Why These Amazon Prime Original Actors Look So Familiar

Amazon Prime isn't just a relatively cheap way to get paper towels, laundry detergent, and a gross of candy bars delivered to your home in a smiling cardboard box in under 24 hours. The special service tier from the world's biggest online retailer is also a provider of streaming video content. Like competitors Netflix and Hulu, Amazon Prime Video offers thousands of movies and television shows, as well as original content developed in-house. These high-quality "Prime Original" shows can and do compete — for eyeballs and awards — with programs from traditional peak TV outlets like HBO, Showtime, and other streamers. Amazon's Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel have all competed for (and even won) multiple Emmy Awards and Golden Globes.

All of these shows are great vehicles for actors and actresses, newcomers and entertainment veterans alike. Here are some of the breakout stars from Amazon's series, and why they might look familiar.

Another dynamic comic actor who won an Emmy for her work on the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Alex Borstein. This is not the first time she's worked with Amy Palladino — Borstein played Sookie in the Gilmore Girls pilot, but when a series was ordered, found herself replaced by Melissa McCarthy. Nevertheless, Borstein showed up on Gilmore Girls here and there in two roles: as harpist Drella, and, buried under facial prosthetics, a personal stylist named Miss Celine. 

Borstein couldn't commit to Gilmore Girls because she was too busy in the early 2000s with her regular, full-time job as a cast member on Fox's MAD TV. One of the bigger stars ever produced by the tenacious, long-running Saturday Night Live competitor, Borstein portrayed a few recurring characters, notably Ms. Swan and Eracist Anne. While working there in the late '90s, Borstein met young animator Seth MacFarlane, who'd been in talks to produce a series of short cartoons for the show. Though he didn't end up working on MAD, he went on to develop Family Guy, where Borstein has voiced Lois Griffin and reporter Tricia Takanawa since 1999. Back in the realm of live-action, Borstein starred as head nurse Dawn Forchette on the 2013-15 HBO hospital-set comedy Getting On.

Peter Gerety is a classic "hey, it's that guy," one of those actors who, while never a leading man in a blockbuster or a star of his own sitcom, works so consistently and ably in small or supporting roles that audiences recognize his face (and can assume he'll put in a great performance). Actors are often cast according to their looks, and Gerety has experienced that phenomenon. Since entering screen acting in middle-age in the early '80s, Gerety has portrayed countless men of moderate authority: police officers, judges, bosses, doctors, and patriarchs. That experience probably helped land him the role of Bowman family leader Otto on Amazon's Sneaky Pete.

He played men of the law in a Cagney & Lacey TV movie, in the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street, and most prominently, in Paul Blart: Mall Cop. He's also a go-to guy to play TV judges (evidenced by his work on The Wire and The Good Wife), and bosses, too — check him out in Leatherheads and War of the Worlds. Recently, he played a Civil War doctor in PBS's Mercy Street, following up a turn in the acclaimed period crime movie A Most Violent Year.

Giovanni Ribisi stars on Amazon's Sneaky Pete in something of a dual role. He's Marius, a paroled con man in hiding from a bad gangster, who assumes the identity of Pete Bowman, his old cellmate. The real Pete hails from a big, warm family... that's up to some shady business of its own. Ribisi is only in his early 40s, but he's been acting for most of his life, with kid roles on Highway to Heaven and Simon & Simon dating back to 1985. His first big role came on another perfectly '80s show: as lovesick Cory Kupkus on My Two Dads. 

Into the '90s, he crafted a career of short-term and recurring roles on The Wonder Years; Walker, Texas Ranger; Ellen; and The X-Files. He eventually moved into grown-up roles like drummer Chad in That Thing You Do! and medic Wade in Saving Private Ryan. That's also the versatile Ribisi as car thief Kip Raines in Gone in 60 Seconds, Phoebe's little brother and harried father of triplets on Friends, and the star of the short-lived Fox sitcom Dads. He again teamed up with Dads producer Seth MacFarlane as one of the leads in A Million Ways to Die in the West and as Ted-obsessed stalker Donny in both Ted movies. He also starred as administrator Parker Selfridge in Avatar, one of the biggest hits of all time.

In the '70s, there were dozens of lone-wolf cop shows whose titles were the last name of the main tough-guy detective: Mannix, Cannon, Kojak, Baretta, et cetera. Based on the popular detective novels by Michael Connelly, Amazon's Bosch is a throwback to that style of show, right down to the naming convention. It's about a cop who, of course, doesn't play by the rules as he investigates crimes in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. That cop's name is also Bosch, and he's played by veteran character actor Titus Welliver, who often plays rough-around-the-edges guys on both sides of the law. 

Welliver had a recurring role on NYPD Blue in the late '90s as Dr. Mondzac, and starred on co-creator Stephen Bochco's follow-up cop show, Brooklyn South, as Officer Jake Lowery. On the short-lived series Big Apple, Welliver played an FBI agent, before finding his breakout role as Silas Adams, bagman-turned-lackey over three seasons of HBO's immaculate Deadwood. Then came a recurring role as crime boss Jimmy O'Phelan on Sons of Anarchy. But even with all these high-profile TV roles, Welliver will perhaps forever be best remembered as the mysterious "Man in Black" on Lost.

Patriot is a quirky, under-the-radar Amazon series with a novel premise. Intelligence guy John Tavner (Michael Dorman) takes a job at a Midwestern industrial piping company as part of a plan to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Portraying his jargon-spewing, cocaine-loving boss, Leslie Claret: Kurtwood Smith, one of the all-time greats at playing angry older guys who have a problem with the protagonist. He mainly honed that persona via two very different projects. 

His most famous role is doubtlessly tough-as-nails veteran and dad Red Forman on That '70s Show, who grumbled through thankless jobs and whose parenting style consisted mostly of calling his son (Topher Grace) a "dumbass." Prior to that 1998–2006 gig, Smith was best known for his work in RoboCop as Clarence J. Boddicker, the brutal gang lord who murdered the police officer who was built into RoboCop. Of course, RoboCop got his revenge, providing for Boddicker one of the bloodiest and most graphic deaths in movie history. Beyond those two signature roles, Smith has shown up in more than 150 movies and TV series, including 24 (as Sen. Blaine Mayer) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (as the Federation President).

Acting professionally since just 2010, Erin Moriarty is a star on the rise. She's got barely 20 credits to her name, but most of them are for some highly regarded and major projects. After landing small roles on One Life to Live and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she portrayed Vince Vaughn's daughter in the sci-fi comedy The Watch and represented a third of the central love triangle in the acclaimed indie film The Kings of Summer. In 2013, Moriarty found her first job as a series regular, on ABC's one-season wonder Red Widow. In this darker take on Weeds, Moriarty played the teenage daughter of a widowed mom forced to continue her husband's marijuana smuggling operation. 

Moriarty was then lucky enough to be a part of the lightning-in-a-bottle first season of HBO's True Detective, in the brief but pivotal role of Audrey Hart, the troubled daughter of Woody Harrelson's character. From there, she made her move into superhero television, with a recurring role on Jessica Jones as Hope Shlottman, one of villain Kilgrave's most exploited victims. In 2019, Moriarty began playing what looks to be her breakout role: Annie January, a.k.a. the superhero Starlight, on The Boys, Amazon's adaptation of the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson about a world in which superheroes are real, but kept in check by gangs of violent thugs.

Olivia Colman steals just about every scene in which she appears in Fleabag. An absolutely insufferable, passive-aggressive artist who specializes in the erotic, she was once Fleabag's godmother only to get a promotion to stepmother when she married Fleabag's grieving father. Emmy nominated for her role, Olivia Colman absolutely has the skills to blend comedy, tension, and awkwardness and still come out likable. It's a tone she's perfected over two decades of work primarily on British television comedies, any number of which would qualify as "cult classics." 

One of her first roles: a paper trade publication writer interviewing David Brent on the last regular episode of the original British The Office. She also appeared as Pam Bachelor on the educational magazine parody Look Around You, and Harriet on the silly hospital comedy Green Wing. On the big screen, Colman landed parts as PC Doris Thatcher in Hot Fuzz and the Hotel Manager in the surreal The Lobster. However, Colman is certainly most recognized for one of her relatively few dramatic roles. She starred as Queen Anne in The Favourite, and won an Academy Award for her performance. In 2019, she replaced Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II in the third season of the Netflix docudrama The Crown.

On Carnival Row, a series about humans interacting with creatures like fauns under great resistance, somebody has to be the authority figure, a representative of the government trying to figure out what to do about all that new immigration. The Chancellor of the Republic of Burgue is probably the most powerful man in the land, leading and wielding great control over Parliament. Who better to play this big-man-in-charge than raspy-voiced British character actor Jared Harris, a guy who specializes in playing bosses and world-weary sad sacks. 

He played both of those things on what's likely his most famous role to date: financially (and severely emotionally) troubled advertising executive Lane Pryce on Mad Men, which earned Harris an Emmy nomination. In 2019, Harris landed another Emmy nom for his work as real-life chemist and chief disaster investigator Valery Legasov in HBO's devastating Chernobyl miniseries. He may also look familiar from his appearances as the dying King George VI in early episodes of The Crown, or as the truly evil villain David Robert Jones on Fringe. The actor's film appearances include Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (as Professor Moriarty), Lincoln (as Ulysses S. Grant), and in 2020, he'll make the leap to big comic book movies, playing a mentor figure to the title character in Morbius.