15 Unlikely British TV Shows To Spawn Hollywood Stars

4. Families - Jude Law

Another famous inclusion here because frankly it is just so ridiculous. Jude Law is a household name in the states as well as the UK. In 1990, he joined the cast of the British soap opera Families. He had a couple of credits prior to appearing in that series, including amusingly a guest appearance in an episode of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. Families wasn't a particularly successful soap opera €“ it was only a daytime one for starters, and wasn't even in the same league as say Coronation Street or Eastenders. In an attempt to give this a plot (because just being a group of people living in a neighbourhood somehow wasn't good enough for the 1990s), it shown during the same period in which classically bonkers soap operas such as Eldorado were created. Anyway, the plot of Families was some convoluted thing where one bloke leaves his wife in the UK and goes to Australia to be with his true love and finds out that she had his child blah... blah... blah... I don't know why such an outlandish plot is required for such a typical staple of British television, but it is. Law played the role of Nathan Thompson, the son of the chap who dashes off to Australia. Somehow Families managed to stay on the airwaves for three whole years between 1990 and 1993 across 320 episodes. Law was in it for a year and to be honest from looking at his IMDB page I can't work out what his breakout role was. Six years after Families he appeared in Wilde, Gattica and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil all in the same year. From there on it was movies all the way. He really must have been on a roll in his auditions all at once. I'm not seeking to rip into Families too much, but suffice it to say, if it wasn't for Jude Law's appearances in it then no one would ever remember it for any reason. Law went on to be nominated for two Oscars, which is presumably two more than the rest of the cast of Families combined. An apologies for everyone who was hoping to see a video of Jude Law in Families at top of this page €“ for some reason the internet seems to devoid of that much needed footage. But if you find any, please link to it in the comments section!