15 famous actors who got their start in commercials

Even Hollywood’s finest had to start somewhere, so it’s no surprise to find many of our biggest stars began their acting careers doing commercials. Here are 15 examples of big-name stars on the hard sell.

15. Leonardo DiCaprio

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the now ubiquitous Academy Award winner and star of Titanic was a regular on TV commercials, selling everything from cars to processed cheese. Here’s a fresh-faced DiCaprio hawking bubblegum.

14. Jodie Foster

The star of The Silence of the Lambs and Contact may have come to wider attention playing a child prostitute opposite Robert De Niro in 1976’s Taxi Driver, but even then, Jodie Foster was no stranger to the screen. Here she is in a 1971 commercial for the View-Master (a toy once ubiquitous in bedrooms across America) faultlessly rattling off a line that could have been culled from a modern-day Amazon review. “Gee – I always thought it was just a lot of fun!” responds a phoned-in Henry Fonda.  

13. Steve Coogan

Best known as the toe-curlingly awful chat show host Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan has also appeared in Hot Fuzz, Night at the Museum, and Around The World in 80 Days, but prior to stardom he supplemented voice work as an impressionist doing stints in TV ads. Here he is in a 1989 commercial for British newsagent chain W. H. Smiths.

12. Keanu Reeves

Everybody’s favorite Hollywood star was no stranger to the commercial circuit in the 1980s. Prior to landing Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the actor starred in many ads, including this 1983 Coca-Cola spot. Reeves had the good grace to laugh about the experience when it came up on The Late Late Show in 2018.

11. Matt LeBlanc

The Friends star was another actor who earned a crust as a model in commercials, joining Keanu on a mission to sell the fizzy brown stuff. In this 1990 ad, LeBlanc features as a thirsty guy stuck in a desert, with a suspiciously real-looking cola bottle attached to a billboard overhead — forced perspective and jaunty music do the rest.

10. Marina Sirtis

The stars of this 1979 Cinzano commercial are renowned British comic actor Leonard Rossiter and the equally celebrated Joan Collins — but serving the drinks on board this airliner is none other than future Star Trek: The Next Generation star Marina Sirtis, complete with passable Italian accent and bouffant hairdo.

9. John Goodman

With his everyman persona, John Goodman was a good match for advertisements, and starred in countless commercials in the 1970s and early 1980s. This 1979 ad for aftershave sees him exercising his already obvious comic talents.

8. Naomi Watts

The star of Mulholland Drive and King Kong spent many years doing advertisements in Australia before getting her big break. Fortunately, stardom would save her from having to deliver such excruciatingly bad lines as the ones scripted for this 1990 tampon commercial.

7. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Gordon-Levitt’s bravura performances in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises were still some years off when the actor starred in a Pop Tarts commercial in the early 1990s. Other sponsored stints included work for breakfast cereal and peanut butter.

6. Olivia Colman

Academy Award winner Olivia Colman began her acting career late, first appearing on screen at the age of 26. In between miscellaneous TV comedy work in the early 2000s, she appeared in a variety of adverts, most notably in this 2004 skit selling breakdown insurance.

5. River Phoenix

Before finding success opposite a young Ethan Hawke in 1985’s Explorers and in the 1986 coming-of-age film Stand By Me, Joaquin Phoenix’s elder brother starred in a few commercials. This wholesome advertisement for cranberry juice dates from 1982.

4. Sigourney Weaver

Less than two years before landing the part of Ripley in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) that would make her famous, Sigourney Weaver was doing a variety of TV commercials. Here’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from a Pepsi ad.

3. Michelle Pfeiffer

After a few box office bombs, Michelle Pfeiffer found fame alongside Al Pacino in Scarface (1983), but just five years earlier she was starring in bit parts and commercials. Here’s a 1979 appearance in a Lux Soap commercial.

2. Christian Bale

Bale made his first screen appearance in 1982 advertising fabric softener, but had no intentions of being an actor. Encouraged by those around him, he was starring opposite Mr. Bean star Rowan Atkinson in London’s West End just two years later, more than 20 years prior to his work as Batman.

1. Ben Affleck

Affleck had already begun a successful career as a child actor, but this 1989 appearance for Burger King represented an early foray into the world of advertising.

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