Top 25: Actors
by KermitHodges | created - 04 Nov 2010 | updated - 02 Apr 2019 | Public
1. Brendan Gleeson
Actor | Calvary
Brendan Gleeson was born in Dublin, Ireland, to Pat and Frank Gleeson. From a very young age, he loved to learn, especially reading classical text in and outside the classroom. He took great attention to Irish play writers such as Samuel Beckett, which eventually led to him performing in his high ...
2. John Goodman
Actor | 10 Cloverfield Lane
John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as ...
3. Joe Pesci
Actor | Goodfellas
Compact Italian-American actor Joe Pesci was born February 9, 1943 in Newark, New Jersey, to Mary (Mesce), a part-time barber, and Angelo Pesci, a bartender and forklift driver. Pesci first broke into entertainment as a child actor, and by the mid-1950s, was starring on the series "Star Time Kids"....
4. Danny DeVito
Actor | Matilda
Danny DeVito has amassed a formidable and versatile body of work as an actor, producer and director that spans the stage, television and film.
Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born on November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey, to Italian-American parents. His mother, Julia (Moccello), was a homemaker. ...
5. Paul Giamatti
Actor | Sideways
Paul Giamatti is an American actor who has worked steadily and prominently for over thirty years, and is best known for leading roles in the films American Splendor (2003), Sideways (2004), and Barney's Version (2010) (for which he won a Golden Globe), and supporting roles in the films Cinderella ...
6. Brian Cox
Actor | Succession
Brian Cox is an Emmy Award-winning Scottish actor. He was born on June 1, 1946 in Dundee, Scotland, to Mary Ann Guillerline Cox, maiden surname McCann, a spinner, and Charles McArdle Campbell Cox, a shopkeeper and butcher. His father was of Irish ancestry and his mother was of Irish and Scottish ...
7. John Candy
Actor | Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.
Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in ...
8. Gene Hackman
Actor | The French Connection
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Anna Lyda Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After ...
9. Anthony Hopkins
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...
10. Jack Nicholson
Actor | Chinatown
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...
11. Brent Butt
Writer | Corner Gas
Born in the small farming town of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, Canada (population 3000) as the youngest of seven children. Brent began doing stand-up comedy in 1988. He was soon headlining top clubs and theatres across Canada, and has been selected to represent his country at both the Just For Laughs ...
12. Nathan Lane
Actor | The Producers
Nathan Lane is an American actor and singer from New Jersey who is known for playing Timon from The Lion King, Spot Helperman/Scott Leadready II from Teacher's Pet, Max Bialystock from The Producers, Snowball from Stuart Little, Hamegg from Astro Boy and Ernie Smuntz from Mouse Hunt. He is married ...
13. Bob Hoskins
Actor | The Long Good Friday
Bob Hoskins was described by the director John Mackenzie as "an actor from the British tradition but with an almost American approach, an instinctive approach to acting and knowing how to work with the camera". He was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where his mother was ...
14. Bill Murray
Actor | Lost in Translation
Bill Murray is an American actor, comedian, and writer. The fifth of nine children, he was born William James Murray in Wilmette, Illinois, to Lucille (Collins), a mailroom clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, who sold lumber. He is of Irish descent. Among his siblings are actors Brian Doyle-Murray, ...
15. Jeff Bridges
Actor | The Big Lebowski
Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without ...
16. Phil Hartman
Actor | NewsRadio
Phil Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. His surname was originally "Hartmann", but he later dropped the second "n". He was one of eight children of Doris Marguerite (Wardell) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann, a salesman. He was of German, Irish, ...
17. Richard Schiff
Actor | Man of Steel
Richard was born in Bethesda, Maryland, the middle of three sons of Edward, a real estate lawyer, and Charlotte, a cable TV and publishing executive. His parents divorced when he was 12. He dropped out of high school and switched to night school because he could finish sooner with less work. He ...
18. Toby Jones
Actor | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, Toby Edward Heslewood Jones was born on September 7, 1966 in Hammersmith, London. His parents, Freddie Jones and Jennie Heslewood, are actors as well. Toby has two brothers: Rupert, ...
19. Alfred Molina
Actor | Spider-Man 2
Alfred Molina was born in 1953 in London, England. His mother, Giovanna (Bonelli), was an Italian-born cook and cleaner, and his father, Esteban Molina, was a Spanish-born waiter and chauffeur. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. His stage work includes two major Royal ...
20. Michael J. Fox
Actor | Back to the Future
Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, ...
21. Bruce McGill
Actor | Law Abiding Citizen
Bruce McGill grew up in San Antonio, Texas. His mother, Adriel Rose (Jacobs) is an artist, and his father, Woodrow Wilson McGill, is a real estate and insurance agent. He graduated from Douglas MacArthur High School San Antonio, where he acted in the department of theatre, and from The University ...
22. Michael Keaton
Actor | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Quirky, inventive and handsome American actor Michael Keaton first achieved major fame with his door-busting performance as fast-talking ideas man Bill Blazejowski, alongside a nerdish morgue attendant (Henry Winkler), in Night Shift (1982). He played further comedic roles in Mr. Mom (1983), Johnny...
23. James Gandolfini
Actor | The Sopranos
James Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey, to Santa (Penna), a high school lunchlady, and James Joseph Gandolfini, Sr., a bricklayer and head school janitor. His parents were both of Italian origin. Gandolfini began acting in the New York theater. His Broadway debut was in the 1992 revival ...
24. Rowan Atkinson
Actor | Johnny English
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees ...
25. Saul Rubinek
Actor | Unforgiven
Saul Rubinek was born in a refugee camp in Germany, where his father ran a Yiddish Repertory Theatre company. Saul started his professional career as a child actor in theater and radio in Canada. By the time he was 20, he was a member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival company in Stratford, ...
26. Tom Wilkinson
Actor | Michael Clayton
Popular British character actor Tom Wilkinson was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and came from a long line of urban farmers. He was the son of Marjorie (Percival) and Thomas Wilkinson. Economic hardships forced his family to move to Canada for a few years when Wilkinson was a child; then, ...
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