The first job most actors land isn’t in a blockbuster film or a hit TV series, but in a commercial. Whether they’re for fast food or household brands, commercials have long provided an important entry point for emerging performers looking to gain on-camera experience. For midcareer actors, advertising campaigns can also be incredibly beneficial (and well-paid) side quests to meatier work on stage and screen.
Plenty of well-known Australian performers began their careers this way. Before landing their breakout roles, these actors appeared in commercials – building skills, confidence, and industry connections along the way. It’s a reminder that those smaller jobs can be valuable stepping stones to a career in front of the camera.
If you’re just starting out and wondering where a commercial gig may lead, these famous Australian actors show just how far that path can go.
Naomi Watts
Long before she became a twice-Oscar-nominated actor renowned for her performances in hit films such as Mulholland Drive (2001), The Ring (2002), 21 Grams (2003), and The Impossible (2012), most of Naomi Watts’ early acting gigs came in the form of brief appearances in television commercials.
Most notoriously, she appeared in a gloriously daggy Tampax commercial in the 1980s that aired in Australia and internationally. The ad features a young Watts sporting teased hair, parachute pants, and shoulder pads while speaking about the “hassles” of womanhood and boasting how the product can make a girl’s life “less of a hassle.” Watts’ work in the sanitary product sphere didn’t end there; she also starred in a 1990 television advertisement for Libra Fleur Tampons. In the same year, she was also the star of a memorable TV commercial for Australian Lamb, as a woman who turns down a date with Tom Cruise so she can be home for her mum’s lamb roast – a fair call, if you ask us.
Hustling in the advertising space provided Watts with earning money and allowed her to build her résumé during the difficult early stages of her career. At just 15 years old, she made a lifelong friend who would chart a parallel path to Hollywood success: none other than Nicole Kidman.
Simon Baker
Actor and director Simon Baker is one of the most successful Aussies working in the film industry today. He’s famous for his Golden Globe–nominated role in legal drama The Guardian (2001 to 2004) and his Emmy-nominated role in procedural drama The Mentalist (2008 to 2015), as well as Hollywood films such as L.A. Confidential (1997), Restaurant (1998), and The Devil Wears Prada (2006).
But before he won the Logie for most popular new talent for playing Constable Sam Farrell on Australian soap opera E Street, his first acting role happened by accident. Baker was waiting for a friend to audition for a commercial for Peters Drumstick ice cream cones when he was asked to try out too – and he landed the job. The original ad is hard to find, but he shared a story about the experience on The View in 2008. Baker has continued to book advertising roles throughout his career, too, appearing in campaigns for ANZ Bank home loans in 2011 and luxury brands such as Swiss watchmakers Longlines and Givenchy fragrances.
Jacki Weaver
With a career spanning over six decades, Jacki Weaver is one of Australia’s most beloved actors, known for bringing a hard-slog authenticity and a touch of mischief to her characters. She came to prominence in the 1970s with her work in “Ozploitation” films such as Stork (1971), Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974), later starring in the iconic Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and catching Hollywood’s attention with her Academy Award–nominated turns in Animal Kingdom (2010) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
But before widespread fame found her, an 18-year-old Weaver was the face of Rice Krinkles breakfast cereal, dancing her way through a 1965 advertisement that was reinforced in stores with her smiling face featured on the actual box.
Paul Hogan
If you’re familiar with the phrase “I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you,” you can thank Paul Hogan for that. Before the famous Aussie actor landed his big break starring as Mick Dundee in Crocodile Dundee (1986) and its follow-up films, he was the face of a series of ads designed by the Australian Tourism Commission to attract US visitors to Australia.
The iconic line is still synonymous with Aussie culture for Americans – yes, despite the fact that we say prawn, not shrimp! – and that’s because they were hugely successful. Produced from 1983 to 2001, the campaign saw Australia’s popularity as a tourism destination soar, and the success is something Australian Tourism has aimed to recapture in subsequent campaigns starring the likes of Lara Bingle and Robert Irwin. The commercials were such a boost to Hogan’s fame that they singlehandedly opened the door to Hollywood success.
Isla Fisher
Aussie star Isla Fisher has made her mark on Hollywood with starring roles in major films such as Wedding Crashers (2005), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), Bachelorette (2012), and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013).
But Fisher’s onscreen career began with appearances in commercials on Australian television at the age of 9. Those led to her professional acting debut in 1993, with two guest-starring roles in the children's television shows Bay City and Paradise Beach, before she moved on to Home and Away – and the rest is history.
Fisher never fully said goodbye to commercial acting though. She served as the face of ING Direct’s How Banking Can Be campaign (2015 to 2017) and a 2024 campaign for Air New Zealand, in which she poked fun at her recently single status following her high-profile split from Sacha Baron Cohen.
Mandy McElhinney
It would be an insult to Mandy McElhinney’s prolific body of work to say that her acting career started in commercials, but her iconic turn as Rhonda in AAMI Insurance’s Safe Driver Rewards commercials, which ran from 2011 to 2014, is arguably her best-known role.
The ads, which became a cultural phenomenon in Australia, featured the steamy love story of Rhonda, a notoriously responsible and insured Australian driver who meets a handsome Balinese man, Ketut, while on holiday, producing popular catchphrases such as “Hot like a sunrise!” and “Kiss me, Ketut!”
Proving Rhonda and Ketut’s enduring popularity, the pair were reunited in AAMI’s 2021 Vax-Up Australia television commercial. The ad aimed to promote national recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic by showing characters rolling up their sleeves and featuring the tagline “Vax up, like a sunrise.”
Elsewhere, McElhinney has been praised for her performances on both stage and screen. She is a regular in mainstage productions, including with the Melbourne and Sydney Theatre Companies, and is known for roles in television dramas includingLove Child, All Saints, Wakefield, and, most recently, the Australian adaptation of comedy series Ghosts. She won an AACTA Award for her role in the miniseries Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War (2012) and was nominated for a Logie for Paper Giants: Magazine Wars (2013).
