10 Stars Who Showed Up On Monk Before Becoming Famous
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Tony Shalhoub delighted mystery fans for 8 seasons as Monk, the obsessive-compulsive detective with too many phobias to count. As his character solved unsolvable murders in San Francisco, his friends at the police department and his overworked assistants tried to make sure he stayed sane, and that he finally come to terms with the loss of his wife, Trudy.
The show won several awards, filmed over 100 episodes, and was one of the USA network's most popular original programs. Reruns of Monk still make the rounds on METV and various streaming services, so when fans return to the show they might be surprised to spot a few now familiar faces who were not so familiar when the show first aired, one of which is an Oscar winning star.
10 Ken Marino
Fans of MTV's The State and Showtime's Party Down will know Marino from those two cult projects. He is also recognizable from films like Wanderlust and Wet Hot American Summer as well as the popular Adult Swim show Children's Hospital. But as he was garnering titles to add to his IMDb list, one title he earned was a brief appearance as Lester Highsmith, a cop and the ex of a murder victim on Monk.
9 Melora Hardin
Fans of The Office might know her better as Jan, Michael Scott's toxic ex-boss/ex-girlfriend. Years before she was a recurring character on the hit sitcom, she had a recurring role on Monk. Hardin played Trudy, Monk's lost love who was murdered in a car bombing. The loss of his wife triggered Monk's mental breakdown which caused him to quit the force and become a private detective.
8 Jim O'Heir
Parks and Rec fans know him as Larry, or Gary, or Jerry, or Terry. But years before his show with Amy Poehler became a hit, he had a brief, almost insignificant role in a 2006 episode as a park ranger on Monk. His character is just credited as "Park Ranger" on IMDb.
7 Danny Trejo
Trejo is great at playing hardened criminals, thugs, toughs, and pretty much any kind of character that you just don't want to mess with. Trejo had already been in several films by the time he appeared in an episode of Monk, mostly in the films of Robert Rodriguez, but he was not yet the icon that he is today. In the episode "Mr. Monk Goes To Jail," Trejo plays Spyder, a murderer who shares a cell with Monk when Monk goes undercover in prison. The two become unlikely friends as Monk investigates a homicide. Trejo had an easy time giving us a believable performance as a prisoner, since before he was an actor he did several years in prison.
6 Angela Kinsey
Melora Hardin was not the only star of The Office to make an appearance on Monk. In an episode where Alfred Molina plays a belligerent millionaire, Hardin plays a doctor who plans his death by manipulating x-rays so that she can cash in. Kinsey returned as the character in the Monk 100th episode special.
5 Rainn Wilson
Yet another member from The Office cast to pop up in the Monk-verse, everyone's favorite (or least favorite) assistant to the regional manager, Dwight Shrute, AKA Rainn Wilson. Wilson, like Kinsey (who played Dwight's lover on the show), played a computer nerd who kills a professional baseball player and his wife to cash in on the value of a foul ball he caught at a game.
4 David Koechner
Koechner is also known for his time on The Office as Todd Packer, Michael Scott's misogynistic loud-mouthed best friend. And although he was somewhat famous at the time thanks to his role as Champ Kind in Anchorman, he was not yet as in demand as a comedy actor as he is now. So he needed work, and one piece of work he got was Monk, like the other Office stars (save for Hardin) Koechner played a killer.
3 Nick Offerman
It would seem that almost everyone who was in a hit NBC sitcom got some early work on Monk. Before he was Ron Swanson of the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department, he was Jack Whitman, an enthusiastic volunteer for Natalie's (Monk's second assistant) campaign for the school board. Offerman's character, Jack Whitman, originally comes across as a loyal supporter of Natalie's cause, but in reality, he was a murderer who was trying to get access to documents that got swept up in the campaign that would prove he murdered his wife. Funny enough, while Offerman's rise to fame came later in life, his wife Megan Mullaley was already famous thanks to her role in Will & Grace.
2 Sarah Silverman
Silverman, unlike most of the others on this list, had a recurring role on the series as Marci Maven. Maven was Monk's biggest fan who had a bit of an unhealthy obsession and attraction to the man, although it never manifested in anything as bad as murder (she even helped him solve a few cases). As Silverman came and went on the show, she was growing her career as a stand-up comic and actress, and was working on her own show, The Sarah Silverman Program.
1 Jennifer Lawrence
This might be the biggest name to come in and out of Monk's San Francisco, save for names that appeared on the show who were already famous (examples: Stanley Tucci, Andy Richter, etc.). But this A-listers appearance deserves a special shout-out for one reason, it was Lawrence's first speaking role on-screen ever. Lawrence played a school mascot who is interviewed by the detective before suiting up as a jungle cat and entertaining the crowd at a pep rally, while also violating Monk's very strict personal boundaries. Who knew that the kid in a giant cat suit would go on to be an Oscar winner worth millions of dollars? Perhaps Monk did...he was a detective after all.
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