20 Actors Who Had To Wait DECADES Before Hitting Big

15. Steve Carell

Steve Carell earned plenty of "who is this guy?" notices with his show-stealing supporting performance as newscaster Evan Baxter in the 2003 Jim Carrey vehicle Bruce Almighty, which he followed up with an equally unforgettable role in Anchorman, before 2005 became the year that everyone took note of him.

That year he starred in both the Judd Apatow mega-hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin and, of course, became a genuine icon as Michael Scott in the U.S. version of The Office.

Carell was already in his forties at this point, and had been acting for around 20 years, performing first with a touring children's theater company and then in a restaurant commercial in the 1980s.

Though Carell made many appearances on both The Dana Carvey Show and Saturday Night Live, wider fame eluded him for many, many years until it all came flooding to him at once, and he instantly became one of the most recognisable comedy actors of the 2000s.