Favorite Actress of All Time
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Precocious, outspoken child-teen starlet of the 1990s, Christina Ricci was born on February 12, 1980 in Santa Monica, California, the youngest of four children of Sarah (Murdoch), a realtor, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and therapist. She is of Italian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, and Scots-Irish descent. She made her screen debut at the age of 9 in Mermaids (1990), in which she worked with Winona Ryder and Cher. Her breakthrough adult role was in The Ice Storm (1997), in which she plays a nymphet who skillfully seduces two brothers. She worked with Johnny Depp and Casper Van Dien in the Tim Burton film Sleepy Hollow (1999).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Maggie Gyllenhaal was born on November 16, 1977 in New York City, New York as Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal, the daughter of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and German (father) descent.
She made her film debut in Waterland (1992). She had sporadic roles throughout her teenage years though she took a break to attend Columbia University where she graduated w/ a degree in literature in 1999. In addition, she briefly studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, which helped w/ her post-graduation transition back into acting.
Soon after graduating, she had supporting roles in Cecil B. Demented (2000) & Donnie Darko (2001). Her breakout role came later when she starred in Secretary (2002), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. She followed that up w/ supporting roles in 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Adaptation. (2002), & Mona Lisa Smile (2003) among other movies. She received her 2nd Golden Globe nomination for playing a recent prison parolee in Sherrybaby (2006). She followed that up w/ roles in World Trade Center (2006), Stranger Than Fiction (2006) & The Dark Knight (2008).
In 2009, she received great acclaim for her role in Crazy Heart (2009), which earned her 1st Oscar nomination. Since then, she has been seen in Nanny McPhee Returns (2010), Hysteria (2011) & Won't Back Down (2012).- Actress
- Producer
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Rose Byrne was born in Balmain, Sydney, Australia. She is the daughter of Jane, a primary school administrator, and Robin Byrne, a semi-retired statistician and market researcher.
She landed her first role in a movie, Dallas Doll (1994), when she was 15 years old.
Since then, Rose has appeared in a variety of Australian televisions shows including Heartbreak High (1994), Echo Point (1995), and the film Two Hands (1999) alongside Heath Ledger. After this, she appeared in various movies like The Date (1999), My Mother Frank (2000), and Clara Law's The Goddess of 1967 (2000) for which she obtained the Female Volpi Cup at the Venice Festival in 2000.
Her first experience on a big-budget movie came when she played handmaiden, Dormé, to Natalie Portman, Padmé Amidala, in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). In 2003, she starred, coincidentally, as Rose Mortmain in the adaptation of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle (2003). In 2004, she acted in Wicker Park (2004) with Diane Kruger and Josh Hartnett. Here, she heard Wolfgang Petersen was looking for an actress for Briseis in his next movie Troy (2004) with Brad Pitt, she got the part and was recognised as one of the most promising actresses in Hollywood.
After Troy (2004), she played Edith in a TV adaptation of Casanova (2005). In September 2005, she started to act in Sunshine (2007), a Danny Boyle movie, where she plays the pilot in a space mission.- Actress
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Liv Tyler is an actress of international renown and has been a familiar face on our screens for over two decades and counting. She began modelling at the age of fourteen before pursuing a career in acting. After making her film debut in Bruce Beresford's Silent Fall, she was cast by fledgling director James Mangold (who would go on to direct such hits as Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line and Logan) in his first feature Heavy, a critical and commercial success that went on to gain cult status. This was followed by another indie cult hit, Empire Records, but it was the leading role in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty that catapulted her to stardom at the age of eighteen.
Liv was next seen in Tom Hanks' hugely successful passion project That Thing You Do!, his paean to the glory days of 1960s rock 'n' roll (as the child of a rock 'n' roll background, this was a film whose subject was also dear to Liv's heart). This was followed by Michael Bay's action blockbuster Armageddon, starring alongside Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Steve Buscemi, who would later go on to direct Liv in Lonesome Jim.
Liv had come to the attention of director Robert Altman in Stealing Beauty and the late, great auteur went on to cast her in two of his final projects, Cookie's Fortune and Dr T and the Women, describing her as "very serious, very prepared and very professional...I am crazy about her."
In between her work for Altman, Liv starred opposite Ralph Fiennes in Onegin, directed by his sister Martha, from the classic novel by Alexander Pushkin. Ralph Fiennes said of Liv, "We tested a lot of actresses but Liv has an acute sense of emotional truth that's not performed or projected, but just is."
In 2001, Liv portrayed Arwen in the ground-breaking epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Nothing if not eclectic, Liv then defied expectations by starring in cult director Kevin Smith's gentle low-budget comedy Jersey Girl, re-uniting her with her Armageddon co-star Ben Affleck, before playing Betty, the female lead to Edward Norton's Bruce Banner in Marvel's The Incredible Hulk.
An actress who consistently refuses to be pigeonholed, Liv's career is one that cuts across genres; she cannot be defined by the roles she has chosen and is led, above all, by what speaks to her on an instinctual and emotional level. "It's very difficult to say no to whatever comes along," Tom Hanks has said of her, "...But she's saying no to all the right things."
In addition to her acting work, Liv has forged a decade-long relationship with Givenchy as the spokesperson for their fragrance and cosmetics line. Liv is also a brand ambassador for Triumph lingerie, developing a capsule collection that celebrates the company's commitment to body confidence, as exemplified by Liv herself, "a modern woman in every sense, a mother and actress with a fierce sense of femininity that women across the world can relate to."
Liv's previous design collaboration was with Belstaff, resulting in two capsule collections for the iconic British heritage brand. Liv has also been the face of commercial campaigns for several global brands, including Visa and Pantene.- Actress
- Producer
Jennifer Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Ilene (Schuman), a dealer of antiques, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father had Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish immigrant family. Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, except for the four years her parents spent in Woodstock, New York. Back in Brooklyn Heights, she attended St. Ann's school. A close friend of the family was an advertising executive. When Jennifer was ten, he suggested that her parents take her to a modeling audition. She began appearing in newspaper and magazine ads (among them "Seventeen" magazine), and soon moved on to television commercials. A casting director saw her and introduced her to Sergio Leone, who was seeking a young girl to dance in his gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Although having little screen time, the few minutes she was on-screen were enough to reveal her talent. Her next role after that was an episode of the British horror anthology TV series Tales of the Unexpected (1979) in 1984.
After Leone's movie, horror master Dario Argento signed her to play her first starring role in his thriller Phenomena (1985). The film made a lot of money in Europe but, unfortunately, was heavily cut for American distribution. Around the same time, she appeared in the rock video "I Drove All Night," a Roy Orbison song, co-starring Jason Priestley. She released a single called "Monologue of Love" in Japan in the mid-1980s, in which she sings in Japanese a charming little song with semi-classical instruments arrangement. On the B-side is "Message Of Love," which is an interview with music in background. She also appeared in television commercials in Japan.
She enrolled at Yale, and then transferred two years later to Stanford. She trained in classical theater and improvisation, studying with the late drama coach Roy London, Howard Fine, and Harold Guskin.
The late 1980s saw her starring in a hit and three lesser seen films. Amongst the latter was her roles in Ballet (1989), as a ballerina and in Some Girls (1988), where she played a self-absorbed college freshman. The hit was Labyrinth (1986), released in 1986. Jennifer got the job after a nationwide talent search for the lead in this fantasy directed by Jim Henson and produced by George Lucas. Her career entered in a calm phase after those films, until Dennis Hopper, who was impressed after having seen her in "Some Girls", cast Jennifer as an ingénue small-town girl in The Hot Spot (1990), based upon the 1950s crime novel "Hell Hath No Fury". It received mixed critical reviews, but it was not a box office success.
The Rocketeer (1991), an ambitious Touchstone super-production, came to the rescue. The film was an old-fashioned adventure flick about a man capable of flying with rockets on his back. Critics saw in "Rocketeer" a top-quality movie, a homage to those old films of the 1930s in which the likes of Errol Flynn starred. After "Rocketeer," Jennifer made Career Opportunities (1991), The Heart of Justice (1992), Mulholland Falls (1996), her first collaboration with Nick Nolte and Inventing the Abbotts (1997). In 1998, she was invited by director Alex Proyas to make Dark City (1998), a strange, visually stunning science-fiction extravaganza. In this movie, Jennifer played the main character's wife, and she delivered an acclaimed performance. The film itself didn't break any box-office record but received positive reviews. This led Jennifer to a contract with Fox for the television series The $treet (2000), a main part in the memorable and dramatic love-story Waking the Dead (2000) and, more important, a breakthrough part in the polemic and applauded independent Requiem for a Dream (2000), a tale about the haunting lives of drug addicts and the subsequent process of decadence and destruction. In "Requiem for a Dream," Jennifer had her career's most courageous, difficult part, a performance that earned her a Spirit Award Nomination. She followed this role with Pollock (2000), in which she played Pollock's mistress, Ruth Klingman. In 2001, Ron Howard chose her to co-star with Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind (2001), the film that tells the true story of John Nash, a man who suffered from mental illness but eventually beats this and wins the Nobel Prize in 1994. Jennifer played Nash's wife and won a Golden Globe, BAFTA, AFI and Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. Connelly continued her career with films including Hulk (2003), her second collaboration with Nick Nolte, Dark Water (2005), Blood Diamond (2006), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), He's Just Not That Into You (2009) and Noah (2014), where she did her second collaboration with both Darren Aronofsky and Russell Crowe and made her third collaboration with Nick Nolte in that same film.
Jennifer lives in New York. She is 5'7", and speaks fluent Italian and French. She enjoys physical activities such as swimming, gymnastics, and bike riding. She is also an outdoors person -- camping, hiking and walking, and is interested in quantum physics and philosophy. She likes horses, Pearl Jam, SoundGarden, Jesus Jones, and occasionally wears a small picture of the The Dalai Lama on a necklace. Her favorite colors are cobalt blue, forest green, and "very pale green/gray -- sort of like the color of the sea". She likes to draw.- Actress
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Amanda Seyfried was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Ann (Sander), an occupational therapist, and Jack Seyfried, a pharmacist. She is of German, and some English and Scottish, ancestry. She began modeling when she was eleven, and acted in high school productions as well as taking singing lessons.
More soap work followed as she completed her schooling and had already secured a place at Fordham University when she was offered a role in the Tina Fey-penned teen comedy Mean Girls (2004). She deferred her university education to complete the film. More television work followed, raising her profile across America, while her appearances in Mamma Mia! (2008) and Red Riding Hood (2011) helped establish her international fame.- Actress
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- Music Department
Often considered hip-hop's first lady, the woman behind the moniker Queen Latifah was born Dana Elaine Owens on March 18, 1970, in East Orange, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Rita (Bray), a teacher, and Lancelot Owens Sr. She came from a police family-both her father and her older brother were cops-which would later influence her rhyming style and life philosophy. Her brother died in a motorcycle accident in 1992. Owens witnessed both sides of black urban life in the USA while growing up. After a brief stint as a Burger King employee, she soon found herself making waves in the hip-hop music scene.
After working as the human beatbox alongside Ladies Fresh, she was just 18 years old when she broke through in the late 1980s with a style that picked selectively from jazz, reggae, and soul traditions, from beats produced by D.J. Mark the 45 King. Her debut single, "Wrath of My Madness," was released in 1988. A year later, her debut long-player, "All Hail the Queen," enjoyed favored reviews: an old, wise head was evident on the top of her young shoulders. The former Burger King employee maintained her early commitment to answering the misogynist armory of some of her male counterparts and, at the same time, imparted musical good times to all genders. Her name means "delicate and sensitive" in Arabic, but she has often been anything but in her rhymes and the messages she sends out through them. One of the most prominent female hip-hop artists on the scene for over a decade, Queen Latifah has also made tremendous inroads in movies, television, and artist management, with her management company, Flavor Unit, alongside her business partner Shakim Compere. A role model who takes the responsibility to heart, Latifah has carefully constructed a fine career for herself-one that is constantly moving upward.- Actress
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Amanda Laura Bynes was born on April 3, 1986, in Thousand Oaks, California, the youngest of three children of Lynn (Organ), a dental assistant, and Richard Bynes, a dentist. Her father is of Lithuanian, Irish, and Polish descent, and her mother is from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Toronto. Amanda became interested in acting and performing from the age of three, when she would say her older sister Jillian's lines with her while she performed in plays. It was from then on that her family and friends knew that she would be a star someday.
Her acting debut was in 1996, when she auditioned for and got the role as a newcomer on All That (1994). Right away, she became very popular as people enjoyed her acting in skits, especially Ask Ashley, where she played a little girl running an advice column who would get very angry every time she read a letter.
In 1999, 13-year-old Amanda was given her own variety show, The Amanda Show (1999), in which she starred in all of the skits except Totally Kyle. In 2001, she co-starred with Frankie Muniz in Big Fat Liar (2002) as Kaylee, Jason's friend who helps him prove that he really did write the essay "Big Fat Liar" and regain his father's trust. It was also in 2001 that she began dating Taran Killam from The Amanda Show (1999) and Big Fat Liar (2002), who is four years and two days older than she is. She also won a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award and, at age 15, The Amanda Show (1999) ended its run.
In 2002, she began co-starring with Jennie Garth in What I Like About You (2002) as Holly, a 16-year-old girl who moves in with her sister after their father decides to move to Japan. She also celebrated her Sweet 16th birthday and got her driver's license on April 3, 2002.
In 2003, Amanda won two KCA Awards and starred as Daphne, a girl searching for her father, in What a Girl Wants (2003) with Colin Firth and Kelly Preston as her parents. She continued acting in What I Like About You (2002) and broke up with Taran.
A prodigiously talented comedienne, on April 3, 2004, Amanda celebrated her 18th birthday on the 17th Annual KCA Awards, where she won an award for best actress for her role in What a Girl Wants (2003). She graduated from Thousand Oaks High School's independent study program on June 10, 2004, and filmed Lovewrecked (2005) in 2004.- Actress
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Kristen Anne Bell (born 1980) is an American actress and singer. She was born and raised in Huntington Woods, Michigan, and is the daughter of Lorelei (Frygier), a nurse, and Tom Bell, a television news director. Her ancestry is Polish (mother) and German, English, Irish, and Scottish (father). Kristen found her talent in entertainment at an early age. In 1992, she went to her first audition and won a role in Raggedy Ann and Andy. Bell's mother established her with an agent before she was 13, and she was cast in newspaper advertisements and television commercials. At this time, she also began private acting lessons. Bell had an uncredited role in the film Polish Wedding (1998) in 1998.
Bell attended Shrine Catholic High School, where she took part in drama and music club. She won the starring role of Dorothy in her high school's production of The Wizard of Oz. After graduation Bell moved to New York City to attend prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied musical theater. In 2001, Bell left university to play the role of Becky in Tom Sawyer. That same year, she made her first credited debut in Pootie Tang (2001), but her scene was cut and her appearance exists only in the credit sequence. In 2002, Bell appeared in the Broadway revival of The Crucible with Liam Neeson and Angela Bettis. She then moved to Los Angeles, California, and appeared in a handful television shows as a special guest, finding trouble gaining a recurring role in a television series.
In 2004, Bell appeared in the Lifetime's television film, Gracie's Choice, which received high ratings. At the age 24, Bell won the title role in Veronica Mars (2004), which started broadcasting in the fall of 2004, created by Rob Thomas. Bell starred as a seventeen-year-old detective, which put her alongside actors Enrico Colantoni who played her father, Percy Daggs III, Jason Dohring and Ryan Hansen. This series received very positive reviews, and Bell received much attention for her performance. Bell and the cast of Veronica Mars were nominated for two Teen Choice Awards.
In 2005, Bell starred in Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (2005) in the role of Mary Lane. Reefer Madness debuted on the Showtime network on April 16, 2005. The following year, Bell won the Saturn Award for 'Best Actress on Television' for her performance in Veronica Mars.
In 2013, Bell voiced the main character, Princess Anna of Arendelle, in the Walt Disney Pictures animated movie, Frozen (2013), which received the 'best animated feature' award at the 86th Academy Awards. She performed the songs: 'For the First Time in Forever', 'Love is an Open Door', 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman', and 'For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)'. Frozen (2013), which was released on November 22, 2013, was hugely successful worldwide.
On March 13, 2013, it was confirmed that a Veronica Mars (2014) movie would finally be coming to fruition. Bell and creator, Rob Thomas, launched a fund raising campaign to produce the film through Kickstarter and attained the $2 million goal in few hours. The movie was released on March 14, 2014.
Bell married Dax Shepard in October, 2013.- Actress
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Parker Posey was born two months premature in Baltimore, Maryland, to Lynda (Patton) and Chris Posey. The family moved to Monroe, La. and then Laurel, Mississippi, where Chris became owner of Laurel's own Posey Chevrolet. Parker attended high school at R. H. Watkins High School in Laurel, and college at the prestigious SUNY Purchase. While at SUNY she roomed with Sherry Stringfield of TV's ER (1994).- Actress
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Amanda Leigh Moore was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, on April 10, 1984, to Stacy (Friedman), a former news reporter, and Don Moore, an airline pilot. During her childhood, her family moved to Orlando, Florida, where she was raised. She has Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, Scottish, and Irish, ancestry.
After seeing the musical "Oklahoma!", she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in singing. As a child, she performed the National Anthem at several athletic events around her hometown of Orlando, Florida, and became known as the "National Anthem girl". At the ripe age of fourteen, while she was recording in a studio in Orlando, a Fed-Ex worker who happened to be passing through heard her and was interested in her talent. He happened to know someone at Sony as well. Moore worked on cutting a demo and shortly thereafter signed a record deal with Sony 550 Music. At 15, her first record "So Real" was released. Her first tour was with the Backstreet Boys.
As her touring and recording schedule demanded more of her time, Moore withdrew from Bishop Moore Catholic High School in Orlando and opted for a tutor/correspondence. She has stated that her education is important to her and says that the fact that she wants to go to college motivates her to continue with her schooling.
Though Moore's record sales were not up in the ranks of Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, she has proved to be a formidable talent both in singing and in acting, and snagged an MTV Movie Award in June 2002 for her first feature film role in A Walk to Remember (2002). Her biggest dream, though, is to perform on Broadway someday.
Throughout the 2000s, Mandy headlined several films, ranging from the little-seen drama Try Seventeen (2002) to mid-level releases like How to Deal (2003), Chasing Liberty (2004), Racing Stripes (2005), and the more broadly comedic Because I Said So (2007) and License to Wed (2007). She also appeared in the odd-ball sci-fi film Southland Tales (2006), and voiced Rapunzel in the Disney blockbuster CGI animation Tangled (2010).
In the mid 2010s, she re-emerged as a star actress, headlining the show This Is Us (2016) and the hit thriller film 47 Meters Down (2017), with more film roles to come.- Actress
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Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy to modern-day mysticism and erotica.
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, into a family of thespians -- parents Roger Winslet and Sally Anne Bridges-Winslet were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and uncle Robert Bridges was a fixture in London's West End theatre district. Kate came into her talent at an early age. She scored her first professional gig at eleven, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years, she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms. Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.
Still a relative unknown, Winslet attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood. Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
The role that transformed Winslet from art house attraction to international star was Rose DeWitt Bukater, the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet, swooning over all that face time opposite heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and noting her refreshingly healthy, unemaciated physique. Winslet's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations.
After the swell of unexpected attention surrounding Titanic (1997), Winslet was eager to retreat into independent projects. Rumor has it that she turned down the lead roles in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in order to play adventurous soul searchers in Hideous Kinky (1998) and Holy Smoke (1999). The former cast her as a young single mother traveling through 1970s Morocco with her daughters in tow; the latter, as a zealous follower of a guru tricked into a "deprogramming" session in the Australian outback. The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000). Kate holds the distinction of being the youngest actor ever honored with four Academy Award nominations (she received her fourth at age 29). As of 2016, she has been nominated for an Oscar seven times, winning one of them: she received the Best Actress Oscar for the drama The Reader (2008), playing a former concentration camp guard.
For her performance of Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs (2015), she received her seventh Academy Award nomination.
Off camera, Winslet is known for her mischievous pranks and familial devotion. She has two sisters, Anna Winslet and Beth Winslet (both actresses), and a brother, Joss.
In 1998, she married assistant director Jim Threapleton. They had a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, in October 2000. They divorced in 2001. She later married director Sam Mendes in 2003 and gave birth to their son, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, later that year. After seven years of marriage, in February 2010 they announced that they had amicably separated, and divorced in October 2010. In 2012, Kate married Ned Rocknroll, with whom she has a son. She was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama.- Producer
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Since melting audiences' hearts at the age of just six in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most beloved and singularly gifted actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore, the clutches of fame were near inescapable for young Drew, her father being a member of the esteemed showbiz dynasty fronted by stage star Maurice Barrymore, his thespian wife Georgiana and their three children: Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, and John Barrymore.
Tailgating a turbulent adolescence that saw her grapple with insobriety, substance abuse, and cutthroat media vitriol, a diligent Barrymore threw herself into her career throughout the early-mid nineties, first with a succession of 'bad girl' parts in cultish B-pictures like Poison Ivy (1992), Guncrazy (1992) and - fittingly - Bad Girls (1994); then warmly received turns in prestige vehicles such as Boys on the Side (1995), Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and Wes Craven's game-changing Scream (1996). Equal portions of goofball - The Wedding Singer (1998), Never Been Kissed (1999), Charlie's Angels (2000) - and gravitas - Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), Donnie Darko (2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) - came next, with a Golden Globe-grabbing pièce de résistance - her divine incarnation of Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009) - confirming that her skill set was every bit as forceful and far-reaching as imagined.
Having already set in motion a bunch of lucrative projects via production house Flower Films (co-est. with Nancy Juvonen in '95), Barrymore fastened an additional string to her bow when she spearheaded the sports dramedy Whip It (2009), her glowingly appraised directorial debut. Fresh off a healthy run of movie parts at the launch of the 2010s, her star turn as zombified suburban realtor Sheila Hammond - a tour de force at once dizzy and detailed - on Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet (2017) saw her step with trademark resolve into newer territory still: the flourishing world of small screen entertainment, a metamorphosis she continues to espouse with her role as compère of spirited daytime staple The Drew Barrymore Show (2020).- Actress
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Courteney Cox was born on June 15th, 1964 in Birmingham, Alabama, into an affluent Southern family. She is the daughter of Courteney (Bass) and Richard Lewis Cox (1930-2001), a businessman. She was the baby of the family with two older sisters (Virginia and Dottie) and an older brother, Richard, Jr. She was raised in an exclusive society town, Mountain Brook, Alabama. Courteney was the archetypal daddy's girl, and therefore was understandably devastated when, in 1974, her parents divorced, and her father moved to Florida.
She became a rebellious teen, and did not make things easy for her mother, and new stepfather, New York businessman Hunter Copeland. Now, she is great friends with both. She attended Mountain Brook High School, where she was a cheerleader, tennis player and swimmer. In her final year, she received her first taste of modeling. She appeared in an advert for the store, Parisians. Upon graduation, she left Alabama to study architecture and interior design at Mount Vernon College. After one year she dropped out to a pursue a modeling career in New York, after being signed by the prestigious Ford Modelling Agency. She appeared on the covers of teen magazines such as Tiger Beat and Little Miss, plus numerous romance novels. She then moved on to commercials for Maybeline, Noxema, New York Telephone Company and Tampax.
While modeling, she attended acting classes, as her real dream and ambition was to be an actress. In 1984, she landed herself a small part in one episode of As the World Turns (1956) as a young débutante named Bunny. Her first big break, however, was being cast by Brian De Palma in the Bruce Springsteen video "Dancing in The Dark". In 1985, she moved to LA to star alongside Dean Paul Martin in Misfits of Science (1985). It was a flop, but a few years later, she was chosen out of thousands of hopefuls to play Michael J. Fox's girlfriend, psychology major Lauren Miller in Family Ties (1982).
In 1989, Family Ties (1982) ended, and Cox went through a lean spell in her career, featuring in unmemorable movies such as Mr. Destiny (1990) with Michael Caine. Fortunes changed dramatically for Cox, when in 1994, she starred alongside Jim Carrey in the unexpected hit Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), and a year later she was cast as Monica Geller on the hugely successful sitcom Friends (1994). It was this part that turned her into an international superstar and led to an American Comedy Award nomination. In 1996 Cox starred in Wes Craven's horror/comedy Scream (1996) . This movie grossed over $100 million at the box office, and won Cox rave reviews for her standout performance as the wickedly bitchy and smug TV reporter Gale Weathers. She went on to play this character again in each of the three sequels. Not only did her involvement in this movie lead to critical acclaim, but it also led to her meeting actor husband David Arquette. He played her on-screen love interest Dewey, and life imitated art as the two fell in love for real. Their wedding took place in San Francisco, at the historic Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill, on June 12th, 1999. Joined by 200 guests, including Cox's film star friends Liam Neeson and Kevin Spacey, the happy couple finally became Mr. and Mrs. Arquette.- Actress
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Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her love of animals, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but later studied journalism. When her brother, Eric Roberts, achieved some success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting. Her first break came in 1988 when she appeared in two youth-oriented movies Mystic Pizza (1988) and Satisfaction (1988). The movies introduced her to a new audience who instantly fell in love with this pretty woman. Julia's biggest success was in the signature movie Pretty Woman (1990), for which Julia got an Oscar nomination, and also won the People's Choice award for Favorite Actress. Even though Julia would spend the next few years either starring in serious movies, or playing fantasy roles like Tinkerbell, the movie audiences would always love Julia best in romantic comedies. With My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Julia gave the genre fresh life that had been lacking in Hollywood for some time. Offscreen, after a brief marriage, Julia has been romantically linked with several actors, and married cinematographer Daniel Moder in 2002; the couple has three children together.
Julia has also become involved with UNICEF charities and has made visits to many different countries, including Haiti and India, in order to promote goodwill. Julia Robert remains one of the most popular and sought-after talents in Hollywood.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Ashley Michele Greene was born in Jacksonville, Florida to parents Michele (Tatum), an insurance broker, and Joseph Lacy Greene, US Marine who runs a concrete business. A self-confessed tomboy and "daredevil", Ashley loved to try to keep up with her older brother Joe, taking on activities such as taekwondo and winning several awards. Ashley says she was not allowed to spar the girls in taekwondo class because she "beat the girls up". She even accidentally once gave a boy she liked a bloody nose and lip while sparring. Ashley admits she is a "competitive little sucker".
During her early teen years, Ashley found herself hanging out with older girls, which impacted her self-esteem when she found them to be more mature and, in her mind, prettier than she was. Ashley describes herself as a "hot mess" as a teenager. Ashley's mother put her into modeling classes to improve her confidence, and Ashley began to consider becoming a model as a career. After being told she was too short to be a model, Ashley considered becoming a lawyer and getting a degree in psychology. She actually convinced her parents to let her leave her private school to attend a public one which had a law and psychology program. However, after taking a commercial class, which led to acting class, Ashley knew what she wanted to do - acting.
Luckily for Ashley, her parents were supportive and allowed her to move to LA at seventeen years of age. Due to her excellent grades and extra credits, she was able to graduate high school early to follow her acting dream.
For three years, Ashley struggled to find acting roles. She picked up small roles here and there in TV shows such as Punk'd (2003) and Crossing Jordan (2001), and some very small film roles in Shrink (2009) and King of California (2007).
Ashley's big break came when she got to audition for the film, Twilight (2008), based on Stephenie Meyer's popular book series. She originally auditioned for "Bella", but, as she says herself, "I was no Bella". She was called back to audition for the role of "Alice Cullen". After a long auditioning process, Ashley was finally told she got the part.
Ashley had previously worked in restaurants but, like the rest of her fellow "Twilight" cast-mates, Ashley found herself suddenly thrust into the limelight. Though she says she doesn't get the same kind of insanity as the boys - especially Robert Pattinson. She says most fans relate to her on a "best friend" level rather than screaming at her hysterically.
Ashley has already begun filming other roles and has high hopes for her career outside of the "Twilight" franchise. She has said she wants to be a superhero, a Bond girl and possibly Wonder Woman in future projects.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Olivia resides in New York City where she was born and raised. She has trained extensively in classical Shakespearian acting in New York at the American Globe Theatre, and in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She began acting professionally in 2003, and plans to pursue a career in both theater and film.- Producer
- Actress
- Music Department
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister, chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and spent much of her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany. She often performed in the children's chorus of whatever production her mother was in. That singing talent later came in handy for her role as an aspiring country singer in The Thing Called Love (1993). Her family moved back to the Washington area when she was adolescent. She later enrolled in East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she studied acting. Shortly afterward she moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. This led to acting in television programs and then feature films. She gave memorable performances in Demolition Man (1993) and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), but did not achieve the stardom that seemed inevitable for her until her work in the smash hit Speed (1994). She now ranks as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. For her role in The Blind Side (2009) she won the Oscar, and her blockbusters The Proposal (2009), The Heat (2013) and Gravity (2013) made her a bankable star. With $56,000,000, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress in the world.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Actress and activist Olivia Wilde is a modern day renaissance woman, starring in many acclaimed film productions, while simultaneously giving back to the community.
She was born on March 10, 1984 in New York City. Her parents are Leslie Cockburn (née Leslie Corkill Redlich) and Andrew Cockburn. Her mother is American-born and her father was born in London, England to an upper-class British family; he also later became a citizen of Ireland. Wilde is the middle child, having an older sister, Chloe Cockburn, and, a younger brother, Charlie Cockburn. She is of English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Manx descent.
She was raised in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and spent her summers in Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland. She attended the private Georgetown Day School, as well as, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. She was accepted to Bard College, another highly selective private school in Duchess County, New York but deferred her enrollment three times in order to pursue an acting career. She later studied at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland.
Wilde is known for her television roles as Alex Kelly in The O.C. (2003) from 2004-2005 and Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley in the medical-drama television series, House (2004) when she joined the cast in 2007 and appeared on the show until the series end in 2012.
Wilde is a board member of the organization "Artists for Peace and Justice," which supports communities in Haiti through programs in education, health care, and dignity through the performing arts. She has served as executive producer on several documentary short films, including, Sun City Picture House (2010), which is about a community in Haiti that rallies to build a movie theater after the disastrous 2010 earthquake and Baseball in the Time of Cholera (2012), which explored the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
Wilde is known for her roles in Year One (2009), Tron: Legacy (2010), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), In Time (2011), People Like Us (2012), Her (2013), Rush (2013), Drinking Buddies (2013), The Longest Week (2014), Love the Coopers (2015), and Meadowland (2015).
Since 2011, Wilde had been in a relationship with Jason Sudeikis. They have two children together, Otis Alexander Sudeikis (born April 20, 2014) and Daisy Josephine Sudeikis (born October 11, 2016). In November 2020, they announced that they had ended their relationship.
Wilde made her Broadway debut in the play "1984" at the Hudson Theatre in New York City in 2017. She has recently starred in Life Itself (2018) and A Vigilante (2018).- Writer
- Actress
- Producer
Elizabeth Stamatina Fey was born in 1970 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia, to Xenobia "Jeanne" (Xenakes), a brokerage employee, and Donald Henry Fey, who wrote grant proposals for universities. Her mother is Greek, born in Piraeus, while her father had German, Northern Irish, and English ancestry. Going by the name of Tina, Fey considered herself a "supernerd" during her high school and college years. She studied drama at the University of Virginia, and after graduating in 1992, she headed to Chicago, the ancestral home of American comedy. While working at a YMCA to support herself, she started Second City's first set of courses. After about nine months, a teacher told her to just skip ahead and audition for the more selective Second City Training Center. She failed but about eight weeks later, she re-auditioned and got into the year-long program. She ended up spending many years at The Second City in Chicago where many SNL cast members first started out. Then in 1995, Saturday Night Live (1975) came to The Second City's cast, including Fey's friend, Adam McKay, as a writer, searching for new talent. What they found was Tina Fey. When Adam was made Head writer, he suggested Fey should send a submission packet over the summer with six sketches, 10 pages each. Tina took the advice and sent them. After Lorne Michaels met her and saw her work she was offered a job a week later. She admitted that she was extremely nervous working in the legendary Studio 8H; being a foot shorter than everyone else, younger, and being one of the only female writers at the time. After a few years, Tina made history by becoming the first female head writer in the show's history. Tina also made her screen debut as a featured player during the 25th season by co-anchoring Weekend Update with Jimmy Fallon. Since Tina and Jimmy have taken over Weekend Update it has been considered the best ever. This year she made it to full fledged star by becoming a regular cast member, though she is hardly on the show, besides Update. And during the past two summers, Tina and Rachel Dratch performed their two-woman show to critical acclaim in both Chicago (1999) and New York (2000) and made their Aspen Comedy Festival Debut. Tina is married to Jeff Richmond, a Second City director and lives in New York City.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rachel Anne McAdams was born on November 17, 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada, to Sandra Kay (Gale), a nurse, and Lance Frederick McAdams, a truck driver and furniture mover. She is of English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish descent. Rachel became involved with acting as a teenager and by the age of 13 was performing in Shakespearean productions in summer theater camp; she went on to graduate with honors with a BFA degree in Theater from York University. After her debut in an episode of Disney's The Famous Jett Jackson (1998), she co-starred in the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows (2003), a comedy-drama about the trials and travails of a Shakespearean theater group, and won a Gemini award for her performance in 2003.
Her breakout role as Regina George in the hit comedy Mean Girls (2004) instantly catapulted her onto the short list of Hollywood's hottest young actresses. She followed that film with a star turn opposite Ryan Gosling in the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks bestseller The Notebook (2004), which was a surprise box office success and became the predominant romantic drama for a new, young generation of moviegoers. After filming, McAdams and Gosling became romantically involved and dated through mid-2007. McAdams next showcased her versatility onscreen with the manic comedy Wedding Crashers (2005), the thriller Red Eye (2005), and the holiday drama The Family Stone (2005).
McAdams then explored the independent film world with Married Life (2007), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and also starred Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Starring roles in the military drama The Lucky Ones (2008), the newspaper thriller State of Play (2009), and the romance The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) followed before she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Guy Ritchie's international blockbuster Sherlock Holmes (2009). McAdams played the plucky producer of a failing morning TV show in Morning Glory (2010), the materialistic fiancée of Owen Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and returned to romantic drama territory with the hit film The Vow (2012) opposite Channing Tatum. The actress also stars with Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick's To the Wonder (2012) and alongside Noomi Rapace in Brian De Palma's thriller Passion (2012).
In 2005, McAdams received ShoWest's "Supporting Actress of the Year" Award as well as the "Breakthrough Actress of the Year" at the Hollywood Film Awards. In 2009, she was awarded with ShoWest's "Female Star of the Year." As of 2011, she has been romantically linked with her Midnight in Paris (2011) co-star Michael Sheen.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Saoirse Una Ronan was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States, to Irish parents, Monica Ronan (née Brennan) and Paul Ronan, an actor. When Saoirse was three, the family moved back to Dublin, Ireland. Saoirse grew up in Dublin and briefly in Co. Carlow before moving back to Dublin with her parents.
Saoirse made her first TV appearance with a small role in a few episodes of the TV series, The Clinic (2003). Her first film appearance was in the 2007 movie, I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007). Saoirse received international fame after appearing in the movie, Atonement (2007), which was directed by Joe Wright. The movie co-starred Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. The film was successful, both critically and commercially, and in 2008, Saoirse earned an Oscar nomination for her role. She became one of the youngest actresses to be nominated for an Oscar. She continued to earn success and fame. Between 2008 to 2011, she starred in a number of successful movies, including City of Ember (2008), which earned her a nomination for Irish Film & Television Award, The Lovely Bones (2009), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award, and The Way Back (2010), for which she won Irish Film & Television Award for Actress in a Supporting Role. In 2016, Ronan was nominated for her second Oscar for Brooklyn (2015). She became the second youngest actress to receive two Oscar nominations at the age of 21. The youngest actress is Angela Lansbury. In 2018, Ronan was nominated for her third Oscar for Lady Bird (2017). She's the second youngest actress (first being Jennifer Lawrence) to receive three Oscar nominations before the age of 24.
Saoirse Ronan resides in London, United Kingdom.- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and Occultum Luciferus. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).- Actress
- Soundtrack
She passed her 9 GCSEs with A* and A grades in between working for several terms away from school on the Famous Five. From there she went to 6th form college where she got 3 grade A levels and an academic prize in the Arts. Her parents are both freelance broadcasters and she has two cousins who are young film directors - one of them the promising Serbian director Stevan Filipovic.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Minnie Driver was born January 31, 1970 in London and raised in Barbados until she was seven. Her mother, Gaynor Churchward, was a designer and former couture model. Her father, Charles Ronald "Ronnie" Driver, was a businessman. Minnie's mother was her father's mistress while he was still married to his wife. Minnie's sister, Kate Driver, is a manager and producer.
Her breakout role was in the 1995 film Circle of Friends. Minnie then appeared briefly in the James Bond picture Goldeneye. Since then, she has focused on working in a wide tonal range of films. These include several cult classics: Grosse Point Blank, Big Night, and Owning Mahowny; the painted romance of Good Will Hunting (earning an Oscar nomination for best actress in a supporting role); musicals like The Phantom of the Opera; period comedies like the Oscar Wilde classic An Ideal Husband; and Princess Mononoke, the seminal animated Japanese film by Hayao Miyazaki. Minnie has also starred in several family films such as Tarzan, Ella Enchanted, and the 2021 live action Cinderella.
Minnie has a wide-range of television work in place from FX's dark comedy classic The Riches, in which she co-starred with Eddie Izzard, to starring in two network sitcoms including NBC's About A Boy adaptation as well as ABC's Speechless. Both of which ran for several seasons. Minnie also pops up in key guest-starring roles such as her turn as Lorraine Finster on Will & Grace which lasted almost fifteen years and as Cath on the current BBC / HBO comedy Starstruck. Minnie is also starring in the Amazon anthology Modern Love which is on air now (2021).
On September 5, 2008, she gave birth to a boy named Henry Story Driver. She is in a long-term relationship with Addison O'Dea.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Odette Annable was born Odette Juliette Yustman on 10 May, 1985, in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Lydia (Nodarse), is Cuban. Odette's father, Victor Oscar Yustman, was born in Bogotá, Colombia, of Italian and Polish Jewish descent. Odette started her career with a minor role in the movie Kindergarten Cop (1990) as "Rosa."
After graduating from Woodcrest Christian High School in Riverside, California, where she was the homecoming queen, she turned to modeling with a few roles through the years. Some of her credits include Danielle Steel's Remembrance (1996) and Dear God (1996) with a few guest appearances in Quintuplets (2004). In 2006, Odette was cast in Jennifer Lopez's South Beach (2006) where she played "Arielle Casta". She was then cast in the drama October Road (2007) as "Aubrey," which has received its second season. She has since been seen in the action monster movie Cloverfield (2008) as "Beth McIntyre".- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Elliot Page was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. Page wanted to start acting at an early age and attended the Neptune Theater School. They began their career at the age of 10 on the award-winning television series Pit Pony (1999), for which they received a Gemini nomination and a Young Artist Awards nomination. Later, Page appeared in Marion Bridge (2002), which won the award for Best Canadian First Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. They won a Gemini Award for their role of Lilith in the first season of ReGenesis (2004), a one-hour drama for TMN/Movie Central, and for the cable feature, Ghost Cat (2004), for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series. In addition, Page appeared in the cult hit TV series Trailer Park Boys (2001).
As the lead in David Slade's Hard Candy (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Page garnered much praise for their tour de force performance as a 14-year-old who meets a 30-year-old photographer on the Internet and then looks to expose him as a pedophile. Films that followed included the title role of Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments (2007); An American Crime (2007), also starring Catherine Keener; and the third installation of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), where Page played Kitty Pryde.
With their breakout role in Jason Reitman's hit comedy Juno (2007), about an offbeat teenager who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, Page received Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Best Actress nominations, and won the Independent Spirit Award for their performance. They followed up that turn with the lead in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, the roller-derby comedy-drama Whip It (2009), Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller Inception (2010), the independent film Peacock (2010), and the dark comedy Super (2010), opposite Rainn Wilson and Liv Tyler.
Page co-starred alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Alison Pill, Alec Baldwin, and Greta Gerwig in the Woody Allen ensemble comedy To Rome with Love (2012), and appeared in the thriller The East (2013), a story centered on a contract worker (played by Brit Marling) tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group, only to find herself falling for its leader (played by Alexander Skarsgård).- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was first known as bad girl Jen Lindley in the television series Dawson's Creek (1998). She appeared in the comedy film Dick (1999), which was a parody of the Watergate Scandal along with Kirsten Dunst, as well as Prozac Nation (2001) with Christina Ricci. Since then, Michelle has worked her way into the world of independent films such as The Station Agent (2003), Imaginary Heroes (2004), and The Baxter (2005). But her real success happened in 2005 when she starred in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) as Alma Beers Del Mar. A woman who realizes her husband is in love with another man. Her talent shown in Brokeback Mountain (2005) landed her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she received her first lead role Academy Award nomination for Blue Valentine (2010). She followed this in 2012 with a lead role Academy Award nomination for My Week with Marilyn (2011).
Michelle has a daughter, Matilda, with late Australian actor Heath Ledger.- Actress
- Make-Up Department
- Director
Audrey Justine Tautou was born on August 9, 1976 in Beaumont, France, to Evelyne Marie Laure (Nuret), a teacher, and Bernard Tautou, a dental surgeon. Audrey showed an interest for comedy at an early age and started her acting lessons at 'Cours Florent'. In 1998 she won the best young actress award in the ninth 'Jeune Comedien de Cinema Festival' in Bezier. Then, she came to the attention of Tonie Marshall who gave her a role in her film Venus Beauty Institute (1999) for which she won a Best New Actress Cesar. It came as a surprise to even Audrey: "I was so certain I could not be chosen that I told her that she probably dialled a wrong number." The director chose her for her natural nature: "She came, she gaffed, she turned reddish, her ears were in a funny position and her hair was relaxed. In five minutes, she gave me the heart of the character, a petite young girl who would like to be a lady and will become a woman." In 2000, Audrey was again nominated for a Cesar and her movie Amélie (2001) has been a phenomenal success worldwide.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she made her acting debut as a child with a role in one of her father's plays. She studied drama at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique in Orléans. After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in TV series such as Highlander (1992) and Extrême limite (1994), but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s. While still a teenager, Cotillard made her cinema debut at the age of 18 in the film L'histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse (1994), and had small but noticeable roles in films such as Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996) and Coline Serreau's comedy The Green Planet (1996).
In 1996, she had her first lead role in the TV film Chloé (1996), playing the title role - a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution. Cotillard co-starred opposite Anna Karina, the muse of the Nouvelle Vague.
In 1997, she won her first film award at the Festival Rencontres Cinématographiques d'Istres in France, for her performance as the young imprisoned Nathalie in the short film Affaire classée (1997). Her first prominent screen role was Lilly Bertineau in Gérard Pirès's box-office hit Taxi (1998), a role which she reprised in two sequels: Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003), this role earned her first César award nomination (France's equivalent to the Oscar) for Most Promising Actress in 1999.
In 1999, Cotillard starred as Julie Bonzon in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (1998). For her performance in the film, she won the Best Actress award at the Autrans Film Festival in France. In 2001, Marion starred in Pretty Things (2001) as the twin sisters Marie and Lucie, and was nominated for her second César award for Most Promising Actress.
Cotillard's breakthrough in France came in 2003, when she starred in Yann Samuell's dark romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare (2003), in which she played Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants who lives a love-hate relationship with her childhood friend. The film was a box-office hit in France, became a cult film abroad and led Cotillard to bigger projects.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), in which she played Joséphine, the wife of William Bloom (played by Billy Crudup). A few years later, Marion starred in Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006) playing Fanny Chenal, a French café owner who falls in love with Russell Crowe's character. In 2004, she won the Chopard Thophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, Cotillard won the César award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance of Tina Lombardi in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004).
In 2007, Cotillard received international recognition for her iconic portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007). Director Olivier Dahan cast Cotillard to play the legendary French singer because to him, her eyes were like those of "Piaf". The fact that she can sing also helped Cotillard land the role of "Piaf", although most of the singing in the film is that of Piaf's. The role won Cotillard the Academy Award for Best Actress along with a César, a Lumière Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe. That made her only the second actress to win an acting Oscar performing in a language other than English next to Sophia Loren (Two Women (1960)). Only two male performers (Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part II (1974)) have won an Oscar for solely non-English parts. Trevor Nunn called her portrayal of "Piaf" "one of the greatest performances on film ever". At the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film premiered, Cotillard was given a 15-minute standing ovation. When she won the César, Alain Delon presented the award and announced the winner as "La Môme Marion" (The Kid Marion), he also praised her at the stage saying: "Marion, I give you this César. I think this César is for a great great actress, and I know what I'm talking about".
Cotillard has worked much more frequently in English-language movies following her Academy Award recognition. In 2009, she acted opposite Johnny Depp in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009), and later that year played Luisa Contini in Rob Marshall's musical Nine (2009) and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Time magazine ranked her as the fifth best performance by a female in 2009. The following year, she took on the main antagonist role, Mal, in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and in 2011 she had memorable parts in Midnight in Paris (2011) and Contagion (2011) and reteamed with Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
In 2011 and 2012 respectively, Cotillard appeared on the top of Le Figaro's list of the highest paid actors in France, it was the first time in nine years that a female topped the list. Cotillard was also the highest paid foreign actress in Hollywood.
In 2012, Cotillard received wide-spread critical acclaim for her role as the legless orca trainer Stéphanie in Rust and Bone (2012). The film was a box office hit in France and received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. Cotillard won the Globe de Cristal (France's equivalent to the Golden Globe), the Étoile d'Or award and was nominated for the Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA, Critics' Choice and César Awards for her performance in the film. Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in "Rust and Bone", the two actresses competed for the Academy Awards for Best Actress in 2008, Cate was nominated for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Marion for her performance in La Vie En Rose (2007) and Cotillard won the Oscar.
She had her first leading role in an American movie in 2013, in James Gray's The Immigrant (2013), in which she played Ewa Cybulska, a Polish immigrant who wants to experience the American dream. Cotillard received wide-spread acclaim for her performance in the film at the 66th Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered, and also won several critics awards. In 2014, Cotillard played Sandra in the Belgian film Two Days, One Night (2014) by the Dardenne brothers. Her performance was unanimously praised at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, earned several critics awards, Cotillard won her first European Award for Best Actress and also received her second Oscar nomination and her sixth César award nomination.
In 2015, she played Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender in Justin Kurzel's Macbeth (2015) and voiced two animated movies: The Little Prince (2015) in which she voiced The Rose, and April and the Extraordinary World (2015), in which she voiced the lead role, Avril. Her 2016 included Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon (2016), Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (2016), Justin Kurzel's Assassin's Creed (2016), in which she worked again with her Macbeth co-star Michael Fassbender; and Robert Zemeckis's Allied (2016), with Brad Pitt.- Actress
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Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.
She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved to her mother's native country when she was four years old. Her first acting job ever was at age nine in the movie The Piano (1993), which was shot in New Zealand. At age 16, she relocated to Los Angeles where she completed her last two years of high school (graduating in 2000). She then moved to New York where she attended Columbia University for one year. Between 2001 and 2004, she worked almost exclusively on stage in both New York and London. In 2007, Anna was cast in HBO's True Blood (2008), which concluded shooting its seventh and final season in 2014.- Actress
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Emily Irene VanCamp (born May 12, 1986) is a Canadian actress, known for her lead roles on the WB series Everwood (2002), the ABC dramas Brothers & Sisters (2006) and Revenge (2011), and as Sharon Carter / Agent 13 in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016). VanCamp stars as the female lead in the Fox medical drama series The Resident (2018), which debuted in January 2018 as a midseason entry in the 2017-18 US television season. VanCamp was born in Port Perry, Ontario. She is the third of four daughters born to Cindy and Robert VanCamp. Her father is an animal nutritionist and her first job was working for her father, delivering food to clients in and around her hometown. VanCamp started studying dance at age three, and wanting to become a professional dancer, at the age of 11 convinced her parents to let her attend a summer training program in Montreal. At 12, she was accepted at the École supérieure de ballet du Québec, the training program of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and moved in with a local French Canadian family.
In 1998, VanCamp became interested in acting after visiting her sister Katie on the set of the film Ladies Room (1999). She started taking acting classes on Saturday afternoons, found an agent and, after working on a few commercials, was cast in the second part of the three-part season-seven premiere of the Canadian children's horror anthology television series Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990)Her character was present in one scene and spoke no dialogue, playing opposite a 17-year-old Elisha Cuthbert.- Actress
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Gemma Christina Arterton was born in Gravesend, Kent, England, where she was raised. She is the daughter of Sally-Anne (Heap), a cleaner, and Barry J. Arterton, a welder. Her mother's cousin is singer-songwriter Eric Goulden.
Her parents divorced when she was age five, and Gemma subsequently lived with her younger sister and her mother. Her parents encouraged their children to explore their creative abilities. Gemma's sister, Hannah, liked to sing, whereas Gemma chose acting. During her teenage years, she was part of the Masquerade and Miskin theater companies, appearing in productions of The Massacre of Civitella and Guiding Star. In 2004, she won an award for Best Supporting Actress, which helped her to win a grant to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Whilst studying at RADA, she landed her first professional role in Capturing Mary (2007), directed by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Maggie Smith. Gemma graduated from RADA in 2007 and won her first film role in St. Trinian's (2007). Her breakthrough role came in 2008, when she appeared in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008). In 2009, she was the winner of Empire's Best Newcomer Award.- Actress
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Ginnifer Goodwin was born Jennifer Michelle Goodwin on May 22, 1978, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Linda (Kantor), a doctor of educational technology, and Tim Goodwin, a musician and the owner of Memphis Sound Productions recording studio. Ginnifer graduated from Lausanne Collegiate School in 1996 and received her BFA in Acting from Boston University's School for the Arts in 2001. She went on to study at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, and the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-Upon-Avon. She lived briefly in New York before moving to California, where she resides with her husband, actor Josh Dallas and their two sons. Ginnifer is of Scottish and English descent on her father's side, and she is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent on her mother's.- Actress
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Helena Bonham Carter is an actress of great versatility, one of the UK's finest and most successful.
Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London, England, the youngest of three children of Elena (née Propper de Callejón), a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant banker. Through her father, she is the great-granddaughter of former Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, and her blue-blooded family tree also contains Barons and Baronesses, diplomats, and a director, Bonham Carter's great-uncle Anthony Asquith, who made Pygmalion (1938) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), among others. Cousin Crispin Bonham-Carter is also an actor. Her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was a Spanish diplomat who was awarded the honorific Righteous Among the Nations, by Israel, for helping save Jews during World War II (Eduardo's own father was a Czech Jew). Helena's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family from France, Austria, and Germany, and later converted to her husband's Catholic faith.
Bonham Carter experienced family dramas during her childhood, including her father's stroke - which left him wheelchair-bound. She attended South Hampstead High School and Westminster School in London, and subsequently devoted herself to an acting career. That trajectory actually began in 1979 when, at age thirteen, she entered a national poetry writing competition and used her second place winnings to place her photo in the casting directory "Spotlight." She soon had her first agent and her first acting job, in a commercial, at age sixteen. She then landed a role in the made-for-TV movie A Pattern of Roses (1983), which subsequently led to her casting in the Merchant Ivory films A Room with a View (1985), director James Ivory's tasteful adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, and Lady Jane (1986), giving a strong performance as the uncrowned Queen of England. She had roles in three other productions under the Merchant-Ivory banner (director Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala): an uncredited appearance in Maurice (1987), and large roles in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and Howards End (1992).
Often referred to as the "corset queen" or "English rose" because of her early work, Bonham Carter continued to surprise audiences with magnificent performances in a variety of roles from her more traditional corset-clad character in The Wings of the Dove (1997) and Shakespearian damsels to the dark and neurotic anti-heroines of Fight Club (1999). Her acclaimed performance in The Wings of the Dove (1997) earned her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress nomination, and a SAG Awards Best Actress nomination. It also won her a Best Actress Award from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Boston Society Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Texas Society of Film Critics, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association.
In the late 1990s, Bonham Carter embarked on the next phase of her career, moving from capable actress to compelling star. Audiences and critics had long been enchanted by her delicate beauty, evocative of another time and place. Her late '90s and early and mid 2000s roles included Mick Jackson's Live from Baghdad (2002), alongside Michael Keaton, receiving a nomination for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe; Paul Greengrass' The Theory of Flight (1998), in which she played a victim of motor neurone disease; Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night (1996), in which she played Olivia; opposite Woody Allen in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995); Mort Ransen's Margaret's Museum (1995); Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein (1994); and Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990).
Other notable credits include her appearance with Steve Martin in Novocaine (2001), Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, in which she played an ape, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Heart of Me (2002), opposite Paul Bettany, and Big Fish (2003), her second effort with Tim Burton, in which she appeared as a witch.
In between her films, Helena has managed a few television appearances, which include her portrayal of Jacqui Jackson in Magnificent 7 (2005), the tale of a mother struggling to raise seven children - three daughters and four autistic boys; as Anne Boleyn in the two-parter biopic of Henry VIII starring Ray Winstone; and as Morgan Le Fey, alongside Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, in Merlin. Earlier television appearances include Michael Mann's Miami Vice (1984) as Don Johnson's junkie fiancée, and as a stripper who wins Rik Mayall's heart in Dancing Queen (1993). Helena has also appeared on stage, in productions of Trelawney of the Wells, The Barber of Seville, House of Bernarda Alba, The Chalk Garden, and Woman in White.
Bonham Carter was nominated for a Golden Globe for the fifth time for her role in partner Tim Burton's film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), for which Burton and co-star Johnny Depp were also nominated. For the role, she was awarded Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards 2008. Other 2000s work includes playing Mrs Bucket in Tim Burton's massive hit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), providing the voices for the aristocratic Lady Campanula Tottington in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and for the eponymous dead heroine in Tim Burton's spooky Corpse Bride (2005), and co-starring in Conversations with Other Women (2005) opposite Aaron Eckhart.
After their meeting while filming Planet of the Apes (2001), Bonham Carter and Tim Burton made seven films together. They lived in adjoining residences in London, shared a connecting hallway, and have two children: Billy Ray Burton, born in 2003, and Nell Burton, who was born in 2007. Ironically, a mutual love of Sweeney Todd was part of the initial attraction for the pair. Bonham Carter has said in numerous interviews that her audition process for the role of Mrs. Lovett was the most grueling of her career and that, ultimately, it was Sondheim who she had to convince that she was right for the role.- Actress
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Actress and screenwriter Nicole Houston Reed was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of Cheryl Houston, a hairdresser and beautician, and Seth Reed, a set designer. She has two brothers. Her ancestry includes Ashkenazi Jewish, German, British Isles, and one eighth Italian. Reed's parents divorced when she was two and she lived with her mother. She attended Alexander Hamilton High School, but dropped out and was home-schooled. As she entered her teenage years, Reed began a difficult period in her life, resulting in her moving out of home at 14 years old.
Reed first met Catherine Hardwicke when Hardwicke was dating her father. They kept in touch and in 2002 began scripting Thirteen (2003), based on Reed's writing from her early teens. When Hardwicke was unable to find the right actress for the character of Evie, a reluctant Reed was persuaded to take the role. She received critical acclaim for the part.
Various roles followed including a stint in the popular TV series The O.C. (2003). She collaborated again with Catherine Hardwicke in 2008 when she appeared as Rosalie in Twilight (2008). Reed also appeared in the film's sequels - The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011) and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012).
Nikki is married to actor and model Ian Somerhalder.- Szohr was born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin and is of Hungarian and one quarter African American ancestry. Szohr played soccer, served on the student council, and was part of the cheerleading squad while in school. She started a cleaning company with a friend, cleaning their teachers' houses.
Szohr started modeling at age six. Her first national campaign was for Quaker Oats at age ten, and she also appeared in print ads for Kohl's department store. Subsequent modeling gigs followed, including prints for Crate & Barrel, Mountain Dew, Sears, Jockey and JanSport. Szohr graduated from Menomonee Falls High School a semester early and moved to Los Angeles with her mother at the age of 17 to pursue an acting career. She initially aspired to become an interior designer and had enrolled in Columbia College Chicago, but her agent ultimately convinced her to try pilot season auditions.
Szohr made her debut as an actress in 2003 in an episode of the third season of My Wife and Kids (2000), titled Not So Hostile Takeover (2003). Her first film was Uncle Nino (2003) playing a minor role as The MC. She appeared in numerous guest teen television series such as That's So Raven (2003), Drake & Josh (2004), What I Like About You (2002), and Joan of Arcadia (2003). She also appeared in three episodes of CSI: Miami (2002) as Samantha Barrish.
In 2007, she appeared in a major recurring role as Laura for six episodes in the ABC drama series What About Brian (2006). She also appeared in the music videos for Daughtry: Over You (2007) by Daughtry, in which she played Sarah.
In the same year, Szohr earned her breakthrough role on the hit CW teen drama series Gossip Girl (2007). She plays Vanessa Abrams. The portrayal of Vanessa has drawn criticism from Ziegesar. Originally cast as a recurring role, Szohr was promoted to series regular after the season one episode The Blair Bitch Project (2008) in April 2008. In May 2011, it was confirmed Szohr would not be returning for the fifth season. She returned in for a cameo appearance on the series finale, New York, I Love You XOXO (2012), on December 17, 2012.
Szohr has appeared in small roles in films such as Somebody Help Me (2007), The Reading Room (2005) and Fired Up! (2009). She signed on to Dimension Films' horror Piranha 3D (2010), in the role of Kelly. She also appeared in a Funny or Die video promoting the film alongside Kelly Brook and others.
In April 2010, Szohr joined the cast of the romantic comedy Love, Wedding, Marriage (2011), along with Mandy Moore and Kellan Lutz. Szohr has a role in the 2012 independent post-apocalyptic sci-fi film Hirokin: The Last Samurai (2012). Her role as Orange has been described as a "cunning temptress".
Szohr stars in the indie drama Art Machine (2012) as an outlaw hipster and a pyrotechnic artist. In October 2011, she finished filming a horror comedy film in East Lothian, Scotland titled Love Bite (2012) with co-star Ed Speleers. Szohr appeared in Taylor Swift's 2013 music video for the song Taylor Swift: 22 (2013). In March 2013, she was cast as the female lead in the Fox drama pilot The List (2013), playing FBI agent Natalie Voss. However, it was reported on May 8, 2013 that Fox had passed on the pilot. In November 2013, Szohr was cast as Gretchen in USA Network's medical drama pilot Complications (2015).
In June 2015, Szohr was set as a recurring on the upcoming second season of DirecTV's MMA drama Kingdom (2014). Szohr will play Laura Melvin, an artist/photographer who has "read everything, been everywhere," and immediately intrigued by Jay (Jonathan Tucker) whom she wants to hire for a photo shoot. - Actress
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Lea Michele Sarfati was born in the Bronx, New York to Edith Thomasina (Porcelli), a nurse, and Mark David Sarfati, a delicatessen owner-turned-real estate agent. Her mother is of Italian descent (from Rome and Naples), and her father is of Sephardi Jewish ancestry (from Turkey and Greece). Lea was raised Catholic in Tenafly, New Jersey and graduated from Tenafly High School.
At age eight, Lea went with a friend to an open casting call for an up-and-coming musical. After spontaneously deciding to audition, she was offered the role and, two weeks later, she was starring on Broadway. She made her Broadway debut in 1995 as a replacement for the role of Young Cosette in "Les Misérables". She was then cast in the role of Tateh's daughter, the Little Girl, in the 1998 original Broadway cast of "Ragtime", and in 2004 she portrayed Shprintze and understudied the role of Chava in the Broadway revival of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof".
When she was 14, Lea was given the role of Wendla Bergmann in Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's musical version of "Spring Awakening". She starred in early workshops, off-Broadway, and finally originated the role in the Broadway production at age 20. Around the same time that the show was set to go to Broadway, Lea was offered the role of Éponine Thénardier in the Broadway revival of "Les Misérables". She chose to remain with "Spring Awakening", which debuted on Broadway in December 2006. She was later nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. After two years of starring in "Spring Awakening", Lea left the show with co-star Jonathan Groff, to pursue other opportunities.
In late 2008, Lea won the role of Rachel Berry on the comedy-drama series Glee (2009), and since the show's premiere on May 19, 2009, has received worldwide critical acclaim for her performance. She received the 2009 Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical, and later won three People's Choice Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Along with her award wins, Lea also received Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations.- Actress
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Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).- Producer
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Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Betty Witherspoon, a registered nurse & John Draper Witherspoon, a military surgeon. Reese spent the first 4 years of her life in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, where her father served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserves. Shortly after, the family moved back to the USA & settled in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reese was introduced to the entertainment industry at a very early age. At age 7, she began modeling. This led to appearances on several local television commercials. At age 11, she placed first in a Ten-State Talent Fair.
In 1990, she landed her first major acting role in Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon (1991). Her role as a 14-year old tomboy earned her rave reviews. Roles in bigger films such as Jack the Bear (1993) and A Far Off Place (1993) followed shortly after.
Following high school graduation in 1994 from Harpeth Hall, a Nashville all girls school, Reese decided to put her acting career on hold and attend Stanford University where she would major in English literature. However, her collegiate plans were shortly dashed when she accepted roles to star in two major motion pictures: Fear (1996), alongside Mark Wahlberg, and Freeway (1996) with Kiefer Sutherland. Although neither film was a huge box-office success, they did help to establish Reese as a rising starlet in Hollywood and open the door for bigger and better film roles. Those bigger roles came in movies such as Pleasantville (1998), Election (1999) and Cruel Intentions (1999).
Her breakthrough role came as Elle Woods in the 2001 comedy, Legally Blonde (2001). The movie was huge box-office smash and established Reese as one of the top female draws in Hollywood. The next year, she scored a follow-up hit with Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which went on to gross over $100 million dollars at the box office. In 2006, she took home the best actress Oscar for her role as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line (2005). On the late 2000s and early 2010s, Reese continued to star in more romantic comedies, such as Four Christmases (2008) and How Do You Know (2010). In December 2010, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the year 2014, she produced both Gone Girl (2014) and Wild (2014), for which she got nominated for best actress Oscar again for her role as Cheryl Strayed.- Actress
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Rashida Jones was born in Los Angeles, California, the younger daughter of media mogul, producer, and musician Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. She has an older sister, Kidada Jones, and five half-siblings by her father's other relationships. Her father is African-American and her mother is Ashkenazi Jewish (a descendant of emigrants from Russia and Latvia). Rashida was raised in Reform Judaism. She grew up in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. Jones has stated of her mixed race parentage, "It was the 1970s and still not that acceptable for them to be together." Jones made her professional acting debut in The Last Don, a 1997 mini-series based on the novel by Mario Puzo. Also in 1997, Rashida graduated from Harvard University.- Actress
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Kimberly Alexis Bledel was born in Houston, Texas, to Nanette (Dozier) and Martin Bledel. Her parents are both Spanish-speakers (her mother was born in Arizona and raised in Mexico, and her father was born in Argentina), and Alexis's ancestry includes Danish, Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish, and French.
Alexis made her television debut in Gilmore Girls (2000), after spending years in front of the camera as a model. Bledel's parents encouraged her to try community theater in Houston when she was 8 years old, hoping it would help their daughter overcome her shyness. She went on to perform in productions of Our Town, The Wizard of Oz and Aladdin, and later was scouted in a local mall to model. She began her modeling career while still in high school, traveling all over to locations like Tokyo, Milan, New York and Los Angeles. After graduating, she enrolled at NYU as a film major. In the Spring of 2000, Bledel landed a manager through her modeling agency and headed to Los Angeles for her first pilot season, where she quickly landed the coveted role of Rory on Gilmore Girls (2000).
When she's not working, Bledel enjoys writing, reading, shooting photography, going to the movies and spending time with her family. She was married to actor Vincent Kartheiser, with whom she has a son.- Actress
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America Georgine Ferrera (born April 18, 1984) is an American actress. She is known for her leading role as Betty Suarez on the American Broadcasting Company's comedy-drama television series Ugly Betty (2006) . Her acting garnered critical acclaim, and she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.- Actress
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British actress Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer was born in Hammersmith, London, England, to writer and barrister Sir John Mortimer and his second wife, Penelope (née Gollop). She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School in West London, and it was whilst there she began acting. Mortimer moved on from school to Lincoln College, Oxford University, where she studied English Literature and Russian, and spent two terms at the Moscow Arts Theater Drama School, studying acting.
While appearing in an Oxford University student production, Mortimer was spotted by a TV producer who cast her in an adaptation of Catherine Cookson' s The Glass Virgin (1995). She made her feature film debut in 1996 alongside Val Kilmer in The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). Roles in various projects have followed, including Elizabeth (1998), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), Match Point (2005), Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Shutter Island (2010) and Hugo (2011).
During the making of Love's Labour's Lost (2000), Mortimer met her husband Alessandro Nivola. The couple have two children, Sam Nivola and May Nivola.- Actress
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Kristin Kreuk was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to Deanna Che, who is of Chinese ancestry, and Peter Kreuk, who is of Dutch descent. Her parents are landscape architects. She attended and graduated from Eric Hamber Secondary School. Although she did some stage work in school, she focused more on her studies. She described herself as shy and boring.
For her first professional work, she went to an open casting audition for Edgemont (2000), a teen drama series aired on CBC Television in Canada. She plays the role as "Laurel Yeung". Laurel was the last main character to be cast because the casting director was having a problem finding an actress. Fortunately, for them (and us), they found Kristin just in time.
Her career was set to take off when she landed on the highly acclaimed serial drama series for The WB, Smallville (2001). It follows the story of "Clark Kent" in his pre-Superman days in a small town of Smallville, Kansas. Kreuk played the role as "Lana Lang", Clark Kent's object of desire before he meets "Lois Lane".
Smallville (2001) proved to be a giant step for Kristin's acting career, as she landed several interviews with several magazines, including YM (Young and Modern) and Rolling Stone. She also did a commercial for Neutrogena, popular for its skin care products.- Actress
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Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, where she made her stage debut in a production of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". She appeared in many more productions through her early teens until, at the age of fifteen, she decided that she wanted to make acting her career.
The official story is that she made a PowerPoint presentation, backed by Madonna's "Hollywood" and itself entitled "Project Hollywood", in an attempt to persuade her parents to allow her to drop out of school and move to Los Angeles. The pitch was successful and she and her mother moved to LA with her schooling completed at home while she spent her days auditioning.
She had her TV breakthrough when she won the part of Laurie Partridge in the VH1 talent/reality show In Search of the Partridge Family (2004) which led to a number of small TV roles in the following years. Her movie debut was as Jules in Superbad (2007) and, after a string of successful performances, her leading role as Olive in Easy A (2010) established her as a star.- Actress
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Rebecca Hall was born in London, England, the daughter of Peter Hall, a stage director and founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Maria Ewing, an opera singer. Her father was English. Her mother, who is American, is of Dutch and African-American origin. Her parents separated when she was still young, and they divorced in 1990. She has a half-brother, Edward Hall, who is a theatre director, and four other half-siblings, including theatre designer Lucy Hall, veteran TV drama producer Christopher Hall, and Jennifer Caron Hall, a writer and painter.- Actress
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Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and Romanian Jewish. She grew up in a ranch commune in Northern California which had no electricity. She is the goddaughter of Timothy Leary. Her parents were friends of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and once edited a book called "Shaman Woman Mainline Lady", an anthology of writings on the drug experience in literature, which included one piece by Louisa May Alcott. Ryder would later play the lead role of Josephine March in the adaptation of this author's novel Little Women (1994).
Ryder moved with her parents to Petaluma, California when she was ten and enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater. At age 13, she had a video audition to the film Desert Bloom (1986), but did not get the role. However, director David Seltzer spotted her and cast her in Lucas (1986). When telephoned to ask how she would like to have her name appear on the credits, she suggested Ryder as her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing the background. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990), but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) and Mermaids (1990) back-to-back. She said she did not want to let everyone down by doing a substandard performance. She later made The Age of Innocence (1993), which was directed by Martin Scorsese, whom she believes to be "the best director in the world".- Actress
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Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984 in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Her mother, Melanie Sloan is from a Jewish family from the Bronx and her father, Karsten Johansson is a Danish-born architect from Copenhagen. She has a sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, a brother, Adrian, a twin brother, Hunter Johansson, born three minutes after her, and a paternal half-brother, Christian. Her grandfather was writer Ejner Johansson.
Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions. She made her professional acting debut at the age of eight in the off-Broadway production of "Sophistry" with Ethan Hawke, at New York's Playwrights Horizons. She would audition for commercials but took rejection so hard her mother began limiting her to film tryouts. She made her film debut at the age of nine, as John Ritter's character's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). Following minor roles in Just Cause (1995), as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw's character, and If Lucy Fell (1996), she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female, and positive reviews, one noting, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson", while San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle commentated on her "peaceful aura", and wrote, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress."
After appearing in minor roles in Fall (1997) and Home Alone 3 (1997), Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford, where she played Grace MacLean, a teenager traumatized by a riding accident. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film. In 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the music video for Mandy Moore's single, "Candy". Although the film was not a box office success, she received praise for her breakout role in Ghost World (2001), credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age". She was also featured in the Coen Brothers' dark drama The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand. She appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002) with David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer.
In 2003, she was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation (2003)), her breakout role, starring opposite Bill Murray, and receiving rave reviews and a Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival. Her film roles include the critically acclaimed Weitz brothers' film In Good Company (2004), as well as starring opposite John Travolta in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which garnered her a third Golden Globe Award nomination.
She dropped out of Mission: Impossible III (2006) due to scheduling conflicts. Her next film role was in The Island (2005) alongside Ewan McGregor which earned weak reviews from U.S. critics. After this, she appeared in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) and was nominated again for a Golden Globe Award. In May 2008, she released her album "Anywhere I Lay My Head", a collection of Tom Waits covers featuring one original song. Also that year, she starred in Frank Miller's The Spirit (2008), the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and played Mary Boleyn opposite Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008).
Since then, she has appeared as part of an ensemble cast in the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You (2009), the action superhero film Iron Man 2 (2010), the comedy-drama We Bought a Zoo (2011) and starred as the original scream queen, Janet Leigh, in Hitchcock (2012). She then played her character, Black Widow, in the blockbuster action films The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Black Widow (2021), and also headlined the sci-fi action thriller Lucy (2014), a box office success. With more than a decade of work already under her belt, Scarlett has proven to be one of Hollywood's most talented young actresses. Her other starring roles are in the sci-fi action thriller Ghost in the Shell (2017) and the dark comedy Rough Night (2017).
Scarlett and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were engaged in May 2008 and married in September of that year. In 2010, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced a year later. In 2013, she became engaged to French journalist Romain Dauriac, the couple married a year later. In January 2017, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced in March of that year. They have a daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac (born 2014). The couple divorced in September 2017.
She married Colin Jost in October 2020. They have one child, a son.- Actress
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Amber Rose Tamblyn was born May 14, 1983 in Santa Monica, California. Amber caught an agent's eye at the age of ten after a performance in "Pippi Longstocking". She has appeared in Live Nude Girls (1995) and Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard (1997). In addition, her most popular role has been the role of "Emily Bowen-Quartermaine" of the popular soap General Hospital (1963). She originated the role of "Emily" in 1995. Amber is the daughter of actor Russ Tamblyn and singer and artist Bonnie Tamblyn. In addition, Amber writes poetry and has been published in the San Francisco publications, "Cups" and "Poetry USA". Amber also enjoys singing, dancing, and theater in addition to her life on General Hospital (1963).- Actress
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Busy was born Elizabeth Jean Philipps in Illinois, US. She became interested in acting when she was in fourth grade and was always starring in school productions. In the summer, she would attend theater camp.
She is more commonly known as a television actress, getting her first break on Freaks and Geeks (1999), She joined Dawson's Creek (1998) and ER (1994), but her breakthrough role has been Laurie Keller on Cougar Town (2009).- Actress
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Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut to a suffragist, Katharine Martha (Houghton), and a doctor, Thomas Norval Hepburn, who both always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a child, she was very close to her brother Tom; at 14 she was devastated to find him dead, the apparent result of accidentally hanging himself while practicing a hanging trick their father had taught them. For many years afterward, she used his November 8 birth date as her own. She became shy around girls her age and was largely schooled at home. She did attend Bryn Mawr College, where she decided to become an actress, appearing in many of their productions.
After graduating, she began getting small roles in plays on Broadway and elsewhere. She always attracted attention, especially for her role in "Art and Mrs. Bottle" (1931). She finally broke into stardom when she took the starring role of the Amazon princess Antiope in "A Warrior's Husband" (1932). The inevitable film offers followed; after making a few screen tests, she was cast in A Bill of Divorcement (1932), opposite John Barrymore. The film was a hit, and after agreeing to her salary demands, RKO signed her to a contract. She made five films between 1932 and 1934. For her third, Morning Glory (1933), she won her first Academy Award. Her fourth, Little Women (1933), was the most successful picture of its day.
But stories were beginning to leak out, of her haughty behavior off- screen and her refusal to play the Hollywood Game, always wearing slacks and no makeup, never posing for pictures or giving interviews. Audiences were shocked at her unconventional behavior instead of applauding it, and so when she returned to Broadway in 1934 to star in "The Lake", the critics panned her, and the audiences, who at first bought up tickets, soon deserted her. When she returned to Hollywood, things didn't get much better. From 1935-1938, she had only two hits: Alice Adams (1935), which brought her her second Oscar nomination, and Stage Door (1937); the many flops included Break of Hearts (1935), Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Mary of Scotland (1936), Quality Street (1937), and the now-classic Bringing Up Baby (1938).
With so many flops, she came to be labeled "box-office poison". She decided to go back to Broadway to star in "The Philadelphia Story" (1938) and was rewarded with a smash. She quickly bought the film rights and so was able to negotiate her way back to Hollywood on her own terms, including her choice of director and co-stars. The Philadelphia Story (1940) was a box-office hit, and Hepburn, who won her third Oscar nomination for the film, was bankable again. For her next film, Woman of the Year (1942), she was paired with Spencer Tracy, and the chemistry between them lasted for eight more films, spanning the course of 25 years, and a romance that lasted that long off-screen. (She received her fourth Oscar nomination for the film.) Their films included the very successful Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957).
With The African Queen (1951), Hepburn moved into middle-aged spinster roles, receiving her fifth Oscar nomination for the film. She played more of these types of roles throughout the 1950s, and won more Oscar nominations for many of them, including her roles in Summertime (1955), The Rainmaker (1956), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Her film roles became fewer and farther between in the 1960s, as she devoted her time to the ailing Tracy. For one of her film appearances in this decade, in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962), she received her ninth Oscar nomination. After a five-year absence from films, she then made Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), her last film with Tracy and the last film Tracy ever made; he died just weeks after finishing it. It garnered Hepburn her tenth Oscar nomination and her second win. The next year, she did The Lion in Winter (1968), which brought her her eleventh Oscar nomination and third win.
In the 1970s, she turned to making made-for-TV films, with The Glass Menagerie (1973), Love Among the Ruins (1975), and The Corn Is Green (1979). She still continued to make an occasional appearance in feature films, such as Rooster Cogburn (1975) with John Wayne and On Golden Pond (1981) with Henry Fonda. This last brought her her twelfth Oscar nomination and fourth win - the latter still the record.
She made more TV-films in the 1980s and wrote her autobiography, 'Me', in 1991. Her last feature film was Love Affair (1994), with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, and her last TV- film was One Christmas (1994). With her health declining, she retired from public life in the mid-1990s. She died at 96 at her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.- Actress
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Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, Audrey went to London with her mother where she went to a private girls school. Later, when her mother moved back to the Netherlands, she attended private schools as well. While she vacationed with her mother in Arnhem, Netherlands, Hitler's army took over the town. It was here that she fell on hard times during the Nazi occupation. Audrey suffered from depression and malnutrition.
After the liberation, she went to a ballet school in London on a scholarship and later began a modeling career. As a model, she was graceful and, it seemed, she had found her niche in life--until the film producers came calling. In 1948, after being spotted modeling by a producer, she was signed to a bit part in the European film Nederlands in zeven lessen (1948). Later, she had a speaking role in the 1951 film, Young Wives' Tale (1951) as Eve Lester. The part still wasn't much, so she headed to America to try her luck there. Audrey gained immediate prominence in the US with her role in Roman Holiday (1953). This film turned out to be a smashing success, and she won an Oscar as Best Actress.
On September 25, 1954, she married actor Mel Ferrer. She also starred in Sabrina (1954), for which she received another Academy Award nomination. She starred in the films Funny Face (1957) and Love in the Afternoon (1957). She received yet another Academy Award nomination for her role in The Nun's Story (1959). On July 17, 1960, she gave birth to her first son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer.
Audrey reached the pinnacle of her career when she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), for which she received another Oscar nomination. She scored commercial success again playing Regina Lampert in the espionage caper Charade (1963). One of Audrey's most radiant roles was in the fine production of My Fair Lady (1964). After a couple of other movies, most notably Two for the Road (1967), she hit pay dirt and another nomination in Wait Until Dark (1967).
In 1967, Audrey decided to retire from acting while she was on top. She divorced from Mel Ferrer in 1968. On January 19, 1969, she married Dr. Andrea Dotti. On February 8, 1970, she gave birth to her second son, Luca Dotti in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland. From time to time, she would appear on the silver screen.
In 1988, she became a special ambassador to the United Nations UNICEF fund helping children in Latin America and Africa, a position she retained until 1993. She was named to People's magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Her last film was Always (1989).
Audrey Hepburn died, aged 63, on January 20, 1993 in Tolochnaz, Vaud, Switzerland, from appendicular cancer. She had made a total of 31 high quality movies. Her elegance and style will always be remembered in film history as evidenced by her being named in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time".- Actress
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If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time her parents take her to England. Her mother thinks she should have a proper English upbringing and insists on leaving her in a convent school - even though Vivien is two years younger than any of the other girls at the school. The only comfort for the lonely child is a cat that was in the courtyard of the school that the nuns let her take up to her dormitory. Her first and best friend at the school is an eight-year-old girl, Maureen O'Sullivan who has been transplanted from Ireland. In the bleakness of a convent school, the two girls can recreate in their imaginations the places they have left and places where they would some day like to travel. After Vivien has been at the school for 18 months, her mother comes again from India and takes her to a play in London. In the next six months Vivien will insist on seeing the same play 16 times. In India the British community entertained themselves at amateur theatricals and Vivien's father was a leading man. Pupils at the English convent school are eager to perform in school plays. It's an all-girls school, so some of the girls have to play the male roles. The male roles are so much more adventurous. Vivien's favorite actor is Leslie Howard, and at 19 she marries an English barrister who looks very much like him. The year is 1932. Vivien's best friend from that convent school has gone to California, where she's making movies. Vivien has an opportunity to play a small role in an English film, Things Are Looking Up (1935). She has only one line but the camera keeps returning to her face. The London stage is more exciting than the movies being filmed in England, and the most thrilling actor on that stage is Laurence Olivier. At a party Vivien finds out about a stage role, "The Green Sash", where the only requirement is that the leading lady be beautiful. The play has a very brief run, but now she is a real actress. An English film is going to be made about Elizabeth I. Laurence gets the role of a young favorite of the queen who is sent to Spain. Vivien gets a much smaller role as a lady-in-waiting of the queen who is in love with Laurence's character. In real life, both fall in love while making this film, Fire Over England (1937). In 1938, Hollywood wants Laurence to play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939). Vivien, who has just recently read Gone with the Wind (1939), thinks that the role of Scarlett O'Hara is the first role for an actress that would be really exciting to bring to the screen. She sails to America for a brief vacation. In New York she gets on a plane for the first time to rush to California to see Laurence. They have dinner with Myron Selznick the night that his brother, David O. Selznick, is burning Atlanta on a backlot of MGM (actually they are burning old sets that go back to the early days of silent films to make room to recreate an Atlanta of the 1860s). Vivien is 26 when Gone with the Wind (1939) makes a sweep of the Oscars in 1939. So let's show 26-year-old Vivien walking up to the stage to accept her Oscar and then as the Oscar is presented the camera focuses on Vivien's face and through the magic of digitally altering images, the 26-year-old face merges into the face of Vivien at age 38 getting her second Best Actress Oscar for portraying Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She wouldn't have returned to America to make that film had not Laurence been going over there to do a film, Carrie (1952) based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie". Laurence tells their friends that his motive for going to Hollywood to make films is to get enough money to produce his own plays for the London stage. He even has his own theater there, the St. James. Now Sir Laurence, with a seat in the British House of Lords, is accompanied by Vivien the day the Lords are debating about whether the St James should be torn down. Breaking protocol, Vivien speaks up and is escorted from the House of Lords. The publicity helps raise the funds to save the St. James. Throughout their two-decade marriage Laurence and Vivien were acting together on the stage in London and New York. Vivien was no longer Lady Olivier when she performed her last major film role, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).- Actress
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Mischa Barton is a versatile actress with a passion for storytelling and an impressive career spanning over two decades. Working with such acclaimed directors and writers as M. Night Shyamalan, James Lapine and Naomi Wallace, she is known for her magnetic on-screen presence and natural acting abilities that have captivated audiences worldwide. She has earned her reputation as one of the most talented performers of her generation.
Born in London, England, Barton quickly made her mark in the entertainment industry with her debut film role in "Lawn Dogs" (1997). From there, she continued to showcase her versatility in a variety of film and television projects, including the hit supernatural thriller "The Sixth Sense" (1999) and the critically acclaimed drama series "Once and Again" (2002-2003).
However, it was her iconic role as Marissa Cooper in the hit television series "The O.C." (2003-2006) that truly launched Barton to superstardom. Her portrayal of the troubled, yet lovable character resonated with audiences worldwide, cementing her place as a pop culture icon and earning her widespread critical acclaim with critics praising her nuanced portrayal of a complex character.
She has appeared in several stage productions throughout her career, including the acclaimed Off-Broadway productions of "Where the Truth Lies," "Twelve Dreams," and "One Flea Spare." Her performances were praised for their depth, nuance, and emotional range, demonstrating her versatility as an actress.- Actress
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Jessica Paré first turned heads in Stardom (2000), broke our hearts in Lost and Delirious (2001), played the catalyst for karmic intervention in Bollywood/Hollywood (2002) and, somehow, pulled off being a secret villain in Posers (2002). She then went onto made-for-TV movies, starting with a small role in Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999). She eventually was part of the twice Gemini-nominated mini-series, Random Passage (2002). Now, she can be seen on CTV, most recently as "Nancy Eaton" in The Death and Life of Nancy Eaton (2004), and Lives of the Saints (2004). She made her Hollywood debut as Josh Hartnett's fiancée in Wicker Park (2004), which premiered in 2004. She has since gone on to perform in other American productions, both on television and the big screen.- Actress
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Piper Perabo is a Golden Globe nominated film, stage and TV actor. Born in Dallas, Texas, and raised in New Jersey, she graduated summa cum Laude from Ohio University. In 2000 she was cast in a breakout role in Coyote Ugly. Since then she has been seen in such films as Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige" with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, "Because I Said So" with Diane Keaton and "First Snow", with Guy Pearce, "Cheaper by the Dozen" films with Steve Martin, "Imagine Me & You" with Lena Heady and Matthew Goode and the crime drama "10th & Wolf" with an ensemble cast that included James Marsden and Dennis Hopper. She starred alongside Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels in Rian Johnson's sci-fi action film, "Looper.".
In television Perabo starred as Annie Walker in all 5 seasons of USA Network's spy drama, "Covert Affairs." Following that she co-starred in ABC's 2016 legal drama "Notorious."And can next be seen on Netflix in "Turn Up Charlie" with Idris Elba.
She made her Broadway debut in Neil LaBute's controversial play "Reasons to be Pretty", which was nominated for the Tony for Best Play.
Outside of her work on screen and stage, Perabo is also an activist. She is a Voice for the International Rescue Committee to raise awareness about the world's refugee crisis and help those displaced by conflict, religious persecution and political oppression around the globe.
Piper lives in Los Angeles and New York City.- Actress
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Isabel was born in Melbourne, Australia. Her father is Australian and her mother is Swiss. Her family lived in Switzerland, Melbourne, Jabiru, a small mining town in the Northern Territory, and Cairns, Australia. Along with her sister, Nina, she attended schools that included First Nations children as well as children from other cultures. Isabel currently lives in Byron Bay, NSW, Australia.
Isabel was involved in drama already during her time at school. She went on to study drama at the Victorian College of Arts, Queensland University of Technology, and more recently studied the PEM Method (Perdekamp Emotional Method). She never auditioned for roles until she was discovered by her agent in 2002. She auditioned for part on Home and Away (1988). The producers felt she wasn't right for the part but were sufficiently impressed and created a new role for her, Tasha. She spent 3 years playing her first television role and won a Logie Award (for new popular talent) for her performance.
In 2008, Isabel moved to Los Angeles. Her breakthrough role came in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009). Since then she starred in numerous US and Australian productions and won several awards. - Recently, Isabel played a role in award-winning "Bosh & Rockit" ("Ocean Boy"), a film that is fast becoming an Australian classic, and in the soon-to-be-released thriller, "Lunacy". Isabel also recently wrapped "Sons of Summer" and is in pre-production for the role of Marie Curie in "Radiant", with award-winning writer/director Annika Glac.
Isabel is a keen animal rights supporter and has worked with many environmental organizations. She has been a proud Patron/Ambassador for Melbourne's Human Rights and Arts Film Festival (HRAFF) for the past 10 years (up to 2020). Known for her ethical, eco-conscious interests and her commitment to social justice, Isabel became the brand ambassador and face of several fashion and cosmetics campaigns.- Actress
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Jessica Kelly Siobhán Reilly (born July 18, 1977) is an English actress. Her performance in After Miss Julie at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star of the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress of 2003. Reilly was born and brought up in Chessington, Surrey, England, the daughter of a hospital receptionist mother, and Jack Reilly, a police officer. She attended Tolworth Girls' School in Kingston, where she studied drama for GCSE. Her grandparents are Irish.
Reilly wrote to the producers of the television drama Prime Suspect to ask for work, and six months later she auditioned for a role in an episode of Prime Suspect 4: Inner Circle, which was broadcast on ITV on 7 May 1995. Six years later, she again appeared alongside Helen Mirren in the film Last Orders.
Her first professional role was followed by a series of parts on the English stage. She worked with Terry Johnson in four productions: Elton John's Glasses (1997), The London Cuckolds (1998), The Graduate (2000), and Piano/Forte (2006). Johnson wrote Piano/Forte for her and said, "Kelly is possibly the most natural, dyed-in-the-wool, deep-in-the-bone actress I've ever worked with." Reilly has stated that she learned the most as an actor from Karel Reisz, who directed her in The Yalta Game in Dublin in 2001. She said, "He was my masterclass. There is no way I would have been able to do Miss Julie if I hadn't done that play."
By 2000, Reilly felt she was being typecast in comedy roles, and actively sought out a role as the young Amy in Last Orders, directed by Fred Schepisi. This was followed by a role in the Royal Court's 2001 rerun of Sarah Kane's Blasted. The Times called her "theatrical Viagra." In 2002, Reilly starred alongside Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris as Wendy, an English Erasmus student, in the French comedy L'Auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment). She reprised her role in the 2005 sequel, Les Poupées russes (The Russian Dolls) and the 2013 follow-up, Casse-tête chinois (Chinese Puzzle). Also in 2005, Reilly had roles in such films as Mrs Henderson Presents and Pride & Prejudice.
Reilly's first lead role came in 2008 in the horror film Eden Lake and, in 2009, she had a high-profile role on prime-time British television in Above Suspicion. Reilly also appeared in three major films: Sherlock Holmes, Triage, and Me and Orson Welles.
In 2011, Reilly reprised her role as Mary Watson in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. In 2012, Reilly appeared opposite Sam Rockwell in A Single Shot and had a leading role in Robert Zemeckis' Flight opposite Denzel Washington. In 2014, Reilly starred with Greg Kinnear in the film Heaven is for Real and in the John Michael McDonagh film Calvary. The same year Reilly starred in the short-lived ABC series Black Box, as Catherine Black, a famed neuroscientist who explores and solves the mysteries of the brain (the black box) while hiding her own bipolar disorder from the world.
In 2015, Reilly starred in the second season of HBO's True Detective as Jordan Semyon, the wife of Vince Vaughn's character Frank Semyon. The same year, Reilly made her Broadway debut opposite Clive Owen and Eve Best in Harold Pinter's play Old Times at the American Airlines Theatre.- Actress
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Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. Rachel has a sister, Minnie, a curator and photographer.
Rachel started modeling when she was 14, and began acting during her studies at Cambridge University. While there, she formed a theater company named "Talking Tongues", which won the Guardian Award, at the Edinburgh Festival, for its take on Neville Southall's "Washbag". Rachel went on to star on stage in the lauded Sean Mathias revival of Noël Coward's "Design For Living". It was a role that won her a vote for Most Promising Newcomer by the London Critics' Circle.
She has starred in many movies, including The Mummy (1999), Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Stealing Beauty (1996). Rachel can also be seen in the movies The Shape of Things (2003), About a Boy (2002), Constantine (2005) and The Constant Gardener (2005), for which she won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rachel has a son with her former partner, director Darren Aronofsky. In June 2011, she married "James Bond" actor Daniel Craig in a private ceremony in New York.- Actress
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Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion roller skater, but that would change. Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business, which she figured was a lot more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk. In 1924 Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage and wowed audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927 she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) with himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs. She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career. She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.- Actress
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Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming an actress. Bow, nonetheless, won a photo beauty contest which launched her movie career that would eventually number 58 films, from 1922 to 1933.
The movie It (1927) defined her career. The film starred Clara as a shopgirl who was asked out by the store's owner. As you watch the silent film you can see the excitement as she prepared for her date with the boss, her friend trying hard to assist her. She used a pair of scissors to modify her dress to try to look "sexier." The movie did much to change society's mores as there were only a few years between World War I and Clara Bow, but this movie went a long way in how society looked at itself. Clara was flaming youth in rebellion. In the film she presented a worldly wisdom that somehow sex meant having a good time. But the movie shouldn't mislead the viewer, because when her boss tries to kiss her goodnight, she slaps him. At the height of her popularity she received over 45,000 fan letters a month. Also, she was probably the most overworked and underpaid star in the industry. With the coming of sound, her popularity waned. Clara was also involved in several court battles ranging from unpaid taxes to being in divorce court for "stealing" women's husbands. After the court trials, she made a couple of attempts to get back in the public eye. One was Call Her Savage (1932) in 1932. It was somewhat of a failure at the box office and her last was in 1933 in a film called Hoopla (1933).
She then married cowboy star Rex Bell at 26 and retired from the film world at 28. She doted on her two sons and did everything to please them. Haunted by a weight problem and a mental imbalance, she never re-entered show business. She was confined to sanitariums from time to time and prohibited access to her beloved sons. She died of a heart attack in West Los Angeles, on September 26, 1965 at age 60. Today she is finding a renaissance among movie buffs, who are recently discovering the virtues of silent film. The actress who wanted so much to be like the wonderful young lady in It (1927) has the legacy of her films to confirm that she was a wonderful lady and America's first sex symbol.- Actress
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Daughter of a law professor at Northwestern University, she moved with her family to Los Angeles when he transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.). She began acting in school plays at North Hollywood High, graduated from The Oakwood School and then continued her stage training at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and the drama division of The Juilliard School in New York. Following a pleasant screen debut in Robert Redford's Oscar-winning Ordinary People (1980), McGovern gave a great performance as Evelyn Nesbit in Ragtime (1981) for which she earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She has continued performing on stage between film assignments rather than concentrate on being a film star.- Actress
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Emily Watson was born and raised in London, the daughter of Katharine (Venables), an English teacher, and Richard Watson, an architect. After a self-described sheltered upbringing, Watson attended university for three years in Bristol, studying English literature. She applied to drama school and was rejected on her first attempt.
After three years of working in clerical and waitress jobs she was finally accepted. In 1992, she took a position with the Royal Shakespeare Company where she met her future husband, Jack Waters. Continuing stage work, Watson landed her first screen role as Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves (1996) after Helena Bonham Carter pulled out of the role. For this initial foray into movies, Watson was nominated for an Academy Award. She continued to gain success in Britain in the leading roles in Metroland (1997) and The Mill on the Floss (1997), but her first popular film in the United States came in 1997 when she played Daniel Day-Lewis's long-suffering love interest in The Boxer (1997).
In the next two years she won critical acclaim for her portrayal of cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Hilary and Jackie (1998) and landed a small part in the ensemble cast of Tim Robbins's Cradle Will Rock (1999). Critical acclaim and North American success came together for Watson in 1999 with the release of Angela's Ashes (1999), the film adaptation of Frank McCourt's bestselling book of the same name. She achieved top billing as Angela McCourt, the hardworking mother of several children and wife of a drunken husband in depression-era Ireland. After less-celebrated roles in 2000's Trixie (2000) and The Luzhin Defence (2000), Watson again returned to an ensemble cast in Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001).
Watson's status as a leading actress in major Hollywood productions was cemented in 2002 with her roles in Red Dragon (2002), the third installment of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lechter series; the futuristic Equilibrium (2002); and, most notably, in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002), playing opposite Adam Sandler. While returning to the stage in 2002 and 2003 on both sides of the Atlantic, Watson has expressed interest in again working with Anderson. Emily Watson lives in London, England, UK, with her husband, Jack Waters.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Hilary was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Judith Kay (Clough), a secretary, and Stephen Michael Swank, who served in the National Guard and was also a traveling salesman. Her maternal grandmother, Frances Martha Dominguez, was of Mexican descent, and her other roots include German, English, and Scottish. During her early childhood, her family moved to Spokane, Washington, and when she was six, to Bellingham, Washington.
Hilary was discovered as a child by producer Suzy Sachs, who coached her in acting. When she was nine years old, she starred in her first play as "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book". She began to appear regularly in local theater and school plays. She went to school in Bellingham, where she lived with her family, until she was 16. She competed in the Junior Olympics and Washington State championships in swimming; she ranked 5th in the state in all-around gymnastics (which would come in handy for starring in The Next Karate Kid (1994) years later). In 1990, Hilary and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled in South Pasadena High School, and started acting professionally. She appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) but The Next Karate Kid (1994), where she got the part competing against hundreds of other actresses, was her breakout role. Ever since then, she has been much in demand and has worked non-stop in movies. She won the Best Actress Oscar for playing "Brandon Teena" in Boys Don't Cry (1999). In addition to the Oscar, Hilary won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Drama" and "Best Actress" prizes from The New York Film Critics, The Los Angeles Film Critics, The Chicago Film Critics and The Broadcast Film Critics Association. She also won the "Breakthrough Performance" prize from The National Board of Review.
Hilary then appeared in supporting roles opposite Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves in Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000) and opposite Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia (2002). Hilary then starred as "Alice Paul" in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels (2004), which told the story of the women's suffragist movement and she was honored with both SAG and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in this film. In 2004, Hilary starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman as the title character in Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004); the story of a young woman's quest to realize her dream of becoming a professional boxer. For this performance, she was honored with her second Academy Award for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" and has garnered "Best Actress" prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, the Screen Actors Guild, The Broadcast Film Critics, and a Golden Globe for "Best Lead Actress in a Drama".
Hilary Swank is the third youngest woman in history to win two Academy Awards for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role".
She subsequently had a supporting role opposite Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006), starred in Freedom Writers (2007), the true story of Long Beach schoolteacher, Erin Gruwell, The Reaping (2007) for Warner Brothers, and reunited with her Freedom Writers (2007) writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, starring in the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern's novel, P.S. I Love You (2007).
An aficionado for anything that involves the outdoors, she enjoys: sky diving, river rafting and skiing.