In House this week there was an actor, Dominic Purcell, (playing the husband of a dying woman) who had been in Heartbreak High playing Anita's cop boyfriend. With Jesse Spencer (Billy Kennedy from Neighbours) a regular in the show already it occurred to me that so many soap or sitcom actors from here or Australia seem to be making it in the States now.

Can anyone come up with names of actors/actresses that have made the jump?

In no particular order I'll start with:

Guy Pearce, Alan Dale, Russell Crowe - Neighbours
Sam Neill, Mel Gibson - The Sullivans
Ben Kingsley - Coronation Street
Donal Donnelly - Yes Honestly
Milo O'Shea - Me Mammy

Katie Holmes - Dawson's Creek
Desmond Askew - Grange Hill

That's all I can think of at the moment, but I know there are loads more.

Claire Danes - My so-called life, she could have had the decency to finish the series

Joel Edgarton - Nice eye candy from My secret life of us. Star Wars then King Arthur...another name to be add to the 'Hotttest Actor' list

Radha Mitchell was in Neighbours. Thats all I can think of.

Ron Howard from Happy Days becoming a big Hollywood Director, does that count?

Jared Leto also in My So Called Life. Also *qwooooar* inducing.

D'oh that's what I get for thinking two things at once of course it's THE secret life of us

All the people from Friends and some of the ones from TAXI like Christopher Lloyd and
Danny Devito. Also Michael J Fox used to be
in Family Ties and Robin Williams from Mork and Mindy.

Brian Blessed (Goooordon's Aliiiive!) - Z Cars
Jim Broadbent - Only Fools and Horses and Blackadder

Ewan Mcgregor - Kavanagh QC/ER

Billy Crystal -Soap

Eamonn Walker - The Bill and In Sickness and in Health

David Hyde Pierce ( I always confuse him with
Wilfred Hyde White)was in Frasier and went onto
be in 'Down With Love'.

Just found out that Heath Ledger and Julian McMahon were both in Home and Away and Hugh Jackman was in Snowy River: The MacGregor Saga and Blue Heelers.

Sarah Chalke from 'Scrubs' used to be Darlene in
'Roseanne' (and shes done some movies too)

Hayden Christensen from Star Wars used to be in a Canadian Soap Opera called Family Passions.

Johnny Depp was in a TV series called "21 Jump Street"

Alan Cumming was in Take the High Road.

Colin Farrel was a series regular in Ballykissangel