Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/9-actors-whose-first-screen-role-was-in-a-tv-commercial/
Most people picture a big audition and a breakout film when they think about how an actor gets started. For plenty of well known names, the real beginning was much smaller: thirty seconds of airtime selling soap, burgers, or sunscreen.
Commercials have long worked as a quiet training ground, especially for child performers. Here are nine actors whose earliest time on screen came through an ad.
Jodie Foster
Foster made her first onscreen appearance in a Coppertone sunscreen ad when she was just 3 years old. It wasn’t even the plan for her. She was only at the shoot with her older brother Buddy, but she stood out enough to land the Coppertone girl spot.
Her acting debut in a series came a few years later. That was the sitcom Mayberry R.F.D., followed by her film debut in Disney’s Napoleon and Samantha in 1972. So the sunscreen ad really was the first rung on a very long ladder.
Drew Barrymore
Barrymore comes from a famous acting family, yet her own screen start was a commercial. It is widely reported that she appeared in a dog food ad when she was only about 11 months old. That makes her one of the youngest performers on any list like this.
The ad came years before her big film breakthrough in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. Details of the original spot are mostly told through later interviews and profiles, so the exact brand wording varies a little between accounts.
Brooke…
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-10-15 06:28:00
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