That’s what popped up in my mind. Moonlighting was an hour long show, normally classified as a drama, but definitely had the comedy element.
Bruce Willis at the time was considered a comedic TV actor, so at least close to what the OP asked about. But no actual sitcom.
If fame as a sitcom actor followed by even more fame as a dramatic actor is the goal, I think Tom Hanks wins.
If the criterion is just as an actor in a sitcom followed by fame as a dramatic actor, then two who haven’t been mentioned are:
Michael Keaton - started in TV (Working Stiffs was the sitcom) and has since attained fame in dramatic roles, first in Batman, but also his Oscar nominated turn in Birdman.
Jennifer Lawrence played the snarky teenage daughter in The Bill Engvall Show, but became famous as a dramatic actress, with 4 Oscar nominations (one win) for movies like Winters Bone and American Hustle, as well as starring action roles in X-Men and Hunger Games movies.
I’ll push back on this, 9 episodes of a forgotten sitcom is not even remotely what he was known for. He was a very successful Comedy Movie actor before becoming Batman. Not really a known sitcom actor at all.
Bosom Buddies was at least a brief hit and many careers launched out of that silly sitcom. None close to Tom Hanks, but still.
Sally Field is probably one of the earliest examples.
Very good one.
That has to rival Tom Hanks who in different movies played both her son (Gump) and love interest. (Punchline).
I agree but I don’t think it’s clear cut. Here’s a cite from Brittanica calling Moonlighting a sitcom:
I don’t know a definitive definition of ‘sitcom’ however I don’t think there’s much agreement that Moonlighting was a sitcom. Maybe something about Willis’s career lent itself to ambiguous classifications.
Yeah, Robin Williams is the most obvious uber-example of the OP in my mind, and the one that I immediately thought of. I think he was ultimately a better dramatic actor than he was a comedian. I came to find his comedy, which I thought was genius as a kid, a bit hacky as I got older. But I always thought he brought a genuine sensitivity and humanity to his dramatic roles.
Famously, the producers of Die Hard originally left him off the movie poster, because they didn’t think people would buy the goofball from Moonlighting as a bad-ass action hero.
Ryan Reynolds had several dramatic roles early on, but his first real break came in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl. He got a lot of recognition for the movie Van Wilder at the end of the sitcom run and became much more of a movie actor after that.
One comic actor (from Second City TV) who did nicely in a couple of dramatic roles was the late John Candy. Had his life not been tragically cut short, I’ve always thought he could have had a successful career as an actor beyond his comic abilities.
Similar to this is John Goodman. Became famous as Dan Conner in Roseanne, and has gone on to a major career, both in comedy, and dramatic roles.
Well, except that Goodman isn’t dead, and does indeed seem to fit the criteria I posed in my OP. Despite his occasional dramatic roles, Candy is still remembered as a comic actor; Goodman has probably reached the point where people just think of him as an “actor” rather than a comic actor in particular.
Goodman was a relatively well known dramatic actor prior to Roseanne. However, his eventual level of fame resulted from the success of Roseanne. I don’t know if he would have been an A-list actor without that.
John Krasinski
Olivia Colman had a small part in The Office and then a much bigger recurring part in Peep Show. She’s gone on to win an actual Oscar.
Question for the OP. Are you asking for famous sitcom actors that also became famous for drama? Or relatively unknown sitcom actors that did not become famous until they did drama?
Here’s a very British answer for you: Mark Gatiss.
OK, I don’t know how much of this will be known in the US and elsewhere. He started out in The League Of Gentlemen, a “Horror sitcom”, and has subsequently taken on properly serious roles (Stephen Gardiner in Wolf Hall - doesn’t get more serious than that). Admittedly “famous for dramatic movie roles” may be stretching it a tad, but certainly well enough known in the UK (at least), and a veteran of 20-odd movies.
(Plus, quite the writer - I suspect his Dr Who connections are fairly widely known on this board.)
j
Good one - she was in Green Wing as well.
j
She was also Boomer’s girlfriend on St Elsewhere.