MTV Soap Opera Paved the Way For Careers
Many Young Stars Had Roles on "Undressed"
In 1999 MTV debuted a late-night show called Undressed, which was essentially a half-hour soap opera for the hormonally charged.
The show the show profiled fictional young men and women as they navigated through physical and emotional relationships, pushing the envelope of sexual conversation. Each episode involved separate storylines and went back and forth between them while providing viewers with plenty of risqué dialogue and sexual situations. Just like other soap operas Undressed wasn’t on just once a week, but several times and it was one of the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Undressed was shot in a no-frills, simple way which was not high in budget, but that simplicity helped make the show feel more intimate and allowed viewers to feel as if they were with a small group of people enjoying the evening sexcapades instead of watching an overproduced show broadcast nationally.
Three-Year Run Was Plenty of Time to Amass Future Stars
The show ended in 2002 after 222 episodes, but that was plenty of time for plenty of young performers who would later become household names and star in high-profile films to have their turn on the bedroom show.
Before she played the sister of the unlikely spy Chuck, Sarah Lancaster played Liz on the show’s first season. Christina Hendricks, currently seen every Sunday on AMC in the hit show Mad Men had a turn as a Rhiannon, and Bree Turner, who played Tina, went on to co-star in such films as The Wedding Planner and Just My Luck.
On Season 2 Jay Hernandez, who would later be in the films Crazy/Beautiful and Quarantine, played Eddie while future One Tree Hill star Chad Michael Murray (who got to cuddle up with Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff in the films Freaky Friday and A Cinderella Story) played Dan. Jordana Spiro, the star of the Tbs show My Boys and co-star of The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, with Jeremy Piven, played Merrith.
The O.C. Star and Twilight Actress got Undressed
Adam Brody played Lucas in season 3 before he moved to The O.C. and Brandon Routh played Wade before battling Lex Luthor in Superman Returns.
Now millions of Twihards know her as Victoria, but before threatening Bella Swan in Twilight, Rachelle Lefevre played Annie Isles in season 6.
While many performers were unknowns when they acted on Undressed executive producer Roland Joffe was well established. He is the same man who was nominated for an Academy Award for best director for The Killing Fields and again for The Mission.
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