The Times Magazine 47LEO, BRAD, DEMI AND KYLIE: FROM SOAP TO STARDOM
Kylie Minogue Neighbours
More than 18 million people in the UK
watched Minogue’s Charlene Mitchell
marry her sweetheart, Scott Robinson,
played by Jason Donovan, in 1987. She left
the show after two years and turned her
hand to music full-time, going on to sell
more than 80 million records worldwide.Brad Pitt Another World
With an estimated fortune of £230 million,
Pitt has the American soap Another World
to thank for his first acting credit, in 1987.
His most recent blockbuster role was
opposite a fellow former soap actor, Margot
Robbie, in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.Anna Friel Brookside
As a teenager Friel appeared in Emmerdale
and Coronation Street, but it was her role
in Brookside that made history in 1994. Her
character, Beth’s, same-sex kiss was the first
gay kiss to be shown on British television
before the 9pm watershed. Now she is best
known for playing Marcella on ITV.Liam Hemsworth Neighbours
The ex-husband of pop star Miley Cyrus
got his start on Neighbours, playing a
paraplegic paralysed by a surfing accident.
The Australian left the show after a year to
go to Hollywood but lost out to his brother,
Chris, for the lead role in 2011’s Thor. The
following year he starred in The Hunger
Games opposite Jennifer Lawrence.Chris Hemsworth Home and Away
The Australian got his first acting credit on
a show where his brother Liam already had
a part, Neighbours. After landing a spot in
rival soap Home and Away, playing Kim
Hyde, he appeared in nearly 200 episodes
from 2004 to 2007. He cracked the US
market two years later as James Kirk’s
father in Star Trek.Meg Ryan As the World Turns
The 1984 wedding of Meg Ryan’s
Betsy Stewart on CBS’s As the World
Turns attracted 20 million viewers,
making it the second highest-rated
hour in American soap-opera history.
Two years after she left the show she
landed a role in Top Gun and in 1990
co-starred in When Harry Met Sally.Suranne Jones Coronation Street
Fifteen years before millions watched
Jones as Doctor Foster on BBC1, she
was a regular on Coronation Street.She played Karen McDonald on the show for
four years in the early Noughties.Margot Robbie Neighbours
Slapping Leonardo DiCaprio in her Wolf of
Wall Street audition won Australian Robbie
her big break. It came shortly after a two-year
stint as Donna Freedman on Neighbours, a
role she landed at 17.Jenna Coleman Emmerdale
She might play royalty in ITV’s Victoria, but
Coleman’s first acting job was as a murderer
on Emmerdale. She turned down a place to
study English at university to join the cast in
2005 and stayed for four years. Not long after
she became Clara Oswald, the companion of
Doctor Who, then played by Peter Capaldi.Russell Crowe Neighbours
The actor, born in New Zealand, played an
ex-con in four episodes of Neighbours. Crowe
made it in Hollywood with his breakout
role in LA Confidential alongside his former
Neighbours co-star Guy Pearce. He went
on to win an Oscar for Gladiator in 2000.Sarah Lancashire Coronation Street
An episode of Coronation Street in the late
Eighties gave Lancashire her start and she
returned years later to play the Rovers Return
barmaid Raquel Watts. She is now best known
for her Bafta award-winning performance as a
police sergeant in Happy Valley.Leonardo DiCaprio Santa Barbara
The Oscar winner was just 15 when he
appeared in five episodes of NBC’s daytime
soap Santa Barbara. Titanic shot him to global
stardom seven years later at the age of 22.Demi Moore General Hospital
At 20, Moore made her debut as Jackie
Templeton on this US soap. She left
after two years and made a splash onthe big screen with Ghost, Indecent Proposal
and St Elmo’s Fire.Guy Pearce Neighbours
Pearce’s family moved from England to
Australia when he was three. It was there
that he acted alongside Kylie Minogue and
Jason Donovan in Neighbours, playing Mike
Young from 1986 to 1989. A year-long stint
on rival soap Home and Away followed
before he headed to Hollywood and starred
with Russell Crowe in LA Confidential.Alec Baldwin The Doctors
“If you can do a soap, well, you can do
anything,” Baldwin told Interview magazine.
His first role on the small screen was as Billy
Aldrich on The Doctors from 1980 to 1982, a
part he landed while he was still in college.Julianne Moore As the World Turns
Playing two roles at once – half-sisters
Frannie and Sabrina Hughes in As the
World Turns – gave Moore her break in the
late Eighties and won her a Daytime Emmy
award. She returned for one episode on the
show’s final season in 2010, by which point
she had established herself in Hollywood
with The Lost World: Jurassic Park.Susan Sarandon A World Apart
Sarandon made her acting debut in A World
Apart as Patrice Kahlman, appearing in
325 episodes. She then played a murderous
drifter on another soap, Search for
Tomorrow, before winning an Academy
award for Dead Man Walking in 1995.Michael B Jordan All My Children
Before he starred in The Wire, Michael B
Jordan was playing the young gang member
Reggie Montgomery on All My Children. He
took over the role from Chadwick Boseman,
his future co-star in Black Panther.
Georgina RobertsKylie Minogue with Jason Donovan (left);
Demi Moore in General Hospital Jenna Coleman in Emmerdale (above)