Every so often, a movie comes along with an incredible cast, except
you don’t even know it. At the time, it’s just a group of budding,
young, no-name actors and actresses trying to get their start in
Hollywood. But in hindsight, it’s a perfect storm of talented thespians
and Tinseltown heavy hitters.

Maybe the best example of this is Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Cameron Crowe’s early ’80s book-turned-film has a cast that would take
millions to reassemble today.

Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli Long before his Oscar for Mystic
River and three other nominations, Sean Penn immortalized the
lines, “Aloha, Mr. Hand,” and “Hey bud, let’s party.”
Now he’s sure to get a fifth Oscar nomination for All the King’s Men.

Forest Whitaker as Charles Jefferson And who will
Penn go up against? Probably this guy for playing Idi Amin in The
Last King of Scotland. It would be his first Academy Award
nomination, but Forest has a long list of accolades. I just hope Battlefield
Earth doesn’t come back to haunt him.

Eric Stoltz as Spicoli’s Stoner “Bud” After a bit
part in Fast Times, Stoltz would add Some Kind of Wonderful,
Memphis Belle, Pulp Fiction and Killing Zoe to
his resume. And don’t forget Anaconda!

b>Anthony Edwards as Spicoli’s Other Stoner “Bud” If it
wasn’t for this role, who would have played Goose in Top Gun,
Gilbert in Revenge of the Nerds or Dr. Green on E.R.?

Nicolas Cage as Brad’s Friend He got his start
working for Cameron Crowe, and later played Cameron Poe (in Con Air).
But my favorite Cage movie is still Raising Arizona, hands down!

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stacy If you only see one
other JJL movie in your life, make it Single White Female. But
you’d be missing out on Road to Perdition, Delores Claiborne,
and Backdraft if you decided to be that picky.

Judge Reinhold as Brad In addition to going on to do
dozens of films, Judge helped immortalize Seinfeld’s “close talker.” I
just have one question: What were you thinking when you did Beverly
Hills Cop III?!?!

Phoebe Cates as Linda Okay, she didn’t have quite
as phenomenal career as some of the other folks mentioned here. But she
did do Gremlins and Drop Dead Fred. Besides, she
deserves a mention just for the swimming pool scene.

James Russo as Convenience Store Robber He’s one of
those “that guy” actors. You might not recognize the name, but when you
see him you say, “Oh, that guy!” He was Eddie Murphy’s buddie
who got whacked in Beverly Hills Cop and one of the gangsters
in Donnie Brasco (Paulie) if that jogs your memory.

There are more I could mention, including Ray Walston as Mr. Hand,
Vincent Schiavelli as Mr. Vargas (“I just switched to Sanka”), and
Taylor Negron as a pizza delivery guy. Next time you watch Fast
Times see if you can spot any future stars I missed and let me know.

href="javascript:openMediaPlaybackWindow ('/dvdmediaplayback?mediaassetid=11757590','Filmcom');"> src="http://static.realone.com/filmcom/images/global/video.gif" alt=""
align="middle" border="0" hspace="2"/> href="javascript:openMediaPlaybackWindow ('/dvdmediaplayback?mediaassetid=11757590','Filmcom');">Watch
Fast Times Trailer

Ethan Morris is a freelance writer who loves to tell people what
he thinks about movies, DVDs and TV — even when they don’t want to
hear about it. He also wants to know what you think, so feel free to href="mailto:goaheadandwrite@gmail.com">write him. Ethan
contributes to Film.com five times a week.