Before he ascended to Hollywood heaven, playing the god Thor in several Marvel films, Chris did a three-year stint as Kim Hyde on Home and Away. And oh, what three years they were, featuring an ocean rescue, a car crash, a helicopter crash, an ecstasy overdose and switched paternity tests. Poor Kim is jilted by his bride, dates a serial killer, marries his psychologist and finds out his dad is a murderer. When he leaves Summer Bay, we can hardly blame him.  

All that emotion must have tuckered him out, because in this scene – where he is facing losing both his pregnant girlfriend Hayley (Rebecca Cartwright) and their baby, because she’s had a vision of their future and is refusing a life-saving operation – he’s curiously unmoved.  

When Hemsworth went to Hollywood, it wasn’t long before he hit the big time as Thor (a role for which he’d hit the gym big-time, adding 20 kilos of muscle to his frame). Although his acting has certainly developed since his Summer Bay days, he’s stuck mostly to big-screen spectacles like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Men in Black: International (2019) and Snow White and the Huntsman (2012).  

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

As the imperious Naomi in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, Margot Robbie turned up her scene-stealing charisma to maximum, and everybody noticed. It wasn’t long before she’d joined an elite few at the very apex of the Australian A-List. Like Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett, she has shone not only as an actor (with two Academy Award nominations for I, Tonya and Bombshell) but as a producer, with two cultural phenomenons – Saltburn and Barbie – to her credit.   

Robbie’s character on Neighbours, Donna Freedman, was originally intended to be a guest spot, but she quickly became a fan favourite, and Robbie ended up staying for three years. This clip is from an episode aired in 2009, a couple of years after the release of The Devil Wears Prada, and its debt to the film is obvious. Like Andy, the lead character in Devil, Donna has landed a coveted entry-level role in a hostile fashion world; she bumbles along trying to navigate the crowded, busy space, ordered around by a snooty assistant and Saffron, the temperamental designer. Donna even wears a blue cardigan the exact shade of Andy’s. But unlike Andy, she shows flashes of the resistance that will eventually lead her to confront Saffron and leave the internship.   

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

This episode of The Sullivans (1976–83) features 8-year-old Kylie Minogue in her first TV acting role. Kylie was in eight episodes of the show as Carla, a young Dutch girl who has lost her family in the war.  

In this scene, Carla has accidentally stumbled across Norm Baker (Norman Yemm) and Tom Sullivan (Steven Tandy), who are hiding from the Germans in a house in Amsterdam. 

The role required Kylie to adopt a Dutch accent and she does an admirable job for a child actor of her age in 1970s Australia.  

The Sullivans was a beloved Australian drama series starring Lorraine Bayly and Paul Cronin that told the story of an Australian family living through the Second World War years. 

Kylie is among many other famous names for whom The Sullivans was a launching pad, including Sam Neill, Sigrid Thornton, Kerry Armstrong and Mel Gibson.  

Interestingly, Kylie’s sister Dannii Minogue also played Carla in a 1980 episode of the series.  

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

Notes by Beth Taylor

Liam Hemsworth followed his elder brothers Chris and Luke into Soapland. After a one-episode debut on Home and Away, Liam booked a recurring role on Neighbours: Josh Taylor, a hunky paraplegic who’s been injured in a surfing accident.  

In this clip, Josh confronts his girlfriend Bridget (Didge, played by Eloise Mignon) in the General Store. Didge, who was run over by a car and is learning to walk again, arrives with Declan (James Sorenson) after standing Josh up. Josh angrily rejects her explanation and tells her to sort things out with the rival she obviously prefers, adding, ‘I’ll just staple-gun the pieces of my shattered heart.’ (Was Declan’s smirk at this line scripted?)  

Luke was rejected in real life when he lost the role of Thor in the Marvel films to Chris. However, in roles like Gale in the Hunger Games series and Ted in The Dressmaker (2015), opposite Kate Winslet, he proved that he could throb hearts as well as any of the Hemsworths.  

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

Simon Baker got his start on E Street, a relative latecomer to the Aussie soap scene: it kicked off in 1989 and ran until 1993 on Network Ten. It was set in Sydney’s Inner West and sought to portray a rougher, less idyllic community than that of classic soaps like Home and Away. Through its central characters – a doctor, a publican, a vicar and a police officer – it was able to explore edgier social issues in its early years before pursuing more sensational storylines like the Mr Bad serial killings.  

In over 100 episodes, Baker played Sam Farrell, a young police constable who leaves the force after an ethical dilemma. In this clip, the Robert Brown Memorial Community Centre, built to honour the local vicar after his death in a car crash, has been vandalised, and Sergeant George Sullivan (played by Les Dayman) pressures Sam to tell him what he knows about the perpetrators. Tight close-ups ramp up the tension and Baker displays the intensity he’d later bring to his seven-year stint as the lead on The Mentalist, playing a police consultant who uses his highly developed knowledge of human psychology to solve crimes. He also directed and produced on the show, and in 2017 directed and starred in a film adaptation of Tim Winton’s novel Breath. But he’s perhaps best known for his role as Christian, the smarmy seducer in crowd favourite The Devil Wears Prada (2006). 

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

Naomi Watts is not technically Australian – she grew up in England and Wales before moving to Sydney at the age of 14 – but she’ll always be a citizen of Summer Bay, even though her time there was brief. She played Julie Gibson, who’d been in a car crash that killed her mother and left her paralysed from the waist down. When she became friends with Nick (Bruce Roberts), the local police officer, she started to come out of her shell.  

In this scene, Nick takes Julie to the local diner and she tells him that she rarely goes out, having spent most of her insurance payout remodelling the house so that she could live independently. 'Life’s what you make it,' she shrugs. Nick responds admiringly, but in later episodes he’ll friend-zone Julie, breaking her heart.

The costume designers have styled the 23-year-old Watts to look younger and less worldly in pale colours, clean make-up, a sailor collar and demure pearl earrings. In her first breakout Hollywood role, as Betty/Diane in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), Watts showed her range as she veered between playing the starry-eyed, innocent Betty and the desperate, embittered Diane. She missed out on an Oscar nomination for that powerful performance, but would later bag two of them, as well as lead roles in 21 Grams (2003), Eastern Promises (2007) and The Friend (2024). She returned to work with Lynch on Inland Empire (2006) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).  

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

When he was just 18 and still at school, Pearce was pestering the producers of Neighbours for an audition. He joined the show in 1986, two days after his final exams, and stayed for three years. His character, Mike Young, was conceived as wholesome and responsible, despite a dark past with an abusive father.  

In this clip, from 1989, we find Mike just home from touring with a jazz band (a storyline engineered to cover Pearce’s absence while he was shooting the film Heaven Tonight). On his travels he’d met a girl called Jenny Owens (Danielle Carter); she’d fallen from his motorbike and lost the use of her legs. Mike, consumed with guilt, had been helping her convalesce. This was their farewell.  

Mike and Jenny’s physical closeness as he helps her into the taxi and crouches down beside her makes an intimate bubble that has us wondering what might come of this charged moment – but his goodbye kiss is platonic, despite her wistful look.  

Pearce has been a quiet achiever on the world stage – his 2025 nomination for an Academy Award was his first – but the scope of his achievements has always won respect. He’s played a force-of-nature drag queen in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994); a buttoned-up cop in LA Confidential (1997); a haunted amnesiac in Memento (2000); a bushranger in The Proposition (2005). He’s embodied Andy Warhol and Harry Houdini and Errol Flynn.  

Despite his success, Pearce had enough feeling for Neighbours to return for its (supposed) finale in 2022 – as did Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Margot Robbie.

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Isla Fisher’s Hollywood career has often revolved around manic pixie roles. Her first big part, in The Wedding Crashers (2005), had her sweeping the six-foot-five Vince Vaughan off his feet – literally, and repeatedly. Subsequent movies like Definitely, Maybe (2008) and Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) played up her natural comic abilities, which she also showed off as a recurring guest in the TV show Arrested Development (2013–19).  

However, Shannon Reed, the character she played on Home and Away for three years, was put through the dramatic wringer. A foster child and abuse survivor, she struggled with an eating disorder, relationship turmoils and her ruthless biological mother.  

In this scene, Shannon, a budding writer, fearlessly confronts a crooked builder (Silvio Ofria) whose shonky work has caused a collapse at her school, endangering the lives of her friends. On the pretext of interviewing him for the school paper, she gains access to his office and berates him about the accident with a self-possession beyond her years.  

Over the years, it was revealed that Shannon was bisexual. In her exit from the show, she chooses Mandy, an older lesbian writer, over her boyfriend and moves with her to Paris.

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A baby-faced Russell Crowe plays Norman Courtney, the 'injured employee' in this short film about the Commonwealth Agency rehabilitation program.

Early in his career Heath Ledger starred as Snowy Bowles - a young, gay cyclist - in the 26-part series Sweat, pitched at young adults.

Set in an Australian school for athletically-gifted teens, Snowy is subjected to homophobic abuse in this clip, which leads him to come out to his friend Danny (played by Matt Castelli).

When talking on A Current Affair in 2000, Ledger said this role – his first recurring part in a series – almost led to him quitting acting. He commented, 'I had no idea what I was doing ... what my hands [were] doing... I was ready to quit'.

It is clear that Ledger and his fellow young actors are somewhat nervous novices, even under the guidance of the experienced director, Dan Burstall (The Flying Doctors, Heartbreak High). This results in some awkward dialogue, gestures and blocking in these two scenes.

Ledger might not know what to do with his hands, but he definitely has an authentic screen presence and he makes you empathise with the dilemmas Snowy faces. This is a great example of his early work. It was also significant to have an out gay main character in an Australian TV series like this in the late 1990s.

Want more? Explore 9 Australian Hollywood stars who started in Australian soap operas

Notes by Beth Taylor

It is amusing to see host Johnny Young’s mispronunciation of Dannii’s surname in this short clip of her first performance as a talent show contestant in 1979.  

Little did he know that the Minogue sisters Dannii and Kylie would become household names in Australia and around the world. The chance to see up-and-coming stars was a big appeal of the show for audiences and this is a classic 'before they were famous' example. 

Dannii performs the Shirley Temple classic ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’ composed by Richard A Whiting and Sidney Clare.  

Although Dannii doesn’t win her heat, judge Evie Hayes says ‘I’m sure that with proper coaching and tuition she will have a very fine future’. Dannii became a cast member in 1982 and stayed with the show until 1988. 

Dannii transitioned into an acting and pop music career and has since sold over 7 million records worldwide. Since 2007, she has been a popular talent show judge in Australia and the UK on programs like Australia's Got Talent (2007–2012), The X Factor UK (2007–2010) and The Masked Singer Australia (2019–current).

This excerpt is from episode 79/38. 

Notes by Beth Taylor

The Bee Gees’ first national TV appearance on Nine’s variety show Desmond and the Channel 9 Pins, on 12 August 1960.

They perform 'Time is Passing By', a song written by Barry Gibb, who was 13 at the time of the performance. Brothers Robin and Maurice were 10.

They were flown from Brisbane to perform. Note the guitar featuring the letters BG.

Nicole Kidman, in the tradermark curls of her early years as an actress, stars in a telemovie which was criticised at the time for 'undermining parental authority'.

This commercial for the Nabisco-owned breakfast cereal Rice Krinkles features an 18-year-old Jacki Weaver.

In the early days of television advertising, corporate brands identified the teenage market as a growing business opportunity, and turned to popular stars as a way to enter the world of youth culture.

In this highly effective 30-second advertisement, Jacki Weaver dances her way around a modern-looking kitchen. The music is generic, but reminiscent of the pop hits of the day.

Not only is Weaver the star of the advertisement but the message is successfully reinforced in-store by having her face on the actual box, smiling back at potential customers from the supermarket shelves.

It was a mutually beneficial arrangement; the brand hoped to become 'cool' by association, while the star gained valuable exposure.

Tina Arena’s first appearance as a contestant on Young Talent Time in 1974 is part of the show’s folklore.

This is one of the many instances the footage of her as a nine-year-old singing ABBA’s ‘Ring Ring’ was broadcast, this time for a 15th birthday concert special in 1986. Her raw talent and confidence stands out today as it did then. 

Host Johnny Young’s introduction exemplifies the idea that any child with enough talent and hard work could be a member of the coveted Young Talent Team, which was an important part of the show’s appeal for its young audience. 

Showing footage of successful graduates like Tina during their subsequent appearances is a trope the show utilises throughout its impressive 18-year run to build a sense of family and tradition. 

Tina embarked on her solo career after graduating from the show in 1983, releasing her debut album Strong as Steel in 1988. Here, she sings the ballad ‘Saving All My Love for You’ which was written by Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin in 1978 and made famous by Whitney Houston in 1985.  

In this 1986 clip, Tina is still undergoing her metamorphosis from child performer into the global solo artist she is today, and her diva-like song choice and the overtly mature costuming and jewellery speak to this. 

The multicamera coverage and edit fades mimic any other live concert from the 1980s, giving the young audience a concert vibe. 

This excerpt comes from one of the show’s best-of compilations, episode 86/41, which was recorded on 13 October 1986.

The Young Talent Time team made an impressive 44 live programs each year. The other 10 weeks of the year they created a best-of summer series, like this episode, for the non-ratings period.  

Today Tina is one of Australia’s highest-selling artists, having sold over 10 million records worldwide. She was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2015.

In 2011 she became the first Australian to be awarded a Knighthood of the French National Order of National Merit for her contribution to French culture. She was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2016.

Notes by Beth Taylor

Before their famed roles in Neighbours, Kylie and Jason appeared on screen together years earlier as sister and brother in the Crawford Productions television series, Skyways (1979–81). 

In this clip, an excerpt from the Nine Network special 35 Years of Television (1991), we see Kylie and Jason first as bickering young siblings, Robin and Adam, who have been left at an airport by their pilot father in episode 15 of Skyways (1979). 

Then we see them as Charlene and Scott in the roles that shot them to soapie stardom years later in the long-running series Neighbours.  

Skyways featured Tony Bonner and Ken James (both of Skippy fame), and a host of other well-known Australian actors, and it centred around the fictional Pacific International Airport. 

Notes by Mel Bondfield

Bryan Brown stars as a factory worker and aspiring foreman who must make a decision between being bullied at work, or risk losing his hearing.

David Wenham plays a tradie with no sense of professionalism or customer service, bringing down his mate's struggling kitchen manufacturing business. Wenham had previously done bit parts in soap operas such as A Country Practice and Sons and Daughters.

This is actor Asher Keddie’s first appearance on Young Talent Time as a talent quest contestant. She sings ‘Fame’, written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, in a classic 'before they were famous' moment.

The song was made famous by the film of the same name, released in 1980. 

This is a good example of the show’s centring of the children’s performances in a studio setting with basic sets in front a studio audience.

The show, which ran for 18 years, provided a start to many big names in Australian music, including Debra Byrne, Tina Arena and Dannii Minogue.  

It is a joy to watch Asher really getting into her performance here, knowing what was to come for her.

Her acting credits include Offspring (2010–17), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and Stateless (2020). She has won seven Logies to date, including the Gold Logie in 2013. 

The lyric 'You ain't seen the best of me yet' seems particularly prescient with hindsight!

This excerpt is from episode 83/28. 

Notes by Beth Taylor

This dramatised film features Noah Taylor in one of his first roles, as a teenage drug dealer. Tony (Jeremy Shadlow) is shown his short life in flashback as his survival hangs in the balance following a fatal accident after a joyride. Taylor plays Harvey, a negative influence in Tony's life.

The brother and sister are dying of thirst, camped by a spring that has dried up while they were asleep. The boy (Lucien John) sees a figure on the horizon. He thinks it may be his father but it’s an Aboriginal hunter. The young woman (Jenny Agutter) is fearful after she blinks hard to make sure she is awake. The young black man (David Gulpilil) kills a large lizard to add to several that adorn his belt. He is surprised to see these white people out here, but he is about to leave them there when the boy pushes his sister to stop him. She tries to make him understand they need water, but fails. The boy is more direct and succeeds. The Aboriginal man laughs and shows them how to get water.

Summary by Paul Byrnes.

Bill Hunter features as Major Tom Archer in this film about the dilemma of an army major who is considering resigning to take a job in private enterprise. 

When the financial year ends, it's tax time! Hype yourself up for the ‘BYO biro party’ with this episode of The Insiders, a series made by Film Australia in 1988. It was designed to be shown to high-school students, telling them how and why they should fill in their tax forms. 

The dry material is given a ‘for the kids’ twist by fresh-faced actors Ben Mendelsohn, Zoe Carides and Paul Gleeson (whose boom-box-toting club bunny is content to let his Dad fill in the forms for him). The debate over why you should pay your taxes is pure late-’80s, and the set is a little too carefully dressed to evoke an ’80s share house – LPs on the walls, studiously lopsided posters, and a snare drum set mysteriously close to the kitchen table, as if it too wants to get in on the biro party.  

Carides would find the limelight as Sophie in the Melbourne indie hit Death in Brunswick (1990); Mendelsohn found the Hollywood starlight, most recently having his moment as Director Krennic in the Star Wars series Andor (2025). The Insiders offers the opportunity to see these Australian luminaries in their light-bulb era.  

Get razzed for tax time – but ‘don’t get yourself all raged out, gang’. 

One of Jack Thompsons earliest roles, as a young designer frustrated at a manager who refuses to recognise his good ideas.

This clip is pure gold and truly historic as it shows The Bee Gees backing Johnny O'Keefe singing the Dave Clark Five's, 'Glad All Over'.

The Bee Gees departed Australian shores in January 1967, only to return for the occasional concert tour. To find any unseen footage from their Australian teenage days is very rare. It was broadcast on ATN7 in January 1964. 

Sing Sing Sing brought popular music to Australian teenagers.  The show was broadcast on Sydney’s ATN 7 from 1962- 1965. The show was initially hosted by singer, Lionel Long and was replaced after a year by the very popular Johnny O’Keefe. O’Keefe had been seen on Australian television screens on the ABC’s Six O’Clock Rock ( 1959-1962) and Seven’s The Johnny O’Keefe Show  (1961-1962).  Sing Sing Sing was to be O’Keefe’s last TV series.

The NFSA discovered the content of this episode when the 16mm image and sound negatives were digitally scanned to ensure their preservation and availability for a contemporary audience.

In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance, Geoffrey Rush plays the stage manager during the Sydney Opera House finale of Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck. He even gets to dance with Jackie (Jo Kennedy) as she hijacks the stage during the live national talent contest; look for the man in the blue t-shirt, on the right-hand side of the stage!

Kylie Minogue in her first lead role as Charlotte 'Char' Kernow. This series also starred Ben Mendelsohn and Nadine Garner, and premiered on Network Ten on 11 May 1985. 

In their local café hangout, the gang drink Coke, chat and play pinball. Ted Morgan (Ben Mendelsohn), son of a striking mill worker, looks forward to the ‘fireworks’ which will result from a walk-out at the mill owned by Wheeler. Cowboy (Mark Hennessy) advises Ted not to get involved before Pat (Antoinette Byron) kicks the teenagers out of the café. Summary by Tammy Burnstock.