TV Actors from Kentucky

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Updated June 15, 2019 37.8K views207 items

This list of TV actors from Kentucky is ordered by popularity so the names at the top will be the most recognizable. A few of the celebrities from Kentucky may not have technically been born in Kentucky, but grew up in Kentucky and at one time considered it their home. The list includes Kentucky TV actors from every type of show, including cartoons (voice-over work). So, which TV actors are from Kentucky? 

Among famous actors from Kentucky, Johnny Depp was born in Owensboro, KY, but moved often as a child. George Clooney is originally from Lexington, KY. Like Depp, Clooney does double duty as one of the biggest movie stars from Kentucky, but many people forget they both got their start on television. 

Notable actresses from Kentucky include Jennifer Lawrence, who was born in Indian Hills, KY. Though she's also one of the biggest movie stars from Kentucky, she got her big break on the small screen in The Bill Engvall Show. Kentucy-born actress Kelly Rutherford hails from Elizabethtown, KY., and has made a career out of daytime and nighttime soap opera-style shows like Melrose Place and Gossip Girl. Veteran TV news journalist and ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer moved to Louisville, KY as a young child, and is one of the most famous people from Kentucky. 

If you grew up in Kentucky then you should be proud of these television actors whose birthplace is Kentucky. Various bits of information are available for these famous Kentucky actors as well, such as what year they were born and what shows they are known for.

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  • George Clooney

    George Clooney

    ER, The Facts of Life, Sisters
    • Birthplace: USA, Lexington, Kentucky
    • Nationality: United States of America
    George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of three Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards, one for acting in Syriana (2006) and the other for co-producing Argo (2012). In 2018, he was the recipient of the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award.Clooney made his acting debut on television in 1978, and later gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Doug Ross on the medical drama ER, from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films, with his breakthrough role in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), and the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998), in which he first worked with director Steven Soderbergh, who would become a long-time collaborator. In 1999, he took the lead role in Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War. In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, the heist comedy remake Ocean's Eleven, the first of what became a trilogy, starring Clooney. He made his directorial debut a year later with the biographical spy comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed the historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the sports comedy Leatherheads (2008), the political drama The Ides of March (2011), and the war film The Monuments Men (2014). Clooney won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005), and subsequently earned Best Actor nominations for the legal thriller Michael Clayton (2007) and the comedy-dramas Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). In 2013, he received the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing the political thriller Argo. He has been nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories, a record he shares with Walt Disney.In 2009, Clooney was included in Time's annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World". He is also noted for his political and economic activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
  • Johnny Depp

    Johnny Depp

    21 Jump Street
    • Birthplace: Owensboro, Kentucky, USA
    • Nationality: United States of America
    John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor, producer, and musician. He has been nominated for 10 Golden Globe Awards, winning one for Best Actor for his performance of the title role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2008) and has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actor, among other accolades. He is regarded as one of the world's biggest film stars.Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol. He has gained critical praise for his portrayals of inept screenwriter-director Ed Wood in the film of the same name, undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco, author J. M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, and Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in Black Mass. Depp is the third highest-grossing actor worldwide, as films featuring Depp have grossed over US$3.7 billion at the United States box office and over US$10 billion worldwide. He has been listed in the 2012 Guinness World Records as the world's highest-paid actor, with earnings of US$75 million. His most commercially successful films are the Pirates of the Caribbean series, which grossed US$4.5 billion, the Fantastic Beasts film series, which grossed US$1.3 billion, Alice in Wonderland, which grossed US$1 billion, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which grossed US$474 million, and The Tourist, which grossed US$278 million.Depp had a supporting role in Oliver Stone's 1986 Vietnam War film Platoon and played the title character in the 1990 romantic dark fantasy Edward Scissorhands. He later found box office success in the adventure film Sleepy Hollow (1999), the swashbuckler film series Pirates of the Caribbean (2003–present), the fantasy films Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Alice in Wonderland (2010), the animated comedy western Rango (2011) (in which he voiced the title character), and most recently Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018). Depp has collaborated on nine films with director, producer and friend Tim Burton. Depp was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2015. He has performed in numerous musical groups, including forming the rock supergroup Hollywood Vampires along with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry.
  • Jennifer Lawrence

    Jennifer Lawrence

    The Bill Engvall Show
    • Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
    • Nationality: United States of America
    Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress. Her films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide, and she was the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016. Lawrence appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world list in 2013 and in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2014 and 2016. During her childhood, Lawrence performed in church plays and school musicals. At age 14, she was spotted by a talent scout while vacationing in New York City with her family. Lawrence then moved to Los Angeles and began her acting career by playing guest roles in television shows. Her first major role came as a main cast member on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007–2009). Lawrence made her film debut in a supporting role in the drama Garden Party (2008), and had her breakthrough playing a poverty-stricken teenager in the independent drama Winter's Bone (2010). She achieved wider recognition for her starring role as the mutant Mystique / Raven Darkhölme in the X-Men film series (2011–2019). Lawrence's career progressed with her starring role as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), which established her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time. She went on to earn accolades for her collaborations with director David O. Russell. Her performance as a depressed young widow in the romance film Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the second-youngest winner of the award. Lawrence subsequently won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for playing a troubled wife in the black comedy American Hustle (2013). She also received Golden Globe Awards for her roles in both of these films, and for her lead performance as Joy Mangano in the biopic Joy (2015). She has since starred in the science fiction romance Passengers (2016), the psychological horror film Mother! (2017), and the spy thriller Red Sparrow (2018). Lawrence is an outspoken feminist and has advocated for Planned Parenthood. In 2015, she founded the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation, which has advocated for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Special Olympics. She formed the production company Excellent Cadaver in 2018.
  • Diane Sawyer
    Lila Diane Sawyer (born December 22, 1945) is an American television journalist. Sawyer has been the anchor of ABC News's nightly flagship program ABC World News, a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news program Good Morning America and Primetime newsmagazine. Early in her career, she was a member of U.S. President Richard Nixon's White House staff and closely associated with the president himself.
  • Kelly Rutherford

    Kelly Rutherford

    Gossip Girl, Melrose Place, The Adventures of Brisco County
    • Birthplace: Elizabethtown, Kentucky, USA
    • Nationality: United States of America
    Kelly Rutherford (November 6, 1968) is an American actress. She is known for her television roles as Stephanie "Sam" Whitmore on the NBC daytime soap opera Generations (1989–1991), as Megan Lewis on the Fox primetime soap opera Melrose Place (1996–1999), and as Lily van der Woodsen on The CW series Gossip Girl (2007–2012).
  • Jennifer Carpenter
    • Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
    • Nationality: United States of America
    Jennifer Leann Carpenter (born December 7, 1979) is an American actress. She is known for playing Debra Morgan, the adoptive sister of the title character of the Showtime series Dexter, for which she earned a Saturn Award in 2009, and also for playing Rebecca Harris in the CBS television series Limitless. In 2019, she began playing Erica Shepherd, the lead role in the NBC drama The Enemy Within.