The earliest TV gigs of 11 Oscar-worthy actors

Today, actors have become very proud of going back and forth between roles in movies and television. But that hasn't always been the case.

For most of Hollywood's history, there has been a pretty deep divide between television actors and movie stars. There was no shame in getting one's start in TV. But once one made the leap to movies, most never looked back.

As Oscar-winner and current star of FX's"The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" Cuba Gooding, Jr. recently told Business Insider, "When I started in the business, you did television and then when you got lucky you got a prestige project of a film."

Many of today's biggest movie stars followed that same career path, so we decided to take a look at the early careers of several of this year's Oscar nominees - from Christian Bale to Jennifer Lawrence and Alicia Vikander - for their first TV gigs.

Here's a look at the small screen roles that some of them may want to forget: