Thirty years before he became famous for playing an SS officer in Inglourious Basterds, Christoph Waltz starred as a (rather incompetent) aspiring criminal on the German television show Parole Chicago. After the show aired 13 episodes in 1979, Waltz continued to work in European film and TV before becoming an integral member of Quentin Tarantino’s stable of actors and earning a second Oscar nomination for Django Unchained.
The Master star appeared in Law & Order in 1991 in what was among his first big credits after graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 1989.
Six years before his Oscar-winning turn in The Godfather Part II, Robert De Niro played a neurotic peeping tom in Brian De Palma’s Greetings. The 1968 film satirized the Vietnam War and followed three men who wanted to avoid being drafted — at any cost. De Niro went on to win two Oscars and receive seven nominations, including his nom this awards season for Silver Linings Playbook.
Argo's Alan Arkin invaded America in the 1966 Cold War satire The Russians Are Coming. His character, Lt. Rozanov, is an officer aboard a Soviet submarine that gets stranded in New England. The film launched Arkin to stardom and received a best picture Oscar nomination. It took home the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy.
Tommy Lee Jones' small role in Love Story (1970) helped start his long career, which most recently included an Oscar nomination for his turn as Thaddeus Stevens in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln.
Before her Oscar-nominated turn as Mary Todd Lincoln, Sally Field was Gidget, a carefree Southern California teenager with a healthy interest in boys and the beach. Gidget ran for one season from 1965-66.
Anne Hathaway rose to prominence as a Disney darling in The Princess Diaries and its sequel. In addition to co-hosting the 83rd Academy Awards with James Franco, she earned a best actress nomination for 2008’s Rachel Getting Married and is nominated this year for Les Miserables.
Amour’s Emmanuelle Riva, the oldest best actress nominee in Oscars history, began her career in striking fashion in the French classic Hiroshima mon amour. The film largely consists of dialogue between a French woman (Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) who discuss their failed relationship and the nature of memory. It was praised for its use of flashbacks and nonlinear storytelling and earned Riva a BAFTA nomination.
Helen Hunt played daughter to William Shatner in the 1973 ABC made-for-TV film Pioneer Woman, about a 19th century family who must survive after its patriarch dies. Hunt, a best supporting actress nominee for The Sessions, won an Oscar for 1997’s As Good as It Gets.
Amy Adams made her big-screen debut in the 1999 mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous (pictured far left) and was introduced to an even larger audience when Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can came out three years later. She is nominated this year for her role in The Master, her fourth Oscar nom.
Before he was considered among the great actors of his generation, Daniel Day-Lewis (nominated for Lincoln) enjoyed a few seconds of screen time in Sunday Bloody Sunday, a 1971 film in which he played a vandal. He was just 14 at the time.
Things didn’t turn out well for Denzel Washington’s short-lived character in Death Wish. The actor, nominated this year for Flight, played one in a group of criminals who is gunned down by Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey. Washington’s role was uncredited in the 1974 revenge classic, and it wasn't until 1981's Carbon Copy that he returned to the big screen.
Five years before moviegoers got to know him as Wolverine in X-Men, Hugh Jackman starred in the Australian TV show Correlli, about a prison psychologist. Jackman played a convict who becomes romantically involved with a mental health professional (his future wife, Deborra-Lee Furness) during the show's one and only season, which was broadcast in 1995. He is nominated this year for best actor for Les Miserables.
Bradley Cooper played a hot date for Sarah Jessica Parker in a 1999 episode of HBO’s Sex and the City. Unfortunately, he had to learn how to drive a stick shift for the part, and that didn’t go so well on the day of the shoot. “I thought it went well when I learned on a Volkswagen, but then I was driving a 1962 Porsche convertible where the clutch was as if I was driving a bus,” he said in an interview last year. Cooper is nominated for best actor for Silver Linings Playbook.
Joaquin Phoenix mastered his guest spot on Murder, She Wrote in 1984. Phoenix's sister, Summer Phoenix, also appeared in the episode of Angela Lansbury's classic show. He is nominated for The Master this year.
Naomi Watts had a recurring role on the Australian sitcom Hey Dad…!, about a widower raising his children alone. Watts played the girlfriend of one of the sons, who is a little too interested in taking things to the next level with Watts' character. She is nominated this year for The Impossible.
Jessica Chastain hunted the world's most infamous person in Zero Dark Thirty, for which she is Oscar-nominated this year, but in a 2004 episode of Veronica Mars, her character was nowhere to be found. The episode saw Chastain play a pregnant neighbor of Veronica (Kristen Bell) who vanishes without a trace. Amanda Seyfried also guest-starred.
Another Oscar nominee who got her start in Australian entertainment, Silver Linings Playbook's Jacki Weaver made her film debut in Stork. The 1971 Aussie comedy centered on an extremely tall and awkward young man who falls in love with Weaver's character.
Jennifer Lawrence, nominated for Silver Linings Playbook, was 16 when her episode of Cold Case aired on CBS. The 2007 episode centered on a car with a missing woman's remains being found at the bottom of a lake. Lawrence played the daughter of the woman, who had been down on her luck before her death. Three years later, Lawrence received acclaim for Winter's Bone, which earned her an Oscar nomination.
Adele's first single, "Hometown Glory," was released without the fanfare that would surround later tracks from the British singer-songwriter. The song from her 2007 debut album, 19, was featured on the British TV show Skins, helping it reenter the charts there. Adele's James Bond theme song "Skyfall" earned her an Oscar nomination this year.