Where are young and restless new actors meant to go for that elusive big break? Well, The Young and the Restless\u00a0of course! There’s plenty of famous names who got their start in the soap opera that started in 1973 and has run for over 50 seasons.<\/p>\n
It’s no surprise, then, that during this time some huge Hollywood names have joined the Abbotts and the Newmans over the years. Read on to see how many famous faces you recognise!<\/p>\n
Penn Badgley in a tux with short hair.<\/p>\n
Penn Badgley starred as Phillip Chancellor IV at 14 years old<\/p>\n
Penn Badgley<\/h2>\n
Now well-known for his role in You,\u00a0Gossip Girl\u00a0and romantic lead of Easy A,\u00a0Penn Badgley got his start on the small screen in 1999 on Will & Grace.<\/p>\n
It was at 14 that he got his first recurring role, cast as Phillip Chancellor IV, known as Chance, son of Nina Webster and Phillip Chancellor III. Now, he’s a well-loved<\/a> and familiar face on-screen.<\/p>\n Paul Walker in a suit at a press conference for ‘Fast & Furious’.<\/p>\n Paul Walker had an acclaimed role in ‘The Young and the Restless’ before he was Brian O’Conner<\/p>\n Beloved star of Fast & Furious<\/a>\u00a0Paul Walker wasn’t always an ex-FBI agent ruling the world of street racing. Before that, he was Brandon Collins, Victor Newman’s employee who dates his daughter Victoria Newman.<\/p>\n At just 19 years old, Paul provided a memorable performance and was even nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Soap Opera at the Youth in Film Awards.<\/p>\n Shemar Moore in a suit and tie at the 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 2017.<\/p>\n Shemar got his big break on ‘The Young and the Restless’ and left the cast for ‘Criminal Minds’<\/p>\n Shemar Moore’s role as Malcolm Winters in The Young and the Restless\u00a0ran between 1994 and 2002, and for another year between 2004 and 2005. But Shemar’s remained loyal to that character that won him his big break and has returned for several guest stints.<\/p>\n He left the show for Criminal Minds<\/a> and later led CBS’ S.W.A.T.<\/a>.\u00a0Shemar has also worked on projects like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Motives\u00a0and\u00a0The Brothers.<\/p>\n Eva Longoria in a black strapless dress at the premiere of ‘Land of Women’.<\/p>\n Eva Longoria appeared on ‘The Young and the Restless’ as Isabella Bra\u00f1a<\/p>\n The Desperate Housewives\u00a0star<\/a> rose to fame on The Young and the Restless as Isabella Bra\u00f1a, the woman introduced by Michael Baldwin to distract Paul Williams.<\/p>\n A birth and an attempted murder later, Eva Longoria<\/a> was a fan-favourite love-to-hate character on the show. Eva has since worked on shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine,\u00a0action blockbuster\u00a0John Wick\u00a0and travel series like Eva Longoria: Searching for France.<\/p>\n Tom Selleck in a black suit with a pale blue checked shirt.<\/p>\n The ‘Blue Bloods’ star worked on ‘The Young and the Restless’ five years before he was solving crimes as Magnum<\/p>\n One of Hollywood’s best-loved moustachioed men got a big break on The Young and the Restless as Jed Andrews in 1974. Around five years later, he was a star with hits like Magnum, P.I.\u00a0and later Blue Bloods.<\/p>\n Tom Selleck is beloved<\/a> for roles in classics like Three Men and a Baby, Quigley Down Under\u00a0and appeared in several episodes of Friends\u00a0as Monica’s boyfriend Richard Burke.<\/p>\n Vivica A. Fox in a long sleeve blue dress and white heels on the red carpet.<\/p>\n Vivica starred as Stephanie Simmons in ‘The Young and the Restless’<\/p>\n Vivica A. Fox’s Stephanie Simmons worked at Genoa City Memorial Hospital and is fixed up with Malcolm Winters. It’s revealed in 2026 that she and Malcolm are the parents of Holden Novak.<\/p>\n A year after she left the show, Vivica reached superstardom in Independence Day (1996) with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum, later working on films like Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2026’s Is God Is.<\/p>\n David Hasselhoff in a black suit and white shirt fixes his collar.<\/p>\n David Hasselhoff’s Dr William Foster Jr. returned to the show for a guest arc in 2010<\/p>\n The Knight Rider\u00a0star<\/a> went on to star in Baywatch<\/a>\u00a0and Adam Sandler comedy Click. But before that, he was Dr William Foster Jr., better known as Snapper, on The Young and the Restless.<\/p>\n David took over the role from William Gray Espy at the end of 1975, remaining with the cast until 1982 when he left to star in Knight Rider.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Where are young and restless new actors meant to go for that elusive big break? Well, The Young and the Restless\u00a0of course! There’s plenty of famous names who got their start in the soap opera that started in 1973 and has run for over 50 seasons. It’s no surprise, then, that during this time some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2442520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[26988,479512,351880,366213,366671,367466,479513,315988,316942,414918],"class_list":["post-2442519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-eva-longoria","tag-malcolm-winters","tag-paul-walker","tag-paul-williams","tag-penn-badgley","tag-phillip-chancellor-iii","tag-phillip-chancellor-iv","tag-shemar-moore","tag-the-young-and-the-restless","tag-wireimage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A-list-stars-who-you-probably-forgot-got-their-big-breaks.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2442521,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442519\/revisions\/2442521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2442520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
Paul Walker<\/h2>\n
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Shemar Moore<\/h2>\n
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Eva Longoria<\/h2>\n
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Tom Selleck<\/h2>\n
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Vivica A. Fox<\/h2>\n
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David Hasselhoff<\/h2>\n