Most television roles last a few seasons, and then the actor moves on. A handful of performers have stayed with one character for decades, long enough to grow up, grow older and sometimes outlast the shows that made the character famous.
The eight below are among the clearest examples, drawn from drama, comedy, soap opera and animation. Each one has spent more than two decades inside a single role.
Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane
Kelsey Grammer first played psychiatrist Frasier Crane in 1984 on Cheers. He carried the character into the spinoff Frasier, which ran from 1993 to 2004.
That alone adds up to about twenty years. Grammer then returned to the role for a Paramount+ revival of Frasier in 2023, which pushed the total well past the twenty year mark.
Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson
Mariska Hargitay has played Detective Olivia Benson since Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered in 1999. The role has grown from a detective on the squad to a leadership position within it.
The series is among the longest running scripted primetime shows in American television history. It was still in production in 2025, which means Hargitay has been in the role for more than a quarter of a century.
Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson
Dan Castellaneta first voiced Homer Simpson in 1987, in short animated segments on The Tracey Ullman Show. The half hour series The Simpsons followed in 1989.
He has voiced Homer ever since, along with other Springfield residents such as Grampa Simpson. Few actors in any medium have a stretch with one character this long.
Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson
Nancy Cartwright also began on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987. She reportedly went in to read for the part of Lisa, but asked to try Bart instead and got the role.
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Cartwright has voiced the mischievous ten year old for more than three decades. Bart never ages, but his voice has stayed with the same performer the entire time.
William Roache as Ken Barlow
William Roache joined the British soap Coronation Street as Ken Barlow when the show began in December 1960. He is recognized by Guinness World Records for the longest TV career as a soap actor.
Ken has gone through marriages, scandals and a changing Manchester neighborhood. For viewers in Britain, he has been a constant presence for several generations.
Susan Lucci as Erica Kane
Susan Lucci played Erica Kane on the ABC soap All My Children from its debut in 1970 until the network ended the series in 2011. That is roughly four decades with one glamorous, much married character.
Lucci became one of daytime television’s best known faces. She also made later returns to the role when the show was revived in a different form after its original broadcast run ended.
Richard Belzer as John Munch
Richard Belzer introduced Detective John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1993. He then brought the character to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he stayed until 2016.
Munch also turned up in other series, including The X-Files, The Wire and Arrested Development, which made him one of television’s most widely shared characters. Belzer died in 2023, and the role remains the one most closely tied to his career.
James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
James Arness played Marshal Matt Dillon on the Western Gunsmoke, which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1975. The series ran for twenty seasons and more than six hundred episodes.
Arness came back to the role in a series of television movies beginning in 1987. With those added, his time as Dillon stretched past the twenty year mark, even though the main series ended in 1975.
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