The Greatest Soap-Stars-Turned-Actors EVER!

The big showbiz news rendering important newspaper and magazine desks in London completely agog is that Louisa Lytton - who played someone-or-other in EastEnders - has just taken the world by storm by playing an exchange student in the latest American Pie movie.

Without wanting to urinate too heavily on Louisa's chips, who gives one?

Soap stars have been silently ascending Hollywood's greasy pole for years now. In fact, some of your favourites have most probably spent a short window of their career awkwardly channelling the spirit of a lonely hunk called ‘Bill' ordering a coffee. Read on, and you'll find four men who weren't ashamed to make a living from these so-called soap operas'...

Ben Kingsley


Before Ben Kingsley became mega-famous - playing a tiny Indian gentleman called Gandhi, and later, the magnificent Don Logan in Sexy Beast - he played a put upon Northern woman in a flowery dress scrubbing feverishly at her front step in Coronation Street. Or something.

Guy Pearce



Once the cheerful Ramsey Street heartthrob who got to dance his delicate fingers all over Plain Jane the Superbrain's nerdish thighs, Guy Pearce has gone on to wonderfully dizzy heights. We like him best as the do-gooder cop in LA Confidential, or the obsessive maniac in Momento – a film which sets out to blow your mind by telling a story from end to beginning. Yeah, he's all a bit art-farty, that Mike from Neighbours.

Alec Baldwin



We don't want Alec Baldwin to retire from acting - no one does. A hunch suggests that even Alec Baldwin doesn't want to retire from acting. In fact, perhaps he was acting when he said it? Yeah, that's probably what it was. He was winding everyone up. He's hilarious, that Alec Baldwin. So bloody hilarious. God we love Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin. Who, by the way, managed to craft a fantastic career despite starting out as a televangelist-gone-mental called Joshua Rush in the popular US soap opera Knots Landing. Most of his former cast-mates have also given up acting by the looks of things.

Russell Crowe



Whether Russell Crowe took his token brooding intensity onto the Neighbours set, we're not sure. But we do know that Neighbours might have missed a trick by only casting him for a handful of episodes in the late-80s. He'd have made a wonderful Madge. As things panned out, he went on to whisper and roar his way through Gladiator, pretend to be barmy in A Beautiful Mind, and the word on the street is that he's pulled on a set of tight green leggings to give us his take on Robin Hood. Our prediction: an intense, lonely Robin Hood mutters dramatic sentiments, whilst his pals Friar Tuck and Little John nod to his face, then talk in whispers behind his back about what a cock that Robin is turning out to be. Should be excellent.

This was a guest blog by none other than Josh Burt from Interestment. Wonderful.

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