My Top 25 Favorite Actress of the World
by wei_weikung | created - 20 Jun 2012 | updated - 22 Jun 2012 | Public
1. Queen Latifah
Actress | Chicago
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 ...
2. Hilary Swank
Actress | Million Dollar Baby
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 ...
3. Anne Hathaway
Actress | Les Misérables
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series ...
4. Sandra Bullock
Producer | The Proposal
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 ...
5. Amy Adams
Actress | Arrival
Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...
6. Helen Mirren
Actress | The Queen
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...
7. Jennifer Hudson
Soundtrack | Dreamgirls
Jennifer Kate Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois to Darnell Donerson (née Hudson) & Samuel Simpson. She is an Academy Award-winning actress, Grammy Award-winning recording artist and best-selling author. This bright, beautiful and booming-voiced talent is a perfect example ...
8. Amanda Bynes
Actress | Hairspray
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. ...
9. Penélope Cruz
Actress | Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to ...
10. Michelle Yeoh
Actress | Everything Everywhere All at Once
Michelle Yeoh was born in Ipoh, Malaysia. She's the daughter of Janet Yeoh & Kian Teik Yeoh. She's of Hokkien descent, speaking English and Malay before Chinese. A ballet dancer since 4, she moved to London to study at the Royal Academy as a teen. After a brief dance career, she won the Miss ...
11. Julianne Moore
Actress | Far from Heaven
Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from ...
12. Halle Berry
Actress | Catwoman
Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. ...
13. Nicole Kidman
Actress | Moulin Rouge!
Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.
Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical ...
14. Rachel McAdams
Actress | The Notebook
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 ...
15. Julie Andrews
Actress | The Sound of Music
Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her mother, Barbara Ward (Morris), and stepfather, both vaudeville performers, discovered her freakish but undeniably lovely four-octave singing voice and immediately got her a singing career. She performed in music halls throughout her...
16. Emma Stone
Actress | La La Land
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 ...
17. Whoopi Goldberg
Actress | Ghost
Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in...
18. Viola Davis
Actress | Fences
Viola Davis is a critically revered actress of film, television, and theater and has won rave reviews for her multitude of substantial and intriguingly diverse roles. Audiences across the United States and internationally have admired her for her work- including her celebrated, Oscar-nominated ...
19. Scarlett Johansson
Actress | Lost in Translation
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, ...
20. Angelina Jolie
Actress | Maleficent
Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...
21. Salma Hayek
Actress | Frida
Salma Hayek was born on September 2, 1966 in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. Her father is of Lebanese descent and her mother is of Mexican/Spanish ancestry. After having seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) in a local movie theater, she decided she wanted to become an actress. At age 12, she...
22. Maggie Smith
Actress | Gosford Park
One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...
23. Jodie Foster
Actress | The Silence of the Lambs
Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received ...
24. Abigail Breslin
Actress | Little Miss Sunshine
Academy Award-nominated actress Abigail Breslin is one of the most sought-after actors of her generation. Her unique and charismatic talents have contributed to her versatile roles in both comedy and drama.
Recently, Breslin headlined the first season of the horror-comedy series, Scream Queens (2015)...
25. Kate Beckinsale
Actress | Underworld: Evolution
Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in Hounslow, Middlesex, England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her ...
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