Guest Cast?

XtremePrime wrote:
What exactly constitutes a Guest cast worthy person?
I tend to think that a guest cast is someone that roughly appears once or twice or at the very best 10 times in a 150+ episodes show, right?
A strict example would be The Office (US), Ellie Kemper is often added as a guest cast member, even though she had featured in 102 episodes out of a total of 201 episodes. That's a little over half of the episodes!
I'm putting this here because I'm unsure if I'll upset someone if I want to try and correct this mistake. I added her as a cast member aswell, but I didn't correct all the "guest appearances".

A person can either be main cast OR guest cast in an episode, never both at the same time.

Main Cast are the persons listed within the main credits. After those main credits, it usually says "Guest Starring" or "Guest cast" on screen. Everyone after that is considered as "Guest cast"
Main cast is also determined in press releases of the networks.

A person can be considered as a guest cast in season 1 (he will appear as guest cast in those episodes on the episode pages) and then got promoted to main cast in season 2 (he will appear as cast appearance on the episodes then).

cheers
Juan

Some guest cast may appear in many episodes. It is usually specified in the intro and end credits itself. It may happen that some guest stars even appear more often in the series than a main cast player. I will correct it now.

At least for American live-action TV, they're usually pretty clear about listing Show Stars, Guest Stars, Co-Stars, and Special Guest Stars.

Whatever the onscreen credits say is whatever they would be listed as here, right?

Who is a guest star and who is a show star is determined by the Screen Actors Guild, and negotiations between the actor's agents, the SAG, and the show's producers. # of appearances don't matter.

As Juan noted, sometimes an actor will get "promoted" to Show Star. Or demoted, if they leave the show and then return as a Guest Star or Special Guest Star. Almost everyone who was a Main Star on Wayward Pines last year has returned as a Special Guest Star, or even Uncredited in one case.

For instance, on Supernatural, Jim Beaver has appeared in 59 episodes but he's always been listed as Guest Star. They tried to introduce "main" female characters in Season 3 to broad the show's popularity with women viewers, so Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan got Show Star credits. But they only appeared in 6 episodes each of just that season. But they were credited as Show Stars for those episodes. So... they'd be listed as Show Stars.

So really, it has nothing to do with "worthiness." Jim Beaver might be more "worthy" of being listed as a Show Star than Lauren Cohan. But that's not what happened.

I see what you guys mean. I this particular case, the actress got promoted to main cast from season 6 onwards.

Proof being here . (In the link, she's mentioned as recurring, not guest, but it's much of the same)

It's more about listing on TVMaze rather than the show deal. Because some actors could have gone from guest to main, so technically they should be listed as both on here, right? Atleast that's my opinion anyway. Thanks.

XtremePrime wrote:
I see what you guys mean. I this particular case, the actress got promoted to main cast from season 6 onwards.
Proof being here .
It's more about listing on TVMaze rather than the show deal. Because some actors could have gone from guest to main, so technically they should be listed as both on here, right? Atleast that's my opinion anyway. Thanks.

Yes, the person would be listed as guest cast in the first 5 seasons and as main cast in season 6 :)

JuanArango wrote:
Yes, the person would be listed as guest cast in the first 5 seasons and as main cast in season 6 :)

Well, listed as guest in season 5 only, as they haven't been previously to that, but thank you.

Thanks everyone for the replies and helping me get a better understanding of the star/guest system. c:

Cheers!

Yep, that's how a great many actors are listed at TVMaze currently and presumably correctly. To return to Supernatural, Misha Collins and Mark Sheppard were both guest stars before they became Main Stars. Collins was a guest star, then a main star, then a guest star, then a main star again.

Just FYI, Wikipedia is the link provided above and it's not really "proof." I could go there now and delete Ms. Kemper as a show star. The screen credits and the official press releases are your best and most reliable proof.