When somebody shows up on our screen, it's easy to be surprised. After all, maybe we didn't see them the previous year. And there are so many examples of people who are suddenly incredibly famous. Take, for example, Jaleel White, AKA Steve Urkel. He was meant to be a one-off character, but was instead the breakout star on the sitcom Family Matters. White wasn't a known TV commodity beforehand. He had a few credits under his belt, notably on Charlie & Co., starring Gladys Knight, but he wasn't a pop cultural mainstay the way he'd become one. And then suddenly— Urkel was everywhere. At just 13-years-old, White was nationally famous. His appearance on the 12th episode of Family Matters was so popular, audiences all but demanded White be instated as a series regular in the second season.

Patricia Heaton, on the other hand, wasn't quite as lucky.

"People don't realize that Ray was my fourth sitcom," Heaton told The Springfield News-Sun in 2012. While Everybody Loves Raymond would prove to be a huge ratings hit, Heaton was one of the more unproven quantities on the show. 

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"I came to Hollywood at the ancient age of 32, which put me out to pasture like Sea Biscuit! I had no agent, no manager and nthing to show for hanging around in New York for nine years."

So, what was the tipping point? Given such a worrisome lack of prospects, how did Patricia Heaton go from where she was to where she was going? Well, that answer was very unexpected, compared to how some of Heaton's peers may have answered.

"A trip to an orphanage in Mexico," she said. "I did some work there for a weekend. And I came back thinking, 'I don't need to be an actor. I could go right back to that orphanage and just work there for the rest of my life.' It was so fulfilling. Almost the instant I made that adjustment internally, it just relaxed me and then I started getting work. It was so interesting. It was like, I let go of it and then it came back to me."