Which TV series launched the largest number of acting careers?
Which TV drama series launched the largest number of successful TV and film careers? You might think it was one of the great American TV dramas. “The Sopranos”, perhaps. Maybe it was “The Wire” or “Breaking Bad”. But you’d be wrong.
“The Sopranos” was the first time many of us came across James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) but, tragically, he died just six years after the series finished. More surprisingly, his most memorable film appearance after “The Sopranos” was the movie, “Killing Them Softly” with Gandolfini and Brad Pitt as two hit-men. Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano) went on to play the title role in another hit TV show, Nurse Jackie (80 episodes, 2009-15) and received almost fifty nominations for leading acting performances for these two parts alone. But others struggled to break through to bigger roles.
“Breaking Bad” launched the lead actor, Bryan Cranston (Walter White), who went on to play the title role in “Trumbo” (2015). He also had successful runs on the stage as LBJ in “All the Way” and Howard Beale in “Network”. And many of the key actors in “Breaking Bad” have reappeared in Vince Gilligan’s prequel, “Better Call Saul” (2015), especially Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman), who also acted in the TV series, “Fargo”.
“ER” was perhaps the greatest hit of all. Created by Michael Crichton, it ran on NBC from 1994 to 2009, with a total of 331 episodes over 15 seasons. But the only major careers it launched were George Clooney and Julianna Margulies (Nurse Carol Hathaway), who starred as Alicia Florrick in the BBS legal drama, “The Good Wife” (2009-16), for which she won two Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe Award.
One of the series that launched a large number of careers was David Simon’s “The Wire” (5 seasons, 2002-08), set in Baltimore, which gave breakthrough roles to two British actors, Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty) and Idris Elba (Stringer Bell) and the American actor, Wendell Pierce. He went on to star as Antoine Batiste in “Treme”, Robert Zane in “Suits” and delivered an award-winning performance as Willy Loman at the Young Vic).
“Homeland” confirmed that Mandy Patinkin (Saul Berenson) and F. Murray Abraham (Dar Adal) were great actors — but they were already celebrated in the 1980s. Abraham won an Academy Award as Salieri in “Amadeus” (1984) while Patinkin played the swordsman, Inigo Montoya in “The Princess Bride” (1987). Claire Danes (Carrie Mathison) already made her film debut in “Little Women” (1994) and played Juliet in Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” (1996). Even Damian Lewis (Brody) had already appeared in Spielberg’s “Band of Brothers” and as Soames Forsyte in ITV’s remake of “The Forsyte Saga”, both long before “Homeland”.
But there was one series that launched more careers than any of these acclaimed American shows. That was Peter Flannery’s 1990s BBC drama, “Our Friends in the North”, which followed four friends over thirty years, from 1964 to 1995. The friends were played by Christopher Eccleston (“Doctor Who”, “Clocking Off”, “The Second Coming”, “Shallow Grave”), Gina McKee (Stephen Poliakoff’s “The Lost Prince”, Irene in “The Forsyte Saga”, Bella in “Notting Hill”), Mark Strong (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, “Zero Dark Thirty”, winner of an Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role in “A View from the Bridge”). Most famous of all, it launched the career of Daniel Craig, the current James Bond.
Two things emerge from this list. First, that a low-budget, one-off BBC drama series can launch more big careers than even the biggest US prime time shows. Second, and more interestingly, how many British actors, including BAME actors, found fame in American TV series: Idris Elba and Dominic West in “The Wire”, Alex Kingston (Dr. Corday) in “ER”, Archie Panjabi (Kalinda Sharma) in “The Good Wife”, Matthew Rhys as a Soviet undercover agent in “The Americans”, Ian McShane in “Deadwood”, Hugh Laurie in “House” and David Harewood in “Homeland”.
