When casting for the Thor franchise, the producers needed to find someone who looks like a god to play a god. Then they found Chris Hemsworth and all was well with the world. Before becoming widely known as Thor, the god of thunder, Hemsworth has had a score of other roles. One such role was that of Kim Hyde in the Australian soap opera Home and Away.
He played that role for nearly 200 episodes before turning to film and other endeavors. Those fine Hemsworth genes, as well as a talent for acting, run in the family, as Chris’s two brothers are also not bad to look at and have on-screen careers.
Lisa Rinna
Lisa Rinna and her pouty lips are a soap opera staple. She is known to have played in Days of Our Lives and Melrose Place. Her most recent on-screen activity is being herself in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
She met her husband, Harry Hamlin, almost 30 years ago. It was love at first sight. He first laid eyes on her when she worked as an eyeglasses clerk. He calls their movie star marriage a miracle, she says they’re “soulmates” because they’re crazy about each other, and he says they never get tired of each other’s stories. Now is when you say ’aww’.
Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe's portrayal of Maximus the gladiator won him an Academy Award for Best Actor. This film is what made him world-famous, but he played in other films and TV shows before that. One of his earlier works was a teeny-tiny part in the Australian soap opera The Young Doctors. Crowe later appeared in 'Body of Lies', where he played a CIA agent. For the part, and as per Ridley Scott's request, Crowe had to gain weight to portray the heavy, sedentary Ed Hoffman, which meant Crowe had to give up his gladiator body.
Crowe claimed that he just "decided to eat whatever he wanted'', and made sure he had the most sedentary lifestyle possible. In an interview with E! News, the former gladiator rightly said, “If you want to put on weight, you just elect to live a sedentary lifestyle,”. That definitely sounds like a diet plan we can get behind.
Eva Longoria
Among the most vivacious Latinas that Hollywood has to offer is Eva Longoria. It’s insane that she’s in her 40s! Eva has proven herself to be a successful businesswoman and an actress of worth who keeps the big bucks coming in.
Apart from being an actress, she’s now a producer as well. In 2017, she brought some of her best acting skills to the table through the role of Margot Beste-Chetwynde in the miniseries Decline and Fall, released in 2017, and we loved it. But long before that, Longoria has appeared in both General Hospital and The Young and the Restless.
Hayden Panettiere
Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere started acting as a child actress, and much of her screen time as a kid was in soap operas. She spent three years on the set of One Life to Live playing little Sarah Roberts, but that doesn't conclude her entire soap opera career.
Her next soap opera part was a two-year-long stint as Lizzie Spaulding in Guiding Light. She then started focusing on a film career and went back to TV, though she hasn't been seen in another soap opera since.