# Supporting actors/actresses in movies who hit big through TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 7, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149 "2014-01-07T17:50:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/61 "2014-01-12T03:07:49Z")
Tom Baker’s claim to fame in DOCTOR WHO came after years of missing out on title roles on film. A movie about Martin Luther? Hey, somebody has to play the Pope. Nicholas and Alexandra? Rasputin. Sinbad? Yeah, he’s not Sinbad. (As a Brit, the guy of course had no trouble getting work if someone was adapting Shakespeare or Chaucer for the big screen – but never as a leading man.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/62 "2014-01-12T20:59:21Z")
David Duchovny had roughly a dozen supporting roles in movies before he got famous on THE X-FILES, at which point he – got roughly a dozen leading roles in movies. (It also convinced folks to build CALIFORNICATION around the guy, which promptly let him double his leading-man Golden Globe nominations from four to eight.) ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/63 "2014-01-12T23:47:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Wasn’t that Hattie “Mammy” McDaniel? Dammit, you are correct! Why do I try to rely on my memory for this kind of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/64 "2014-01-12T23:55:07Z")
Jeremy Brett kind of started doing both, but his early film career peaked as Freddy in **My Fair Lady** , after which he mostly worked in television (Sherlock Holmes and D’Artagnan were big high points, though more the former than the latter) until just before he died. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/65 "2014-01-13T00:22:15Z")
Dennis Haysbert got his big break as The First Black President on **24** , after _decades_ of small roles in films – often as That Guy You Won’t Wrestle The Gun Away From, since, hey, who _else_ do you cast as the booming-voiced homicide detective in movie after movie if the leading man he’s talking down to stands over six feet tall? Who else do you cast as the brawny henchman who towers over the criminal mastermind, or the enlisted man who towers over his superior officer – or, y’know, the Secret Service agent who towers over the President he’s guarding? (You cast the power hitter from **Major League** , is what you do.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/66 "2014-01-13T13:18:41Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > David Schwimmer had small roles in \*\*\*FLight of the Intruder \*\*\*and Jack Nicholson’s \*\*\*Wolf \*\*\* before playing Ross on _ **Friends.** _ Not to mention _ **Twenty Bucks** _ and _ **Biloxi Blues** _ and _ **Crossing The Bridge** _. At that, all six of the castmembers had been less-than-top-billed on film before hitting it big on television; heck, Courtney Cox had been in more than half-a-dozen movies, from _ **Masters Of The Universe** _ to _ **Cocoon: The Return** _ to _ **Mr. Destiny** _, before _ **Ace Ventura** _ before _ **Friends** _. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149/67 "2014-01-20T18:11:25Z")
How about Damian Lewis? Gets a small part in a Pierce Brosnan movie, then earns a Golden Globe nomination for his TV work on **Band of Brothers** – which isn’t really his big break, as he’s soon back in theaters as the fourth-billed actor in a Morgan Freeman movie or the fifth-billed actor in a Robert Redford movie and so on. But that’s enough to get him a starring TV role on **Life** as a philosophical ex-con turned millionaire detective – before, y’know, heading back to movie work, getting billed under co-stars like James Franco and Natalie Portman – and then back to being a leading man on TV, with his Golden-Globe-_winning_ role on **Homeland**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supporting-actors-actresses-in-movies-who-hit-big-through-tv/678149.md?page=3)