We've seen them so much in our living rooms, it's easy to forget they exist anywhere else other than our TV screens. But they are, in fact, real live people, and many of them had careers on the stage long before we found them playing our favorite characters in our best-loved films and TV shows.

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As any actor will tell you, stage acting and screen acting are completely different beasts and sometimes feel hardly related to each other at all, given that they use an entirely different skillset, but some star performers are able to bridge the gap and do it all flawlessly. For some, the stage was their starting point, and from there they ventured into more film work. For others, who may be living pretty comfortably from so much success onscreen, trying their hand onstage was a new challenge to take on, a live production with energy and vitality and grit. Today we're respecting the stars who can do it all; here are 10 film actors who also have really impressive stage careers.

10 Sarah Paulson

Long before she was sending shivers down our spines as Nurse Ratched or a coterie of roles on American Horror Story, Sarah Paulson had a prolific stage career playing some pretty iconic roles. She played quiet, shy Laura Wingfield in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, as well as Meg in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart.

9 Cynthia Nixon

Cynthia Nixon is as versatile as they come. With starring roles in hit TV shows like Sex and the City and Ryan Murphy's Ratched, she also ran a competitive campaign for mayor of New York, so of course we could have predicted that she'd be formidable onstage as well. She shone as the main character Regina in Lillian Hellman's classic play The Little Foxes, and even had a stint as both Harper and Martin in Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.

8 Andrew Scott

You know him as "Hot Priest" from Phoebe Waller-Bridges' masterpiece, Fleabag, but Andrew Scott was already an accomplished stage actor before he approached what we now think of as his signature role. To look at his list of stage credits, you'd think there's hardly a role he hasn't played, but Hamlet has got to top the list as his most impressive.

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7 Mary-Louise Parker

Before she was Nancy in Showtime's Weeds, Mary Louise Parker was making a splash on Broadway with roles like Rita in Prelude to a Kiss, Catherine in Proof, and Lil Bit in How I Learned to Drive. For these roles, she was nominated for many awards, and took home several, including a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for "Best Actress in a Play" (both for Proof).

6 Sarah Jessica Parker

When you see Sarah Jessica Parker belting it out as the zany, headstrong Princess Fred in Once Upon a Mattress, you'll never look at Carrie Bradshaw the same way again. While Sex and the City doesn't make use of her impressive vocals, she previously played in many musicals, including AnnieThe Sound of Music, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

5 Laura Linney

If there's anything Laura Linney can't do, we haven't found it yet. A star on both the stage and the screen, her theatre credits include The Crucible, as well as several Chekhov Uncle Vanya and The Seagull - all on Broadway, of course. If you're dying to see her onstage, you're not out of luck. She's been on Broadway stages as recently as 2020, so we're sure we'll see more of her once theatre has made its return.

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4 Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman's talent in stage acting may have been part of what got her into Harvard. The multitalented actress Natalie Portman got her start on theatre stages, appearing on Broadway before she'd even graduated from high school in a 1998 production of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. She maintained her A average in school while performing. No wonder Harvard wanted her!

3 Helen Mirren

You may have loved her as Queen Elizabeth, but until you've seen Helen Mirren onstage performing Shakespeare, you haven't really seen Helen Mirren. She is most at home performing the Bard's work, having performed in most of his titles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Court Theatre, and The National Theatre. She has won practically every award available to stage actors, including a Tony, a Laurence Olivier, and three Golden Globes.

2 John Goodman

Showing his versatility beyond TV and film classics like The Big LebowskiBarton Fink, Roseanne, and John Goodman has played several recognizable stage roles, including the Ghost of Christmas Present in a 2008 Broadway production of A Christmas Carol and Pozzo in Samuel Beckett's juggernaut of a play Waiting for Godot in 2009. He made the transition from screen to stage brilliantly!

1 Cristin Milioti

If you haven't caught the Cristin Milioti bug yet, go watch Palm Springs, her recent film where she costarred with Andy Samberg, and immediately follow it up with Made for Love, a TV series in which she plays a woman who's on the run from her tech billionaire husband and his empire. You'll be singing her praises in no time, though probably not as well as she sings (no offense) in musical productions like Once, for which she won a Tony.

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