10 Actors You Didn't Know Got Their Start On Broadway

Since Broadway theatergoing has made a full-fledged comeback after shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic, there's been plenty of big Hollywood names taking the stage. This past year's Tony Awards included nominees best known for film and television, like George Clooney for "Good Night, and Good Luck" and Sarah Snook for "The Picture of Dorian Gray." However, for the pop culture fanatics who maybe aren't well versed in the history of theater, many of these stars don't originate on the screen, but on the stage. 

While many casual Broadway fans' introduction to famous shows might be through the best movie musicals of all time, they might not know about these 10 stars of film and television whose careers began as primarily theater performers. Even the likes of big movie stars like Pedro Pascal had plenty of experience performing Shakespearean across the country before becoming a franchise lead, though Pascal sadly is one of many who has yet to make his Broadway debut. 

Well before any of these 10 actors' most famous roles or projects, whether it be classic TV shows, blockbuster movies, or careers as pop stars, they were putting in the work eight days a week doing some of the hardest work in all of Hollywood: acting their hearts out live on stage for crowds of about a thousand dedicated fans and theater lovers. Do not underestimate their talent; it takes a lot to be able to do that even once.

When you think of "Saturday Night Live," plenty of iconic comedians' names come to the forefront of the mind: Gilda Radner, Chris Farley, Andy Samberg, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, and the list goes on and on. But of the original Not-Ready-For-Primetime-Players of the show's very first season in 1975, one actor entered Studio 8H at 30 Rock a lot more seasoned than his cast mates, and that was Garrett Morris. On "SNL," Morris became known for sketches like "White Guilt Relief Fund," as well as Weekend Update's "News for the Hard of Hearing," but his on-stage experience prior to then was plentiful.

Morris was a graduate of Juilliard, having spent most of his career on Broadway before he had ever even touched the world of comedy. He made his Broadway debut in 1967 as part of the ensemble for Jule Styne's "Hallelujah, Baby!" starring Leslie Uggams. Morris' future Broadway roles all predated joining the cast of "SNL," including contributing a musical monologue to the anthology musical "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" by Melvin van Peebles. 

Once Morris took to television screen in '75, despite having a poor experience working at "SNL" as the first (and at the time, only) African-American cast member, he didn't stray far from television in the 50 years since. Morris had major roles in sitcoms like "Martin" and "2 Broke Girls," and even cameoed in Marvel's "Ant-Man" in 2015. 

Anna Kendrick reached movie stardom with the "Pitch Perfect" films, showing off the singing voice that she'd honed during her years in theater. She really exploded onto the scene with her Broadway debut in 1998, "High Society," which scored her a Tony nomination for Featured Actress in a Musical. Surprisingly, Kendrick hasn't done any theater since the early 2000s, making the full transition to film with a supporting role in the "Twilight" movies, as well as becoming a leading lady of her own with "Up in the Air," "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates," and "A Simple Favor."

Nevertheless, Kendrick didn't stray far from her roots, with many of her biggest roles including film adaptations of musicals like "Into the Woods" and "The Last Five Years." She also has a starring role in DreamWorks' "Trolls" film franchise, lending her singing voice to covers of "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel and "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire. Her biggest claim to fame musically is the "Cups" song from the first "Pitch Perfect" film. 

While Kendrick didn't think anyone was going to care about "Cups," it surprisingly charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been certified 3x Platinum. She seems glad to be away from performing on Broadway for the time being, but if there's anyone that could get her back on stage, it's Stephen Sondheim, telling Playbill, "If they do a gender-swapped 'Little Night Music,' I've always wanted to play Henrik."

After spending nine seasons on "Seinfeld" as the petty and conniving George Costanza, it's hard to imagine Jason Alexander tap-dancing onto the Broadway stage... not that there's anything wrong with that! Nevertheless, in the years prior to "Seinfeld" premiering in 1989, Alexander was primarily a theater actor, having made his Broadway debut in 1981, in the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along," lending his singing to two songs on the original score, "It's a Hit!" and "Opening Doors." 

However, "Merrily We Roll Along" was only the beginning of Alexander's illustrious theater career pre-"Seinfeld," also acting in "The Producers" and "Broadway Bound." He even won a Tony award for Neil Simon's "Jerome Robbins' Broadway," an anthology show consisting of adaptations of famous Broadway tunes from shows like "West Side Story" and "The King and I." He returned to Broadway for 2015's "Fish in the Dark," written by none other than the real George Costanza himself, Larry David. In the most meta casting of all time, Alexander inherited the role that David originated when his play first premiered.

By that time, Alexander had spent a lot more time behind-the-scenes in theater, too. In Los Angeles, he took on the role as artistic director of the Reprise Theatre Company, directing a revival of "Sunday in the Park with George." He took his directorial efforts to Broadway in 2023 directing Sandy Rustin's comedy "The Cottage" starring Eric McCormack, Laura Bell Bundy, and Alex Moffat. 

An argument could be made that Viola Davis is the best actor ever, which is backed up by evidence including the fact that she has the coveted EGOT: an Emmy (for "How to Get Away with Murder"), a Grammy (for her audiobook "Finding Me"), an Oscar (for "Fences"), and two Tonys (for "King Hedley II" and "Fences"). Of course, as fans of Davis already know, the actress comes from a theater background, attending Juilliard and making her Broadway debut in the original 1996 production of August Wilson's "Seven Guitars," for which she also garnered her first Tony nomination.

The acclaim didn't stop there. Davis' stage work eventually led to her breakthrough in mainstream film, stealing her short amount of screen time in John Patrick Shanley's own adaptation of his play "Doubt" and getting nominated at the Oscars and Golden Globes as a result. The last time she was on stage, it was for a 2010 production of August Wilson's "Fences" opposite Denzel Washington, both of whom would later reprise their roles for the 2016 adaptation that would win Davis her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. 

Though Davis hasn't appeared on a Broadway stage in over 15 years, she's remained true to her love for Wilson's work. In 2020, she executive produced and appeared in the documentary "Giving Voice," following the 2018 August Wilson Monologue Competition. She also starred in the film adaptation of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," another Wilson play, which also got her a SAG Award. 

The past couple of years, it feels like Colman Domingo has been everywhere. He's had consecutive Oscar nominations for "Rustin" and "Sing Sing," appeared in massive TV shows like "Euphoria" and "Fear the Walking Dead," and even was rumored to replace Jonathan Majors as Marvel's Kang. If it seems like Domingo is incredibly ambitious and tireless in his acting pursuits, that's likely because of his extensive experience in theater teaching him to be that way.

Domingo made his first appearance on a Broadway stage as an understudy in "Well" in 2006, before making his proper debut in the original cast of "Passing Strange" as Mr. Franklin Jones. He stayed active on Broadway for most of the 2000s and 2010s, with acclaimed performances in "Raisin in the Sun" and  "Chicago," and plenty of Shakespeare to boot. Domingo is even an accomplished playwright on his own, with both an off-Broadway one-man show, "A Boy and His Soul," as well as writing the book for "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical" on Broadway.  

Even in the world of film, Domingo has flexed his Broadway muscles with roles in the 2023 musical adaptation of "The Color Purple," as well as starring alongside Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman in the film adaptation of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." As Domingo's star continues to rise, including rumors of him joining Marvel's "X-Men" reboot, he'll always appreciate theater for keeping him afloat as he struggled to land roles for many years. 

If you're in touch with what's big on television right now, odds are you were an early rider of the Meghann Fahy hype train after she played Daphne in the second season of "The White Lotus" on HBO. However, some lucky theater goers may have already been aware of how much star power she had after she made her Broadway debut first as an understudy and then as the replacement for Jennifer Damiano in "Next to Normal" from 2009 to 2011. 

In the years after, Fahy remained close to the world of theater, starring in off-Broadway productions of "We Are The Tigers," "Lost Girls," and "Linda," as well as reprising her role as Natalie in "Next to Normal" as it toured across the country after its Broadway run. She ostensibly took a break from theater performing for the Freeform dramedy "The Bold Type," which gave her an opportunity to reflect on how lucky she's been for her time on Broadway, telling Backstage, "I love theater so much and I always want it to be a part of my life because that community is so special to me and it's how I entered this world of performing."

Since being named the breakout star of "The White Lotus" season two, Fahy has been booked and busy. In 2025 alone, she's starred in the horror comedy "Drop," and the Netflix thriller "Sirens," but hopefully it won't be long before she returns to Broadway having just reached another echelon of celebrity status. 

Adam Driver quickly became a household name after starring as Kylo Ren in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, but the best Adam Driver movies since have garnered the actor consecutive Oscar nominations for "BlacKkKlansman" and "Marriage Story." In about a decade, Driver has worked with a handful of incredible directors, including Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, but even though it may seem like he popped out of nowhere in 2015's "The Force Awakens," he had a lot of work in theater predating all this mainstream success.

Even before starring in HBO's "Girls" prior to "Star Wars," Driver was an ex-Marine and Juilliard graduate who made his Broadway debut in the original cast of 2010's "Mrs. Warren's Profession." He later appeared in "Man and Boy" and "Burn This" on Broadway, in addition to acclaimed off-Broadway productions of "Angels in America" and, most recently, "Hold On to Me Darling," of which he received acclaim from The New York Times, who wrote that "his outsize emotional and physical scale make everything and everyone else look small." 

Even in Driver's most famous non-theater roles, his Broadway roots are very clear. There's of course the famous scene from "Marriage Story" where Driver's character sings an impromptu rendition of "Being Alive" from Stephen Sondheim's "Company," and even his character on "Girls" gets cast in a Broadway production of "Major Barbara" during the show's third season. Now, we just need to see Driver do a Broadway musical...

While the entire cast of main characters in "Stranger Things" is stellar, season four really proved that the best of them was Max, played by Sadie Sink since the show's second season. That's seemingly proven by Sink's work outside of Hawkins, Indiana, which includes the Oscar-winning Darren Aronofsky film "The Whale" as well as being the star of Taylor Swift's all too powerful "All Too Well: The Short Film." However, few many know that Sink had already worked with some Hollywood greats during her time on Broadway.

Sink's Broadway debut was in a 2012 production of "Annie," beginning as an understudy for several characters before filling her red-haired birthright as the replacement for the titular orphan. A few years later in 2015, Sink returned to Broadway to star in "The Audience," playing the younger version of Queen Elizabeth II, whose older iteration was played by none other than Helen Mirren. 

Just this past Broadway season, Sink finally returned to theater for Kimberly Bellflower's play "John Proctor is the Villain," making her final bow in her Tony-nominated role as Shelby Holcomb in July 2025. Though she already has future work lined up with a mystery role in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," it likely won't be another decade before Sink comes back to Broadway, telling Vogue, "I'm in this place where doing something like this [play] feels so important ... I want to find more of that, whether that's more theater, which I would just love, or what."

"No Hard Feelings" was a refreshing comedy when it released in 2023, but while Jennifer Lawrences shines in the shaggy raunch-com, some credit should be given to the young Andrew Barth Feldman, who we at /Film wrote of in our review, "his performance is just as strong as [Lawrence's]; Percy's geekiness is largely not played for lazy or easy laughs, especially as we gradually understand why he's unwilling to get out of his shell." This is especially evident in the emotional scene where Feldman beautifully plays piano and sings Hall & Oates' "Maneater."

Of course, this scene wasn't a surprise if you knew who Feldman was, especially after he made his Broadway debut at only 16 years old taking over the titular role in "Dear Evan Hansen." Feldman hasn't let the opportunity pass him by either; he's remained active in theater, starring as Linguini in the crowdsourced virtual musical of "Ratatouille" in 2021. In 2024, he appeared off-Broadway in "Little Shop of Horrors" as Seymour, and in 2025 he appeared in another off-Broadway play, "We Had a World."

Feldman's only 23 years old, but he seems destined to be a future mainstay in the Broadway community, even having started a theater company called Zneefrock Productions as his bar mitzvah project when he was 12. Feldman's even stayed active in film, appearing in both Jason Reitman's "Saturday Night" as well as voicing Dopey in Disney's live-action "Snow White" (who is also the film's narrator). 

When Ariana Grande was cast as Glinda the Good Witch in Jon M. Chu's film adaptation of "Wicked," fans were quick to denounce the "stunt" casting, given her successful career as a pop star. Many already know, prior to having success with songs like "no tears left to cry" and "thank u, next," Grande's acting roles included the Nickelodeon sitcom "Victorious," but even before that, Grande was on Broadway, believe it or not.

Grande's Broadway debut was in 2008, in Jason Robert Brown's musical "13," playing the role of Charlotte, a cheerleader. Not only was "13" significant for being Grande's first major role in any kind of production, but it also introduced her to a future "Victorious" co-star and life-long friend, Elizabeth Gillies (who most recently has returned to theater in off-Broadway's "Little Shop of Horrors"). Of course, all that success for Grande was blown out of the water when she became an A-list celebrity and pop star in the late 2010s. 

However, after her experience fulfilling her childhood dreams with "Wicked," Grande may not stray too far from musical theater in the near future. As she revealed on the "Las Culturistas" podcast, recent years have found the pop star "reconnecting with this part of myself who started in musical theater and who loves comedy." Maybe Grande will made her full-fledged return to the Broadway stage sometime soon, though we'd hate to imagine how much of a bloodbath getting tickets to that show, whatever it is, will be.