Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Ralph Fiennes: 2 Decades Ago, Broadway Had a Similarly Starry Season

Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr. 鈥any headlines have been made about how the 2024鈥�2025 Broadway season was filled with A-list celebrities鈥攎any of whom were coming to the stage for the first time. You don't have to be a theatre fan to know that the stage has always been an important stop for any serious actor鈥攚hether it was Scarlett Johansson in a Tennessee Williams play or Tom Hanks in a Nora Ephron play (or Tom Hanks again this fall in a play he co-wrote). But did you know that two decades ago, the 2005鈥�2006 Broadway season was similarly star-filled? In fact, there were more celebrities trodding the boards.

There was Oscar winner Julia Roberts, a pre-Hangover Bradley Cooper, and pre-Ant Man Paul Rudd performing a three-person play called Three Days of Rain. And there was Ralph Fiennes (in between Harry Potter films) acting opposite the legendary Cherry Jones in Faith Healer, where they played a couple. Pop star Cyndi Lauper made her Broadway debut in the musical Threepenny Opera with Alan Cumming鈥攕parking her love for theatre that then led to Kinky Boots. And that's just the tip of it.

But that isn't all, that season also had Patti LuPone as a tuba-playing Mrs. Lovett, Friends' David Schwimmer in a courtroom drama, a young Kelli O'Hara singing opposite Harry Connick, Jr., Mark Ruffalo in the Tony-winning revival of Awake and Sing!, and so much more. Browse through the shows, and stars, of the 2005鈥�2006 Broadway season in the gallery below.