 Starring: George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle, Alex KingstonDirector: Various Year Of Release: 1994-2009 Plot: Set in the busy Emergency Room of a County Hospital in Chicago, ER follows the doctors and nurses as they deal with an endless parade of stabbing and gunshot wounds, as well as trying to balance with their own complicated personal lives. |
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The TV series ER is renowned for a few things, not least launching the career of George Clooney. It was also well known for its famous guest stars, with everyone from Sally Field (who even won an Emmy for her role in the series) to Ray Liotta dropping by the Emergency Room at one time or another.
However a series that runs for 15 years and which needs an ever revolving cast of new people with terrible ailments is also bound to have a few guest stars that nobody had heard of at the time, but who become much bigger names in later years.
So take a look below to see who popped into the ER for a guest appearance, before anyone really knew who they were…
Lucy Liu – Mei-Sun Leow (3 episodes in Season 2)
Before Ally McBeal, Charlies Angels and Kung Fu Panda, Lucy Liu was having to do what most other Asian-American actors have to do to get by in Hollywood, playing foreigners who dont understand much English. In this case she was immigrant Mei-Sun Leow, the mother of a little boy who with AIDS, and who Doug Ross thinks isnt getting the right treatment. However while the doctor goes after his cause with much fervour, there may be nothing he can do to save the child.
Kirsten Dunst – Charlie Chiemienga (5 episodes in Seasons 3 & 4)
Next up are a couple of people who were known, but became far bigger names after ER. Kirsten Dunst had already appeared in the likes of Interview With A Vampire, but was a few years off Spider-man and Eternal Sunshine when she played a brief recurring role as a tearaway teen prostitute in ER, who more or less attaches herself to Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney). However while his initial desperation to get rid of her changes into wanting to help her, Charlies constant lies and rebellion get in the way.
Ewan McGregor – Duncan Stewart (1 episode in Season 3)
McGregor had become a bit of a name thanks to Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, but hadnt yet really broken into Hollywood when he took the role of an armed robber in a special ER episode in Season 3. Nearly the whole thing takes place inside a convenience store that McGregor and his friend try to rob. Things gets out of hand when one of the robbers is shot and they then take everyone inside hostage, including ER nurse Carol Hathaway (Juliana Marguilies).
Half The Cast Of CSI – Seasons 2-4
When they were casting the main characters for TVs CSI, you get the impression they didnt so much audition people as watch the previous couple of seasons of ER and grab people from there. In the years between ER starting and CSI showing up, Marg Helgenberger (CSIs Catherine Willows) played a woman dating Doug Rosss father, but who then gets involved with Doug himself, in five episodes of ER, George Eads (CSIs Nick Stokes) was a paramedic in three episodes, while Jorja Fox (CSIs Sara Sidle) was pretty much a series regular, appearing in 33 episodes as doctor Maggie Doyle, who eventually came foul of the misogynistic, homophobic Dr. Ray Romano.
Emile Hirsch – Chad Kottmeir (2 episode in Season 6)
There are a fair few ex-child actors who appeared in ER in the earliest stages of their career, who have become much better known since they grew up and grabbed the attention of Hollywood. Oddly though, four of them all turned up within a few episodes of each other in Season 6. One of these is Emile Hirsch, who at the age of 14 appeared in two episodes of the medical show, playing a teen who comes into the ER, with the staff initially thinking the problem is that he has a hysterical mother whos imagining hes on drugs, but it turns out hes a full-blown alcoholic. He returns a couple of episodes later, with Dr. Cleo Finch trying with difficulty to get him into a treatment facility, which proves tougher than she imagines.
Shia Labeouf – Marty Dorset (1 episode in Season 6)
Only a couple episodes after Emile Hirsch made his appearances in ER, Shia Labeouf showed up. Labeouf was only a few months away from his first taste of real fame with the Disney Channel show Even Stevens, but still a few years from the likes of Disturbia and Indiana Jones. At the time he was just a jobbing child actor, who got a role in ER playing a wheelchair-bound boy with muscular dystrophy, whos just hitting puberty and railing against the confines of his disease and how people treat him.
Anton Yelchin – Robbie Edelstein (1 episode in Season 6)
Now known as Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation, Chekov in Star Trek, and as one of the hottest rising stars in Hollywood, one of Anton Yelchins very first jobs on screen was in ER (in the very next episode after Labeoufs). Giving a performance that is far too good for an 11-year-old, and which makes you realise how talented hes been from a young age, he plays a young boy whose parents are rushed to hospital after a car crash, but cant be saved. The scene where he and his sister are told the news is impressively played by such a young actor.
David Krumholtz – Paul Sobricki (3 episodes, Seasons 6 & 8)
Another actor whod had a bit of fame before ER in the likes of 10 Things I Hate About You and The Santa Clause, Krumholtz has gone onto far greater fame as the lead character in the TV show Num3rs and for being the member of the Seth Roger brigade who doesnt get as big roles in their films as he was initially supposed to. He may not be on the a-list, but hes worth mentioning here as he had a fairly pivotal role, playing an undiagnosed schizophrenic whose delusions cause him to stab medical student Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin) to death, and seriously wound ER mainstay Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle), in a storyline that changed the show for several years. The stabbing incidentally took place in the same episode that featured Anton Yelchin.
Dakota Fanning – Delia Chandler (1 episode in Season 6)
Everyones got to start somewhere, and even though it seems as if Dakota Fanning has been well known since she was a foetus, there was actually a time before she was famous, and she was getting her very first on-screen role. That role was in ER, with a six-year-old Dakota playing Delia Chandler, a young girl in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, but who cant get one because her fathers ex-wife wont allow Delias half-sister to be screened, because she hates he ex so much. Whod have thought back then that 10 years later shed be a super-vampire in Twilight?
Zac Efron – Bobby Neville (1 episode in Season 10)
Although few people had heard of him before High School Musical, theres a decent chance you saw Zac Efron in something beforehand, as he popped up in the likes of CSI: Miami, NCIS, Firefly and ER before his breakthrough role. ER was one of his first TV jobs, but he didnt exactly have a huge amount to do, getting dumped out of car screaming that hed been shot, before being declared dead about five minutes later.
A Few More Notable Before-They-Were-Famous ER Guest Stars:
Julie Bowen Before she became the star of Boston Legal and the hit TV show Modern Family, Julie Bowen was insurance saleswoman Roxanne Please, who dated John Carter in nine episodes of Season 5 of ER.
Mariska Hargitay In 1997, Mariska Hargitay was best known as the daughter of Jayne Mansfield, rather than the Emmy and Golden Globe winning star of Law & Order: SVU. However it was that year she played reception Cynthia Hooper in 13 episodes of ER, where she ended up dating Dr. Greene.
Mena Suvari Three years before American Pie and American Beauty, Mena Suvari got one of her very first jobs in a third season episode of ER.
Kristin Davis A couple years before Sex & The City, Kristin Davis had a guest spot midway through Season 1 of ER.
Jared Padalecki I didnt include Padalecki in the main list, because although it was long before Supernatural that he made his Season 7 ER appearance, he was already known for his recurring role in Gilmore Girls. Incidentally, in ER his father was played by James Belushi.
Taraji P. Henson Shes now the Oscar nominated star in Benjamin Button, but back in Seasons 4 & 5 of ER, she was so unknown she had two completely different roles in different episodes, and nobody noticed.
Daniel Dae Kim Just before he crashed onto the Island in Lost as Korean survivor Jin Kwon, Dae Kim was playing a social worker in four episodes of Season 10 of ER.
Elizabeth Mitchell Another Lost cast member (she played Juliet Burke in the castaway show), Mitchell was Dr. Kim Legaspi in 14 Season 7 episodes. She was Dr. Kerry Weavers first girlfriend, but left her and the hospital behind when Kerry refused to back her up.
Jake Lloyd Even before he was annoying little Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace, Lloyd had already appeared in ER, playing the son of a prostitute in Season 2.
Omar Epps He may now be a successful doctor alongside Hugh Laurie in House, but in the early days of ER, he was Dr. Dennis Gant, who just graduated and struggled with his chosen profession and became suicidal.
TIM ISAAC
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