Hot Gallery: Familiar Faces Return to Mid-Season Shows

Now: Tambor is keeping busy with NBC’s new comedy, Bent, where he plays David Walton’s father—a man who may be even more downtrodden than George Bluth—an out-of-work actor. “I relate,” Tambor laughed during the TCAs. “ Also in the pilot, it said, ‘Walt enters; 50s, handsome.’  So you've got to go. I've never been called that in my life, so this is great…This is also a great ensemble piece, and this group is very chemical, very funny.”

Then: Though NBC is tagging promos for their new musical drama Smash (premiering on February 6^th) with “introducing” Katharine McPhee, avid TV watchers know her very, very well already from season five of American Idol, where she came in second place.

Now: McPhee co-stars in Smash as an aspiring singer and actress (talk about type-casting!) working as a waitress in NYC, who auditions for a new Marilyn Monroe musical opposite a seasoned Broadway veteran. In Smash, McPhee will be singing both covers and original music, unlike her Idol experience, though. “It's definitely different because I'm usually singing songs that I'm hearing for the first time, and it's such a fast pace that we're on, and you don't get a whole lot of time to sit with the songs and perfect them, as much as I would love to perfect [the] masterpieces,” McPhee admitted. “I think of myself as more of a pop artist, and Megan [Hilty] has got, like, the big Broadway voice, so I'm always trying to balance the two so that they kind of are cohesive together, that it makes sense in terms of the show.”

Then: As Federal Agent Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland saved the world, one hour at a time, on FOX’s high-action, high-octane drama, 24, from 2001-2010.

Now: Sutherland is still saving the world on FOX but in a much different way as blue-collar single dad Martin Bohm in new humanity drama Touch. Touch focuses on Martin trying to connect with his savant son, so he too can see the connections and patterns that his son does in order to help complete strangers. "To openly show and have an emotional reaction to what is happening at the exact moment is a wonderful opportunity," Sutherland shared. "The repression on 24 got heavier…[Martin’s] sense of failure as a parent-- as somehow he's responsible for where his son is at—is out in the open…And so that is something that I certainly responded to as a parent myself, and I hope and believe that other parents who watch this will as well."

Then: Though Laura Prepon has spent a handful of episodes as Ted (Josh Radnor)’s on-again-off-again college girlfriend Karen in flashbacks on How I Met Your Mother, she is best known as dry teen Donna from That ‘70s Show.

Now: Prepon is heading back to the sitcom format that made her famous in NBC and Chelsea Handler’s Are You There, Chelsea? Prepon stars as the titular Chelsea, ultimately playing a version of Handler herself—at least in the beginning. “As the characters grow and evolve, you know, things change,” Prepon previewed the character evolution from Handler’s memoir to the NBC series pilot script to the series episodes still to come. “The more you watch the show throughout the season, all the characters, they become more real people, and you want to know more about them.”

Then: From 2003-2009 Nagra donned her sharpest white lab coat and accessorized with a stethoscope as Dr. Neela Rasgotra on rich character medical drama ER.

Now: Still donning a lab coat from time to time, Nagra now co-stars on J.J. Abrams’ Alcatraz, as the mysterious and perhaps timeless Lucy Banerjee, interrogating past criminals who have resurfaced but hopefully not performing medical experiments on them. “You know, doing ER, I had the arc fleshed out, the background fleshed out, on who [Neela] was, and [on Alcatraz] I’m sort of doing it slowly,” Nagra told Snakkle of the mystery to her character. “

Then: She was the wise cracking, precocious, driven teenager all should aspire to be on Veronica Mars (2004-2007), where she fell for the bad boy and solved crimes that ranged from petty theft to serial rape. She was as badass as Buffy without having the supernatural crutch to rely on. Plus, you know, she voices Gossip Girl.

Now: Bell is currently appearing in House of Lies, Showtime’s freshman “provocative” comedy as part of a team of fast-talking management consultants, a part she is reveling in because of her rich backstory. “They’re really dynamic characters—and we were told so much, whether it's explored in the first 13 episodes or not, about where we came from and how we were shaped,” Bell shared. “I sympathize with Jeannie a lot because I know why she makes the decisions that she makes. You do get to see one episode does go into her past a little bit more, and you sort of realize why she does the things she does and why she has the specific habits that she's created. It's kind of a defense mechanism.”

Then: Best known as Elaine Benes on Seinfeld Louis-Dreyfus drew belly laughs for her loud exclamations of “Get out!,” terrible taste in men, and killer dance moves from 1990 to 1998 and then went on to do short runs starring in her own series as a jazz singer in Watching Ellie and a hapless, newly single mom on The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Now: Starring as a female vice-president in HBO’s Veep (premiering April 2012), Louis-Dreyfus is a “political challenger and aspirer in a big way, if such a word exists…She’s somebody to contend with, and she was somewhat powerful in the Senate and had been a Congresswoman.” But still in a comedic way, of course!