Random Non-Actors Who Got Thrown Into TV Shows (12 items)

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  (#1) Steven Van Zandt

  • 72

  Steven Van Zandt had already risen to fame in the mid-'70s, both as a songwriter and performer in his own right, but more prominently as a member of childhood friend Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Then, in 1984, he quit the band to explore a solo career and found himself floundering for the next decade and a half trying to decide what to do with the rest of his life:

  I literally went out into the wilderness. I’m not exaggerating. I walked my dog for seven years. I’d be out for eight hours a day just thinking, "How’d I get here? If I ever get back, what will I do?" I said to myself, "If I ever get back in, I’m not going to stop working. I’m never going to be in this position again where I can’t work."

  Then, in 1999, an opportunity came to try something completely different: acting in one of television’s most storied series. Van Zandt auditioned for, and won, the role of Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano’s right-hand man in The Sopranos. Then he stuck around for the duration, appearing in the pilot, the finale, and every season in between. For Van Zandt, the transition from performing on stage to performing in front of a camera was a natural transition, as he told Today:

  We all have every single personality trait inside of us. The craft of acting is finding it, awakening it, and giving it off - inhabiting the particular characteristics in the script. But I am this OTHER guy, and I am interacting with guys in THEIR characters. That made me fearless!

  Shortly after landing the gig, Van Zandt rejoined the E Street Band, and he’s remained active in both worlds ever since.
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  (#2) Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

  • 35

  Over the course of eight seasons, Game of Thrones recast the role of Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane twice. The first Mountain was Conan Stevens, who had to step out after Season 1 due to scheduling conflicts. Then came Ian Whyte, but he didn’t enjoy the role and backed away in order to play several minor characters instead, including the giant Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun.

  For their third and final Mountain, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss selected a real-life giant. Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson was a former professional basketball player who had since been hard at work putting together perhaps the greatest strongman career of all time. The 6-foot-9, 420-pound dynamo mostly got the call to audition on account of his enormous size and visible strength, but Björnsson sealed the deal by picking an actor up over his head with ease, as he recounted in a Reddit AMA:

  [HBO] contacted me and called me in for an audition. During the audition, I lifted the guy up (well, he asked me to), and they were really impressed.

  Since wrapping up on Game of Thrones, Björnsson has continued to dabble in acting, but he’s also continued in his athletic passion, recently setting a new world record for deadlifting with 1,104 pounds. In other words, lifting that actor over his head was not a particularly difficult challenge.
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  (#3) Phyllis Smith

  • 72

  Though she had a past as a burlesque dancer and had made a few attempts to get into acting, Phyllis Smith had given up on the dramatic arts by the time the 2000s rolled around - but not the entertainment industry. Working as a casting associate, Smith found herself reading lines with hopefuls auditioning for an NBC adaptation of the British sitcom The Office when opportunity came knocking again.

  As Pam Fischer, who would go on to play Pam Beesly, recalled on her Office Ladies podcast:

  I think this is an interesting tidbit. Phyllis Smith, who plays Phyllis on the show, she was the casting associate for The Office. So when I auditioned for The Office, she read my audition scenes with me. [Director Ken Kwapis] was so taken with how she did her readings with the actors that he said to Greg Daniels, "I want her on the show. Can I give her a part on the show?" And so, Phyllis went from being a casting associate, which she had done for years with Allison Jones, the casting director... to having a part on this pilot.

  The plainspoken character of Phyllis Lapin (later to become Phyllis Vance by marriage) was invented and added to the cast solely for the sake of including the plainspoken Phyllis Smith. In a show built on deadpan, she was a natural. Seven seasons later, she’d appeared in nearly every episode of the series’ landmark run, which in turn has launched her into other acting roles in The OA and the modern Pixar classic Inside Out. 
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  (#4) Kathy C. An Is A Real Surgical Nurse Who Has Appeared On Every Season Of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

  Striving for medical authenticity, the showrunners of Grey’s Anatomy sought to cast real-life surgical nurses in the first season of the series for the purpose of realistically assisting their actors during tough surgery scenes. One such nurse, Kathy C. An, was such a hit with the cast that some began watching her work on actual open-heart surgeries to study for their roles - and, so, she kept being brought back.

  As Bokhee, An has appeared in every single one of Grey’s 17 seasons. Winning fans at home through her expressive reactions, An would eventually be given the odd speaking line, including a handful in her native Korean. And audiences aren’t the only ones enamored with her performances; Sandra Oh once tweeted, “The nurse in that scene, Bokhee, is a real surgical nurse. She’s been with us since the beginning. She’s like my 2nd mom, she’s the best.”
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  (#5) Andy Buckley

  • 58

  Like many, Andy Buckley harbored dreams of a career as an actor when he was younger. Although he made it further than most - studying improv and sketch comedy at the Groundlings Theatre & School alongside Melissa McCarthy and Dax Shephard - like many, Buckley eventually had to give up on his dream and get a “real job” after winning nothing but bit roles for years. With a degree in hand from Stanford University, Buckley became a wealth management advisor at Merrill Lynch.

  Then, years later, an acquaintance called Buckley out of the blue and told him The Office was looking to cast someone as Dunder Mifflin’s chief financial officer, and that Buckley might be perfect for the part, given his day job as a stockbroker.

  Buckley gave it a chance, auditioning for writer and producer Michael Schur. As Buckley later recalled on the Office Ladies podcast, "I do the first scene and then the second scene. And Michael said 'Now, you’re like some kind of financial guy, right?' ...I figured that’s why I got hired."

  As David Wallace, Buckley would go on to appear in 37 episodes, becoming a fan favorite due to his trademark managerial warmth. Since then, Buckley has appeared in countless shows and blockbuster films - and acting now qualifies as his real job. 
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  (#6) Felicia Pearson

  • 43

  By the time Felicia “Snoop” Pearson was discovered by actor Michael K. Williams, who starred as Omar Little in The Wire, she’d already lived a life worthy of an HBO drama. Born addicted to crack, Pearson was placed into foster care and was out of school and selling drugs by 12. Starting at the age of 14, Pearson was incarcerated on a second-degree murder charge and served five years.

  While in prison, Pearson earned a GED and attempted to turn her life around, but she found it difficult to hold down a job with her offender record. But in 2004, Pearson encountered Williams in a Baltimore bar, grabbed him by the lapels, and told him, “You ain't going to believe this, but I'm a girl.”

  Williams was immediately enamored with the young ruffian and immediately thought she might be a natural fit for The Wire. He arranged for an audition, which Pearson missed due to getting caught up in an stolen car caper. But she made it to the set eventually, and a minor assassin character - also named Felicia “Snoop” Pearson - was created for her to play. The audience response was so strong that Snoop became a recurring character, and the rest is history, with Stephen King once referring to Pearson as “perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series.”
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  (#7) Heather Morris

  By age 20, Heather Morris had already experienced about as much success as a dancer as she possibly could. Touring as a backup dancer for Beyonce, Morris became one of three official “Single Ladies” dancers. When she was hired to teach the iconic dance to the cast and crew of Glee, Morris had been taking acting classes and attempting to branch out - but then serendipity struck.

  The showrunners of Glee took a liking to Morris and offered her a background role as a cheerleader at William McKinley High. From there, she improvised her way into a few onscreen one-liners, and by Season 2, her Brittany S. Pierce, a ditz with a heart of gold, was added to the main cast. As Morris recalled to Vulture:

  Basically, I was cast to play a third addition to the Cheerios - literally just a [mean] cheerleader, nothing involved, just “you’re going to be part of this trio with Quinn and Santana.” I had gotten a couple lines in the beginning, though I didn’t have a storyline, and they’d mostly hired me to be a dancer in the glee-club scenes.
  
  I was in a scene with Mark Salling and Jane Lynch, this scene in Sue’s office when she’s trying to recruit us to be in her own rival glee club, when she was ranting on about how I was this Dutch girl from the red-light district, and he was this Jewish guy, and [creator] Ryan Murphy was watching and I heard this hysterical laughing. He walks in, like, “Heather Morris: You looked so confused, and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.” It was literally from that moment on, it just kept getting worse and worse, the dumb things I was saying.

  And while the one-liners may have gotten worse and worse, Morris’s acting certainly did not - she’s remained active ever since Glee wrapped up, and it is now her full-time career. 
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  (#8) Frank Silva

  • Dec. at 44 (1950-1995)

  Twin Peaks was an odd show in that it began with a supernatural murder mystery and then almost immediately cast it aside to tug at a dozen other more interesting threads in the titular town. Still, the mystery is eventually solved, and the culprit, Bob, does prove integral to the overall plot - especially at the end of Season 2, when he takes over the body of protagonist Dale Cooper moments before the series was cancelled for 26 years.

  The actor who portrayed Bob was Frank Silva, a graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in lighting design who had worked as a set dresser on films like Dune with David Lynch previously, but who had only dabbled in acting with no credited roles. When Lynch first launched the series, he had no idea who Laura Palmer’s killer was going to be. Then he filmed a scene in which Laura’s mother glimpses some unknown something in the mirror - only to find that the camera had caught Silva’s face in the background reflection. As Silva recounted:

  I hadn't done film work before. I had been an actor years ago, basically I was a theatre major. But I hadn't done film, so it was a whole different ball game, but I also did not expect this to go anywhere, you know, I expected this to like, be some sort of lark David was doing and wasn't going to go anywhere. I thought well, it might be able to go. We had no idea it would be a series at that point either. So, I had no idea if this character was going to be around.

  Lynch loved the imagery and decided right then and there Silva would play Bob, and that Bob would be revealed as the entity behind the show’s inciting incident. Silva went on to appear in 11 episodes across two seasons of Twin Peaks and in the prequel/sequel film Fire Walk With Me. He passed in 1995 at the age of 44 before he had the chance to branch out from the role. 
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  (#9) Joe Walsh

  • 75

  Guitarist, singer, songwriter, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Joe Walsh first appeared as himself on The Drew Carey Show in the musical-themed Season 2 episode “Drewstock,” an episode that also featured Little Richard and long-time Cleveland mayor Michael R. White. It made plenty of sense at the time, given the episode’s plot, but then Walsh just kept showing up.

  Starting with Season 4’s “In Ramada Da Vida,” Walsh began appearing as Ed, a guitarist hired by Drew and his pals to complete their hotel-lobby-playing jam band, the Horndogs - but only after they’d already tried out Slash, Lisa Loeb, Joey Ramone, and a half-dozen other notables. He even got to feature heavily in an emotional scene in which Drew left the band, only to be replaced by Weird Al Yankovic. Walsh continued to make sparing appearances until Season 6, becoming the sort of cult cameo classic that can only really exist in the sitcom format. Even in a show known for its musical guests, “The Clown Prince of Rock” stood out by taking on another role entirely and running with it. 
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  (#10) Aziz Ansari

  • 40

  When Aziz Ansari set about casting the parents of Dev, a protagonist based heavily on himself from the semi-autobiographical series Master of None, he didn’t have to get all that creative - Ansari simply cast his own real-life parents, neither of whom had acted before. Fatima and Shoukath’s sole acting credits are for the roles of Ramesh and Nisha, and though they stepped in with even more natural grace than was expected, both they and Aziz had wholesome ulterior motives when they made the decision to work together.

  As he wrote on Tumblr of all places:

  Tonight after we did Colbert together, [Shoukath] said: "This is all fun and I liked acting in the show, but I really just did it so I could spend more time with you." I almost instantly collapsed into tears at the thought of how much this person cares about me and took care of me and gave me everything to give me the amazing life I have.
  
  I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to the Parents episode of our show. What’s strange is doing that episode and working with my parents has increased the quality of my relationship to my parents IN MY REAL LIFE. In reality, I haven’t always had the best, most open relationship with my parents because we are weirdly closed off emotionally sometimes. But we are getting better.
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  (#11) Polly Lou Livingston

  When Pendleton Ward cast his mother’s friend Polly Lou Livingston for her first acting role in an episode of Random! Cartoons, she was already 80 years old - but that didn’t mean she was new to the arts. Described as a San Antonio icon, Livingston was a famed local artist who sat on the Dean’s Council of Fine Arts and the Gala Committee for the Performing Arts at the University of Texas. Her unique singsong Texan drawl and kind nature made Ward feel as though she was a perfect fit for voice acting.

  A year later, as Ward was putting together his masterpiece, Adventure Time with Finn & Jake, he cast Livingston as the voice of Tree Trunks, an elderly miniature elephant. Following Livingston’s passing in early 2021, showrunner Adam Muto reminisced, “She had a wonderful and unmistakable voice and was always a joy to have in recording sessions. Polly Lou really liked playing TT, and she'll be sorely missed.”
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  (#12) Maya Erskine

  Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle based Pen15, a series in which they play 13-year-old versions of themselves alongside actual teenage actors, heavily on their own experiences growing up. So, when it came time to cast the mother of Maya Ishii-Peters, Erskine knew there was only one person capable of bringing the required authenticity to the screen: her actual mother, Mutsuko Erskine. Prior to this, Mutsuko had never acted before and considered it strictly outside of her wheelhouse. As she recalled to Vulture:

  They had to make a film so that they can sell the PEN15 [idea] to networks. Maya came to my house one day and said, “Mom, would you like to audition for the role of Mother?” I said, “No, you know I can’t act.” She said, “We need someone who can speak Japanese as well as English.” So I said, “Well, that I can do.” So she filmed me on her iPhone and they thought I was okay. I got involved in a test-case, 15-minute film.
  
  I was really hopeful for their success. They were trying so hard. I’d like to help them out whatever I could. So, yeah, I thought it was just one time and I was really surprised when it was picked up. Maya said, “Well, Mom, you’re going to be in it.” I was really happy for them first, surprised for myself [second]. 

  Mutsuko proved to be a natural, even as her role expanded into a genuinely original character instead of an exaggerated pastiche of herself,  and she’s even used the experience to reflect on Japanese American stereotypes and the part they have played in her own life. Despite the success, she’s stuck to Pen15 thus far and seems to have no desire to act elsewhere. 

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