career in All My Children: She started playing Hayley Vaughan Santos in 1990 and did not leave the show until 2002. She also met her husband Mark Consuelos on set - the two married in 1996, four years before their characters would tie the knot onscreen.
"It was a launching pad for so many careers there, and for us, it was a launching pad for our lives," she said ahead of the show’s final episode in 2011. "I mean, we really got married and had our first two children there. It was beyond a career for us. It was our lives together”.
24. Margot Robbie
The beautiful Harley Quinn is now one of the world's highest-paid actresses. She kicked off her career in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, where she played an "obsessive, deluded stalker" named Donna Freedman from 2008 to 2011.
She’s not a bit embarrassed to talk about these days: "Neighbours was the best training ground ever, but more than that, it was the best kind of family atmosphere - because you all have one green room," she told Vice in 2018. "You're all in it together, there's like 30 cast members and you're together all the time. Day-in, day-out”.
25. Josh Duhamel
Wait, we’re not done yet with All My Children. Duhamel portrayed con-man Leo du Pres from 1999 to 2002, when his character took a tumble over a waterfall and was presumed dead.
In 2011, Duhamel reprised his character for a short cameo in a dream sequence, and told Soaps In Depth: If there was a chance that I was still alive, then I wanted to go back and do something. I really enjoyed those three years that I had on [All My Children], and I've kept up with a lot of the people there”.
26. Meg Ryan
The 90s queen of rom-coms played Betsy Stewart from 1982 to 1984 on As The World Turns. Betsy and Steve Andropoulos’s wedding episode, which aired in 1984, reportedly attracted 20 million viewers - and was one of the highest-rated hours in soap opera history.
Since then she acted in a lot of movies and became one of Hollywood's most beloved rom-com actresses, with leading roles in Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally. In 2015 she made her directorial debut with Ithaca, a film in which she also acted.
27. Russell Crowe
Crowe moved to Australia from New Zealand and starred as Kenny Larkin on Neighbours in 1987.
After much success in the Australian film industry, the actor moved to the states in the mid-90s, got roles in major films like Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, and American Gangster, and even won an Oscar in 2001 for his performance in Gladiator.
28. Amber Tamblyn
Tamblyn originated the role ofrebelious Emily Quartermaine in General Hospital, which she held between 1995-2001.
From there she moved to star in prime-time series Joan of Arcadia, portraying the title character, Joan Girardi, for which she received Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. She also played in the first two The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films, as well as in The Ring and 127 Hours.
29. Mark Hamill
Hamill will forever be Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars franchise, but his first regular role was also in General Hospital, between 1972-1973 (FYI, the show first aired in 1963, and is still running today).
Seems like it was pretty fun on set, as he later referred to the experience as “some of the happiest months of my career”.
30. Jensen Ackles
Ackles is most known as Dean Winchester from the CW horror-fantasy series Supernatural. He has been a model from the age of 4, and broke into acting at around 18 as Eric Brady from Days of Our Lives.
Fun fact: in one episode of “Supernatural”, Dean enters a parallel universe and discovers himself to be former daytime soap star Jensen Ackles.
31. Kevin Bacon
Bacon was born and raised in a close-knit family in Philadelphia. At 17 he moved to the big apple to pursue his dream of being an actor.
His debut at the fraternity comedy National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978 did not lead to the fame he sought, so in the meantime, he worked on soap operas like Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light.
32. Leven Rambin
Rambin joined the cast of All My Children at 13, when she was a child herself, and appeared in 61 episodes as Lily Montgomery (and occasionally as her own older sister, Ava Benton).
Since then she also got recurring roles on Grey's Anatomy and Gone, and acted in films like The Dirt and The Big Ugly.
33. Jordana Brewster
Brewster made her TV debut on a 1995 episode of All My Children, then was cast as Nikki Munson on As the World Turns. Brewster played the police chief’s daughter for more than 100 episodes between 1995 and 2001.
Her breakthrough came with her role of Mia Toretto in the action film series The Fast And The Furious; she was also on TV shows Dallas and Lethal Weapon.
34. Kevin Kline
In 1991, Kline starred in Soapdish, a comedy which centered on a fictional soap opera. He had some experience, as his first acting credit was playing Woody Reed on the CBS daytime drama Search for Tomorrow.
His film debut was more successful: it was in 1982's Sophie's Choice. Lately he portrayed Maurice in Beauty and the Beast, and also acted in Ricki And The Flash and My Old Lady.
35. Kathleen Turner
Turner rose to fame in the 80s, thanks to movies like Body Heat, Crimes of Passion and Romancing the Stone, and was also successful on the stage - she earned two Tony nominations for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
But before being a certified screen siren, she was featured on no less than 243 episodes of The Doctors between 1977 to 1979, where she played long suffering Nola Aldrich.
36. Anne Heche
Prior to launching a successful film career, Heche was featured in 47 episodes of Another World as schemy Vicky Hudson (and occasionally her twin sister, goody two shoes Marley Love).
Alongside consistant work on TV in shows like Men in Trees, Hung, Aftermath and more, she appeared in the well-received independent films Birth , Spread, Rampart and Catfight.
37. Christian Slater
Slater made some single-episodes appearances in shows like Search For Tomorrow and All My Children, but his first significant acting role was on ABC's Ryan's Hope in 1985, at the age of 16.
He played in films like Interview with the Vampire, True Romance, Bobby and King Cobra, and received critical acclaim for his title-role in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot.
38. Chris Hemsworth
Hemsworth played Kim Hyde on Home and Away from 2004 to 2007. That was not the role that made him a star, though; he got super-famous thanks to his role as Thor in the Marvel-universe features.
Since moving to the states he starred in many action flicks, and also married Spanish model and actress Elsa Pataky, with whom he has three kids.
39. Liam Hemsworth
Chris is not the only hot Hemsworth who graced an Australian soap with his presence: His brother Liam played Josh Taylor in Neighbours from 2007 to 2008.
Liam made his American film debut alongside Miley Cyrus in The Last Song, and from there has been in films such as The Hunger Games, Independence Day: Resurgence, and The Duel.
40. Nathan Fillion
We know him as Captain Mal Reynolds from Firefly, Richard Castle from Castle and John Nolan from The Rookie, but like many, Fillion also started his way as an actor in a soap opera.
He started playing Joey Buchanan in One Life to Live 1994, when he moved to New York City, and stayed in the role until 1997 (ten years later, by the way, he returned for a brief guest appearance on the show).