Every actor has to start somewhere, and for dozens of soon-to-be stars that somewhere was in an episode of ‘Seinfeld.’
ByDaniel Bettridge|Mar 12, 2024, 1:05 PM EDT
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Originally titled The Seinfeld Chronicles, Seinfeld went from inauspicious origins to become one of the most iconic TV shows of all time, turning its stars into household names. But Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards weren’t the only actors to get their break on the show about nothing. These now-familiar faces appeared in bit parts on the series before making it big.
1. Peter Krause // Season 3, Episode 18
On Seinfeld: Before he was spotted driving a hearse on Six Feet Under, Peter Krause played a white supremacist who winds up riding in a limo with Jerry and the gang.
Since Seinfeld: He’s gone on to become a bonafide leading man, most recently on Parenthood.
2. Jeremy Piven // Season 4, Episode 23
On Seinfeld: In one of the series’ more meta moments, Piven plays an actor who auditions for the part of George in “The Pilot.”
Since Seinfeld: Piven has had a long career in TV and film since Seinfeld, but his name is now synonymous with irate super agent Ari Gold from HBO’s Entourage.
3. Lauren Graham // Season 8, Episode 20
On Seinfeld: She plays Jerry’s speed-dial ranking girlfriend.
Since Seinfeld: A few years after getting dumped by Jerry, Graham landed her most famous role as Lorelai Gilmore on the much-loved Gilmore Girls. She’s currently on Parenthood, where she plays Peter Krause’s sister.
4. Patton Oswalt // Season 6, Episode 5
On Seinfeld: A fellow stalwart of the mid-nineties stand-up circuit, Patton Oswalt made his first-ever TV appearance as a video store clerk on this episode of Seinfeld.
Since Seinfeld: Oswalt’s career now spans TV, movies, stand-up specials, books, and even video games.
5. Brad Garrett // Season 7, Episode 22
On Seinfeld: Garrett had a successful stand-up career and had even performed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson before his Seinfeld debut, where he played Tony, the mechanic who was deeply dedicated to his craft.
Since Seinfeld: Garrett has lent his dulcet tones to animated hits like Tangled and Finding Nemo, but he’s perhaps most recognized for his role on Everybody Loves Raymond.
6. Michael Chiklis // Season 3, Episode 10
On Seinfeld: In the early ’90s Chiklis was a serial guest-star of shows including Miami Vice, L.A. Law and of course Seinfeld, where he played a friend who lives way out on Long Island.
Since Seinfeld: The same year as his Seinfeld appearance, Chiklis landed his first big role in The Commish, which ran until 1996 on NBC. Since then he’s found fame and critical acclaim on The Shield and starred in blockbusters like Fantastic Four.
7. Jane Leeves // Season 4, Episode 10
On Seinfeld: Pre-Frasier Jane Leeves played the titular virgin in “The Virgin” who eventually leaves Jerry for John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Since Seinfeld: Leeves clearly impressed the NBC brass — she was cast as Daphne on Fraiser just months after “The Virgin” first aired.
8. Jon Favreau // Season 5, Episode 20
On Seinfeld: Favreau played Eric the Clown, the entertainer at a kids’ party that was interrupted by a fire — and George’s subsequent cowardly escape.
Since Seinfeld: Favreau turned his own struggles into the surprise hit Swingers, a breakout moment that led to a successful career as an actor, writer, and director.
9. Debra Messing // 8, Episode 19
On Seinfeld: Messing played Jerry’s date in two episodes of Seinfeld, including classic “The Yada Yada,” where she’s revealed to be a closet racist.
Since Seinfeld: Just a few months after her final outing on Seinfeld, messing would go on to become one of the stars of her own groundbreaking sitcom, Will & Grace.
10. Christine Taylor // Season 8, Episode 14
On Seinfeld: Taylor made an early appearance on Seinfeld as one of Jerry’s many flames.
Since Seinfeld: She’s starred in hits including Zoolander and Dodgeball. In 2000, she married Ben Stiller, whose dad Jerry starred on Seinfeld as George’s father, Frank Costanza.
11. Courteney Cox // Season 5, Episode 17
On Seinfeld: Courteney Cox played Meryl, a girlfriend who masquerades as Jerry’s wife in order to share his dry cleaning discount.
Since Seinfeld: Cox will always be known for playing Monica during Friends’ decade-long stint next to Seinfeld on Thursday nights.
12. Teri Hatcher // Season 4, Episode 19
On Seinfeld: The same year that she got her big break opposite Dean Cain in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Teri Hatcher appeared as Jerry’s girlfriend Sidra, who Elaine thought had fake breasts. Her oft-quoted retort, “They’re real and they’re spectacular,” told Jerry all he needed to know after it was too late.
Since Seinfeld: Alongside her aforementioned turn as Lois Lane, Hatcher starred as a Bond girl in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies before returning to the small screen on ABC’s Desperate Housewives.
13. Marcia Cross // Season 9, Episode 7
On Seinfeld: Marcia played a life-saving dermatologist who Jerry dismissed as “Pimple Popper M.D.”
Since Seinfeld: Cross appeared on shows like Boy Meets World, Ally McBeal, and Spin City before getting her big break on Desperate Housewives.
14. Drake Bell // Season 9, Episode 18
On Seinfeld: Bell featured in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment from this season 9 episode.
Since Seinfeld: A Nickelodeon star turned musician, Bell has come a long way since his Frogger skills (or lack thereof) landed him in George Costanza’s bad books.
15. Jennifer Coolidge // Season 5, Episode 9
On Seinfeld: Another notch on Seinfeld’s bedpost, Coolidge made one of her first TV appearances as the masseuse from this 1993 episode.
Since Seinfeld: Coolidge went on to forge a successful career on the silver screen where she’s perhaps best remembered as Stifler’s mom from the American Pie movies. She’s also still a regular on the sitcom circuit where she has a recurring role on CBS’s 2 Broke Girls.
16. Sarah Silverman // Season 8, Episode 12
On Seinfeld: Sarah Silverman popped up as Kramer’s girlfriend Emily whose “Jimmy legs” keep the K-Man up at night, eventually forcing the couple into separate beds.
Since Seinfeld: The sharp-tongued stand-up star has appeared in her own show, released an autobiography, and recently completed the circle by joining Jerry Seinfeld as a guest on his online series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
17. Denise Richards // Season 4, Episode 16
On Seinfeld: Playing the daughter of NBC’s head of programming, Richards’ low-cut top almost costs George and Jerry their sitcom in Seinfeld’s meta show-within-a-show fourth season.
Since Seinfeld: She continued to distract the Costanzas of the world in films like Starship Troopers, The World is Not Enough, and Wild Things.
18. Kristin Davis // Season 8, Episode 16
On Seinfeld: After unknowingly using a toothbrush that had fallen into the toilet, Davis’ character becomes another in an increasingly long line of Jerry’s ex-girlfriends.
Since Seinfeld: By the time she’d appeared on Seinfeld, Davis was already a familiar face to many armchair dwellers after a starring turn on teen drama Melrose Place. But it wasn’t until a year later that she’d truly hit the big time with her critically acclaimed performance as Sex and the City’s resident prude, Charlotte.
19. Rob Schneider // Season 7, Episode 18
On Seinfeld: Rob Schneider had actually opened for Jerry Seinfeld on the stand-up circuit before he appeared on the sitcom as Elaine’s partially deaf colleague in this season 7 episode.
Since Seinfeld: The former SNL cast member has gone on to star in comedies like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and Grown-Ups.
20. Amanda Peet // Season 8, Episode 22
On Seinfeld: Peet played Lanette, Jerry’s date to the Tonys whose male roommate catches Jerry totally off-guard.
Since Seinfeld: Peet’s resumé since Seinfeld includes starring roles in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Whole Nine Yards.
21. Chris Parnell // Season 9, Episode 1
On Seinfeld: After purposely sabotaging his own set, Seinfeld is dismayed to find out that two NBC executives (one played by Parnell) were in attendance and offer Jerry’s hack nemesis Kenny Bania a pilot.
Since Seinfeld: Parnell later joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and played the hapless Dr. Spaceman on 30 Rock (pictured).
22. James Spader // Season 9, Episode 9
On Seinfeld: This one’s definitely pushing it—Spader had already been in several notable films before he appeared on Seinfeld—but it was a great performance. He played a recovering alcoholic who, during Step Nine of Alcoholics Anonymous’ Twelve Steps, apologizes to everyone he has ever wronged—except George.
Since Seinfeld: Spader has been a mainstay in indie films and has won three Emmys for his TV work. His most recent gig has him starring as Raymond “Red” Reddington in NBC’s The Blacklist.
23. Anna Gunn // Season 5, Episode 3
On Seinfeld: George’s poor squinting ability leads to him mistakenly identifying Gunn’s Amy as a cheating girlfriend of Jerry’s.
Since Seinfeld: Anna Gunn made her name as an Emmy award-winning star of AMC’s Breaking Bad.
24. Bob Odenkirk // Season 8, Episode 9
On Seinfeld: Elaine’s almost-doctor boyfriend, Ben, who went to medical school but had not yet passed the licensing exam.
Since Seinfeld: Odenkirk would eventually join Gunn on Breaking Bad, and is currently filming the spinoff Better Call Saul. Before Seinfeld, he was a writer for SNL, and he was starring in Mr. Show when this episode first aired.
25. Bryan Cranston // Season 6, Episode 8
On Seinfeld: Cranston famously had a recurring role as Jerry’s dentist, the original re-gifter who converted to Judaism for the jokes. It seems that even then he was destined for great things. Seinfeld has said that he knew the actor would become a star the second he walked on set.
Since Seinfeld: He’s had a successful and varied career in both film and TV, but Cranston will always be remembered for his Emmy-winning turn as Walter White in Breaking Bad.
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The Real-Life Serial Killer That Might’ve Inspired ‘Dexter’s Dark Passenger
Brazil’s most notorious killer of killers has been called the real Dexter for years, but ‘Dexter’s’ creator tells a different origin story.
ByMatt Hoffman|Oct 30, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT
Back in July 2004, Jeff Lindsay introduced readers to Dexter Morgan, a Miami police blood-spatter analyst who kills only people who deserve it, egged on by a voice in his head he calls the “Dark Passenger.” Two years later, Showtime turned Darkly Dreaming Dexter into a hit series with Michael C. Hall.
Somewhere along the way, the internet decided Dexter had a real-life model: Pedro Rodrigues Filho, a Brazilian who claimed to have killed more than 100 people, most of them criminals. Entertainment sites now call him “the Brazilian Dexter,” and ScreenRant describes the show as loosely based on his crimes. No quote from Lindsay or the show’s producers backs that up, but the similarities are hard to miss.
The Boy Who Settled Scores
Filho was born in 1954 on a farm in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, with an injured skull: his father, he said, had kicked his pregnant mother during a fight. He told the magazine Época in 2003 that he first wanted to kill at 13, when he shoved an older cousin into a sugarcane press. A year later, after his father lost his job as a school guard over accusations that he was stealing school lunches, Filho shot the official who had fired him, then shot the guard he believed was the real thief. (Accounts disagree on who that first victim was: some Brazilian outlets say the mayor of his hometown, others the deputy mayor of Alfenas, also in Minas Gerais.)
He fled to Mogi das Cruzes, outside São Paulo, where he robbed drug dens, killed traffickers, and took over a dead drug boss’s business. When his pregnant girlfriend was shot dead, he went looking for the man who ordered it and, with four friends, hit a wedding party, leaving seven dead and 16 wounded, according to Época. He was arrested shortly after turning 18 and entered prison on May 24, 1973; in the van on the way there, he killed a fellow prisoner he said was a rapist.
Where the Comparison Holds
Like Dexter, Filho had a code, or said he did. He told Época he killed only people who were no good, and that he never killed children, women, or family men. He also had a father story to rival Harry Morgan’s, though a much darker one: Filho claimed he killed his own father in prison, in revenge for his mother’s stabbing, and chewed a piece of his heart. (Época noted that he gave a psychiatrist a completely different account of how his father died.)
The resemblance mostly ends there. Dexter’s code, as Mental Floss has laid out before, includes “don’t get caught,” and Filho spent roughly four decades behind bars, much of it bragging. He had “Mato por prazer” (“I kill for pleasure”) tattooed on his left arm. He claimed 47 victims inside prison alone, though Época found just 18 charges against him on file in 2003; by his death, Brazilian outlets counted 71 homicides on his record.
What Dexter’s Creator Actually Said
Lindsay has told his origin story many times, and it starts nowhere near Brazil: at a Kiwanis Club lunch where he sat at the head table waiting to speak and, as he told BookPage in 2005, “the idea just popped into my head that sometimes serial murder isn’t a bad thing.” He then built the character out of research: he collected books on sociopaths and murderers, interviewed psychologists and crime scene investigators, and got cop friends to turn him loose in their dead-files room. He also rejects the very label that made Filho famous: “Dexter’s not a vigilante,” he told Middlebury Magazine in 2011. “Vigilantes are trying to perform an act of justice. Dexter just likes to kill people.”
The Ending Dexter Survived
Filho walked out of prison in 2007, went back in 2011 for crimes committed during his sentence, and was released for good in 2018. Within months, he had reinvented himself as a YouTube personality who commented on crimes in the news and lectured about his past. On the morning of March 5, 2023, he was on a sidewalk in Mogi das Cruzes holding a small child when men in a black car opened fire, according to the news site G1. The child was unhurt, but according to the police report, one of the attackers stabbed Filho in the throat as he lay on the ground. He was 68.
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Dexter: New Blood: 7 Things We Know
20 Forgotten Reality TV Shows From the 2000s That Were Absolutely Wild
From ‘Flavor of Love’ to ‘The Swan,’ it’s hard to believe any of these shows were even green-lit.
ByPaul Anthony Jones|Nov 1, 2026, 2:00 PM EST
Considering that it ran for a full 15 years, from 2003 to 2018, reality show America’s Next Top Model was hardly without its fair share of controversies. From models being compelled to undergo cosmetic procedures to remain in the contest to fat-shaming scandals, perilous photoshoots, and even race-swapping makeovers, the show made quite a few questionable choices over its original run—so much so, in fact, that it sparked a recent three-part retrospective documentary on Netflix.
But Top Model was by no means alone in sparking controversy, as during the genre’s boom in the early 2000s, TV schedules were filled with increasingly provocative (and often downright bizarre) reality TV shows.
ARE YOU HOT?
One of the lowest-rated television shows on IMDB, as its title suggests Are You Hot? The Search for America’s Hottest People was a six-episode ABC reality show from 2003 in which hopeful contestants had their physical attractiveness judged (and often rudely critiqued) by a panel of experts, including supermodel Rachel Hunter and actor Lorenzo Lamas.
Talent and personality meant nothing, as the show was purely based on looks. Perhaps understandably, it was canceled after a single six-episode season.
ARMED & FAMOUS
A number of popular reality shows, from Dancing With the Stars to the UK iteration of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen, have been built around famous faces training in or learning how to do various new skills or occupations.
CBS reality show Armed & Famous perhaps took that one step too far in 2007 when five celebrities—including La Toya Jackson and Jack Osbourne—trained as reserve police officers in Indiana, eventually going out on patrol and officially graduating as gun-carrying officers. The show was pulled from schedules after just a handful of episodes.
BEAUTY AND THE GEEK
Female “beauties” and male “geeks” were paired up and made to take part in a string of challenges in Ashton Kutcher’s Beauty and the Geek, which originally ran on The WB from 2005 to 2008. Although cancelled in the U.S., the show has nonetheless sparked a franchise worldwide.
BIG!
The Discovery Channel’s Big! was a short-lived 2004 show in which teams of experts would be gigantic, yet fully functioning, versions of everyday gadgets and objects—from treadmills and vacuum cleaners, to cuckoo clocks and electric guitars.
THE BIGGEST LOSER
Initially broadcast on NBC from 2004–2016, The Biggest Loser was a ratings favorite at its peak, but questions were routinely raised over the controversial techniques involved (including an infamous accusation of illicit weight-loss drug taking that eventually led to an investigation by the LA County Sheriff).
CHANGING ROOMS
Discovery’s long-running Emmy-nominated home decoration show Trading Spaces was actually the U.S. version of the earlier British reality TV favorite Changing Rooms, which was first broadcast back in 1996, and ran until 2004.
Both versions followed the same straightforward premise: two sets of neighbors were given a small budget and 48 hours to entirely redecorate a room in one another’s houses. Not all the renovations quite went to plan, however, with a particularly memorable British episode in 2000 seeing a contestant’s prized £6,000 teapot collection smashed to pieces when some avant-garde suspended shelving collapsed.
FAT FAMILIES
Like a British version of The Biggest Loser, Sky’s Fat Families in 2010 saw straight-talking weight-loss guru Steve Miller spending 24 hours with an overweight family, before giving them the advice and routine needed to get them in shape. Miller’s no-nonsense, fat-shaming approach to encouraging the contestants caused controversy, however, and the show was ultimately cancelled after just two series.
FLAVOR OF LOVE
Surely one of the strangest dating shows of the 2000s, Flavor of Love, broadcast from 2006–2008, saw Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav playing The Bachelor with three seasons’ worth of romantic hopefuls vying to become his new girlfriend.
HOME ON THEIR OWN
Another short-lived British reality show, just two seasons of Home on Their Own were broadcast from 2002–03. The show involved children being given full control over the redecoration of their parents’ home, while their parents were temporarily moved out of the house while the work when on unsupervised.
What could possibly go wrong? Well, indoor slides, Narnia-themed bedrooms, and a voice-controled robotic toilet were among the kids’ many innovations.
I WANNA MARRY “HARRY”
The quotation marks are important in the title of this 2014 Fox reality show, which followed twelve romantically hopeful young women who were actively manipulated into believing they were competing to be Prince Harry’s next girlfriend. It was essentially a royal version of the next entry on this list.
JOE MILLIONAIRE
Three seasons of Joe Millionaire—in which a group of single women compete for the affections of an “average Joe” they are coerced into believing is a millionaire—were broadcast on Fox in 2003. Despite its controversial manipulation of its contestants, the show was revived in 2022.
MAKING THE BAND
A string of reality shows in the 2000s focused on launching new pop acts, but MTV’s Making the Band was perhaps the most controversial (not least due to the involvement of Sean “Diddy” Combs).
Chief among its issues were accusations of sexism, and increasingly bizarre and demeaning set of “challenges” that seemed to have little to do with getting into the music industry: One episode famously involved Diddy demanding the members of one prospective band go fetch him a slice of cheesecake, leading to them walking five miles to the closest store in the middle of the night.
PARENTAL CONTROL
MTV dating show Parental Control, which ran from 2006–2010, involved the contestants’ disapproving parents choosing two new potential dates for their son or daughter. If that doesn’t sound too controversial, the show’s twist was that the son or daughter were already attached, and their current partner was also involved in watching proceedings as their boyfriend or girlfriend actively dated two other people selected by their parents.
The show ended with the contestant deciding whether to remain with their current partner, or dump them and move on to one of the dates chosen by their parents.
PETE’S PA
The Pete in question here was new wave band Dead or Alive frontman, the late Pete Burns, who was best known for his global hit “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” in 1985. After taking part in a celebrity series of Big Brother in 2006, however, Burns became something of a reality TV stalwart, leading to a short-lived 2007 reality show on Living TV in the UK, Pete’s PA.
Like a low-budged version of The Apprentice, the show involved a group of hopefuls taking part in various challenges over the course of 10 weeks, competing against one another to become Burns’s new personal assistant. Unlike The Apprentice, however, the challenges were somewhat bizarre, and included everything from contestant’s having their tidiness of their bedrooms critiqued to team-building exercises involving retrieving ping pong balls from drainpipes.
ROCK OF LOVE WITH BRET MICHAELS
Like a hard rock version of The Flavor of Love, VH1 reality dating show Rock of Love, which ran for three seasons from 2007–09, saw Poison lead singer Bret Michaels look for a new girlfriend among a group of hopeful single women. The show was a ratings hit, but perhaps understandably had its fair share of bizarre and controversial moments.
ROOM RAIDERS
Plenty of reality dating shows put a spin on the blind date format, but Room Raiders’ was perhaps the strangest. Three contestants (originally Tulane students) vying for the attention of a fellow singleton have their dorm rooms inspected (or “raided”). He or she then makes a choice based on the contestants’ rooms which one they would like to date.
SUN, SEX AND SUSPICIOUS PARENTS
If you have memories from your first vacation without your parents that you’d really rather they knew nothing about, then this one will sound like a nightmare. The BBC’s Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents, first broadcast in 2011, saw teens and twentysomethings going on their first boys’ or girls’ holiday abroad with their friends, presuming that they’re far removed from the watchful eyes of their parents.
But in fact, their parents were on exactly the same vacation—and what’s more, they were privy to absolutely everything their kids were getting up to, thanks to hidden camera footage and covert recordings. Although a ratings favorite, the controversial show was branded “obnoxious” by some critics.
THE SWAN
Makeover shows were all the rage in the 2000s, but The Swan was arguably the most extreme. Far from merely updating contestants’ hair and wardrobe, the show went all out with self-proclaimed “ugly duckling” contestants often enduring a number of cosmetic and dental procedures in quick succession to ensure they were fully transformed in time for the show’s pageant finale.
WHAT NOT TO WEAR
BBC 2000s fashion show What Not To Wear saw two style gurus and journalists, Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, all but ambushing an unsuspecting contestant who had been nominated by their friends, and whisking them away for a makeover. (One episode even saw the duo interrupting a church service and giving a makeover to a female vicar.)
The hosts soon became known for their uncompromising, and often hands-on approach to styling the contestants, with their straight-talking commentary and advice frequently bordering on insulting.
10 YEARS YOUNGER
Another British makeover show of the 2000s, 10 Years Younger saw style journalist Nicky Hambleton-Jones updating the looks (and often, teeth) of a typically dowdy contestant, with the help of a panel of expert stylists and cosmetic surgeons.
The show’s title, however, was built around a rather humiliating conceit: at the beginning of each episode, the contestant was made to stand in public while passersby guessed their age based solely on their appearance, with the subsequent makeover intended for lower this public age by 10 years. The show is now one of many that are proving popular on social media, with TikTokers and YouTubers reacting to the show’s often hostile and controversial approach to their contestants.
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