Future Husbands
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American actor John Krasinski is known for his role as sardonic nice guy Jim Halpert on NBC's popular TV sitcom, The Office (2005), for which he won a 2007 and 2008 Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series.
Born John Burke Krasinski on October 20, 1979, in Newton, Massachusetts, USA, he is the youngest of three brothers. His mother, Mary Claire (Doyle), is a nurse, and his father, Ronald Krasinski, is an internist. His father is of Polish descent and his mother is of Irish ancestry.
His first stage experience was starring in a satirical high school play, written and cast by his classmate B.J. Novak. Also good at sports, he played on the same Little League baseball team as Novak, later a writer and co-star on The Office (2005). After graduating from Newton South High School in 1997, Krasinski planned to be an English major and deferred his first semester of college to teach English in Costa Rica. He attended Brown University, graduating in English in 2001 with honors, then studied at the Eugene O'Neill National Theatre Institute in Waterford, Connecticut.
During the summer of 2000, he worked as a script intern on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993). Krasinski made his big screen debut in 2002, then played several small roles like "Ben" in Kinsey (2004), and "Bob Flynn" in Duane Hopwood (2005). He appeared as "Corporal Harrigan" in Jarhead (2005), by director Sam Mendes, then played a supporting role as "Ben" in The Holiday (2006), a romantic comedy by director Nancy Meyers. He is billed as the voice of "Lancelot" in Shrek the Third (2007). Krasinski co-starred opposite Robin Williams and Mandy Moore in the romantic comedy License to Wed (2007), as well as with George Clooney and Renée Zellweger in the football screwball comedy, Leatherheads (2008). He is also director and writer of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009), a big screen adaptation of the eponymous collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace. He followed that film up with The Hollars (2016), a family drama, and A Quiet Place (2018), a well-received horror film that had one of the biggest opening weekends for the genre.
Krasinski is married to English actress Emily Blunt, with whom he has two children. He claims Los Angeles as his home but travels to New York City and his hometown of Newton, MA, frequently.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
James Wolk was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to Edie (Elson), an art teacher, and Robert Wolk, a shoe store owner. His family is Jewish. James graduated from North Farmington High School, and worked in his father's store as a teenager. He graduated from the University of Michigan drama school in 2007, and won the role of 'Brad Cohen' in CBS/ Hallmark Hall of Fame's "Front of the Class". Based on the book of the same name, James beautifully portrayed Brad, who has been challenged with Tourette Syndrome from a young age but defied all odds to become a gifted teacher.
In 2009, he landed the title role in the ABC pilot "Solving Charlie" directed by Gregory Hoblit. James plays a young detective who, after his estranged father passes away, learns he has an 11 year old half-brother by the same name. His father's last wish is for Charlie to raise his younger brother.
James played the lead role of 'Robert/Bob Taylor' in the 2010 FOX pilot "Lone Star", directed by Marc Webb. James played a con man who has wives in two different Texas towns and leads a double life. The cast included Eloise Mumford and Adrianne Palicki as Bob's two wives, veteran actor David Keith as Bob's con-artist father, and Oscar winner Jon Voight as a powerful Texas oilman whose daughter is one of Bob's wives.
James also appeared in the 2010 Disney feature film "You Again" with Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Odette Yustman, Sigourney Weaver, and Kristin Chenoweth.
He resides in Los Angeles.- Actor
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- Director
Paul Schneider was born on 16 March 1976 in Asheville, North Carolina, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Elizabethtown (2005) and All the Real Girls (2003).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Bradley Charles Cooper was born on January 5, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Gloria (Campano), is of Italian descent, and worked for a local NBC station. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Immediately after Bradley graduated from the Honors English program at Georgetown University in 1997, he moved to New York City to enroll in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. There, he developed his stage work, culminating with his thesis performance as John Merrick in Bernard Pomerance's "The Elephant Man", performed in New York's Circle in the Square.
While still in school, Bradley began his professional career, appearing opposite Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City (1998) and on the drama series The Beat (2000). His weekends were spent with LEAP (Learning through the Expanded Arts Program), a non-profit organization that teaches acting and movement to inner city school children. The summers took him all across the globe, from kayaking in British Columbia with Orca Whales to ice-climbing in the Peruvian Andes, while hosting Lonely Planet's Treks in a Wild World (2000) for the Discovery Channel. Bradley had to miss his graduation ceremony from the Actors Studio in order to star in his first feature Wet Hot American Summer (2001). After finishing his second feature Bending All the Rules (2002), his plans to relocate to Los Angeles were delayed when Darren Star hired him to star on the drama series The $treet (2000).
Bradley went on to win the role of young law student Gordon Pinella in Changing Lanes (2002), starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, and also played Travis Paterson in My Little Eye (2002). He finally decided that it was time to forgo his other New York projects and move to Los Angeles when he was cast on Alias (2001). After supporting roles in Wedding Crashers (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), The Comebacks (2007), The Rocker (2008) and Yes Man (2008), Cooper broke out with major roles in He's Just Not That Into You (2009), The Hangover (2009) and Valentine's Day (2010). He co-starred in the action film The A-Team (2010) and headlined the thriller film Limitless (2011).
Cooper received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor after starring opposite Jennifer Lawrence in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (2012). He then received two more consecutive Oscar nominations, Best Supporting Actor for playing Richie DiMaso in Russell's American Hustle (2013) (again opposite Lawrence, though their characters shared no significant screen time), and Best Actor for playing Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (2014), the highest grossing film of 2014. During this time period, Cooper also reprised his role in The Hangover Part II (2011) and The Hangover Part III (2013), turned in another strong dramatic turn in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), and voiced Rocket Raccoon in the third highest grossing film of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
In 2015, Bradley headlined two comedies, Cameron Crowe's Aloha (2015), set in Hawaii, and John Wells' Burnt (2015), set in London, and starred opposite Jennifer Lawrence again in David O. Russell's Joy (2015).
Bradley has a daughter (born 2017) with his former partner, model Irina Shayk.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Richard Crispin Armitage was born and raised in Leicester, England, to Margaret (Hendey), a secretary, and John Armitage, an engineer. He attended Pattison College in Binley Road, Coventry, where he discovered his love for acting. He took part in many theatre productions all over the UK, from musical theatre (Cats) to classical theatre (Death of a Salesman). He enrolled at LAMDA in 1995 and starred in The Cherry Orchard and The Normal Heart among others.
He started working in cinema in 1999 with some small roles in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Cleopatra and This Year's Love (1999). In 2000 he took part in the RSC Macbeth tour of the USA and Japan with Antony Sher as the lead actor. In 2002, he had a breakthrough with his role as the charming but a bit odd character John Standring in Sparkhouse (2002), a BBC Miniseries in three parts, opposite Sarah Smart. After two guest-roles in Cold Feet (1997) in 2003 and Between the Sheets (2003), he landed a role as Steven in Frozen (2005). In 2004, he became famous throughout the whole UK with his role of mill-owner John Thornton in North & South (2004) (BBC). He landed a key role in BBC Robin Hood from 2006 to 2009 as the dark and evil Guy of Gisborne, then from 2008 to 2010 he played Lucas North in the successful British series Spooks (MI-5 in the USA). He kept working on British TV (Strike Back: Origins in 2010) and had a small but pivotal role in Captain America: the first Avenger, till he became known worldwide with his role of Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's trilogy of The Hobbit (2012/2014), for which he received a Saturn Award. In 2014 he was the protagonist of Yael Farber's acclaimed version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible at the Old Vic in London, for which role he was nominated for an Olivier Award. He starred in the third season of Hannibal (2015) in the role of serial killer Francis Dolarhyde, which got him another Saturn Award. In 2016 he starred in the Epix original series Berlin Station in the lead role of Daniel Miller, and in the same year he received many positive reviews for his role of Kenneth in Mike Bartlett's Love, love, love for Roundabout Theatre in NYC. In 2017 He worked on Ocean's Eight, and on the second season of Berlin Station. In July 2017 the film Pilgrimage came out with many positive reviews. He has narrated several audio books with Audible, for which he has received two nominations for an Audie Award. He has recently given the voice to Trevor Belmont in the series Castlevania on Netflix.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill was born on the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne (Dalgliesh), a housewife, was also born on Jersey, and is of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Henry's father, Colin Richard Cavill, a stockbroker, is of English origin (born in Chester, England). Henry is the second youngest son, with four brothers. He was privately educated at St. Michael's Preparatory School in Saint Saviour, Jersey before attending Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, England.
His interest in acting started at an early age with school play renditions of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and Sonny LaTierri in "Grease". He also starred and directed Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in the BBC documentary "40 Minutes". It was at age 17 when Henry was discovered by casting directors at school who were looking for a young boy to play Albert Mondego in The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). He went on to star in Vendetta (2001), appear in BBC's The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2001), the television film Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002), and the television series Midsomer Murders (1997).
When Henry was 20 years old, he gained starring roles in I Capture the Castle (2003), Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005), Red Riding Hood (2006) and Tristan + Isolde (2006). He also had a minor role in the fantasy-adventure epic Stardust (2007) alongside Sienna Miller and Ben Barnes. During 2007-2010, Henry had a leading role on the television series The Tudors (2007) as Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The series was a success and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2007 and won an Emmy Award in 2008. Entertainment Weekly named him "Most Dashing Duke".
He also starred in Blood Creek (2006) and Woody Allen's comedy film Whatever Works (2009). On January 30, 2011, it was announced that Henry Cavill had been cast as the next Superman in Man of Steel (2013), making him the first non-American actor to play Superman. The movie was directed by Zach Snyder, produced by Christopher Nolan, and scripted by David S. Goyer. On November 7, 2011, Henry starred in Tarsem Singh's fantasy-adventure epic Immortals (2011) alongside Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto and Luke Evans. On September 7, 2012, Henry starred in the action-thriller Cold Light of Day (2003) alongside Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver.
On June 10, 2013, Man of Steel (2013) kicked off its world premiere in New York City followed by London, Bailiwick of Jersey, Sicily, Madrid, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. The movie became the highest-grossing Superman film to date, and the second-highest-grossing reboot of all time behind The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). Glamour magazine ranked him the #1 "Sexiest Man". In August 2014, Henry became the Ambassador for Durrell Wildlife Park and created a website and social media called #CavillConservation to help raise funds and awareness for his love of animals and conservation. On November 3, 2014, it was announced that Cavill, his brother Charlie, and London-based producer Rex Glensy, have formed their own British production company, Promethean Productions.
On August 7, 2015, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) began its premiere tour with a people's premiere at the famous Somerset House in London, followed by its world premiere in New York City, then Toronto, and Rio de Janeiro. Cavill reprised his role as Superman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017).- Actor
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Born Ryan Thomas Gosling on November 12, 1980, in London, Ontario, Canada, he is the son of Donna (Wilson), a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman. Ryan was the second of their two children, with an older sister, Mandi. His ancestry is French-Canadian, as well as English, Scottish, and Irish. The Gosling family moved to Cornwall, Ontario, where Ryan grew up and was home-schooled by his mother. He also attended Gladstone Public School and Cornwall Collegiate & Vocational School, where he excelled in Drama and Fine Arts. The family then relocated to Burlington, Ontario, where Ryan attended Lester B. Pearson High School.
Ryan first performed as a singer at talent contests with Mandi. He attended an open audition in Montreal for the TV series "The Mickey Mouse Club" (The All New Mickey Mouse Club (1989)) in January 1993 and beat out 17,000 other aspiring actors for a a spot on the show. While appearing on "MMC" for two years, he lived with co-star Justin Timberlake's family.
Though he received no formal acting training, after "MMC," Gosling segued into an acting career, appearing on the TV series Young Hercules (1998) and Breaker High (1997), as well as the films The Slaughter Rule (2002), Murder by Numbers (2002), and Remember the Titans (2000). He first attracted serious critical attention with his performance as the Jewish neo-Nazi in the controversial film The Believer (2001), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. He was cast in the part by writer-director Henry Bean, who believed that Gosling's strict upbringing gave him the insight to understand the character Danny, whose obsessiveness with the Judaism he was born into turns to hatred. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Male Lead in 2002 for the role and won the Golden Aries award from the Russian Guild of Film Critics.
After appearing in the sleeper The Notebook (2004) in 2004, Gosling won the dubious honor of being named one of the 50 Hottest Bachelors by People Magazine. More significantly, he was named the Male Star of Tomorrow at the 2004 Show West convention of movie exhibitors.
Gosling reached a summit of his profession with his performance in Half Nelson (2006), which garnered him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. In a short time, he has established himself as one of the finest actors of his generation. Throughout the subsequent decade, he has become all three of an internet fixation, a box office star, and a critical darling, having headlined Blue Valentine (2010), Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011), Drive (2011), The Ides of March (2011), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), The Nice Guys (2016), and La La Land (2016). In 2017, he starred in the long-awaited science fiction sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017), with Harrison Ford.
Ryan has two children with his partner, actress Eva Mendes.- Actor
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Christopher "Chris" O'Dowd (born 9 October, 1979) is an Irish actor and comedian best known for his role as Roy Trenneman in the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd (2006). O'Dowd created and is starring in the Sky 1 television series Moone Boy (2012). He had a recurring role on the drama series Girls (2012) and starred in the television series Family Tree (2013). O'Dowd is also known for his films, most notably Bridesmaids (2011), This Is 40 (2012), The Sapphires (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Calvary (2014), and St. Vincent (2014). He made his Broadway debut in the play adaptation of Of Mice and Men in 2014, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of the most versatile actors working in Hollywood today, Lee Pace has established himself as a powerful leading man, consistently delivering compelling performances in film, television, and on stage.
Pace will next be seen in the highly anticipated Apple TV+ series FOUNDATION. Scheduled for a Fall 2021 release, the show is based on the beloved Isaac Asimov novels of the same name. FOUNDATION chronicles the saga of a band of exiles who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from destruction is to defy it. Pace stars as Brother day, the current Emperor of the Galaxy.
He is known for starring as Thranduil the Elvenking in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy and as intergalactic villain Ronan the Accuser in the blockbuster Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy, a role he reprised in Captain Marvel. In 2003, Pace starred in the Sundance hit, Soldier's Girl. His breakthrough performance garnered him nominations for both the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Award, and he won a Gotham Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance. In 2008 he starred in Tarsem Singh's visually stunning adventure fantasy film, The Fall, which had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Other notable credits include The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Driven, Lincoln, A Single Man, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Infamous and The Good Shepherd.
On the small screen, Pace is most notable for his starring role in Bryan Fuller's award-winning and critically acclaimed series "Pushing Daisies," for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor. He has also appeared as Joe MacMillan in four seasons of the AMC period drama television series Halt and Catch Fire.
After graduating with a BFA from Juilliard, Pace starred in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play, The Credeaux Canvas, as well as being part of the Vineyard production of The Fourth Sister. In the spring of 2004, he starred a limited engagement of the Off-Broadway production Small Tragedy, winning an Obie Award and was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Awards in the category of Outstanding Actor. In 2006, Lee starred in the two-character play Guardians by Peter Morris, which earned him his second nomination for a Lortel Award as Outstanding Actor.
In 2011, Pace made his Broadway debut in Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, portraying Bruce Niles. In 2018, he starred as Joe Pitt in the Broadway revival of Angels in America.- Actor
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The middle child between two sisters, Zachary Levi was born as Zachary Levi Pugh on September 29, 1980 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Susan (Hoctor) and Darrell Alton Pugh. He uses his middle name as his stage surname because his birth name, "Pugh", which is of Welsh origin, sounds too much like "Pew." His other ancestry includes Irish, English, French, German, Scottish, and Swiss. He grew up all over the country before his family put down roots in Ventura County, California. At the early age of six, Zachary began acting, singing and dancing in school and local theater productions.
After graduating from Buena High School he headed to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of acting. Zachary began acting in theater, performing roles in such regional productions like Grease, The Outsiders, Oliver, The Wizard of Oz, and Big River. It was his portrayal of Jesus in Ojai's Godspell that brought him to the attention of Hollywood.
He had a supporting role in the television movie Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie (2002) with David Krumholtz, Tory Kittles, Jennifer Morrison, and Nicholas Turturro. He then began acting as Kipp Steadman in the TV series Less Than Perfect (2002) with Sara Rue, Andrea Parker, Eric Roberts, Andy Dick, and Sherri Shepherd.
He was seen in the television movie See Jane Date (2003) on the WB with Charisma Carpenter, Holly Marie Combs, Linda Dano, and Rachelle Lefevre. In his spare time, Zachary enjoys skateboarding, snowboarding, skydiving, and participating in various other sports. After living in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade, he recently moved to Austin, Texas.
In 2019 he starred in the action-comedy film Shazam! (2019), playing the title superhero; a magic-created older version of teenager Billy Batson played by Asher Angel. The film and his comic-heroic performance received positive notices.- Producer
- Actor
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Benjamin Géza "Ben" Affleck-Boldt was born on August 15, 1972 in Berkeley, California and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to mother Chris Anne (Boldt), a school teacher, and father Timothy Byers "Tim" Affleck, a social worker. Ben has a younger brother, actor Casey Affleck, who was born in 1975. He is of mostly English, Irish, German, and Scottish ancestry. His middle name, Géza, is after a Hungarian family friend who was a Holocaust survivor.
Affleck wanted to be an actor ever since he could remember, and his first acting experience was for a Burger King commercial, when he was on the PBS mini-series, The Voyage of the Mimi (1984). It was also at that age when Ben met his lifelong friend and fellow actor, Matt Damon. They played little league together and took drama classes together. Ben's teen years consisted of mainly TV movies and small television appearances including Hands of a Stranger (1987) and The Second Voyage of the Mimi (1988). He made his big introduction into feature films in 1993 when he was cast in Dazed and Confused (1993). After that, he did mostly independent films like Kevin Smith's Mallrats (1995) and Chasing Amy (1997) which were great for Ben's career, receiving renowned appreciation for his works at the Sundance film festival. But the success he was having in independent films didn't last much longer and things got a little shaky for Ben. He was living in an apartment with his brother Casey and friend Matt, getting tired of being turned down for the big roles in films and being given the forgettable supporting ones. Since Matt was having the same trouble, they decided to write their own script, where they could call all the shots. So, after finishing the script for Good Will Hunting (1997), they gave it to their agent, Patrick Whitesell, who showed it to a few Hollywood studios, finally being accepted by Castle Rock. It was great news for the two, but Castle Rock wasn't willing to give Ben and Matt the control over the project they were hoping for. It was friend Kevin Smith who took it to the head of Miramax who bought the script giving Ben and Matt the control they wanted and, in December 5, 1997, Good Will Hunting (1997) was released, making the two unknown actors famous. The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won two, including Best Original Screenplay for Ben and Matt. The film marked Ben's breakthrough role, in which he was given for the first time the chance to choose roles instead of having to go through grueling auditions constantly.
Affleck chose such roles in the blockbusters Armageddon (1998), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Pearl Harbor (2001). In the early years of the 2000s, he also starred in the box office hits Changing Lanes (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and Daredevil (2003), as well as the disappointing comedies Gigli (2003) and Surviving Christmas (2004). While the mid 2000s were considered a career downturn for Affleck, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Hollywoodland (2006). In the several years following, he played supporting roles, including in the films Smokin' Aces (2006), He's Just Not That Into You (2009), State of Play (2009), and Extract (2009). He ventured into directing in 2007, with the thriller Gone Baby Gone (2007), which starred his brother, Casey Affleck, and was well received. He then directed, co-wrote, and starred in The Town (2010), which was named to the National Board of Review Top Ten Films of the year. For the political thriller Argo (2012), which he directed and starred in, Affleck won the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for Best Director, and the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Picture (Affleck's second Oscar win).
In 2014, Affleck headlined the book adaptation thriller Gone Girl (2014). He starred as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016), and Justice League (2017). He reprised the role in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and he will next appear as Batman in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) and The Flash (2023).
Recently he has given praise-worthy performances in The Way Back (2020) as a recovering alcoholic, The Last Duel (2021) (notably he also co-wrote the script), and a scene-stealing golden globe nominated performance in The Tender Bar (2021).- Actor
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Thomas William Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to English-born Diana Patricia (Servaes) and Scottish-born James Norman Hiddleston. His mother is a former stage manager, and his father, a scientist, was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. He started off at the preparatory school, The Dragon School in Oxford, and by the time he was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. He continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first in Classics. He continued to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 2005.
Whilst at University of Cambridge, he was seen by the Hamilton Hodell agency in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" and was signed. Following this, he was cast in his first television role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (2001). Hiddleston won his first film role as Oakley in Joanna Hogg's award-winning first feature, Unrelated (2007). His breakthrough role came when he portrayed the nemesis Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feature film Thor (2011). He reprised the character in The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Avengers: Infinity War (2018).
He has also appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011), The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011), and the romantic vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). On television, he appeared on the BBC series The Hollow Crown (2012), in the adaptations of Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and "Henry V". In theatre, he has been in the productions of "Cymbeline" (2007) and "Ivanov" (2008). In December 2013, he starred as the title character in the Donmar Warehouse production of "Coriolanus" which played until February 2014. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play for his role in "Cymbeline" while also being nominated for the same award the same year for his role as Cassio in "Othello".- Producer
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Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Kent Damon, a stockbroker, realtor and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. Matt has an older brother, Kyle, a sculptor. His father was of English and Scottish descent, and his mother is of Finnish and Swedish ancestry. The family lived in Newton until his parents divorced in 1973, when Damon and his brother moved with his mother to Cambridge. He grew up in a stable community, and was raised near actor Ben Affleck.
Damon attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and he performed in a number of theater productions during his time there. He attended Harvard University as an English major. While in Harvard, he kept on skipping classes to pursue acting projects, which included the TNT original film, Rising Son (1990), and prep-school drama, School Ties (1992). It was until his film, Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), was expected to be a big success that he decided to drop out of university completely. Arriving in Hollywood, Matt managed to get his first break with a part in the romantic comedy, Mystic Pizza (1988). However, the film did not do too well and his film career failed to take off. Not letting failure discourage him from acting, he went for another audition, and managed to get a starring role in School Ties (1992). Up next for Matt was a role as a soldier who had problems with drug-addiction in the movie, Courage Under Fire (1996). Matt had, in fact, lost forty pounds for his role which resulted in health problems.
The following year, he garnered accolades for Good Will Hunting (1997), a screenplay he had originally written for an English class at Harvard University. Good Will Hunting (1997) was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, one of which, Matt won for Best Original Screenplay along with Ben Affleck. In the year 1998, Matt played the title role in Steven Spielberg's film, Saving Private Ryan (1998), which was one of the most acclaimed films in that year. Matt had the opportunity of working with Tom Hanks and Vin Diesel while filming that movie. That same year, he starred as an earnest law student and reformed poker player in Rounders (1998), starring opposite Edward Norton and John Malkovich. The next year, Matt rejoined his childhood friend, Ben Affleck and fellow comedian, Chris Rock, in the comedy Dogma (1999).
Towards the end of 1999, Matt played "Tom Ripley", a working-class young man who tastes the good life and will do anything to live it. Both Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow also starred in the movie. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) earned mixed reviews from critics, but even so, Matt earned praise for his performance. Matt lent his voice to the animated movie, Titan A.E. (2000) in the year 2000, which also earned mixed reviews from the public. He also starred in two other movies, All the Pretty Horses (2000) and the golf comedy-drama, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), starring alongside Will Smith. In the year 2003, he signed on to star in The Informant! (2009) by Steven Soderbergh and the Farrelly Brothers' Stuck on You (2003). He also starred in Gerry (2002), a film he co-wrote with his friends, Gus Van Sant and Casey Affleck. One of Matt's most recognizable work to date is his role in the "Bourne" movie franchise. He plays an amnesiac assassin, "Jason Bourne", in The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). Another praised role is that as "Linus Caldwell" in the "Ocean's" movie franchise. He had the opportunity to star opposite George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Don Cheadle in Ocean's Eleven (2001). The successful crime comedy-drama eventually had two other sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). Among other highly acclaimed movies that Matt has been a part of are Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm (2005), George Clooney's Syriana (2005), Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) and Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006).
In his personal life, Matt is now happily married to Argentine-born Luciana Barroso, whom he met in Miami, where she was working as a bartender. They married in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. The couple have four daughters Alexia, Luciana's daughter from a previous relationship, as well as Isabella, Gia and Stella. Matt is a big fan of the Boston Red Sox and he tries to attend their games whenever possible. He has also formed great friendships with his Ocean's co-stars, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, whom he works on charity projects with. He and actor Ben Affleck have remained lifelong friends and collaborators.- Actor
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Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.- Actor
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Andrew Russell Garfield was born in Los Angeles, California, to a British mother, Lynn, and American father, Richard Garfield. When he was three, he moved to Surrey, U.K., with his parents and older brother. He is of English and Polish Jewish heritage. Andrew was raised in a middle class family, and attended a private school, the City of London Freemen's School. He began acting in youth theatre productions while he was still at school. At age 19, he went to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
His first professional roles were on the stage and in 2005 he made his TV debut in the Channel 4 teen series Sugar Rush (2005) in the UK. More TV work followed (reaching a wider UK audience in a two-part story in the third season of Doctor Who (2005)), as well as a number of movie appearances. Garfield played Eduardo in The Social Network (2010) and Tommy in Never Let Me Go (2010), two films that brought him to full international attention. That same year, he was cast as the title character in the reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). He reprised the role in the sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), before passing off the torch to Tom Holland.
Resuming his work in drama films, Garfield starred in Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes (2014), with Michael Shannon, Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge (2016), about real-life Seventh Day Adventist war hero Desmond Doss, and Martin Scorsese's Silence (2016), opposite Adam Driver, playing Jesuit priests. He received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role as Doss.
In 2017, he starred in Andy Serkis-directed drama Breathe (2017), where Garfield plays Robin Cavendish, an adventurous man paralyzed by polio. In 2018, he headlines David Robert Mitchell's noir thriller Under the Silver Lake (2018).- Actor
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Christopher Michael "Chris" Pratt was born on June 21, 1979 in Virginia, Minnesota and raised in Lake Stevens, Washington, to Kathleen Louise (Indahl), who worked at a supermarket, and Daniel Clifton Pratt, who remodeled houses. He is of mostly Norwegian descent. He graduated from Lake Stevens High School in 1997, and has two older siblings, Cully and Angie.
Chris came to prominence for his small-screen roles, including Bright Abbott in Everwood (2002), Ché in The O.C. (2003), and Andy Dwyer and Parks and Recreation (2009), and notable film roles in Moneyball (2011), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Delivery Man (2013), and Her (2013). In 2014, he broke out as a leading man after headlining two of the year's biggest films: he voiced Emmet Brickowski in The Lego Movie (2014) & starred as Peter Quill/Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). In 2015, he headlined the sci-fi thriller Jurassic World (2015), the fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise and his most financially successful film. In 2016, he co-starred in the remake The Magnificent Seven (2016), with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, and appeared with Jennifer Lawrence in the sci-fi drama Passengers (2016). In the near future, he returns as Star-Lord for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) not far behind.- Actor
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Paul Stephen Rudd was born in Passaic, New Jersey. His parents, Michael and Gloria, both from Jewish families, were born in the London area, U.K. He has one sister, who is three years younger than he is. Paul traveled with his family during his early years, because of his father's airline job at TWA. His family eventually settled in Overland Park, Kansas, where his mother worked as a sales manager for TV station KSMO-TV. Paul attended Broadmoor Junior High and Shawnee Mission West High School, from which he graduated in 1987, and where he was Student Body President. He then enrolled at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, majoring in theater. He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-West in Los Angeles and participated in a three-month intensive workshop under the guidance of Michael Kahn at the British Drama Academy at Oxford University in Britain. Rudd helped to produce the Globe Theater's production of Howard Brenton's "Bloody Poetry," which starred Rudd as Percy Bysshe Shelley.- Actor
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Dan Stevens was born at Croydon in Surrey on 10th October 1982. His parents are teachers. He was educated at Tonbridge School and trained in acting at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. He studied English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Whilst he was a Cambridge undergraduate, he acted in several student drama productions. He played the title role in the Marlowe Dramatic Society's production of William Shakespeare's play, "Macbeth". This was staged at the Cambridge Arts Theatre from Tuesday 26th February to Saturday 2nd March 2002. The cast also featured Rebecca Hall in the roles of Lady Macbeth and Hecate. During one of his university summer holidays in August 2003 he went to Slovakia where he filmed his scenes for the Hallmark production of Frankenstein (2004). Dan played the part of Henry Clerval and the mini-series was first broadcast on American television on 5th October 2004. Shortly after graduating from Cambridge Dan was nominated for an Ian Charleson award for his performance as Orlando in "As You Like It" at the Rose Theatre at Kingston in Surrey. "As You Like It" was directed by Peter Hall and ran from 30th November to 18th December 2004. This production for the Peter Hall Company subsequently went on a tour of America in the early months of 2005, playing at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, the Curran Theater in San Francisco and the Harvey Theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. It featured Rebecca Hall in the role of Rosalind.
Dan was reunited with the director Peter Hall when he played Claudio in a new production of the Shakespeare play, "Much Ado About Nothing", for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal in Bath from 29th June to 6th August 2005. In February 2006 Dan played the parts of Marban and Maitland in a revival of Howard Brenton's controversial play, "The Romans in Britain", directed by Samuel West at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Then in May 2006 he played Nick Guest, the protagonist in The Line of Beauty (2006). This three part television mini-series was adapted by Andrew Davies from the 2004 Booker prize winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. The Line of Beauty (2006) is about Nick Guest's relationship with his university friend Toby Fedden. The story takes place in the 1980s. It is set against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher's free market economic policies and the spread of the acquired immunity deficiency syndrome, (AIDS). These two social developments directly affect the characters in the story because Toby's father Gerald is a Conservative member of parliament and Nick is homosexual.
Whilst The Line of Beauty (2006) was being broadcast on BBC television, Dan was appearing as Simon Bliss in the Noël Coward play, "Hay Fever". This play was staged at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London from 11th April to 5th August 2006 and the cast also included Judi Dench in the role of Judith Bliss. At the end of the year Dan played Lord Holmwood in a television dramatization of Dracula (2006), which was broadcast on 28th December 2006. In 2007 Dan played the part of Michael Faber in Miss Marple: Nemesis (2007), an Agatha Christie adaptation with Geraldine McEwan in the role of Miss Jane Marple. He also featured in the cast of Maxwell (2007), a television drama about the famous newspaper magnate. Maxwell (2007) was first broadcast on British television on 4th May 2007. David Suchet played Robert Maxwell, and Dan took the part of Basil Brookes, one of the press baron's financial directors.
Dan played the part of Edward Ferrars in a television dramatization of Jane Austen's novel, Sense & Sensibility (2008). This was broadcast in three episodes on BBC1 between Tuesday 1st and Sunday 13th January 2008. The novel was adapted for television by Andrew Davies, whom Dan had previously worked with on The Line of Beauty (2006). Davies felt that the part of Edward Ferrars was underdeveloped in the book, and so he deliberately added scenes not included in the novel to help draw out the character. So, for instance, we saw Edward out horse riding on the Norland estate and chopping logs at Barton Cottage. In the DVD audio commentary Dan joked that this was the best example of log chopping ever seen on British television! After Sense & Sensibility (2008), Dan featured in the cast of "The Tennis Court", a BBC Radio 4 Saturday play broadcast on 19th January 2008. He also played Nicky Lancaster in a revival of the Noël Coward play, "The Vortex", at the Apollo Theatre in London from Wednesday 20th February to Saturday 7th June 2008. This was another collaboration with the stage director, Peter Hall. Dan played the eponymous hero of "Dickens Confidential", a six part radio drama series set in the 1830s which imagines what might have happened if Charles Dickens had continued his career as a journalist. This was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between Monday 9th June and Monday 14th July 2008. He played the part of Peregrine in 'Orley Farm', the BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial. This was a three part adaptation of the novel by Anthony Trollope broadcast between Sunday 28th December 2008 and Sunday 11th January 2009. A month later he played Duval in the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour drama, 'The Lady of the Camellias'. This was broadcast between Monday 2nd and Friday 6th February 2009.- Actor
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An only child, Idrissa Akuna Elba was born and raised in London, England. His father, Winston, is from Sierra Leone and worked at Ford Dagenham; his mother, Eve, is from Ghana and had a clerical duty. Idris attended school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting, before he dropped out. He gained a place in the National Youth Music Theatre - thanks to a £1,500 Prince's Trust grant. To support himself between acting roles, he worked in jobs such as tyre-fitting, cold call advertising sales, and working night shifts at Ford Dagenham. He worked in nightclubs under the nickname DJ Big Driis at age 19, but began auditioning for television roles in his early-twenties.
His first acting roles were on the soap opera Family Affairs (1997), the television serial Ultraviolet (1998), and the medical drama Dangerfield (1995). His best known roles are as drug baron Russell "Stringer" Bell on the HBO series The Wire (2002), as DCI John Luther on the BBC One series Luther (2010), and as Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He later starred in the films Daddy's Little Girls (2007), Prom Night (2008), RocknRolla (2008), The Unborn (2009) and Obsessed (2009). He also appeared in the films American Gangster (2007), Takers (2010), Thor (2011), Prometheus (2012), Pacific Rim (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Beasts of No Nation (2015) and Star Trek Beyond (2016). He voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia (2016), Shere Khan in The Jungle Book (2016), and Fluke in Finding Dory (2016).
Idris Elba was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2016 New Years Honours for his services to drama.- Actor
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The Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin was born in August 1976.
Alex started out his film career in 2004, when he starred in Oyster Farmer (2004) as Jack Flange. The following year, he returned to the big screen as Michael Carter in Feed (2005), a movie that he also co-produced and helped write. Also released that year was a movie titled Man-Thing (2005), in which Alex played Deputy Eric Fraser.
However, his most recent role in a feature film was that of "Marcus Bohem" in The Invisible (2007). Alex acted in the Australian miniseries Mary Bryant (2005) as the title role's husband. He made his way to American serialized television in The Shield (2002) as Detective Kevin Hiatt, the newest member of the strike team. Alex can be seen as Marshall in the movie August Rush (2007), and also in Whiteout (2009). In 2005, he was nominated for the Australian Film Institute's Best Lead Actor in Television for his role in Mary Bryant (2005). In 2006, he was nominated for the Logie Awards' Silver Logie in the same category and role.- Actor
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Multi-talented Jason Jordan Segel was born in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised by his parents, Jillian (Jordan), a homemaker, and Alvin Segel, a lawyer. His mother is of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, and his father is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. He was educated at St. Matthew's Parish School in Pacific Palisades, before moving on to Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. During his education he showed an interest in acting and often performed in plays at the Palisades Playhouse.
His major break came in 1999, when he was cast as Nick Andopolis in Judd Apatow's well-regarded series Freaks and Geeks (1999). Further TV and film roles followed, notably in How I Met Your Mother (2005) and Knocked Up (2007). His film breakthrough, however, came in 2008's hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) which he wrote and starred in. Segel also co-wrote and starred in The Muppets (2011).
Segel is also a musician and songwriter, with his songs appearing in many projects including Freaks and Geeks (1999), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), I Love You, Man (2009), How I Met Your Mother (2005) and Get Him to the Greek (2010).- Actor
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Kyle M. Chandler is an Emmy-winning American actor who was born in Buffalo, New York in 1965. He resides in the United States with his wife, Kathryn Chandler, and their two children, Sawyer and Sydney. Some of his most notable credits include "Friday Night Lights" (Friday Night Lights (2006)), "Bloodline" (Bloodline (2015)), The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)), Argo (Argo (2012)) and Zero Dark Thirty (Zero Dark Thirty (2012)), to name a few.- Actor
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Jake Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980 in Los Angeles, California as Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal, the son of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and German (father) descent.
He made his movie debut at 11 in City Slickers (1991). From the late 1990s through the early 2000s, he starred in October Sky (1999) & Donnie Darko (2001), receiving an Independent Spirit Award Best Actor nomination for the latter. He followed up w/ roles in Bubble Boy (2001), The Good Girl (2002), Moonlight Mile (2002) & The Day After Tomorrow (2004).
He made his theater debut in a revival of This Is Our Youth in London. The play was well-received & played for 8 weeks on West End. He then starred in Jarhead (2005) & Proof (2005). However, it was his performance in Brokeback Mountain (2005) that won him critical acclaim. He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role while also being nominated for the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role SAG Award, the Best Supporting Actor-Motion Picture Satellite Award & the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Afterwards, he starred in Zodiac (2007), Brothers (2009), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) & Love & Other Drugs (2010). For Love & Other Drugs (2010), he was nominated for the Best Actor-Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Golden Globe Award.
In the 2010s, he starred in Source Code (2011), End of Watch (2012), Prisoners (2013), Nightcrawler (2014), Southpaw (2015) & Demolition (2015). For Nightcrawler (2014), he was nominated for the Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama Golden Globe, the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role SAG & the Best Actor in a Leading Role BAFTA Award. Leading Role BAFTA Award.- Actor
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Tobias Vincent Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California. His parents were 18 and 20, and not yet married, when he was born. His mother, Wendy (Brown), did advertising, publicity, and acting in Hollywood for years as she coached and managed Tobey. His father, Vincent Maguire, was a cook and sometimes a construction worker. Tobey did not finish high school in order to pursue and focus on acting roles, but he did end up getting his GED. He did several commercials (he was a model dancer for Nordstrom by age six), and he had some roles on various TV shows before landing a starring role on the Fox comedy Great Scott! (1992). That role lasted nine weeks before the show was canceled. Fox-made series were not doing well in general at the time. He avoids drugs and alcohol, and his best friend is Leonardo DiCaprio. Tobey is a vegan and studies yoga. He now has two beautiful children with his ex-wife Jennifer Meyer Maguire. Their names are Ruby Sweetheart and Otis Tobias Maguire. Another little known fact is that his two half-brothers, Jopaul and Weston Epp, were the child actors who handed Tobey (Peter Parker) his mask after the train scene in Spider-Man 2.- Actor
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Talented British actor Hugh Dancy is one of the UK's most noted young talents.
Hugh Michael Horace Dancy was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, to Sarah Ann (Birley), who works in academic publishing, and Jonathan Peter Dancy, a philosophy professor and writer. He has a brother, Jack (b. 1977), and a sister, Kate (b. 1980). He was raised in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
He got started with roles in the series Trial & Retribution (1997), Dangerfield (1995), Kavanagh QC (1995) and Granada's popular series Cold Feet (1997), and his theater appearances include Sam Mendes' David Copperfield (2000) and BBC's Madame Bovary (2000) and Daniel Deronda (2002). He also portrayed "D'Artagnan" in the series Young Blades (2001).
Dancy's appearance in Ridley Scott's war drama, Black Hawk Down (2001), as "Medic Kurt Schmid" was followed with starring roles in Tempo (2003) with Melanie Griffith and Rachael Leigh Cook and The Sleeping Dictionary (2003). He played "Prince Charmont" opposite Anne Hathaway in Ella Enchanted (2004) and "Sir Galahad" in King Arthur (2004).
He has since become well known for his roles as the "Earl of Essex" in the HBO mini-series Elizabeth I (2005) and "Will Graham" in the critically acclaimed NBC series Hannibal (2013).
Dancy married American actress Claire Danes in 2009. The couple have two children, Cyrus (b. 2012) and Rowan (b. 2018).- Actor
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Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University, intent on a career in journalism. However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions and, upon graduation, he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater. He left A.C.T. after only one year to seek work as an actor. His first paid acting role was in a summer stock theater stage production in St. Mary's City, Maryland. The play was "Wings of the Morning", which is about the founding of the colony of Maryland (now the state of Maryland) and the early days of the Maryland colonial assembly (a legislative body). He played the part of a real historical character, Mathias Da Sousa, although much of the dialogue was created. Afterwards he began to pursue screen roles in earnest. With his acting versatility and powerful presence, he had no difficulty finding work in numerous television productions.
He made his first big screen appearance in Carbon Copy (1981) with George Segal. Through the 1980s, he worked in both movies and television and was chosen for the plum role of Dr. Philip Chandler in NBC's hit medical series St. Elsewhere (1982), a role that he would play for six years. In 1989, his film career began to take precedence when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tripp, the runaway slave in Edward Zwick's powerful historical masterpiece Glory (1989).
Washington has received much critical acclaim for his film work since the 1990s, including his portrayals of real-life figures such as South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Cry Freedom (1987), Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X in Malcolm X (1992), boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999), football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), and drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007). Malcolm X and The Hurricane garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Actor, before he finally won that statuette in 2002 for his lead role in Training Day (2001).
Through the 1990s, Denzel also co-starred in such big budget productions as The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), The Preacher's Wife (1996), and Courage Under Fire (1996), a role for which he was paid $10 million. He continued to define his onscreen persona as the tough, no-nonsense hero through the 2000s in films like Out of Time (2003), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009). Cerebral and meticulous in his film work, he made his debut as a director with Antwone Fisher (2002); he also directed The Great Debaters (2007) and Fences (2016).
In 2010, Washington headlined The Book of Eli (2010), a post-Apocalyptic drama. Later that year, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film Unstoppable (2010), about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying dangerous cargo. The film was his fifth and final collaboration with director Tony Scott, following Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. He has also been a featured actor in the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and has been a frequent collaborator of director Spike Lee.
In 2012, Washington starred in Flight (2012), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He co-starred with Ryan Reynolds in Safe House (2012), and prepared for his role by subjecting himself to a torture session that included waterboarding. In 2013, Washington starred in 2 Guns (2013), alongside Mark Wahlberg. In 2014, he starred in The Equalizer (2014), an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Wenk, based on the television series of same name starring Edward Woodward. During this time period, he also took on the role of producer for some of his films, including The Book of Eli and Safe House.
In 2016, he was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Pauletta Washington, and their four children.- Actor
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Colin Andrew Firth was born into an academic family in Grayshott, Hampshire, England. His mother, Shirley Jean (Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at the Open University, and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, lectured on history at Winchester University College (formerly King Alfred's College) in Winchester, and worked on education for the Nigerian government. His grandparents were missionaries. His siblings Katie Firth and Jonathan Firth are also actors.
Firth's first acting experience came in infant's school when he played "Jack Frost" in a Christmas pantomime. Three of his four grandparents were Methodist missionaries and he spent his early childhood in Nigeria, returning to England at age five where he entered a comprehensive school in Winchester. He spent two years at the Drama Centre, then in Chalk Farm, where he was "discovered" whist playing "Hamlet" during his final term. His first professional role was as "Bennet" in the West End production of "Another Country". From this performance, he was chosen to play the character of "Judd" in the movie of the play. He went on to play a variety of character parts in both film and television. For his portrayal of "Robert Lawrence" in the 1989 TV production Tumbledown (1988), he received the Royal Television Society Best Actor award and also a BAFTA nomination. He also received a BAFTA nomination for "Mr. Darcy" in the 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice (1995). In 2011, he won the Oscar for Best Actor for his commanding leading role, playing British King George VI in The King's Speech (2010).- Writer
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Jimmy Fallon was born in 1974 in Brooklyn, New York, to Gloria (Feeley) and Jimmy Fallon. He is of Irish, German, and Norwegian descent. He was raised in Saugerties, New York, which is in upstate New York. He has performed stand up, impressions and characters across the country, in some of the biggest comedy clubs, such as the Improv (in Los Angeles) and Caroline's Comedy Club (in New York City). He also took acting classes with The Groundlings, an LA-based breeding ground for great comedians. Jimmy joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975) as a featured player in September 1998. He has already been called the best SNL player since Phil Hartman, and is popular amongst SNL fans.- Actor
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Justin Bartha was born on 21 July 1978 in West Bloomfield, Michigan, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Gigli (2003), National Treasure (2004) and The Hangover (2009). He has been married to Lia Smith since 4 January 2014. They have one child.- Actor
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British actor Eddie Redmayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor (for The Theory of Everything (2014)).
Edward John David Redmayne was born and raised in London, England, the son of Patricia (Burke) and Richard Charles Tunstall Redmayne, a businessman. His great-grandfather was Sir Richard Augustine Studdert Redmayne, a noted civil and mining engineer. He has English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Redmayne is the only member of his family to follow a career in acting, and also modeled during his teen years. He was educated at Eton College before going on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied History of Art. Encouraged by his parents, Redmayne took drama lessons from a young age. His first stage appearance was in the Sam Mendes production of "Oliver!", in London's West End. He played a workhouse boy. Acting continued through school and university, including performing with the National Youth Music Theatre.
Redmayne's first professional stage performance came in 2002 at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre where he played Viola in "Twelfth Night". In 2004, he won the prestigious Evening Standard Outstanding Newcomer Award for his working in Edward Albee's play "The Goat". Further stage successes followed, and in 2009, he starred in John Logan's "Red" at the Donmar Warehouse in London. He won huge critical acclaim for his role, winning an Oliver Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The play transferred to Broadway in 2010, and Redmayne went on to win a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.
Alongside his stage career, Redmayne has worked steadily in television and film. Notable projects include Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2008), The Pillars of the Earth (2010) and My Week with Marilyn (2011). He co-starred as Marius Pontmercy in the musical Les Misérables (2012). He played scientist Stephen Hawking in the biographical drama The Theory of Everything (2014), opposite Felicity Jones, as Stephen's wife Jane Hawking. For his performance, Redmayne won multiple awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. As such, he became the first man born in the 1980s to win an acting Oscar. He received further critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, in The Danish Girl (2015). For his performance, he was nominated for multiple awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2014, Redmayne married publicist Hannah Bagshawe.- Actor
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David Matthew Macfadyen was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, to Meinir (Owen), a drama teacher and actress, and Martin Macfadyen, an oil executive. He is of Scottish and Welsh descent. Because of his father's career, he spent at least part of his childhood in Indonesia, before finishing his education back in England and winning a place at RADA in 1992. He won critical acclaim in the UK with his work with the stage company Cheek By Jowl in the 1990s and was well established as a stage actor when he made his first TV appearance in Wuthering Heights (1998). A couple more TV roles followed but it was his role as Tom Quinn, head of Section D, in the hit BBC series MI-5 (2002) that really made his name at home. And, indeed, established his home - he met his wife, Keeley Hawes, while working on the show. A steady stream of TV and film work followed, with his performance as Mr Darcy in Pride & Prejudice (2005) firmly establishing his name worldwide.- Actor
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One of the British theatre's most famous faces, Daniel Craig, who waited tables as a struggling teenage actor with the National Youth Theatre, has gone on to star as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on March 2, 1968, at 41 Liverpool Road, Chester, Cheshire, England. His father, Timothy John Wroughton Craig, was a merchant seaman turned steel erector, and then became landlord of the "Ring O'Bells" pub in Frodsham, Cheshire. His mother, Carol Olivia (Williams), was an art teacher. Craig has English, as well as Irish, Scottish and Welsh, ancestry. His parents split up in 1972, and young Daniel was raised with his older sister, Lea, in Liverpool, then in Hoylake, Wirral, in the home of his mother. His interest in acting was encouraged by visits to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre arranged by his mother. From the age of six, Craig started acting in school plays, making his debut in the Frodsham Primary School production of "Oliver!", and his mother was the driving force behind his artistic aspirations. The first Bond movie he ever saw at the cinema was Roger Moore's Live and Let Die (1973); young Daniel Craig saw it with his father, so it took a special place in his heart. He was also a good athlete and was a rugby player at Hoylake Rugby Club.
At age 14, Craig played roles in "Oliver", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella" at Hilbre High School in West Kirby, Wirral. He left Hilbre High School at age 16 to audition at the National Youth Theatre's (NYT) troupe on their tour in Manchester in 1984. He was accepted and moved down to London. There, his mother and father watched his stage debut as Agamemnon in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida". As a struggling actor with the NYT, he was toiling in restaurant kitchens and as a waiter. Craig performed with NYT on tours to Valencia, Spain, and to Moscow, Russia, under the leadership of director Edward Wilson. He failed at repeated auditions at the Guildhall, but eventually his persistence paid off, and in 1988, he entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican. There, he studied alongside Ewan McGregor and Alistair McGowan, then later Damian Lewis and Joseph Fiennes, among others. He graduated in 1991, after a three-year course under the tutelage of Colin McCormack, the actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1992-1994, he was married to Scottish actress Fiona Loudon, their daughter, named Ella Craig (born 1992).
Craig made his film debut in The Power of One (1992). His film career continued on television, notably the BBC2 serial Our Friends in the North (1996). He shot to international fame after playing supporting roles in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Road to Perdition (2002). He was nominated for his performances in the leading role in Layer Cake (2004), and received other awards and nominations. Craig was named as the sixth actor to portray James Bond, in October 2005, weeks after he finished his work in Munich (2005), where he co-starred with Eric Bana under the directorship of Steven Spielberg. Craig's reserved demeanor and his avoidance of the showbiz-party-red-carpet milieu makes him a cool 007. He is the first blond actor to play Bond, and also the first to be born after the start of the film series, and also the first to be born after the death of author Ian Fleming in 1964. Four of the past Bond actors: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan have indicated that Craig is a good choice as Bond.
He was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) by Queen Elizabeth II at the 2022 Queen's New Years Honours for his services to Film and Theatre.- Actor
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Adam Scott was born in Santa Cruz, California, the son of Anne and Dougald Scott. He has two older siblings, Shannon and David. Scott has said that his brother David "looks like me but is far more cerebral and inherited the intellect of our parents," both of whom are retired teachers. He graduated from Harbor High School and he is an alumnus of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, California, class of 1993.- Actor
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Josh Lucas was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Michele (LeFevre), a nurse midwife, and Don Maurer, an ER doctor.
Lucas' film career began by accident in 1979 when a small Canadian film production shot on the tiny coastal South Carolina island, Sullivan's Island, where Lucas and his family lived. Unbeknownst to the filmmakers, 8-year-old Lucas was hiding in the sand dunes watching filming during the climatic scene where teenage lovers engage in a lovesick fight. It was during this experience that Lucas decided to pursue a career in film which he has now done for nearly 3 decades. Born to young, radical politically active parents in Arkansas in 1971, Lucas spent his early childhood nomadically moving around the southern U.S. The family finally settled in Gig Harbor, Washington, where Lucas attended high school. The school had an award-winning drama/debate program and Lucas won the State Championship in Dramatic Interpretation and competed at the 1989 National Championship. Brief stints in professional theater in Seattle followed before Lucas moved to Los Angeles. After receiving breaks playing a young George Armstrong Custer in the Steven Spielberg produced Class of '61 (1993) and Frank Marshall's film Alive (1993), Lucas' career toiled in minor TV appearances. Frustrated, he decided to start over and relocated to New York City.
In NYC, Lucas studied acting for years under Suzanne Shepherd and worked in smaller theater productions like Shakespeare in the Parking Lot before receiving another break in 1997 when he was cast as Judas in Terrence McNally's controversial off-Broadway production Corpus Christi. The play led to his being cast in the films You Can Count on Me (2000) and American Psycho (2000). These films were followed by interesting performances in the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind (2001) and the box-office hit Sweet Home Alabama (2002).
Lucas has since worked with many of the film community's greatest talents. He starred alongside Jon Voight in Jerry Bruckheimer's Glory Road (2006), for which Lucas added 40 pounds to transform himself into legendary basketball coach Don Haskins. Lucas also starred with Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss in Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon (2006). He starred with Morgan Freeman and Robert Redford in Lasse Hallström's An Unfinished Life (2005). He also starred opposite Jamie Bell in David Gordon Green's Undertow (2004), which was also produced by Terrence Malick. Additionally, Lucas worked alongside Christopher Walken in Around the Bend (2004).
He performed with Jennifer Connelly and Eric Bana in Ang Lee's Hulk (2003). Other credits include Wonderland (2003), The Deep End (2001), American Psycho (2000), Session 9 (2001) and You Can Count on Me (2000).
Lucas' theater credits include the off-Broadway run of "Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell"; Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie", which appeared on Broadway in 2005; Terrence McNally's "Corpus Christi" at the Manhattan Theater Club; Christopher Shinn's "What Didn't Happen"; and "The Picture of Dorian Gray".
Lucas has always been fascinated by documentaries and performed voice work with film legend Ken Burns on the documentary The War (2007), and also provided voice-over work for Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (2007), Trumbo (2007) and Resolved (2007). Lucas' first venture into production was Stolen (2009), in which he played the single father of a mentally challenged boy. The film was the first project to be produced through Lucas' production company, "Two Bridges".
In the past few years, Lucas' films include The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), Daydream Nation (2010), Peacock (2010), as Charles Lindbergh in Clint Eastwood's film J. Edgar (2011), and the massive Australian box-office and critical success Red Dog (2011), for which Lucas won Australia's best actor award (The I.F. Award). He also played Beat Generation legend Neal Cassady in Big Sur (2013). He can be seen in Kevin Connolly's Dear Eleanor (2016), the Sundance Festival film Little Accidents and the NY indie film The Mend.- Actor
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Armand Douglas Hammer was born in Los Angeles, California, to Dru Ann (Mobley) and Michael Armand Hammer, a businessman. His great-grandfather, Armand Hammer, was a prominent tycoon and philanthropist who ran the company Occidental Petroleum for many decades. Armie's ancestry includes Russian-Jewish, English, Scots-Irish, and German. He has a younger brother, Viktor Hammer (Armie and Viktor share the same first names as their great-grandfather and his brother). His father is chairman and CEO of the Armand Hammer Foundation, where his mother is a board member. His parents also serve together on the boards of the Los Angeles Dream Center and Knoedler & Hammer Galleries in New York. In addition, his father is a member of the board of trustees for Oral Roberts University, and his mother, a former bank loan officer, teaches Bible study in Los Angeles.
His family moved to Dallas, Texas, when he was approaching school age. They moved to the Cayman Islands in 1993, where they stayed for 5 years. While here, Armie attended the Grace Christian Academy, a school that his father set up. They returned to Los Angeles when Armie was thirteen. He attended L.A. Baptist High School and Calvary Junior High School. He made his stage debut playing "Rooster Hannigan" in a 6th-grade production of "Annie". He left school in the 11th grade so that he could pursue acting. His parents were keen for him to continue his studies, so he took courses at Pasadena City College and UCLA.
He had various small parts, before being cast as Billy Graham in Billy: The Early Years (2008). His breakthrough role came when he played the "Winklevoss Twins" in The Social Network (2010), in a dual role. He has since played "Clyde Tolson" in J. Edgar (2011), "Prince Alcott" in Mirror Mirror (2012), and starred in the title role, John Reid, in the 2013 version of The Lone Ranger (2013), opposite Johnny Depp as Tonto.
In 2015, Hammer starred with Henry Cavill in the spy thriller The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), playing Russian spy Illya Kuryakin and American agent Napoleon Solo, respectively. His 2016 films include the historical drama The Birth of a Nation (2016), the thrillers Nocturnal Animals (2016) and Mine (2016), and the crime drama Free Fire (2016). In 2017, he voiced Jackson Storm in the CGI sequel Cars 3 (2017), and starred as Oliver, an American scholar, in the drama Call Me by Your Name (2017), opposite Timothée Chalamet. For the role, Armie received his first Golden Globe nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.
In 2018, he played David in the drama Hotel Mumbai (2018), and starred as real life taxation law expert Martin D. Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex (2018), a biopic of Martin's wife, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. More recently, he headlined the unusual horror film Wounds (2019) and was Maxim de Winter in the drama-thriller Rebecca (2020).
Armie was married to actress, model, and television personality Elizabeth Chambers in 2010. They announced their divorce in July 2020. They have two children, a boy and a girl.- Actor
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George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.
After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.
While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).
In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.
Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.- Matthew William Goode (born 3 April 1978) is an English actor. His films include Chasing Liberty (2004), Match Point (2005), Imagine Me and You (2006), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Watchmen (2009), A Single Man (2009), Leap Year (2010), Stoker (2013) and The Imitation Game (2014). Goode also starred in in the final season of Downton Abbey and in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife as Finley "Finn" Polmar from 2014 to 2015. Goode was born in Exeter, Devon. His father is a geologist and his mother, Jennifer, is a nurse and amateur theatre director. Goode is the youngest of five children with a brother, two half brothers, and a half sister, television presenter Sally Meen, from his mother's previous marriage. He grew up in the village of Clyst St. Mary, near Exeter.
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Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Jocelyn Yvonne (Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom catered movie sets. His maternal grandfather, Stanley Wemyss, was a cinematographer. Crowe's recent ancestry includes Welsh (where his paternal grandfather was born, in Wrexham), English, Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, and Maori (one of Crowe's maternal great-grandmothers, Erana Putiputi Hayes Heihi, was Maori).
Crowe's family moved to Australia when he was a small child, settling in Sydney, and Russell got the acting bug early in life. Beginning as a child star on a local Australian TV show, Russell's first big break came with two films ... the first, Romper Stomper (1992), gained him a name throughout the film community in Australia and the neighboring countries. The second, The Sum of Us (1994), helped put him on the American map, so to speak. Sharon Stone heard of him from Romper Stomper (1992) and wanted him for her film, The Quick and the Dead (1995). But filming on The Sum of Us (1994) had already begun. Sharon is reported to have held up shooting until she had her gunslinger-Crowe, for her film. With The Quick and the Dead (1995) under his belt as his first American film, the second was offered to him soon after. Virtuosity (1995), starring Denzel Washington, put Russell in the body of a Virtual Serial Killer, Sid6.7 ... a role unlike any he had played so far. Virtuosity (1995), a Sci-Fi extravaganza, was a fun film and, again, opened the door to even more American offers. L.A. Confidential (1997), Russell's third American film, brought him the US fame and attention that his fans have felt he deserved all along. Missing the Oscar nod this time around, he didn't seem deterred and signed to do his first film with The Walt Disney Company, Mystery, Alaska (1999). He achieved even more success and awards for his performances in Gladiator (2000), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and A Beautiful Mind (2001).- Actor
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Jesse Martin was born Jesse Lamont Watkins in Virginia's Blue Ridge mountain range. His mother, Virginia Price, was a college career counselor. His father, Jesse Reed Watkins, was a truck driver. His parents divorced when he was very young. His mother then moved his family to Buffalo, New York. He and his four brothers took the surname of his mother's second husband. His family calls him by his middle name, Lamont. As a fourth-grader, a teacher cast him in a play and he found his passion. After graduating from high school, he worked in restaurants to afford the tuition at New York University. He then got work on soaps and did commercials. His breakthrough came in a role in Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical Rent (1996). That was followed up with TV exposure in his first starring role in the series 413 Hope St. (1997), which aired on Fox.- Actor
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Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, the son of Valerie (Tague) and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with his four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of study, including computer science, criminology, and psychology, before the theater department, with its freedom of emotional expression, drew him in.
However, Renner recognized the potential in acting as much through the local police academy as through drama classes. During his second year at Modesto Junior College, Renner role-played a domestic disturbance perpetrator as part of a police-training exercise for an easy $50. Deciding to shift his focus away from schoolwork, Renner left college and moved to San Francisco to study at the American Conservatory Theater. From there he moved to Hawaii and, in 1993, to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Renner devoted himself to theater, most notably starring in and co-directing the critically acclaimed "Search and Destroy." He pursued other projects during this time as well, landing his first film role in 1995's National Lampoon's Senior Trip (1995). After several commercials and supporting roles in television movies and series, Renner captured the attention of critics with his gripping, complex portrayal of the infamous serial killer in the 2002 film Dahmer (2002). Renner's performance, which earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination, is especially remarkable for painting a humane and sympathetic, yet deeply disturbing, portrait of the title character.
In 2003, Renner took a break from small indie films to work on his first commercially successful movie, S.W.A.T. (2003), with Colin Farrell. In 2005, he played the leading role in Neo Ned (2005) as an institutionalized white supremacist in love with a black girl, winning the Palm Beach International Film Festival's best actor award. Renner's pivotal supporting roles in 2005's 12 and Holding (2005) and North Country (2005) earned him accolades from critics, and his 2007 turn in Take (2007) garnered him the best actor award at California's Independent Film Festival. Also in 2007, Renner played a leading role in the horror film 28 Weeks Later (2007) as well as a supporting role in the underrated Western epic The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), with Casey Affleck, Brad Pitt, and Sam Rockwell.
Renner's depiction of Jeffrey Dahmer in 2002 caught the attention of director Kathryn Bigelow, and, in 2008, she cast him in his most famous role as Sergeant First Class William James in The Hurt Locker (2008). Renner's performance as a single-minded bomb specialist scored him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He also earned best actor nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, and the BAFTA Awards, as well as wins in this category from several film critics groups.
In 2009, Renner starred in the short-lived TV series, The Unusuals (2009), and in 2010 he played the chilling but loyal criminal Jem in Ben Affleck bank-heist thriller The Town (2010). In the fall of 2010, Renner began filming Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). He has also since starred in The Avengers (2012), American Hustle (2013), and Kill the Messenger (2014).
Renner's strengths as an actor derive not only from his expressive eyes but also from his ability to thoroughly embody the characters he portrays. His visceral depiction of these individuals captivates audiences and empowers him to steal scenes in many of his films, even when playing a minor role. Renner gravitates toward flawed, complicated, three-dimensional characters that allow him to explore new territory within himself.
In addition to his work as an actor, Renner continues to cultivate his lifelong love of music. A singer, songwriter, and musician, he performed with the band Sons of Ben early in his career. Scenes in Love Comes to the Executioner (2006), North Country (2005), and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) briefly showcase Renner's singing talents.
Despite traveling the world for film roles and, recently, as a United Nations Goodwill Peace Ambassador to raise awareness for mine-clearing efforts in Afghanistan, Renner remains close to his roots. In 2010, Modesto Junior College presented him the Distinguished Alumnus award in recognition of his body of work as an actor. He also headlined at a benefit for Modesto's Gallo Center for the Arts in the fall of 2010.
Renner maintains a sense of humility and gratitude, even in the wake of his recent successes and recognition. He keeps himself grounded by renovating and restoring old and rundown iconic Hollywood homes, an enterprise he began back in his early days in Los Angeles. He values loyalty and a sense of both age and history, and enjoys the opportunity to help conserve these qualities in a town that favors the young and the new.- Actor
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Christopher "Chris" Hemsworth was born on August 11, 1983 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to Leonie Hemsworth (née van Os), an English teacher & Craig Hemsworth, a social-services counselor. His brothers are actors, Liam Hemsworth & Luke Hemsworth; he is of Dutch (from his immigrant maternal grandfather), Irish, English, Scottish, and German ancestry. His uncle, by marriage, was Rod Ansell, the bushman who inspired the comedy film Crocodile Dundee (1986).
Chris saw quite a bit of the country in his youth, after his family moved to the Northern Territory before finally settling on Phillip Island, to the south of Melbourne. In 2004, he unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Robbie Hunter in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (1988) but was recalled for the role of Kim Hyde which he played until 2007. In 2006, he entered the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars (2004) and his popularity in the soap enabled him to hang on until show 7 (Episode #5.7 (2006)) when he became the fifth contestant to be eliminated.
His first Hollywood appearance was in the science fiction blockbuster Star Trek (2009), but it was his titular role in the superhero blockbuster Thor (2011) which propelled him to prominence worldwide. He reprised the character in the superhero blockbusters The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Chris's American representative, management company ROAR, also manages actress Elsa Pataky, and it was through them that the two met, marrying in 2010. The couple have a daughter and twin sons. He was appointed Member of the Order of Australia at the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours for his services to the performing arts and to charitable organisations.- Actor
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Joshua Carter Jackson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His Irish mother, Fiona Jackson, is a casting director originally from Dublin. His American father, John Carter Jackson, is from Texas. Josh spent the first eight years of his life in California before returning to Canada. At the age of 11, Josh decided he wanted to pursue acting. Knowing how cruel an acting career could be, his mother took him to his first audition in hopes of discouraging him. Instead, he landed a commercial for Keebler's potato chips. Since then, Josh has had a full career ranging from theater to television.