My favorite ACTRESSES ...
Most of my all-time favorite actresses (I'm absolutely sure I've missed several ... I WILL keep updating as often as possible), and one of my favorite movies that EACH has worked in!
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Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten years old, her 40-year-old father died of a sudden heart attack. Her mother never remarried, and her grandmother moved in to help her mother.
Cate graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992 and, in a little over a year, had won both critical and popular acclaim. On graduating from NIDA, she joined the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls", then played Felice Bauer, the bride, in Tim Daly's "Kafka Dances", winning the 1993 Newcomer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle for her performance. From there, Blanchett moved to the role of Carol in David Mamet's searing polemic "Oleanna", also for the Sydney Theatre Company, and won the Rosemont Best Actress Award, her second award that year. She then co-starred in the ABC Television's prime time drama Heartland (1994), again winning critical acclaim. In 1995, she was nominated for Best Female Performance for her role as Ophelia in the Belvoir Street Theatre Company's production of "Hamlet". Other theatre credits include Helen in the Sydney Theatre Company's "Sweet Phoebe", Miranda in "The Tempest" and Rose in "The Blind Giant is Dancing", both for the Belvoir Street Theatre Company. In other television roles, Blanchett starred as Bianca in ABC's Bordertown (1995), as Janie Morris in G.P. (1989) and in ABC's popular series Police Rescue (1994). She made her feature film debut in Paradise Road (1997).
Cate married writer Andrew Upton in 1997. She had met him a year earlier on a movie set, and they didn't like each other at first. He thought she was aloof, and she thought he was arrogant, but then they connected over a poker game at a party, and she went home with him that night. Three weeks later he proposed marriage and they quickly married before she went off to England to play her breakthrough role in films: the title character in Elizabeth (1998) for which she won numerous awards for her performance, including the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama. Cate was also nominated for an Academy Award for the role but lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow. 2001 was a particularly busy year, with starring roles in Bandits (2001), The Shipping News (2001), Charlotte Gray (2001) and playing Elf Queen Galadriel in the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy. She also gave birth to her first child, son Dashiell, in 2001. In 2004, she gave birth to her second son Roman.
Also, in 2004, she played actress Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004), for which she received an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Two years later, she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for playing a teacher having an affair with an underage student in Notes on a Scandal (2006). In 2007, she returned to the role that made her a star in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). It earned her an Oscar nomination as Best Actress. She was nominated for another Oscar that same year as Best Supporting Actress for playing Bob Dylan in I'm Not There (2007). In 2008, she gave birth to her third child, son Ignatius. She and her husband became artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company, choosing to spend more time in Australia raising their three sons. She also purchased a multi-million dollar home in Sydney, Australia and named it Bulwarra and made extensive renovations to it. Because of her life in Australia, her film work became sporadic, until Woody Allen cast her in the title role in Blue Jasmine (2013), which won her the Academy Award as Best Actress. She ended her job as artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, while her husband continued there for two more years before he too resigned.
In 2015, she adopted her daughter Edith in her father's homeland of the United States. That same year, she and her husband sold their multi-million dollar home in Australia at a profit and moved to America. Reasons varied from her wanting to work more in America to wanting to familiarize herself with her late father's American heritage. She played the title role of Carol (2015), a 1950s American housewife in a lesbian affair with a younger woman, for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress. While most actresses might slow down in their forties, Blanchett did the opposite by stretching her boundaries even further, such as when she played 13 different characters in Manifesto (2015) and then making her Broadway debut in 2017 in "The Present", which is her husband's adaptation of Chekhov's play "Platonov" for which she earned a Tony nomination as Best Actress in a Play. Also in 2017, she was selected for the highest honor in her birth country: the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).Perhaps THE BEST actress of her generation!
Movie: "The Missing"!- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Academy Award-nominated actress Abigail Breslin is one of the most sought-after actors of her generation. Her unique and charismatic talents have contributed to her versatile roles in both comedy and drama.
Recently, Breslin headlined the first season of the horror-comedy series, Scream Queens (2015), opposite Emma Roberts, Lea Michele and Jamie Lee Curtis, and starred in the coveted role of "Baby" in ABC/Lionsgate's recreation of the pop-culture classic, Dirty Dancing (2017).
Abigail Kathleen Breslin was born in New York City, New York, to Kim and Michael Breslin, a telecommunications expert and consultant. She has two sibling, Ryan Breslin and Spencer Breslin, who is also an actor. She is of Irish, Austrian Jewish, and English descent.
Abigail has acted since she was a small child. She is widely recognized for her role in the critically-acclaimed Little Miss Sunshine (2006), the irreverent, antic comedy which created a sensation at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Breslin played the role of "Olive", an ambitious young girl who is obsessed with winning a beauty pageant. For her performance, she received a Best Actress Award from the Tokyo International Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award, SAG and BAFTA Best Supporting Actress awards. In addition, she was honored as ShoWest's "Female Star of Tomorrow" in 2008, and made her Broadway debut in 2010 in "The Miracle Worker".
Her many credits include Ender's Game (2013), Haunter (2013), The Call (2013), Rango (2011), Janie Jones (2010), Zombieland (2009), My Sister's Keeper (2009), New Year's Eve (2011), Raising Helen (2004), The Ultimate Gift (2006), The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), No Reservations (2007), Definitely, Maybe (2008), Nim's Island (2008), Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008) and M. Night Shyamalan's 2002 film, Signs (2002), opposite Mel Gibson.
Breslin was seen in The Weinstein Company film, August: Osage County (2013), opposite Meryl Streep, Ewan McGregor, Julia Roberts, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney and Juliette Lewis. She starred in the coveted role of "Jean Fordham", the daughter of Julia Roberts' and Ewan McGregor's characters.
She starred in the Lionsgate film, Maggie (2015), opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film follows a teenage girl (Breslin) from a small town in the Midwest, who becomes infected by a disease that slowly turns her into a zombie. The film premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival in New York and was released on May 8, 2015.
In October of 2015, Harper Collins published Breslin's first book, "This May Sound Crazy". The book is based on her popular Tumblr "Mixtapes & Winter Coats", in which she writes honest, funny and emotional observations on her daily life as a young adult.ROBBED of her "Oscar" ... still, just about the best actress in her age-range, out there!
Movie: "Signs"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Saoirse Una Ronan was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States, to Irish parents, Monica Ronan (née Brennan) and Paul Ronan, an actor. When Saoirse was three, the family moved back to Dublin, Ireland. Saoirse grew up in Dublin and briefly in Co. Carlow before moving back to Dublin with her parents.
Saoirse made her first TV appearance with a small role in a few episodes of the TV series, The Clinic (2003). Her first film appearance was in the 2007 movie, I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007). Saoirse received international fame after appearing in the movie, Atonement (2007), which was directed by Joe Wright. The movie co-starred Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. The film was successful, both critically and commercially, and in 2008, Saoirse earned an Oscar nomination for her role. She became one of the youngest actresses to be nominated for an Oscar. She continued to earn success and fame. Between 2008 to 2011, she starred in a number of successful movies, including City of Ember (2008), which earned her a nomination for Irish Film & Television Award, The Lovely Bones (2009), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award, and The Way Back (2010), for which she won Irish Film & Television Award for Actress in a Supporting Role. In 2016, Ronan was nominated for her second Oscar for Brooklyn (2015). She became the second youngest actress to receive two Oscar nominations at the age of 21. The youngest actress is Angela Lansbury. In 2018, Ronan was nominated for her third Oscar for Lady Bird (2017). She's the second youngest actress (first being Jennifer Lawrence) to receive three Oscar nominations before the age of 24.
Saoirse Ronan resides in London, United Kingdom.Could (just possibly) end up being the BEST actress of all time ... if she chooses her roles wisely!
Movie: "Hanna"!- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Bryce Dallas Howard was born on March 2, 1981, in Los Angeles, California. She was conceived in Dallas, Texas (the reason for her middle name). Her father, Ron Howard, is a former actor turned Oscar-winning director. Her mother is actress and writer Cheryl Howard (née Alley). Her famous relatives include her uncle, actor Clint Howard, and her grandparents, actors Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard. She also has two younger twin sisters, Jocelyn and Paige Howard (also an actress), born in 1985, and a brother, Reed Howard, born in 1987. Her ancestry includes German, English, Scottish, and Irish.
Howard was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, because her parents decided to raise their four children as far away from the trappings of showbiz milieu as possible. During most of her childhood, she really did not have much access to a TV. She attended Greenwich Country Day School, and Byram Hills High School in Armonk, New York. At that time, she discovered existentialism and devoured books by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. She attended the prestigious Steppenwolf School and Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts camp at Catskills, together with her friend, Natalie Portman. She applied to drama school as Bryce Dallas, dropping her last name to eschew special treatment because of association with her renowned father. From 1999-2003, she studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory and at the New York University Tisch School of Arts and graduated with a BFA degree in Drama in 2003. At that time, she performed in Broadway productions of classical plays by George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov.
Young Howard appeared in three of her father's films as an extra, including her appearance as a child together with her mother in Apollo 13 (1995). She made her feature-film debut as Heather, a supporting role in Book of Love (2004) by director Alan Brown. Director M. Night Shyamalan was impressed by her performance in a Broadway play and cast her, without an audition, as a female lead in his two thrillers: The Village (2004) and Lady in the Water (2006). Howard replaced Nicole Kidman in the Dogville (2003) sequel, Manderlay (2005). She starred as Rosalind in As You Like It (2006), a reprise of her stage role that made such an impression on Shyamalan. She also played Gwen Stacy in the third installment of the Spider-Man franchise, Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the female lead, Claire, in the sequel Jurassic World (2015). Both films broke the records for highest openings weekends at the time of their release. Among Bryce's other major films are Terminator Salvation (2009), The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), The Help (2011), and 50/50 (2011).
Howard became a devoted vegan, after Joaquin Phoenix showed her Earthlings (2005), a documentary about animal cruelty. After seeing that, she has consumed no animal products, not even milk or eggs. Her other activities outside of the acting profession include playing basketball and writing.
On June 17, 2006, in Connecticut, she married her long-time boyfriend, actor Seth Gabel, whom she met at New York University and had dated for five years. On February 16, 2007, Bryce and her husband, Seth, became parents of their first child, a son named Theodore Norman Howard Gabel. Their second child, a daughter named Beatrice Jean Howard Gabel, was born on January 19, 2012.Who'da thunk little "Opie's" daughter would be a bigger star than him?
Movie: "The Village"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Milla Jovovich is a Ukrainian-American actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975 in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine). Her Serbian father, Bogdan Jovovich, was a medical doctor in Kyiv. There, he met her mother, Galina Jovovich (née Loginova), a Russian actress. At the age of 5, in 1981, Milla emigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union, moving first to London, UK, then to Sacramento, California, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. There her parents worked as house cleaners for the household of director Brian De Palma. Her parents separated, and eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison.
Young Milla Jovovich was brought up by her single mother in Los Angeles. In addition to her native Ukrainian, she also speaks Russian and English. However, in spite of her cosmopolitan background, Milla was ostracized by some of her classmates, as a kid who emigrated from the Soviet Union amidst the paranoia of the Cold War. Many emotional scars had affected her behavior, but she eventually emerged as a resilient, multi-talented, albeit rebellious and risk-taking girl. She was coached by her actress mother since her childhood, first at home, then studied music, ballet, and acting in Los Angeles.
She shot to international fame after she was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon at the age of 11, and was featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine 'Lei' which was her first cover shoot. She made her first professional model contract at the age of 12, and soon made it to the cover of 'The Face', 'Vogue', 'Cosmopolitan' and many other magazines. In 1994, she appeared on the cover of 'High Times' in the UK, at the age of 18. The total number of her magazine covers worldwide was over one hundred by 2004, and keeps counting. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest paid supermodel in the world.
Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, DKNY, Celine, P&K, H&H, and continues her role as the worldwide spokesperson and model for L'Oreal. Thanks to their continued success with Milla, Giorgio Armani chose her to be the face of his fragrance, Night. In addition to Armani's fragrance, Milla was the face for Calvin Klein's Obsession and Christian Dior's Poison for over 10 years and has most recently become the new face for Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist fragrance, which debuts in August 2009. Milla continues to shoot with the fashion industry's most sought after photographers, including Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Inez & Vinoodh.
Milla made her acting debut in the Disney Channel movie The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and she made guest appearances on television series including Married... with Children (1987) (in 1989 as a French exchange student), Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). In 1988, at age 12, she made her film debut credited as Milla in a supporting role in Two Moon Junction (1988) by writer/director Zalman King. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played several supporting roles as a teenage actress in film and on television, then starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). In 1997, she co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi blockbuster The Fifth Element (1997), then she starred as the title character of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
In the early 2000s, Milla had a few years of uncertainty in her acting career due to the uneven quality of her films, as well as some hectic events in her private life. She appeared with Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She went on to co-star with Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley in The Claim (2000) and in Ben Stiller's spoof of the world of models and high-fashion, Zoolander (2001).
Milla achieved box office success in the U.S. and around the world with the action-packed thriller, Resident Evil (2002), based on the wildly popular video game, Resident Evil. It was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Milla reprised her role as the zombie slaying heroine, Alice, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and again in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) A seventh resident Evil movie is in pre-production.
She received glowing reviews opposite Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Illeana Douglas in Dummy (2002) which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In the spring of 2006, Milla returned to the big screen as action heroine, Violet, in the futuristic film Ultraviolet (2006) directed by Kurt Wimmer.
Focusing on her personal sense of style, her love of fashion led Milla and her friend and business partner, Carmen Hawk, to launch their Jovovich-Hawk clothing line, which achieved instant acclaim in the domestic and international fashion world. The fresh, unique line garnered the attention of red carpet watchers and fashion magazines, including American Vogue, who featured Jovovich-Hawk on their coveted list of "10 Things to Watch Out for in 2005." A student of voice and guitar since she was very young, Milla began writing songs for her first record at the age of 15.
Her first album, "The Divine Comedy", was released by EMI Records in 1994. Informed by her experiences as a child growing up as a Russian emigrant in the Red-bashing Reagan era, the introspective European-folkish debut drew favorable reviews for Milla's songwriting and performing. She continues to write music, and has had songs featured on several film soundtracks. She has been writing music and lyrics to her song-demos, playing her guitar and sampling other sounds from her computer, and allowing free download and remix of her songs from her website.
Charitable work also plays a major part in Milla's life. She has served as Master of Ceremonies and co-chaired with Elizabeth Taylor for the amfAR and Cinema Against AIDS event at the Venice Film Festival, and has been heavily involved with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, as well as The Wildlands Project.
For many years Milla Jovovich has been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, practicing yoga and meditation, trying to avoid junk food, and cooking for herself. Since she was a little girl, Milla has been writing a private diary, a habit she learned from her mother. She has been keeping a record of many good and bad facts of her life, her travels, her relationships, and all important ideas and events in her career, planning eventually to publish an autobiography. After dissolution of her two previous marriages, Milla Jovovich became engaged to film director Paul W.S. Anderson; their daughter, Ever Anderson, was born on November 3, 2007. They got married on August 22, 2009. Their second daughter, Dashiel Edan, was born on April 1, 2015.The BEST female "action" star!
Movie: "Resident Evil: Extinction"!- Actress
- Producer
Claire Forlani was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in London. Educated at Arts Educational School, she moved to the United States with her parents Pier Luigi and Barbara Forlani when she was 19 and began starring in films.
Claire has had leading roles in such films as Meet Joe Black (1998), Basquiat (1996), The Rock (1996), Mystery Men (1999), Mallrats (1995), Antitrust (2001), Boys and Girls (2000), The Medallion, Hallam Foe (2007), Flashbacks of a Fool (2008) and Green Street Hooligans (2005).
Claire is now starring in the Sky International show Domina, about ancient Rome .She appeared with Christopher Plummer in the television series Departure . Other television appearances include STARZ original series Camelot (2011) playing Queen Igraine, The Pentagon Papers (2003), Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (2006), and she has had recurring roles on NCIS: Los Angeles (2009) and CSI: NY (2004).
Claire has also appeared in campaigns for Dewars, L'Oréal, Banana Republic, Shiesido and Dior.
She is married to actor Dougray Scott in 2007 and welcomed their son Milo Thomas Scott born 12.27.14Beautiful, under-used actress!
Movie: "The Medallion"!- Actress
- Producer
- Editorial Department
Emmy Award-winning Sarah Michelle Gellar was born on April 14, 1977 in New York City, the daughter of Rosellen (Greenfield), who taught at a nursery school, and Arthur Gellar, who worked in the garment industry. She is of Russian Jewish and Hungarian Jewish descent.
Eating in a local restaurant, Sarah was discovered by an agent when she was four years old. Soon after, she was making her first movie An Invasion of Privacy (1983). Besides a long list of movies, she has also appeared in many TV commercials and on the stage. Her breakthrough came with the television series Swans Crossing (1992). In 1997, she became known to the cinema audience when she appeared in two movies: I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream 2 (1997). But she is most commonly known for her title role in the long-running television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). She also won an Emmy Award for her performance as Kendall Hart on the soap opera All My Children (1970).
Sarah has since starred in many films, including Simply Irresistible (1999), Cruel Intentions (1999), and the live-action Scooby-Doo (2002) movies as the lovable Daphne Blake. She also provided her voice to several movies, including Small Soldiers (1998), Happily N'Ever After (2006) and TMNT (2007), starred in the box office hit The Grudge (2004), and co-starred with Robin Williams and James Wolk in the television series The Crazy Ones (2013).
She resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr.. They have been married since 2002, and have two children.Why can they not find the right vehicle or sector in the acting craft for this beautiful and talented actress? Should be used MORE than she is!
Television: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"!- Mitra was born in Paddington, London, England, the daughter of Nora Downey and Anthony Mitra, a cosmetic surgeon. She has an older and a younger brother. Her father is of Bengali Indian and English descent, and her mother is Irish. In 1984, when Mitra was eight, her parents divorced, and she was sent to boarding school. She spent several years at two different schools, including Roedean, but Mitra claims she was eventually expelled from both of them.
Mitra's first main role came as Scott Wolf's illicit love interest on Party of Five (1994). In 2000, Mitra had a small, key role in the film Hollow Man (2000), as the rape victim of Kevin Bacon, an incident that drives his character insane. She had a main role in the medical drama Gideon's Crossing (2000), as "Dr. Alejandra Ollie Klein". Mitra then had roles in Ali G Indahouse (2002); Sweet Home Alabama (2002); Stuck on You (2003), and leading roles in Highwaymen (2004) and Spartacus (2004). Mitra appeared in the final season of The Practice (1997) as "Tara Wilson", and continued that role into its spin-off Boston Legal (2004), but left not long into the second season. In 2005, Mitra played the role of "Kit McGraw" during Season 3 of Nip/Tuck (2003). Mitra then went on to appear in Skinwalkers (2006), The Number 23 (2007) and Shooter (2007). In 2008, Mitra starred in the lead role of the science fiction/action film Doomsday (2008) as "Major Eden Sinclair", and, in 2009, went on to star in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) as "Sonja", the daughter of the powerful vampire elder, "Viktor" (played by Bill Nighy).
Mitra appeared as the live action model for "Lara Croft", the lead character in Eidos Interactive's Tomb Raider video game series. She was ranked #46 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2001.Love everything she does ... especially that small scene in "The Life of David Gale" (H-O-T)!!!
Movie: "Doomsday"! - Producer
- Actress
- Music Department
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister, chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and spent much of her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany. She often performed in the children's chorus of whatever production her mother was in. That singing talent later came in handy for her role as an aspiring country singer in The Thing Called Love (1993). Her family moved back to the Washington area when she was adolescent. She later enrolled in East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she studied acting. Shortly afterward she moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. This led to acting in television programs and then feature films. She gave memorable performances in Demolition Man (1993) and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), but did not achieve the stardom that seemed inevitable for her until her work in the smash hit Speed (1994). She now ranks as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. For her role in The Blind Side (2009) she won the Oscar, and her blockbusters The Proposal (2009), The Heat (2013) and Gravity (2013) made her a bankable star. With $56,000,000, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress in the world.This actress can do no wrong!
Movie: "Murder by Numbers"!- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt is a British actress known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Young Victoria (2009), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and The Girl on the Train (2016), among many others.
Blunt was born on February 23, 1983, in Roehampton, South West London, England, the second of four children in the family of Joanna Mackie, a former actress and teacher, and Oliver Simon Peter Blunt, a barrister. Her grandfather was Major General Peter Blunt, and her uncle is MP Crispin Blunt. Emily received a rigorous education at Ibstock Place School, a co-ed private school at Roehampton. However, young Emily Blunt had a stammer, since she was a kid of 8. Her mother took her to relaxation classes, which did not do anything. She reached a turning point at 12, when a teacher cleverly asked her to play a character with a different voice and said, "I really believe in you". Blunt ended up using a northern accent, and it did the trick, her stammer disappeared.
From 1999 - 2001, Blunt went to Hurtwood House, the top co-ed boarding school where she would excel at sport, cello and singing. She also had two years of drama studies at Hurtwood's theatre course. In August 2000, she was chosen to perform at the Edinburgh Festival. She was signed up by an agent, Kenneth Mcreddie, who led her to the West End and the BBC, scoring her roles in several period dramas on stage as well as on TV productions, such as Foyle's War (2002), Henry VIII (2003) and Empire (2005). In 2001, she appeared as "Gwen Cavendish" opposite Dame Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall's production of "The Royal Family" at Haymarket Theatre. For that role, she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer. In 2002, she played "Juliet" in "Romeo and Juliet" at the prestigious Chichester Festival.
Blunt's career ascended to international fame after she starred as "Isolda" opposite Alex Kingston in Warrior Queen (2003). A year later, she won critical acclaim for her breakout performance as "Tamsin", a well-educated, cynical and deceptive 16-year-old beauty in My Summer of Love (2004), a story of two lonely girls from the opposite ends of the social heap. Emily Blunt and her co-star, Natalie Press, shared an Evening Standard British Film award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 2005, she spent a few months in Australia filming Irresistible (2006) with Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill. Blunt gave an impressive performance as "Mara", a cunning young destroyer who acts crazy and surreptitiously provokes paranoia in others. She also continued her work on British television, starring as "Natasha" in Stephen Poliakoff's Gideon's Daughter (2005), opposite Bill Nighy, a role that won her a 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role.
She continued the line of playing manipulative characters as "Emily", a caustic put-upon assistant to Meryl Streep's lead in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Blunt's performance with a neurotic twist added a dimension of sarcasm to the comedy, and gained her much attention as well as new jobs: in two dramas opposite Tom Hanks, then in the title role in the period drama, The Young Victoria (2009). Her most recent works include appearances as antiques dealer "Gwen Conliffe" in The Wolfman (2010) and as the ballerina in The Adjustment Bureau (2011).
Emily is a highly versatile actress and a multifaceted person. Her talents include singing and playing cello; she is also skilled at horseback riding.
On August 28, 2009, Blunt and Krasinski announced their engagement. The couple married on July 10, 2010, at the estate of their friend, George Clooney, on Lake Como in Italy. Blunt and Krasinski live in the Los Angeles area, California, and have two children.Just an actress that I like to watch!
Movie: "Sunshine Cleaning"!- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Paula Patton was born in Los Angeles, California, to Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American and her mother, who is caucasian, has German, English, and Dutch ancestry. Her family lived across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing up and she was a fan of films from her earliest years. Her mother, who also appreciated good films, was a schoolteacher, and her father was a lawyer. Paula claims that as a girl she would escape by "pretending to be someone else" so it was not a surprise that she acted in high school plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her favorite role was that of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". However, she went on to study film at the University of Southern California in a summer program, and won a 3-month assignment making documentaries for PBS. This led to her working as a production assistant for TV documentaries, and also for Howie Mandel's talk show. She progressed to actually producing documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula now professes that she liked what she was doing, but her dream remained the same as when she was small so she took acting lessons and shifted gears to become a performer. She was almost immediately successful and, within three years, had played parts in major features, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and the female lead in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.Very beautiful AND a very good actress!
Movie: "Jumping the Broom"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, where she made her stage debut in a production of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". She appeared in many more productions through her early teens until, at the age of fifteen, she decided that she wanted to make acting her career.
The official story is that she made a PowerPoint presentation, backed by Madonna's "Hollywood" and itself entitled "Project Hollywood", in an attempt to persuade her parents to allow her to drop out of school and move to Los Angeles. The pitch was successful and she and her mother moved to LA with her schooling completed at home while she spent her days auditioning.
She had her TV breakthrough when she won the part of Laurie Partridge in the VH1 talent/reality show In Search of the Partridge Family (2004) which led to a number of small TV roles in the following years. Her movie debut was as Jules in Superbad (2007) and, after a string of successful performances, her leading role as Olive in Easy A (2010) established her as a star.This actress has FINALLY grown on me!
Movie: Zombieland"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Moretz is best known for her work in the sci-fi thriller series The Peripheral, created by Scott B. Smith; the Mattson Tomlin-directed sci-fi thriller Mother/Android; Neil Jordan's thriller Greta; Roseanne Liang's Shadow in the Cloud, which claimed the Midnight Madness People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2020; The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which won both critical acclaim and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2018; Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, which went on to claim the Independent Spirit Awards' Robert Altman Award after world premiering in Venice; MGM's The Amityville Horror; Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer; the Kick-Ass franchise; Matt Reeves' English-language remake of Let Me In; Martin Scorsese's Oscar winner Hugo; Warner Bros' If I Stay and Dark Shadows; Kimberly Peirce's remake of the Stephen King classic Carrie; and Sony's The Equalizer with Denzel Washington. She also exec produced the Snapchat Discover series Coming Out, which premiered in 2021.Excellent "up & comer" ... (If she can still be called that, with her body of work)!
Movie: "Texas Killing Fields"!- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Born to immigrants in New York City, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing & her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts, the energetic actress is finally earning her stripes as an across-the-board leading lady.
She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1986 & enrolled in NYU. However, she was discouraged by the dark and sarcastic atmosphere, so she transferred to the University of Michigan after her freshman year. She graduated w/ a degree in Asian Languages & Cultures, managing to squeeze in some additional training in dance, voice, fine arts & acting. During her senior year, she auditioned for a small part in a production of Alice in Wonderland and walked away with the lead. Encouraged by the experience, she decided to take the plunge into professional acting. She moved to L.A., splitting her time between auditions & food service day jobs. She eventually scored a guest appearance as a waitress on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990). That performance led to more walk-on parts in shows like NYPD Blue (1993), ER (1994) & The X-Files (1993). In 1996, she was cast as an ambitious college student on Rhea Perlman's ephemeral sitcom Pearl (1996).
She first appeared on the big screen as an ex-girlfriend in Jerry Maguire (1996) (she had previously filmed a scene in the indie Bang (1995), but it was shelved for 2 years). She then waded through a series of supporting parts in small films before landing her big break on Ally McBeal (1997). She initially auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter, which went to Portia de Rossi. However, writer-producer David E. Kelley was so impressed w/ her that he promised to write a part for her in an upcoming episode. The part turned out to be that of growling, ill-tempered lawyer Ling Woo, which she filled w/ such aplomb that she was signed on as a regular cast member.
The "Ally" win gave her film career a much-needed boost-in 1999, she was cast as a dominatrix in the Mel Gibson action flick Payback (1999) & as a hitchhiker in the ill-received boxing saga Play It to the Bone (1999). The following year brought even larger roles: first as the kidnapped Princess Pei Pei in Jackie Chan's western Shanghai Noon (2000), then as one-third of the comely crime-fighting trio in Charlie's Angels (2000).
When she's not hissing at clients or throwing well-coiffed punches, she keeps busy w/ an eclectic mix of off-screen hobbies. She practices the martial art of Kali-Eskrima-Silat (knife-and-stick fighting), skis, rock climbs, rides horses &plays the accordion. In 1993, she exhibited a collection of multimedia art pieces at the Cast Iron Gallery in SoHo (New York), after which she won a grant to study & create art in China. Her hectic schedule doesn't leave much time for romantic intrigue, but she says she prefers to keep that side of her life uncluttered.Beautiful and talented actress ... she deserves much, much more work!
Movie: "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Slever"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rose Byrne was born in Balmain, Sydney, Australia. She is the daughter of Jane, a primary school administrator, and Robin Byrne, a semi-retired statistician and market researcher.
She landed her first role in a movie, Dallas Doll (1994), when she was 15 years old.
Since then, Rose has appeared in a variety of Australian televisions shows including Heartbreak High (1994), Echo Point (1995), and the film Two Hands (1999) alongside Heath Ledger. After this, she appeared in various movies like The Date (1999), My Mother Frank (2000), and Clara Law's The Goddess of 1967 (2000) for which she obtained the Female Volpi Cup at the Venice Festival in 2000.
Her first experience on a big-budget movie came when she played handmaiden, Dormé, to Natalie Portman, Padmé Amidala, in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). In 2003, she starred, coincidentally, as Rose Mortmain in the adaptation of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle (2003). In 2004, she acted in Wicker Park (2004) with Diane Kruger and Josh Hartnett. Here, she heard Wolfgang Petersen was looking for an actress for Briseis in his next movie Troy (2004) with Brad Pitt, she got the part and was recognised as one of the most promising actresses in Hollywood.
After Troy (2004), she played Edith in a TV adaptation of Casanova (2005). In September 2005, she started to act in Sunshine (2007), a Danny Boyle movie, where she plays the pilot in a space mission.Can't quite put my finger on WHY ... but, I really like her work!
Movie: "28 Weeks Later"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Julie Benz was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA on May 1, 1972. Julie's father is a Pittsburgh surgeon and her mother is a figure skater. The family settled in nearby Murrysville, when Julie was two, and she started ice skating at age three. She competed in the 1988 U.S. Championships in junior ice dancing with her partner David Schilling, coming in 13th. Her older brother and sister, Jeffrey and Jennifer, were 1987 U.S. Junior Champions in ice dancing and competed internationally. When Julie was 14, she had a bad stress fracture and had to take time off.
By 1989, with her figure skating career over, Julie turned to acting and got involved in the local theater where she got a role in the play "Street Law". Her first movie role was a small credited speaking part in the Black Cat segment of the Dario Argento/George A. Romero co-direction horror flick, Two Evil Eyes (1990), playing in one scene alongside Harvey Keitel. A year later, she got a role on a TV show called Hi Honey, I'm Home (1991).
After graduating from high school, Julie entered New York University to study acting there. After graduation, Julie moved to Los Angeles to further pursue her career and landed some small roles in movies and TV shows including a guest appearance on Married... with Children (1987) and in the Aaron Spelling TV pilot Crosstown Traffic (1995).
In 1996, Julie auditioned for the role of "Buffy" in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), but lost out to Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, she was offered a small role as a vampire girl in which she did such a good job that her part was expanded to a few more episodes in playing the vampire "Darla". With that, Julie Benz's career had finally taken off. She reprised her role as "Darla" in the Buffy spin-off series Angel (1999) for two years and has had several small roles in various film productions. She also had a small, but memorable, role playing a receptionist in the movie As Good as It Gets (1997).
Even after her role on Angel (1999) wrapped up, Julie continued to find work on television in playing many guest staring roles in numerous popular TV shows from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), to Supernatural (2005), to playing the lead and supporting roles in various made-for-TV movies. She landed another notable role on the TV-cable series Dexter (2006) playing "Rita", a troubled divorcée and lover of the title character played by Michael C. Hall. Benz played a leading role in the TV series No Ordinary Family (2010) playing Stephanie Powell along with actors Michael Chiklis, Kay Panabaker, Jimmy Bennett, Autumn Reeser, Romany Malco, and Stephen Collins.
In 2013, she had the starring role in the sci-fi / fantasy breakout hit show Defiance (2013).FINALLY getting the attention she has deserved for so long! GREAT actress!
Movie: "Rambo"!- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in Hounslow, Middlesex, England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the series Rising Damp (1974), Porridge (1974) and The Lovers (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 31.
Kate attended the private school Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens she twice won the British bookseller W.H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting.
Her major acting debut came in a TV film about World War II called One Against the Wind (1991), filmed in Luxembourg during the summer of 1991. It first aired on American television that December. Kate began attending Oxford University's New College in the fall of 1991, majoring in French and Russian literature. She had already decided that she wanted to act, but to broaden her horizons she chose university over drama school. While in her first year at Oxford, Kate received her big break in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Kate worked in three other films while attending Oxford, beginning with a part in the medieval historical drama Royal Deceit (1994), cast as Ethel. The film was shot during the spring of 1993 on location in Denmark, and she filmed her supporting part during New College's Easter break. Later in the summer of that year she played the lead in the contemporary mystery drama Uncovered (1994). Before she went back to school, her third year at university was spent at Oxford's study-abroad program in Paris, France, immersing herself in the French language, Parisian culture and French cigarettes.
A year away from the academic community and living on her own in the French capital caused her to re-evaluate the direction of her life. She faced a choice: continue with school or concentrate on her flourishing acting career. After much thought, she chose the acting career. In the spring of 1994 Kate left Oxford, after finishing three years of study. Kate appeared in the BBC/Thames Television satire Cold Comfort Farm (1995), filmed in London and East Sussex during late summer 1994 and which opened to spectacular reviews in the United States, grossing over $5 million during its American run. It was re-released to U.K. theaters in the spring of 1997.
Acting on the stage consumed the first part of 1995; she toured in England with the Thelma Holts Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". After turning down several mediocre scripts "and going nearly berserk with boredom", she waited seven months before another interesting role was offered to her. Her big movie of 1995 was the romance/horror movie Haunted (1995), starring opposite Aidan Quinn and John Gielgud, and filmed in West Sussex. In this film she wanted to play "an object of desire", unlike her past performances where her characters were much less the siren and more the worldly innocent. Kate's first film project of 1996 was the British ITV production of Jane Austen's novel Emma (1996). Her last film of 1996 was the comedy Shooting Fish (1997), filmed at Shepperton Studios in London during early fall. She played the part of Georgie, an altruistic con artist. She had a daughter, Lily, in 1999 with actor Michael Sheen.Just keeps gettin' better!
Movie: "Underworld"!- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Katie Cassidy was born Katherine Evelyn Anita Cassidy on November 25, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. Her father, David Cassidy, was a pop star in the 1970s. Her famous relatives include uncles Shaun Cassidy, Patrick Cassidy and Ryan Cassidy, the sons by her grandfather Jack Cassidy's marriage to Shirley Jones; Katie's grandmother was Evelyn Ward. As a child, Katie took gymnastics, studied piano, guitar and singing, then took dancing and acting lessons and eventually became a cheerleader for the California Flyers. She attended Calabasas High School in her neighborhood. For years prior to graduation in 2005, Katie was modeling and studying acting in community theater. Katie had just been accepted to 'Tisch' at NYU when she was offered her first role as "Dee Dee", which was one month before graduating. Katie has not stopped working since. Katie's early exposure to show business, the cosmopolitan culture of Los Angeles, her family upbringing, and her comprehensive education altogether produced a remarkable result. She grew up as a multifaceted person showing her many talents in a variety of professions such as recording her father's 1970s hit "I Think I Love You" and singing in VH1's TV special Bubblegum Babylon (2002), writing her own songs, modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch and Guess?'s Rock and Republic clothing lines in 2004, and acting. She met her ex-boyfriend, Jesse McCartney, there and later appeared as his love interest in his video hit "She's No You". A story on Jesse and Katie appeared in the January 2006 issue of Teen People magazine. Jesse wrote the song "Bleeding Love" performed by Leona Lewis, about Cassidy and their relationship. At that time she was busy working on five feature film productions going on almost simultaneously. Katie made several appearances in TV series, such as 7th Heaven (1996) and Sex, Love & Secrets (2005), among others. She appeared as Samantha, the grown-up daughter of Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale in the comedy Click (2006). After the release of a teen horror film, When a Stranger Calls (2006),in which she co-starred as Tiffany, Cassidy went to Vancouver to work on her second horror film, Black Christmas (2006), in which she stars as a sorority girl. Katie recently beat out the likes of Jessica Simpson and Kristin Cavallari for the leading role opposite John Travolta as his daughter and the heir to the most powerful energy company in the world in Dallas, the big-screen remake of the cult TV series.Great "up and comer" ... so far ...
Movie: "A Nightmare on Elm Street"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.Beautiful AND talented ... U can't beat that!
Movie: "Calendar Girls"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. Rachel has a sister, Minnie, a curator and photographer.
Rachel started modeling when she was 14, and began acting during her studies at Cambridge University. While there, she formed a theater company named "Talking Tongues", which won the Guardian Award, at the Edinburgh Festival, for its take on Neville Southall's "Washbag". Rachel went on to star on stage in the lauded Sean Mathias revival of Noël Coward's "Design For Living". It was a role that won her a vote for Most Promising Newcomer by the London Critics' Circle.
She has starred in many movies, including The Mummy (1999), Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Stealing Beauty (1996). Rachel can also be seen in the movies The Shape of Things (2003), About a Boy (2002), Constantine (2005) and The Constant Gardener (2005), for which she won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rachel has a son with her former partner, director Darren Aronofsky. In June 2011, she married "James Bond" actor Daniel Craig in a private ceremony in New York.I like just about everything she's ever done!
Movie: "Constantine"!- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Karen (Koch), who manages a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who works in construction. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine, and has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold read, agents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agency, Jennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next day, that agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Again, the agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have it, she did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).
Shortly thereafter, her career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007), and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).
Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010), which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereafter, she secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this time, Lawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies ever, with over $407 million at the US box office, and instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), with Lawrence reprising her role.
In 2012, the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, among other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.
She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), as Roselyn Rosenfield, and teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedy, Joy (2015), for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively).See "Abigail Breslin" ...
Movie: "Winter's Bone"!- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born former nurse and midwife, of Norwegian, Kven (Finnish), and Swedish descent. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer. The two married in 1963. Renée has a brother named Drew Zellweger, a marketing executive born on February 15, 1967. Renée got interested in acting in high school while working on the drama club. She also took an acting class at the University of Texas (Austin), where she began looking towards acting as a career. After graduation, she wanted to continue acting, but Hollywood is a tough town to break into, so Renée decided to stay in Texas, and auditioned for roles around Houston, where she managed to grab roles in such films as Reality Bites (1994) and Empire Records (1995).
While on the set for the sequel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), she befriended Matthew McConaughey, another Hollywood up-and-comer. He was working on a project at the time that Renée was interested in, auditioned for, and won the role in the film Love and a .45 (1994), which earned her enough critical praise that she decided to move to Los Angeles. Another role in The Whole Wide World (1996) followed which led to her big break. Cameron Crowe was busy casting his next film, Jerry Maguire (1996),starring Tom Cruise. Crowe was considering such actresses as Cameron Diaz, Bridget Fonda, Winona Ryder, and Marisa Tomei, when he heard of Zellweger's performance in The Whole Wide World (1996). He auditioned Zellweger and was sure he'd found his Dorothy Boyd.
Renée followed her huge success with a few small independent films and after receiving further critical praise, she felt confident enough to reenter the world of big-budget Hollywood films. She starred opposite Meryl Streep in the tear-jerker One True Thing (1998). She also took a role in Me, Myself & Irene (2000), opposite Jim Carrey, and soon after began dating Carrey. The two denied their relationship at first, but finally gave in and admitted it; today they are no longer together. Also in 2000, she starred in the title role in Nurse Betty (2000), where she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical. In 2001, she received even more critical and commercial success in the title role in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). She received her first Academy Award nomination for her role, which was followed by her second Oscar-nominated role in the musical Chicago (2002). She then again wowed audiences with her fierce yet warm portrayal of Ruby Thewes in the film adaptation of Cold Mountain (2003), which won Zellweger an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, which was her first Academy Award. She won her second, for Best Actress, 16 years later, playing Judy Garland in Judy (2019).Can play ANY role!
Movie: "Cold Mountain"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Alice Braga Moraes born April 15, 1983 is a Brazilian actress. She has appeared in several Brazilian films, most notably as Angélica in 2002's highly acclaimed City of God and as Karina in 2005's Lower City. She came to international prominence after appearing opposite Will Smith in I Am Legend (2007) and has since become a familiar face in Hollywood, appearing in films such as Repo Men and Predators (both 2010), The Rite (2011) and Elysium (2013).Can't find anything she's done that I don't like!
Movie: "Blindness"!- Actress
Navi Rawat was born on 5 June 1977 in Malibu, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Feast (2005), The O.C. (2003) and Numb3rs (2005). She has been married to Brawley Nolte since 2012. They have one child.Excellent actress (that we need to see MORE of)! Come on, Hollywood ... give this gal some roles !!!
Movie: "Feast"!- Actress
- Producer
- Costume Designer
Actress and philanthropist Rooney Mara was born on April 17, 1985 in Bedford, New York. She made her screen debut in the slasher film Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005), went on to have a supporting role in the independent coming-of-age drama Tanner Hall (2009), and has since starred in the horror remake A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), the biographical drama The Social Network (2010), the thriller remake The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and the romantic drama Carol (2015).
Patricia Rooney Mara is one of four children of Kathleen McNulty (née Rooney) and NFL football team New York Giants executive Timothy Christopher Mara. Her grandfathers were Wellington Mara, co-owner of the Giants, and Timothy Rooney, owner of Yonkers Raceway, and her grand-uncle is Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the former Ambassador to Ireland. She is the great-granddaughter of Art Rooney, the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise. Her father has Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry, and her mother is of Irish and Italian descent.
After graduating from Bedford's Fox Lane High School, she went to Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in South America for four months as part of the Traveling School, an open learning environment. She attended George Washington University for a year and then transferred to New York University, where she studied international social policy psychology and nonprofits. She took her degree from New York University in 2010. Her studies focused on non-profit organizations, as her family has a tradition of involvement in philanthropic causes.
She had thought of acting after watching old movies and attending musical theater, but did not think of it as a serious vocation and was afraid she might fail at this. As a result of her reservations, she appeared in only one play while in high school.
She began seriously focusing on acting when she was at New York University, appearing in student films. Inspired by her older sister, actress Kate Mara, she began to pursue the craft, auditioning for acting jobs at age 19. She appeared with her sister Kate in the video horror movie Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005), billing herself as "Patricia Mara". As "Tricia Mara", she had guest roles on television and won her first lead in the movie Tanner Hall (2009), which was shot in the fall of 2007.
She originally auditioned for the supporting role of Lucasta in "Tanner Hall", a $3-million independent film, but director Tatiana von Fürstenberg was so impressed by the young actress, she had her return to audition for the lead role of Fernanda, which Mara won. Furstenberg was delighted with her nuanced performance, saying, "Still waters run deep".
Continuing to call herself Tricia Mara, this was during the making of "Tanner Hall" that she considered changing her professional name to Rooney Mara, soliciting the advice of the cast and crew. After premiering at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, her performance in "Tanner Hall" brought the rechristened Rooney Mara a "Rising Star" award at the 2009 Hamptons Film Festival and a "Stargazer Award" at the 2010 Gen Art Film Festival.
She received her first lead role in a major feature, in the $35 million remake A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). The movie proved disappointing at the box office, grossing only $63 million domestically and racking up a worldwide gross of just under $116 million. However, she was noticed by critics in the small but pivotal role of the Boston University undergrad Erica Albright who dumps Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010). Director David Fincher subsequently cast her as the lead, Lisbeth Salander, in his thriller remake, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), based on Stieg Larsson's Millennium book series. She received critical acclaim for her performance, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama.
She starred in the thriller film Side Effects (2013), the independent drama Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), and the acclaimed sci-fi romantic drama Her (2013). The following year, she starred in the adventure drama Trash (2014). She garnered further critical acclaim for her performance in Todd Haynes' romantic drama Carol (2015), for which she won the Best Actress Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama and the SAG, BAFTA, and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In the spirit of her family's philanthropic endeavors, Rooney created Faces of Kibera, a charity that provides food, medical care and housing to orphans in Nairobi, Kenya's Kibra district, a small slum that houses a million people. There are many orphans as AIDS is rampant in the slum.A REAL "up-and-comer" ... this girl will be "BIG"!
Movie: "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"!- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Franka Potente was born on 22 July 1974 in the German city of Münster, to Hildegard, a medical assistant, and Dieter Potente, a teacher, and raised in the nearby town of Dülmen. After her graduation in 1994, she went to the Otto-Falckenberg-Schule, a drama school in Munich, but soon broke off to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York. After a notable debut in Nach Fünf im Urwald (1995), the role of the heroine in Run Lola Run (1998), directed by her then longtime companion Tom Tykwer was her national breakthrough. After some other successful movies in Germany, she starred in several Hollywood productions, most prominently The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and lived one year in Los Angeles. After her return to Berlin, she continues working with German and international directors.I just like each role she plays!
Movie: "The Bourne Identity"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly Irish descent, met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year. Rita, herself, studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was eight years old when her family was filmed in a movie called La Fiesta (1926). It was her first film appearance, albeit an uncredited one. Sotted by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, she signed her first studio contract, and make her film debut at age sixteen, in Dante's Inferno (1935), followed by Cruz Diablo (1934). She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of "Rita Cansino". Fox dropped her after five small roles, but expert, exploitative promotion by her first husband Edward Judson soon brought Rita a new contract at Columbia Pictures, where studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and approved raising her hairline by electrolysis. She played the second female lead, Judy McPherson, in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). After thirteen minor roles, Columbia lent her to Warner Bros. for her first big success, The Strawberry Blonde (1941); her splendid dancing with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) made her a star. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in Blood and Sand (1941), filmed in Technicolor.
Rita was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Fred Astaire, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had studied all her life, was astounding. After the hit Gilda (1946) (her dancing had made the film and it had made her), her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier success. The drought began between The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Champagne Safari (1954). Then after Salome (1953), she was not seen again until Pal Joey (1957). Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by a new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.
Rita, herself, said, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me". In person, Rita was shy, quiet and unassuming; only when the cameras rolled did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that in Gilda (1946) made her a superstar. To Rita, though, domestic bliss was a more important, if elusive, goal, and in 1949 she interrupted her career for marriage - unfortunately an unhappy one almost from the start - to the playboy Prince Aly Khan. Her films after her divorce from Khan include perhaps her best straight acting performances, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960s, her career was essentially over. Her final film was The Wrath of God (1972). Her career was really never the same after Gilda (1946). Perhaps Gene Ringgold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality, and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally." Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him.
Beginning in 1960 (age 42), early onset of Alzheimer's disease (undiagnosed until 1980) limited Rita's ability. The last few roles in her 60-film career were increasingly small. With 20 years of symptoms, Rita was cared for by her daughter, Yasmin Khan, until Rita's death at age 68 on May 14, 1987, in New York City.Great "golden-era" actress!
Movie: "Gilda"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Mayte Michelle Rodríguez was born on July 12, 1978 in San Antonio, Texas to Carmen Milady Pared Espinal, a housewife, and Rafael Rodríguez Santiago, a U.S. Army solider. Known for tough-chick roles, Michelle is proof that there is a cross between beauty and brawn. Michelle always knew she was destined to become a star, she just didn't know how to get there. Michelle lived in San Antonio until the age of 8 when her parents divorced & moved to the Dominican Republic where she lived for two years before moving to Puerto Rico. At 11, Michelle's family relocated for the last time to Jersey City, New Jersey. Although she has been working since 1999 as an extra in such films as Summer of Sam (1999) and Cradle Will Rock (1999), it only took a magazine ad announcing an open casting call in New York for Michelle to decide to finally step into the spotlight. The role was the female lead, the movie was Girlfight (2000). Despite the lack of experience in film and boxing, Michelle auditioned, along with another 350 girls. After various trials inside an actual boxing ring and five arduous months of training in Brooklyn's Gleason's Gym, she was finally chosen to portray the role of Diana Guzman. As soon as the independent film began making the rounds at various film festivals, Michelle began gaining critical acclaim for her performance earning her awards like the Deauville Festival of American Cinema award for Best Actress and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society for Female Breakthrough performance. As Girlfight (2000) continued to gain notoriety with its September 2000 release, Michelle was already hard at work with films like 3 A.M. (2001), the blockbuster hit The Fast and the Furious (2001), and Resident Evil (2002). With Hollywood calling her name, the future for this feisty Jersey girl is as strong as the punches she throws.Great actress and ... another of those who should get, at least, a CHANCE at some "Oscar-caliber" roles! Rumors are her wild side tends to scare of the "big-dollar" studios and roles(?) I really hope not!
Movie: "Blue Crush"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jennifer Esposito was born in Brooklyn, New York. She launched her career with an appearance on Law & Order (1990) in 1996, and went on to play the character of "Stacey Paterno" in 36 episodes on the hit TV series Spin City (1996), starring alongside Michael J. Fox.
Her first major film was Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999). Other famous film credits include the Academy Award-winning film Crash (2004) and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998).Why has this actress not struck it BIG, yet? One of my favorites!
Movie: "Dracula 2000"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her love of animals, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but later studied journalism. When her brother, Eric Roberts, achieved some success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting. Her first break came in 1988 when she appeared in two youth-oriented movies Mystic Pizza (1988) and Satisfaction (1988). The movies introduced her to a new audience who instantly fell in love with this pretty woman. Julia's biggest success was in the signature movie Pretty Woman (1990), for which Julia got an Oscar nomination, and also won the People's Choice award for Favorite Actress. Even though Julia would spend the next few years either starring in serious movies, or playing fantasy roles like Tinkerbell, the movie audiences would always love Julia best in romantic comedies. With My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Julia gave the genre fresh life that had been lacking in Hollywood for some time. Offscreen, after a brief marriage, Julia has been romantically linked with several actors, and married cinematographer Daniel Moder in 2002; the couple has three children together.
Julia has also become involved with UNICEF charities and has made visits to many different countries, including Haiti and India, in order to promote goodwill. Julia Robert remains one of the most popular and sought-after talents in Hollywood.One of THE best actresses to ever grace the screen!
Movie: "Pretty Woman"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.
Jolie was born Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, California. In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her actor parents, Jon Voight, an Oscar-winner, and Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. Her good looks may derive from her ancestry, which is German and Slovak on her father's side, and French-Canadian, Dutch, Polish, and remote Huron, on her mother's side. At age eleven, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she was seen in several stage productions. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos.
In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997), and in George Wallace (1997) which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) again garnered a Golden Globe Award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.
Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.
With her newfound prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced, and in 2000, she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.
In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The eponymous character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the movie was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in the movie, and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.
One of the Lara Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.
Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox, and in 2005, adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the movie was not popular among critics or at the box office.
In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The movie became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.
Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple, who married in 2014 and divorced in 2019, continue to pursue movie and humanitarian projects, and now have a total of six children. She was appointed Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to United Kingdom foreign policy and the campaign to end warzone sexual violence.Good in just about everything!
Movie: "Wanted"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jennifer Garner, who catapulted into stardom with her lead role on the television series Alias (2001), has come a long way from her birthplace of Houston, Texas. Raised in Charleston, West Virginia by her mother Patricia Ann (née English), a retired English teacher, and her father, Billy Jack Garner, a former chemical engineer, she is the second of their three daughters. She spent nine years of her adolescence studying ballet, and characterizes her years in dance as consisting of determination rather than talent, being driven mostly by a love of the stage.
Jennifer took this determination with her when she enrolled at Denison University as a chemistry major; later she changed her major when she discovered that her passion for the stage was stronger than her love of science. New York attracted the young actress after college, and she worked as a hostess while pursuing a career in film and television. Her most recent move has been to Los Angeles, a decision that led to a role on the television series Felicity (1998), where she met her future husband Scott Foley. The couple divorced in 2004.
Jennifer starred in the television series Alias (2001) as Agent Sydney Bristow, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency. For her work, Garner has received four consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She has also received four Golden Globe nominations and won once, as well as received two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and won once. She has appeared in numerous other television production as well as such films as Elektra (2005), 13 Going on 30 (2004), Daredevil (2003), Pearl Harbor (2001) and Dude, Where's My Car? (2000). Aside from filming Alias (2001), Jennifer enjoys cooking, gardening, hiking, and--inspired by her character on the series--kickboxing. She married actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck in 2005, now her ex-husband, with whom she has three children.The real "actor" in the Garner-Affleck household!
Movie: "13 Going on 30"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Australian actress Emily Browning was born in 1988 in Melbourne, Australia, to Shelley and Andrew Browning. She has two younger brothers. Her start in acting came after a classmate's father, involved in the acting business, noticed her "acting all ditsy" in a school play. Emily found an agent and was soon filming on location for the Hallmark TV-movie, The Echo of Thunder (1998). She received more roles from there, including parts in The Man Who Sued God (2001), opposite Billy Connolly, and Ned Kelly (2003), opposite Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom. In that film, she had to hug Heath Ledger, and she said that all of her friends, who went to see the film, at the same time sent her a barrage of text messages about how lucky she was! Emily says she tries to avoid "cheesy" movies, and her big break came when she was on a press tour in LA for Ghost Ship (2002), that was filmed in Australia and released in America. In the same year, she won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Young Actress, and was nominated for the same award, the next year. Emily received some scripts when she was in LA and sent in a video audition for A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). She received a call and was asked to come to LA for a proper audition, which won her the part. She spent months in LA filming, for the second time acting opposite Billy Connolly. Emily said she enjoyed the experience of making a big budget film in America, and says that although she's not sure what is coming next, she's hoping to do some more Australian work.Good "up-and-coming" actress ... (hope she continues to make the transition from "child" actor to full-fledged STAR)!
Movie: "Sucker Punch"!- Margo Martindale was born July 18, 1951 in Jacksonville, Texas, to Margaret (Pruitt) and William Everett Martindale, a lumber company owner and dog handler. She is the youngest of three children, and the only daughter. Margo attended Lon Marris College, and later transferred to University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and did a summer study at Harvard University. She made her film debut appearance in Days of Thunder (1990), she played the minor role of Donna. Notable roles include: Sister Colleen, Susan Sarandon's fellow nun in Dead Man Walking (1995). She played a brief but memorable role as the selfish mother to Hilary Swank's character in Million Dollar Baby (2004).GREAT actress (in EVERYTHING she does)!!!
Movie: "Secretariat"! - Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Elliot Page was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. Page wanted to start acting at an early age and attended the Neptune Theater School. They began their career at the age of 10 on the award-winning television series Pit Pony (1999), for which they received a Gemini nomination and a Young Artist Awards nomination. Later, Page appeared in Marion Bridge (2002), which won the award for Best Canadian First Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. They won a Gemini Award for their role of Lilith in the first season of ReGenesis (2004), a one-hour drama for TMN/Movie Central, and for the cable feature, Ghost Cat (2004), for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series. In addition, Page appeared in the cult hit TV series Trailer Park Boys (2001).
As the lead in David Slade's Hard Candy (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Page garnered much praise for their tour de force performance as a 14-year-old who meets a 30-year-old photographer on the Internet and then looks to expose him as a pedophile. Films that followed included the title role of Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments (2007); An American Crime (2007), also starring Catherine Keener; and the third installation of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), where Page played Kitty Pryde.
With their breakout role in Jason Reitman's hit comedy Juno (2007), about an offbeat teenager who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, Page received Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Best Actress nominations, and won the Independent Spirit Award for their performance. They followed up that turn with the lead in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, the roller-derby comedy-drama Whip It (2009), Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller Inception (2010), the independent film Peacock (2010), and the dark comedy Super (2010), opposite Rainn Wilson and Liv Tyler.
Page co-starred alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Alison Pill, Alec Baldwin, and Greta Gerwig in the Woody Allen ensemble comedy To Rome with Love (2012), and appeared in the thriller The East (2013), a story centered on a contract worker (played by Brit Marling) tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group, only to find herself falling for its leader (played by Alexander Skarsgård).Excellent, multi-layered actress! I do expect BIG things in the NEAR future for this fine, young actress!
Movie: "Whip It"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in Bristol, England, Veronica is the older sister of the popular child actress Angela Cartwright. In her early career, Veronica was cast in a number of popular movies such as William Wyler's The Children's Hour (1961), Spencer's Mountain (1963) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). As such, she was cast as "Jemima Boone" in the popular television series Daniel Boone (1964), which ran from 1964 to 66. Her career after "Daniel Boone" may have been influenced by Hitchcock, since she appeared in both the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and the horror classic Alien (1979). On television, she appeared twice as Lumpy's younger sister, "Violet Rutherford" and once as "Peggy MacIntosh" on Leave It to Beaver (1957) and had a small role in the television movie Still the Beaver (1983).
Cartwright also appeared in Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985), Tanner '88 (1988) and had a recurring role on L.A. Law (1986). Her big screen features included The Right Stuff (1983), Flight of the Navigator (1986) and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Veronica worked on the stage in "Electra", "Talley's Folly", "Homesteaders", "Butterflies are Free" and "The Triplet Connection". Alternating between television and big screen movies in the 90s, Cartwright has appeared in such films as Hitler's Daughter (1990) and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995).Fantastic actress, who made the extremely hard jump from "child" actress to "adult" actress, almost seamlessly! Check out "The Birds" and "Alien" (or, her story arc on "The X-Files") ... you will not be disappointed!
Movie: "Alien"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jennifer Love Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas, to Patricia Mae (Shipp), a speech-language pathologist, and Herbert Daniel Hewitt, a medical technician. She has English, Italian, French, Scottish, and German ancestry. She got her first name from her older brother Todd Daniel Hewitt (b. November 8, 1970), who picked the name after a little blonde girl on whom he'd had a crush. Her mother selected Jennifer's middle name, Love (which she goes by offstage), from her best college friend. Her parents separated when she was six months old and her mother raised her in Killeen, Texas.
Hewitt made her official performing debut at age 3 when she sang at a livestock show. At age 5, she was taking tap, jazz, and ballet lessons, which led to her joining the Texas Show Team, who toured the Soviet Union and Europe. When she was 10 her family moved to Los Angeles with encouragement from talent scouts, while Todd stayed behind to finish high school in Texas Jennifer quickly found commercial work and a role on Disney's Kids Incorporated (1984) in 1989. She went through a series of television flops before finally hitting it big on Party of Five (1994) in 1995.Not a bad actress ... and should get a chance at some better (meatier) roles (tho, at this point, that probably ain't gonna happen)! Beautiful AND talented ... maybe she'll be one of those actresses whose career just EXPLODES once she gets into her late 40's to 60's? Hope so!
Movie: "Can't Hardly Wait"!- Actress
- Producer
- Make-Up Department
Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. After attending one semester of college between gigs, she realized that she wanted to act for the rest of her life. She started acting when she was nine years old, when her father heard about an acting class on the radio and decided to enroll Mila in it. There, she met her future agent. Her first gig was when she played a character named Melinda in Make a Wish, Molly (1995). From there, her career skyrocketed into big-budget films.
Although she is mostly known for playing Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show (1998), she has shown the world that she can do so much more. Since 1999, she provided the voice of self-conscious daughter Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy (1999). Her breakthrough film was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), in which she played a free-spirited character named Rachel Jansen. She has since starred or co-starred in the films Max Payne (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Mila Kunis is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.I like her "more serious" roles best!
Movie: "The Book of Eli"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Vera Farmiga is an American actress who has received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Up in the Air (2009) and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in Bates Motel (2013) and When They See Us (2019).
She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, the second of seven children, on August 6, 1973, in Clifton, New Jersey, USA, to Ukrainian parents. She did not speak English until the age of six, and was raised in the Ukrainian Catholic home of her mother, Luba (Spas), a schoolteacher, and her father, Michael Farmiga, a computer systems analyst. Her younger sister is actress Taissa Farmiga, who is 21 years her junior. Young Vera was a shy, nearsighted girl, who played piano and folk danced with a Ukrainian touring company in her teens.
In 1991, she graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School. Farmiga initially dreamed of becoming an optometrist, but she later changed her mind and studied acting at Syracuse University's School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1995. The following year, she began her professional acting career, making her Broadway debut as an understudy in the play "Taking Sides". Her stage credits included performances in "The Tempest", "Good", "The Seagull", and in a well-reviewed off-Broadway production of "Second-Hand Smoke" (1997). That same year, she made her television debut as the female lead, opposite a then-unknown Heath Ledger, in Fox's adventure series Roar (1997).
In 1998, Farmiga made her big screen debut in the drama Return to Paradise (1998), then played the daughters of Christopher Walken in The Opportunists (1999) and Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (2000). She starred as a working-class mother struggling to keep her life and marriage together while hiding her drug addiction in Down to the Bone (2004), for which she was awarded Best Actress from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Farmiga's acting talent shone in a range of characters, from her role as a senator's daughter in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), the wife of a mobster in Running Scared (2006), a humorous prostitute in Breaking and Entering (2006), and a police psychiatrist in The Departed (2006).
In 2010, Farmiga received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Up in the Air (2009). In 2011, she made her directorial debut with the drama Higher Ground (2011), in which she also appeared in the leading role. Although the film had a limited release, Farmiga's direction and performance received attention at several festivals. In 2013, she began starring in the drama thriller series Bates Motel (2013), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in the first season. In 2019, she received a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie category, for her role in the drama miniseries When They See Us (2019).
Farmiga was formerly married to actor Sebastian Roché, whom she met during production of Roar (1997). The two eloped to the Bahamas after the series ended in 1997. They separated and subsequently divorced in 2004. On September 13, 2008, she married musician Renn Hawkey, with whom she has two children, son Fynn McDonnell (b. 2009) and daughter Gytta Lubov Hawkey (b. 2010). Farmiga lives with her family in Hudson Valley, New York. Her other activities, outside her acting profession, include reading, playing piano, boxing, jujitsu, and spending time with her pet angora goats.Great actress (who I always mix up with Claire Forlani, for some reason)!
Movie: "Running Scared"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring her future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organization, and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions as Great Expectations (1946) (as the spoiled, selfish Estella), Black Narcissus (1947) (as a sultry native beauty), Hamlet (1948) (playing Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's great Dane and earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950), among others.
In 1950, she married Stewart Granger, and that same year, she moved to Hollywood. While Granger was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures. Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances. Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by Angel Face (1952), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. To further punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount, where William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday (1953); the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn. A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio - she would be lent out. MGM cast her in the lead of Young Bess (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled Affair with a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.
Simmons went over to 20th Century Fox to play the female lead in The Robe (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was The Actress (1953) at MGM alongside Spencer Tracy, despite superb reviews; it was one of her personal favorites. Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's A Bullet Is Waiting (1954). More popular with moviegoers was Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary to Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte. Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). She then starred in the musical Guys and Dolls (1955) with Brando and Frank Sinatra; she used her own singing voice and earned her first Golden Globe Award. Simmons played the title role in Hilda Crane (1956) at Fox, a commercial failure. So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM. Simmons had a big success, though, in The Big Country (1958), directed by Wyler. She starred in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal.
Simmons divorced Granger in 1960 and almost immediately married writer-director Richard Brooks, who cast her as Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960), a memorable adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. That same year, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and played a would-be homewrecker opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960).
Off the screen for a few years, Jean captivated moviegoers with a brilliant performance as the mother in All the Way Home (1963), a literate, tasteful adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family". However, after that, she found quality projects somewhat harder to come by, and took work in Life at the Top (1965), Mister Buddwing (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), The Happy Ending (1969) (a Richard Brooks film for which she was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Actress).
Jean continued making films well into the 1970s. In the 1980s, she appeared mainly in television miniseries, such as North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and The Thorn Birds (1983). She made a comeback to films in 1995 in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) co-starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, and most recently voiced the elderly Sophie in the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She now resided in Santa Monica, California, with her dog, Mr. Gates, and her two cats, Adisson and Megan. Jean Simmons died of lung cancer on January 22, 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday.Classic beauty!
Movie: "Spartacus"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
This remarkable, one-of-a-kind actress has, since the early 1990s, intrigued film and TV audiences with her glowing, yet careworn eccentricity and old world-styled glamour. Very much in demand these days as a character player, Patricia Clarkson nevertheless continues to avoid the temptation of money-making mainstream filming while reaping kudos and acting awards in out-of-the-way projects.
The New Orleans born-and-bred performer with the given name of Patricia Davies Clarkson was born on December 29, 1959, the daughter of Arthur ("Buzz") Clarkson, a school administrator, and Jackie Clarkson, a local city politician and councilwoman. Patricia demonstrated an early interest in acting and managed to appear in a few junior high and high school-level plays while growing up. She took her basic college studies at Louisiana State University, studying speech for two years, before transferring to New York's Fordham University and graduating with honors in theatre arts.
Accepted into the prestigious Yale School of Drama graduate program, she earned her Master of Fine Arts after gracing a wide range of productions including "Electra," "Pericles," "Twelfth Night", "The Lower Depths," "The Misanthrope," "Pacific Overtures" and "La Ronde". From there she took on New York City where she attracted strong East Coast notice in 1986 for her portrayal of Corrina in "The House of Blue Leaves" and in such other plays as "Eastern Standard" (1988) and "Wolf-Man" (1989).
Known for her organic approach to acting, the flaxen-maned actress decided to try out her trademark whiskey voice in Hollywood at age 28, making her movie debut as Mrs. Eliot Ness in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) starring Kevin Costner. The following years she gained attention for playing Samantha Walker in The Dead Pool (1988) where she starred opposite Clint Eastwood's popular "Dirty Harry" character. Playing supportive, wifely types at the onset, she became a strong contender for character stardom by the mid-to-late 1990s, not only on stage but in the independent film arena.
On stage Patricia received impressive notices for her contributions to the plays "Raised in Captivity," "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan," "Three Days of Rain" and, in particular, "The Maiden's Prayer," which nabbed her both Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Award nominations. In 2004, she finally enacted the classic part she seemed born to play, that of Southern belle Blanche DuBois in the Kennedy Center production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". She earned glowing notices.
On camera she was offered roles of marked diversity. From the heavier dramatics of a film like Pharaoh's Army (1995), she could move deftly into light comedy, courtesy of Neil Simon in the TV-movie London Suite (1996). It was, however, her bleak, convulsive portrayal of Greta, a strung-out, heroin-happy German has-been actress, opposite a resurgent Ally Sheedy in the acclaimed art film High Art (1998) that truly put Patricia on the indie map. From this she was handed a silver plate's worth of excitingly offbeat roles. In 2003 alone, Patricia received a special acting prize at the Sundance Film Festival for her superb work in three films: as a somber, grieving artist in The Station Agent (2003), a cold-hearted cancer victim in Pieces of April (2003), and a jokey, get-with-it mom in All the Real Girls (2003). She was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar for the second film mentioned.
On TV Patricia received two Emmys for her recurring guest part as Frances Conroy's free-spirited sister in the acclaimed black comedy series Six Feet Under (2001). She also received the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics awards for her supporting work in the gorgeous, 1950s-styled melodrama Far from Heaven (2002), as a prim and proper Stepford-wife and deceptive friend to Julianne Moore.
No matter the size, such as her extended cameos in The Green Mile (1999), All the Real Girls (2003), Miracle (2004) and Elegy (2008), Patricia manages to make the most of whatever screen time she has, often stealing scenes effortlessly. Working for director/actor Woody Allen in a small but notable role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), he was impressed enough to promote her with a lead in a subsequent film Whatever Works (2009).
More recent work includes leads and supports in the films Vincent in Brixton (2003), Legendary (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Learning to Drive (2014), The Bookshop (2017), Delirium (2018), Out of Blue (2018), Almost Love (2019) and as the antagonist Ava Paige in the sci-fi thrillers The Maze Runner (2014), Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018). On TV, the never-married Patricia earned a supporting Golden Globe for her fine work in the mini-series Sharp Objects (2018) and had a strong recurring role on the political series House of Cards (2013).U can't have her career and not be TALENTED! Very good actress!
Movie: "The Station Agent"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Born in 1979 in London, England, actress Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike is the only child of a classical violinist mother, Caroline (Friend), and an opera singer father, Julian Pike. Due to her parents' work, she spent her early childhood traveling around Europe. Pike attended Badminton School in Bristol, England and began acting at the National Youth Theatre. While appearing in a National Youth Theatre production of "Romeo and Juliet", she was first spotted and signed by an agent, although she continued her education at Wadham College, Oxford, where she read English Literature, eventually graduating with an upper second class honors degree.
Pike appeared in a number of UK television series, including Wives and Daughters (1999), before scoring an auspicious feature film debut as the glacial beauty "Miranda Frost" in the James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002); when the film was released, she was only 23. Though her debut was a big-budget action film, the film work that followed was primarily in smaller, independent films, including Promised Land (2004), The Libertine (2004), (for which she won the Best Supporting Actress award at The British Independent Film Awards), and Pride & Prejudice (2005), as one of the Bennet daughters. A brief foray into Hollywood film followed with the action flick, Doom (2005), and the thriller, Fracture (2007), but she returned to smaller films with exceptional performances in three films: An Education (2009), Made in Dagenham (2010), and the lead opposite Paul Giamatti in Barney's Version (2010).
As she continued her stage work in England, Pike appeared in the spy spoof, Johnny English Reborn (2011), and inhabited the role of "Andromeda" in the sci-fi epic, Wrath of the Titans (2012). She returned to action films with the female lead opposite Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012).
Pike entered into a relationship with a mathematical researcher named Robie Uniacke in 2009. She gave birth to their first son, named Solo, in May 2012. She returned to acting and landed the coveted title role in Gone Girl (2014). The film became a critical and box-office hit, with Pike earning the film's sole Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She also earned nominations as Best Actress from Screen Actor's Guild, Golden Globes, and BAFTA. She gave birth to her second son with Uniacke in December 2014.I just love her work!
Movie: "Fracture"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Radha Mitchell (born 12 November 1973) is an Australian actress. She started her career acting in various Australian TV series and movies, and later became known for her appearance in Hollywood films. Mitchell, a native of Melbourne, began acting when she was still in high school and had her professional debut on the popular Australian soap, Neighbours (1985) in 1994. Two years later, she made her film debut in the romantic comedy Love and Other Catastrophes (1996), in which she starred as a college student experiencing a messy breakup. The film proved to be fairly popular in Australia, but it wasn't until she was cast in High Art (1998) that Mitchell gained an introduction to a wider audience. The critical success of "High Art" made it possible for her to do more international work, and her increasing popularity was reflected by her subsequent casting in a number of projects. Among them were Pitch Black (2000), a sci-fi horror film in which Mitchell played a pilot whose ship crashes on a hostile planet, and Everything Put Together (2000), a drama where she plays a suburban woman shunned by her peers after the death of her baby. Her career continued with a diverse run of films, including Nobody's Baby (2001), Man on Fire (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), and landing the lead in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (2004). Those last three films all hit the screens in 2004, and although kept working steadily, she never quite capitalized on the buzz she generated that year. Her other credits include Silent Hill (2006), Henry Poole Is Here (2008), Surrogates (2009) and The Crazies (2010).Flew "out-of-the-woodwork" actress, who just seems to get better with each picture!
Movie: "Pitch Black"!- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Olivia resides in New York City where she was born and raised. She has trained extensively in classical Shakespearian acting in New York at the American Globe Theatre, and in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She began acting professionally in 2003, and plans to pursue a career in both theater and film.This actress kinda snuck up on me!
Movie: "Juno"!- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Kaley Christine Cuoco was born in Camarillo, California, to Layne Ann (Wingate) and Gary Carmine Cuoco, a realtor. She is of Italian (father) and German and English (mother) descent. A model and commercial actress from the age of 6, Cuoco's first major role was in the TV movie Quicksand: No Escape (1992) with Donald Sutherland and Tim Matheson. Her other television credits include guest-starring on the series Ellen (1994) (where she played "little Ellen" to the Ellen DeGeneres character), Northern Exposure (1990), Don't Forget Your Toothbrush (1995) and My So-Called Life (1994). In addition, she played a leading role in the miniseries, Mr. Murder (1998). Cuoco has appeared in the feature films Lucky 13 (2005), Picture Perfect (1997) and Virtuosity (1995).
On stage, she has performed in Los Angeles-area productions of "Annie" and "Fiddler on the Roof". When she is not acting, Cuoco is an avid tennis player, who in earlier years had consistently been ranked well in Southern California Tennis Association standings as a member of a regional amateur division team. In addition, she enjoys spending time with friends, going to the mall, and hip-hop dancing.
Cuoco was home-schooled, and lived in Ventura County, California with her family. She was previously married to both tennis player Ryan Sweeting and Karl Cook. In early 2022 Cuoco began dating actor Tom Pelphrey. The two made their first public appearance as a couple at a Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in early May 2022.
Cuoco announced on Instagram in October 2022 the couple were expecting their first child together. She later on gave birth to their daughter, named Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey, on 30 March 2023.New (to MY observation) actress, who just may have that extra "something", that allows her to take that next GIANT step!
TV: "The Big Bang Theory"!- Actress
- Producer
Leonor Varela was born on December 29, 1972 in Santiago de Chile, Chile, the daughter of Leonor Palma, a massage therapist, and Francisco Varela (Francisco Javier Varela Garcia), a biologist, neuroscientist, and philosopher. Her family fled to Costa Rica, leaving behind the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. They subsequently resided in Germany, USA, and France, where Varela studied.
In the '90s she appears in the Chilean soap Tic Tac (1997), and in other French and Europeans productions like Pony Trek (1995), Sous le soleil (1996), Shooting Stars (1997), A Legend to Ride (1997), Le juste (1996), or Bouge! (1997). Her career in Holywood began in 1998, when she joined the cast of The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) when she starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, and she appeared in The Bible Collection: Jeremiah (1998) opposite Patrick Dempsey. The following year (1999), she played the title character in the ABC TV movie "Cleopatra" (1999) (TV) opposite her future fiancé Billy Zane and Timothy Dalton
She appeared in The Tailor of Panama (2001) as Marta and in Texas Rangers (2001) as Perdita opposite Ashton Kutcher. In 2002 she appeared as the fanged vampire princess Nyssa in the action film Blade II (2002) opposite Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson and directed by Guillermo del Toro. After that came Paraíso B (2002) as Gloria and in Pas si grave (2003) as Angela.
Varela also had a short recurring role in the Fox Television show Arrested Development (2003) as the original Marta. She was nominated for the Ariel Award in 2005 in the category of Best Actress for Innocent Voices (2004). She also had a non-recurring role in Stargate: Atlantis (2004).
In 2005 she appeared playing Adela in Americano (2005), and her following projects included Goal II: Living the Dream (2007) as the journalist Jordana Garcia, Where God Left His Shoes (2007) with John Leguizamo and the TV series produced by Jennifer Lopez Como ama una mujer (2007).
In the 2008 Sundance Film Festival she screened Sleep Dealer (2008) and the Larry Bishop's Hell Ride (2008), opposite Michael Madsen and Eric Balfour and produced by Quentin Tarantino.Very beautiful actress, who needs (rather badly) a new profile picture AND more work!
Movie: "Blade II"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964 in the Italian village of Città di Castello, Umbria, the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci. She originally pursued a career in the legal profession. While attending the University of Perugia, she modeled on the side to earn money for school, and this led to her modeling career. In 1988, she moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, and joined Elite Model Management. Although enjoying great success as a model, she made her acting debut on television in 1990, and her American film debut in Bram Stoker's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Her role in the French thriller The Apartment (1996), shot her to stardom as she won the French equivalent of an Oscar nomination. Other credits include Malena (2000), Under Suspicion (2000) and Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001).Yum-yum! She's been around for ages and can act circles around most of what passes for "actresses" today!
Movie: "Shoot 'em Up"!- Actress
- Producer
Michelle Lynn Monaghan was born on March 23, 1976, in Winthrop, Iowa. She is the youngest of three children and the only daughter of Sharon (Hamel), who ran a day care center, and Robert L. Monaghan, a factory worker and farmer. She is of mostly Irish and German descent. After graduating from high school in Iowa, she studied journalism for three years at Chicago's Columbia College. In order to pay for college, she took a job as a model. In 1999, she quit college and moved to New York to work full-time as a fashion model. She traveled the world doing stints on the runways in Milan, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and also appeared in a number of magazines and catalogs.
In 2000, she made her TV debut in two episodes of Young Americans (2000), then appeared in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). She made her big screen debut with a small role of Henrietta in Perfume (2001). Monaghan shot to fame in 2002 when she co-starred as Kimberly Woods for one season on the TV series Boston Public (2000). After appearances in several supporting roles, she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer in the black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). Later in 2005, Monaghan was filming in China, Italy, and the United States on Mission: Impossible III (2006), as the female lead opposite Tom Cruise.
In August of 2005, in Sydney, Australia, she married her long-time sweetheart, Peter White, a New York based graphic designer, whom she met at a Manhattan party five years earlier.I really think that, with a few very meaty roles, this actress could fall into "Oscar" territory? I.M.O., she could be THAT good!
Movie: "Trucker"!- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Madeleine Stowe was born in Los Angeles, California, to Mireya Maria (Mora Steinvorth) and Robert Alfred Stowe, a civil engineer. Her mother was a from a prominent political family in Costa Rica. Stowe grew up in Eagle Rock, a working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles. At age ten she started practicing for a career as a concert pianist and trained every day for hours. However, when her instructor died in 1976 she more or less quit playing.
She went to University of Southern California and studied cinema and journalism before taking up acting at Beverly Hills' Solaris Theater. She made a few appearances in TV and on film but her breakthrough came in 1987 with Stakeout (1987). Other major credits include The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Short Cuts (1993).
When not filming, she spends her time at her ranch in Texas, which she shares with her husband Brian Benben.Great, beautiful actress ... what has happened to her?
Movie: "Bad Girls"!- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Shiri jumped in front of the lens as a youngster appearing in Norman Lear Sunday Dinner and Lawrence Kasden's I Love You To Death. At 19 she had her breakout performance on the series Roswell, playing the leading role of Liz Parker. She went on to appear in ER, Six Degrees, as well as Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War, HBO's GIRLS, CW's Life Unexpected, before starring in Lifetime's critically acclaimed dramady UnReal, playing Rachel Goldberg, a producer working behind the scenes of a dating competition show, which received the Peabody Award. In 2016, Shiri was nominated for a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress for her work on the show. Shiri directed four episodes of UnReal before focusing most of her attention on directing. Shiri has directed shows such as Minx, UnPrisoned, Blackish, New Amsterdam, Young Sheldon, and many others, across all platforms.Why is Ms. Appleby SO under-rated AND under-utilized! This is a GREAT actress ... (i.m.o.)!!!
Movie: "Swimfan"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Kate Mara is an American actress. She starred in the Netflix political drama House of Cards (2013) as Zoe Barnes and appeared in the Fox TV series 24 (2001) as computer analyst Shari Rothenberg. She appeared in Brokeback Mountain (2005), We Are Marshall (2006), Shooter (2007), Transsiberian (2008), Stone of Destiny (2008), The Open Road (2009), Transcendence (2014), and Fantastic Four (2015) as the Invisible Woman. She also appeared in the FX horror mini-series American Horror Story (2011) as Hayden McClaine. Mara's film debut was in Random Hearts (1999), with Harrison Ford in 1999, directed by Sydney Pollack. In 2015, she also had a supporting role as astronaut "Beth Johanssen" in director Ridley Scott's film The Martian (2015). In the same year, she also starred as Ashley Smith in the movie Captive (2015).
Mara also starred in Morgan (2016), Megan Leavey (2017) and My Days of Mercy (2017).
Kate was born in Bedford, New York. She is one of four children of Kathleen McNulty (Rooney) and NFL football team New York Giants executive Timothy Christopher Mara. Her younger sister is actress Rooney Mara.
Her grandfathers were Wellington Mara, co-owner of the Giants, and Timothy Rooney, owner of Yonkers Raceway, and her grand-uncle is Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the former US Ambassador to Ireland. She is the great-granddaughter of Art Rooney Sr., the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise. She often sings the national anthem at Giants home games. Her father has Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry, and her mother is of Irish and Italian descent.
Mara graduated from high school a year early. She was accepted at the prestigious NYU Tisch School of the Arts but deferred her admission for three consecutive years.Just waiting to see who the better actress is ... she, or her sister Rooney!
Movie: "Shooter"!- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
A veteran of Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade, Brooke Langton has been working in the film industry for 30 years. A series regular on many television shows (Extreme, Melrose Place, The Net, Life, Glenn Gordon Caron's series Fling), a recurring character on the acclaimed Friday Night Lights, and most recently on TNT's The Last Ship, she starred opposite Gene Hackman in The Replacements, and played the infamous Nikki in Doug Liman's Swingers. Langton also produced and starred in the period piece Beautiful Dreamer.Hot, AND ... not a bad actress! Why does she not get more work ?!?
Movie: "The Replacements"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, eventually moving to New York where she acted on the stage (including a Tony-award nomination in 1987 for her work in the Broadway play "Coastal Disturbances") and got her first film roles, in a few TV movies.
As is so often the case, her first big-screen role was in a forgettable movie, this one The Great Outdoors (1988), in which she had little screen time. However, her next work onscreen was in Milos Forman's Valmont (1989), a film adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' "Les Liaisons Dangereuses". Unfortunately, de Laclos' story had also just served as the source of a more Hollywoodized and successful movie version, Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which had been released the previous year, and Foreman's treatment went little noticed. Bening's career turned an important corner the following year when she co-starred with Anjelica Huston and John Cusack in Stephen Frears's powerful, entertaining screen adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel The Grifters (1990), and her artful turn as a con artist gained her the first of several Academy award nominations. On the strength of this performance Warren Beatty cast Bening as Virginia Hill, Bugsy Siegel's fiery actress moll, in his Bugsy (1991), the story of Siegel's founding of Las Vegas. Although the movie itself did not fare well, it resulted in a relationship with Beatty which led to Bening's pregnancy and then her marriage to Beatty in 1992 - it was the second marriage for Bening, who had been separated from her first husband since 1986 but did not finalize her divorce until 1991. The couple then collaborated on the extravagant flop Love Affair (1994), though the next year her career rebounded with her turn as Queen Elizabeth in the highly-regarded 1995 production of Richard III (1995). Notable performances have since included an obsessive, pushy real estate agent in American Beauty (1999), and as the eponymous character in István Szabó's screen adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel Being Julia (2004) - both were duly noted by the Academy, with Oscar nominations.
Bening has great poise and screen presence and, at her best, can turn in a very strong performance. Although her resume often features long stretches of mediocre productions before the next good part turns up, when it does, it proves worth the wait. Bening has four children with Beatty.Just an "out-and-out" GREAT actress!
Movie: "The Siege"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. Halle first came into the spotlight at seventeen years when she won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, representing the state of Ohio in 1985 and, a year later in 1986, when she was the first runner-up in the Miss U.S.A. Pageant. After participating in the pageant, Halle became a model. It eventually led to her first weekly TV series, 1989's Living Dolls (1989), where she soon gained a reputation for her on-set tenacity, preferring to "live" her roles and remaining in character even when the cameras stopped rolling. It paid off though when she reportedly refused to bathe for several days before starting work on her role as a crack addict in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991) because the role provided her big screen breakthrough. The following year, she was cast as Eddie Murphy's love interest in Boomerang (1992), one of the few times that Murphy was evenly matched on screen. In 1994, Berry gained a youthful following for her performance as sexy secretary "Sharon Stone" in The Flintstones (1994). She next had a highly publicized starring role with Jessica Lange in the adoption drama Losing Isaiah (1995). Though the movie received mixed reviews, Berry didn't let that slow her down, and continued down her path to super-stardom.
In 1998, she received critical success when she starred as a street smart young woman who takes up with a struggling politician in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998). The following year, she won even greater acclaim for her role as actress Dorothy Dandridge in made-for-cable's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. In 2000, she received box office success in X-Men (2000) in which she played "Storm", a mutant who has the ability to control the weather. In 2001, she starred in the thriller Swordfish (2001), and became the first African-American to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards, for her role as a grieving mother in the drama Monster's Ball (2001).Another GREAT actress ... and, HOT, to boot !!!
Movie: "Gothika"!- Producer
- Actress
- Director
Since melting audiences' hearts at the age of just six in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most beloved and singularly gifted actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore, the clutches of fame were near inescapable for young Drew, her father being a member of the esteemed showbiz dynasty fronted by stage star Maurice Barrymore, his thespian wife Georgiana and their three children: Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, and John Barrymore.
Tailgating a turbulent adolescence that saw her grapple with insobriety, substance abuse, and cutthroat media vitriol, a diligent Barrymore threw herself into her career throughout the early-mid nineties, first with a succession of 'bad girl' parts in cultish B-pictures like Poison Ivy (1992), Guncrazy (1992) and - fittingly - Bad Girls (1994); then warmly received turns in prestige vehicles such as Boys on the Side (1995), Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and Wes Craven's game-changing Scream (1996). Equal portions of goofball - The Wedding Singer (1998), Never Been Kissed (1999), Charlie's Angels (2000) - and gravitas - Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), Donnie Darko (2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) - came next, with a Golden Globe-grabbing pièce de résistance - her divine incarnation of Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009) - confirming that her skill set was every bit as forceful and far-reaching as imagined.
Having already set in motion a bunch of lucrative projects via production house Flower Films (co-est. with Nancy Juvonen in '95), Barrymore fastened an additional string to her bow when she spearheaded the sports dramedy Whip It (2009), her glowingly appraised directorial debut. Fresh off a healthy run of movie parts at the launch of the 2010s, her star turn as zombified suburban realtor Sheila Hammond - a tour de force at once dizzy and detailed - on Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet (2017) saw her step with trademark resolve into newer territory still: the flourishing world of small screen entertainment, a metamorphosis she continues to espouse with her role as compère of spirited daytime staple The Drew Barrymore Show (2020).One of the VERY few "female" actors ... to successfully make the jump from child actress to "adult" actress! Still going strong, too !!!
Movie: "50 First Dates"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Goldie Jeanne Hawn was born November 21, 1945 in Washington, D.C. to Laura Hawn, who owned a dance school, and Rut Hawn, a band musician. She has one sister, entertainment publicist Patti Hawn; a brother, Edward, died in infancy before her birth. She was raised in the Jewish religion. Her mother was Jewish and the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. Her father was Presbyterian. At the age of three, Goldie began taking ballet and tap dance lessons, and at the age of ten she danced in the chorus of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of "The Nutcracker". At the age of 19 she ran and instructed a ballet school, having dropped out of college where she was majoring in drama. Before going into the film business she worked as a professional dancer.
Hawn made her feature film debut in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), with a small role as a giggling dancer. Her first big role came in 1969, where she played opposite Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman in Cactus Flower (1969), a role which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. After the Oscar win her career took off and she followed with roles in successful comedies such as There's a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Shampoo (1975), and more dramatic roles in The Girl from Petrovka (1974) and The Sugarland Express (1974). In 1978, she starred alongside Chevy Chase in the box office hit, Foul Play (1978). In 1980 she starred in another box office hit, Private Benjamin (1980), where she also served as producer. During the 1980s she starred in hit movies such as Best Friends (1982), Protocol (1984) and Wildcats (1986). In 1987, she appeared with her boyfriend Kurt Russell in Overboard (1987), which became both a critical and box office disappointment. Her career slowed down after that until 1990 when she starred alongside Mel Gibson in Bird on a Wire (1990). In 1992 she starred in the successful film, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Meryl Streep and Bruce Willis, which was followed by another successful film HouseSitter (1992), which co-starred Steve Martin. In 1996 she played the role of an aging alcoholic actress in the comedy, The First Wives Club (1996), with Diane Keaton and Bette Midler; it became a critical and financial success. She also starred in the Woody Allen film Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and The Out-of-Towners (1999), which reunited her with Martin. In 2001 and 2002 she starred in Town & Country (2001) with Warren Beatty, and The Banger Sisters (2002) with Susan Sarandon.
Goldie has been married twice. First to dancer/director Gus Trikonis from 1969 to 1973. In 1976 she married musician Bill Hudson and became a mother for the first time that year, when she gave birth to their son Oliver Hudson. In 1979, she had her second child with Hudson, daughter Kate Hudson. The marriage ended in divorce in 1980. Since 1983, she has been having a relationship with actor Kurt Russell. Their son Wyatt Russell was born in 1986. Goldie is also a de-facto stepmother to Kurt's son Boston Russell. She has eight grandchildren.Fine actress who hasn't been getting her fair share of work lately (and, it IS a crying shame)!!!
Movie: "Overboard"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, to actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow. Her father was Greek, and her mother was of English, Irish, Scottish, and Italian descent. Jennifer spent a year of her childhood living in Greece with her family. Her family then relocated to New York City where her parents divorced when she was nine. Jennifer was raised by her mother and her father landed a role, as "Victor Kiriakis", on the daytime soap Days of Our Lives (1965). Jennifer had her first taste of acting at age 11 when she joined the Rudolf Steiner School's drama club. It was also at the Rudolf Steiner School that she developed her passion for art. She began her professional training as a drama student at New York's School of Performing Arts, aka the "Fame" school. It was a division of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts. In 1987, after graduation, she appeared in such Off-Broadway productions as "For Dear Life" and "Dancing on Checker's Grave". In 1990, she landed her first television role, as a series regular on Molloy (1990). She also appeared in The Edge (1992), Ferris Bueller (1990), and had a recurring part on Herman's Head (1991). By 1993, she was floundering. Then, in 1994, a pilot called "Friends Like These" came along. Originally asked to audition for the role of "Monica", Aniston refused and auditioned for the role of "Rachel Green", the suburban princess turned coffee peddler. With the success of the series Friends (1994), Jennifer has become famous and sought-after as she turns her fame into movie roles during the series hiatus.Great "comedy" actress!
Movie: "Along Came Polly"!- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Lili Taylor is a well-known and successful American actress. She acts in film, TV and stage. She was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Marie (Lecour) and George Park Taylor, an artist and hardware store operator. Lili graduated from New Trier High School in 1985. Then, she attended the Theatre School at DePaul University and the Piven Theatre Workshop. Lili first earned fame for acting in the 1988 movie, Mystic Pizza (1988), which co-starred Julia Roberts. Then, she acted in a number of successful movies, including Dogfight (1991) and Short Cuts (1993). But, she was more highly recognized for appearing in the 1996 film, I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), for which she was nominated for several awards. Lili's notable works for television include the TV series, Six Feet Under (2001), and in the television movies, Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) and Live from Baghdad (2002). In 2009, she played "Sheriff Lillian Holley" in the movie, Public Enemies (2009). The movie co-starred Johnny Depp, with whom Lili also appeared in the 1993 movie, Arizona Dream (1993). Lili is also a successful stage actress. She has appeared in a number of plays staged on Broadway, including "The Three Sisters" (1997). Lili Taylor continues to act in stage, TV and film. She is married to Nick Flynn and they have a daughter.Has ALWAYS been a fine actress! When will that "Oscar" role come along ???
Movie: "Dogfight"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Judy Greer was born and raised outside of Detroit, Michigan, as Judith Therese Evans. She is the daughter of Mollie Ann (née Greer), a hospital administrator and former nun, and Richard Evans, a mechanical engineer. She has German, Irish, English, Welsh, and Scottish ancestry. After training for nearly ten years in classical Russian ballet, Greer shifted her interest to acting and was accepted into Chicago's prestigious Theatre School at DePaul University.
After a variety of odd jobs during college, from telemarketer to oyster shucker, Greer landed her first on-screen role just three days after graduation -- a small part in the Jason Lee-David Schwimmer comedy Kissing a Fool (1998). She flew to Los Angeles for the film's premiere and never left. Greer quickly landed a role in the dark comedy Jawbreaker (1999), with Rose McGowan and Rebecca Gayheart. Greer starred as a school wallflower-turned-babe in a story about high school girls who accidentally kill their best friend and try to cover up the murder.
She went on to play a news correspondent in David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999), landing a memorable opening love scene with George Clooney. Her performance caught the eye of Hollywood, and she appeared next in Mike Nichols's What Planet Are You From? (2000) as a flight attendant opposite Garry Shandling. Her television credits include a recurring role as Jason Bateman's assistant Kitty on Fox's Arrested Development (2003), as well as guest-starring roles on Love & Money (1999), Maggie Winters (1998), and Early Edition (1996).
Greer starred opposite Jennifer Garner in Columbia Pictures' romantic comedy 13 Going on 30 (2004), directed by Gary Winick. Greer played an office colleague alongside Garner's character, with whom she shares a checkered past.
She co-starred in writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's The Village (2004), opposite Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sigourney Weaver, and William Hurt. Set in 1897, the film revolves around a close-knit community that lives with the knowledge that a mythical race of creatures resides in the woods surrounding them. The Village (2004) was released July 30, 2004, by Touchtone Pictures. Greer also co-starred in director Wes Craven's Cursed (2005), a modern twist on the classic werewolf tale written by Kevin Williamson. The busy actress also landed a co-starring role opposite Orlando Bloom and Susan Sarandon in writer-director Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown (2005), playing the sister of Bloom's character and daughter of Sarandon's character.
She also joined Jeff Bridges and Jeanne Tripplehorn in the independent film The Amateurs (2005) by writer-director Michael Traeger. The film revolves around a motley group of friends who band together to make an amateur porn film. Greer plays a young temptress at the local mattress store who secures a role in the movie by allowing the store to be used as a film location.
Greer wrapped production in New York on a co-starring role opposite Tom McCarthy ("The Station Agent") in Danny Leiner's The Great New Wonderful (2005) for Serenade Films/Sly Dog Films. The dark comedy tells five different stories against the backdrop of an uncertain post-September 11 New York. The cast also includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, Edie Falco and Tony Shalhoub.
She also appeared in writer-director Adam Goldberg's psychological drama I Love Your Work (2003), opposite Giovanni Ribisi. The film is about a fictional movie star (Ribisi) and his gradual meltdown and increasing obsession with a young film student and his girlfriend. The stellar cast also included Franka Potente, Christina Ricci, and Jason Lee and debuted at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. In the film, Greer plays Samantha, the personal assistant of Ribisi's character.
Greer had a starring role as the female lead role in the comedy The Hebrew Hammer (2003) as the feisty, fearless Esther, who joins forces with an Orthodox Jewish Blaxploitation hero (Adam Goldberg) to save Hanukkah from an evil son of Santa Claus (Andy Dick). The Hebrew Hammer (2003) debuted at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on Comedy Central followed by a theatrical release.
She also appeared in Adaptation. (2002), from director Spike Jonze. In the film, Nicolas Cage stars as self-loathing writer Charlie Kaufman (and twin brother Donald) as he attempts to adapt the novel "The Orchid Thief" for the big screen. Greer played Alice, the waitress with whom he becomes obsessed -- the object of his fantasies.
Greer turned in a scene-stealing comedic performance in The Wedding Planner (2001), with Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey, in which she played Penny, Lopez's sweet but ditsy assistant who tries hard, but often falls a little short. Equally adept at more dramatic roles, Greer gave a standout performance opposite Mel Gibson in What Women Want (2000), playing a suicidal file clerk rescued by the one man who can hear women's thoughts. Greer's pivotal scene with Gibson is the heart of the film.
With a genuine gift for comedy and an engaging on-screen presence, Judy Greer has quickly become one of Hollywood's most captivating talents. Having appeared in such diverse films as Jawbreaker (1999), What Women Want (2000), The Wedding Planner (2001), Adaptation. (2002), and Wilson (2017) as well as a number of upcoming feature film projects, Greer turns in scene-stealing performances opposite some of the industry's biggest stars.Fantastic "second-fiddle" actress ... She should get more chances to "carry" a film (which, she sometimes DOES, even tho she's "2nd-banana" to some other "star")!
Movie: "13 Going on 30"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
New Yorker Claire Catherine Danes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Carla (Hall), a day-care provider and artist, and Christopher Danes, a computer consultant and photographer. She has an older brother, Asa. Her paternal grandfather, Gibson Andrew Danes, was a Dean of the Yale School of Art and Architecture. She is of mostly German and British Isles descent.
Claire was educated at Dalton School, New York, The New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies, The Professional Performing Arts School and Lycée Français de Los Angeles. From 1998, she attended Yale University, studying psychology, but dropped out after two years to concentrate on her acting career.
Danes first came to major public attention when she appeared as "Angela Chase" in My So-Called Life (1994). She won an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for this performance. A successful film career followed, including the role of "Juliet", opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996). She continued acting in such varied project as The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and Stardust (2007).
In 2010, she appeared in the HBO Production, Temple Grandin (2010), playing the title character. She received huge critical acclaim for the role, and won an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Since 2011, she has starred on the SHOWTIME series Homeland (2011), receiving great critical acclaim and winning Emmys and Golden Globes.Been a favorite for a while, now ... under-rated!
Movie: "Shopgirl"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Tina Majorino has been charming audiences on the silver screen from a young age. In 1994, she made her feature film debut in Touchstone's When A Man Loves a Woman playing Meg Ryan & Andy Garcia's daughter, followed quickly that same year by New Line's Corrina, Corinna (opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Ray Liotta) and Paramount's Andre (in which she starred as "Toni Whitney"). While her career began in national television commercials and with the ABC television series Camp Wilder, the film trifecta firmly established Majorino as a breakout performer. She would go on to co-star in Universal's Waterworld (playing "Enola" opposite Kevin Costner), and she played "Alice" in the NBC movie Alice in Wonderland, alongside Whoopi Goldberg again (as the "Cheshire Cat"), Christopher Lloyd ("White Knight"), Miranda Richardson ("Queen of Hearts"), and Martin Short ("Mad Hatter"). In 2004, Majorino starred as "Deb" in the smash hit Napoleon Dynamite alongside Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, and Jon Gries. The film became an overnight cult classic and remains one of her favorite roles. On the small screen, her television credits include Grey's Anatomy, Scorpion, True Blood, Big Love, Bones, Veronica Mars, and Legends, among many others.Should be getting MUCH more work ... fine actress!
Movie: "Napoleon Dynamite"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Cameron Diaz, an American actress, was born in 1972 in San Diego, the daughter of a Cuban-American father and a German mother. Self described as "adventurous, independent and a tough kid," Cameron left home at 16 and for the next 5 years lived in such varied locales as Japan, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, and Paris. Returning to California at the age of 21, she was working as a model when she auditioned for a big part in The Mask (1994). To her amazement and despite having no previous acting experience, she was cast as the female lead in the film opposite Jim Carrey. Over the next 3 years, she honed her acting skills in such low budget independent films as The Last Supper (1995); Feeling Minnesota (1996); and Head Above Water (1996). She returned to main stream films in My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), in which she held her own against veteran actress Julia Roberts. She earned full fledged star status in 1998 for her performance in the box office smash There's Something About Mary (1998). Cameron Diaz appears to possess everything necessary to become one of the super stars of the new century.Great actress ... tho, better at "comedy" roles than anything else!
Movie: "There's Something About Mary"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress and singer. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy (2001). She played a prostitute in Hustle & Flow (2005), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination; and a single mother of a disabled child in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), for which she received Academy Award, SAG Award and Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In 2010, she appeared in the action comedy Date Night, and co-starred in the remake of The Karate Kid.Great actress!
Movie: "Four Brothers"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Viola Davis is a critically revered actress of film, television, and theater and has won rave reviews for her multitude of substantial and intriguingly diverse roles. Audiences across the United States and internationally have admired her for her work- including her celebrated, Oscar-nominated performances in The Help (2011), Doubt (2008), and her Oscar winning performance in Fences (2016). In 2015, Davis won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her work in ABC's How To Get Away With Murder, making her the first black woman in history to take home the award. In addition to acting, Viola currently produces alongside her husband and producing partner, Julius Tennon, through their JuVee Productions banner. Together they have produced award-garnering productions across theater, television, and film.She can do no wrong (in my book)!!!
Movie: "Doubt"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series Get Real (1999). She gained widespread recognition for her roles in The Princess Diaries (2001) and its 2004 sequel as a young girl who discovers she is a member of royalty, opposite Julie Andrews and Heather Matarazzo.
She also had a notable role in Nicholas Nickleby (2002) opposite Charlie Hunnam and Jamie Bell, and a starring role in Ella Enchanted (2004). A former top-ranking soprano in New York, Hathaway was reportedly a front-runner for the role of "Christine" in the 2004 The Phantom of the Opera (2004). However, due to scheduling conflicts with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she couldn't take the role, which was later given to newcomer Emmy Rossum.
Hathaway soon started to move away from family-friendly films. Following The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she appeared topless in the films Havoc (2005) opposite Josh Peck and Brokeback Mountain (2005) opposite Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Her desire to break out of her "Princess Diaries" image parallels that of her one-time co-star, Julie Andrews, who went topless in the film S.O.B. (1981) in order to break away from the image she created from her 1960s musicals. In interviews, Hathaway said that doing family-friendly films didn't mean she was similar to their characters or mean she objected to appearing nude in other films.I am "slowly" being won over ...
Movie: "The Devil Wears Prada"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Emily Erin Deschanel (born October 11, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is best known for starring in the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama series Bones as Dr. Temperance Brennan since 2005.
Deschanel was born in Los Angeles, California, to cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir). Her younger sister is actress and singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel. Her paternal grandfather was French, from Oullins, Rhône; her ancestry also includes Swiss, Dutch, English, Irish, and other French roots.
Deschanel attended Harvard-Westlake and Crossroads School in Los Angeles before graduating from Boston University's Professional Actors Training Program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater.
In 1994, Deschanel made her feature film debut in It Could Happen to You. Her next notable role was in Stephen King's Rose Red in 2002. Then she appeared in Cold Mountain, The Alamo, and Glory Road and was named one of "six actresses to watch" by Interview Magazine in 2004.
In 2005, Deschanel won the role of Dr. Temperance Brennan with David Boreanaz as FBI agent Seeley Booth on the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama Bones, based on the novels and the career of forensic anthropologist and author Kathy Reichs that premiered on September 13, 2005. For her performance, she received a 2006 Satellite Award nomination and a 2007 Teen Choice Award nomination. Deschanel and Boreanaz served as co-producers at the start of the show's third season, before becoming producers in the middle of the show's fourth season.
Deschanel, with Alyson Hannigan, Jaime King, Minka Kelly, and Katharine McPhee made a video slumber party featured on FunnyorDie.com to promote regular breast cancer screenings for the organization Stand Up 2 Cancer. In recent years, her passion for animal welfare has led her to providing the narration for My Child Is a Monkey and serving as an associate producer on the documentary film How I Became an Elephant. Deschanel ranked number 72 in The 2012 Hot 100 on AfterEllen.
Deschanel is a vegan and a committed supporter of animal rights causes. She can be seen in an Access Hollywood video at the book launch event of Karen Dawn's Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals, discussing how vegetarian and vegan diets help the environment, and a video on the homepage of the book's website talking about the importance of animal rights. She collaborated with PETA on a video encouraging mothers to raise their children as vegans. In September 2014, she joined the board of directors at Farm Sanctuary.
Deschanel was raised Roman Catholic, but is no longer practicing, and has expressed agnostic views, saying "I am more of a spiritual person, if anything, and I am of the belief that we don't know, and I'm not going to pretend that I do."
On September 25, 2010, Deschanel married It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor and writer David Hornsby in a small private ceremony in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. On September 21, 2011, Deschanel gave birth to their son Henry Lamar Hornsby. On June 8, 2015, she gave birth to their second son, Calvin.
Deschanel is best friends with her Bones co-star Michaela Conlin, who plays her best friend Angela Montenegro on the show; she is also friends with her Bones co-star David Boreanaz with whom she has a strong working relationship.Earns a spot on my list for ONE role in particular (and, she is FANTASTIC in this role) ... Bones !!!
TV: "Bones"!- Actress
- Producer
Elizabeth Mitchell was born in Los Angeles in 1970. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved to Dallas, Texas. She was graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. Later, she earned a BFA degree in acting from Stephens College and also studied at the British American Drama Academy. Additionally, she spent six years at the respected Dallas Theatre Center and one year with that theater's Encore Company. Before her big screen debut, she started her acting career from theaters. Her theatrical stage credits include productions of "As You Like It", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "Measure for Measure", "Baby" and "Chicago", among many others.
Her breakthrough performance was opposite Angelina Jolie in Michael Cristofer's acclaimed HBO telefilm Gia (1998) endearing her to audiences and critics, alike. Following with the sci-fi time-travel adventure, Frequency (2000) with Dennis Quaid and Neil LaBute's highly anticipated Nurse Betty (2000) opposite Renée Zellweger, Elizabeth showed her charismatic acting skills. With numerous credits from theaters, TV series and movies, Elizabeth Mitchell continues to give her best in the acting field.Excellent in every role she's ever played ... should be more popular than she is!
Movie: "Gia"!- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Eva Mendes is an American actress, model and businesswoman. She began acting in the late 1990s. After a series of roles in B movies such as Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) and Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), she made a career-changing appearance in Training Day (2001). Since then, Mendes has co-starred in films such as All About the Benjamins (2002), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Ghost Rider (2007), We Own the Night (2007), Stuck on You (2003), Hitch (2005), opposite Will Smith. and The Other Guys (2010). She has appeared in several music videos for artists like Will Smith. Mendes has been a model and ambassador for Cocio chocolate milk, Magnum ice cream, Calvin Klein, Cartier, Thierry Mugler perfume, Reebok, Campari apéritif, Pantene shampoo, Morgan, and Peek & Cloppenburg. She designs a fashion collection for New York & Company and is also the creative director of CIRCA Beauty, a makeup line sold at Walgreens.
Eva de la Caridad Méndez was born in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents Eva Pérez Suárez and Juan Carlos Méndez, and was raised by her mother in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake after her parents' divorce. Mendes grew up a Roman Catholic and at one time even considered becoming a Catholic nun. Her mother worked at Mann's Chinese Theatre and later for an aerospace company, and her father ran a meat distribution business. Mendes had one older brother, Juan Carlos Méndez, Jr. (1963-2016), who died from throat cancer. She has an older sister, Janet, and a younger paternal half-brother, Carlos Alberto "Carlo" Méndez. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale, and later studied marketing at California State University, Northridge, but left college to pursue acting under coach Ivana Chubbuck. Mendes began her acting career after a talent manager saw her photo in a friend's portfolio. Her first film appearance was in the direct-to-video Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998). Mendes was disappointed in her performance and she hired an acting coach. She then appeared in the films A Night at the Roxbury, My Brother the Pig, Urban Legends: Final Cut, and Exit Wounds. Mendes' breakthrough role came when she appeared in Antoine Fuqua's crime thriller Training Day (2001), playing the girlfriend of Denzel Washington's character. This then led to roles in All About the Benjamins (2002), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) (which earned her a nomination at the Teen Choice Awards), Out of Time (2003), and Stuck on You (2003).
She was the female lead in the 2005 film Hitch, making her one of the first minority actors to play the lead in a hit romantic comedy. Mendes subsequently starred in The Wendell Baker Story (2005) with Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell, with Luke Wilson directing, as well as Guilty Hearts (2002), Trust the Man (2005), Ghost Rider (2007), We Own the Night (2007), Live! (2007), and Cleaner (2007). In 2008, she was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her performance in the all-female comedy film The Women. Mendes then appeared in The Spirit, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The Other Guys (2010), Last Night (2010), Fast Five (2011), and a spoof short film for Funny or Die. In 2012, Mendes visited Sierra Leone and was featured in the PBS documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. In 2012, she starred in the crime drama film The Place Beyond the Pines, with Entertainment Weekly describing her performance as "quietly heartbreaking". The following year, she appeared in the HBO comedy film Clear History (2013). Mendes appeared in the Pet Shop Boys' music video for "Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)" in 1996, Aerosmith's music video for "Hole in My Soul" in 1997, and Will Smith's music video for "Miami" in 1998.
She also appeared in the music video for The Strokes' "The End Has No End" in 2004, and appeared nude in a print advertisement for Calvin Klein's Secret Obsession perfume, an ad which was banned in the United States. In December 2007, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) used a nude photo of Mendes for their anti-fur campaign. She also modeled in a Morgan campaign. Mendes was a spokesmodel for the 2008 Campari calendar. In July 2008, she was announced as the international face of Australia's 30 Days of Fashion & Beauty event. She made guest appearances in that country at the month-long festival in September. Mendes has been a spokesperson for Calvin Klein, Magnum, and the chocolate milk brand Cocio. She also promoted Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance, Reebok shoes, and Pantene shampoo. In 2011, Mendes appeared in a Peek & Cloppenburg clothing catalog. Mendes has a line of bed linens and dinnerware that is sold at Macy's. In 2010, Mendes sang on "Pimps Don't Cry," a song featured in The Other Guys, and performed a duet with CeeLo Green on "Pimps Don't Cry." In 2011, she recorded a version of "The Windmills of Your Mind."
Along with acting, Eva is employed by Revlon Cosmetics as an international spokeswoman. She joins such elite actresses and models as Julianne Moore, Halle Berry and Cindy Crawford, who appear in Revlon's television and print ads. She is also a passionate supporter and active participant in Revlon's fight against breast cancer. Eva's goals are to improve her acting skills by working with such contemporary directors as Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze, Pedro Almodóvar, Robert Rodriguez, Carl Franklin, John Singleton, and Antoine Fuqua and learning from such renowned directors as Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.
She was the creative director of the makeup brand CIRCA Beauty, which launched exclusively at Walgreens in 2015.
Eva has two children with her partner Ryan Gosling.Great actress!
Movie: "2 Fast 2 Furious"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has captivated audiences and won acclaim as one of the most gifted and versatile actresses on stage and screen.
Born and educated in New York City, Weaver graduated from Stanford University and went on to receive a master's degree from the Yale School of Drama. Her first professional job was in Sir John Gielgud's production of The Constant Wife working with Ingrid Bergman.
After a walk-on in Woody Allen's Annie Hall, Weaver made her motion picture debut in Ridley Scott's 1979 blockbuster Alien. She later reprised the role of Warrant Officer Ripley in James Cameron's 1986 Aliens; her performance earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. In 1992, she again brought Ripley back to life in David Fincher's Alien 3, which she co-produced, and in 1997 she starred in and co-produced Alien: Resurrection for director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In 1985, Weaver starred in Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters alongside Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd playing Dana Barrett and her possessed counterpart Zuul.
In 1988 Weaver portrayed primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist and Katharine Parker in the Mike Nichols comedy Working Girl. Both performances earned her Academy Award Nominations, and she was awarded two Golden Globes for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. Other films include Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) with Linda Hunt and Mel Gibson, Eyewitness (1981) with William Hurt, Half Moon Street (1986) with Michael Caine, Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) with Gerard Depardieu, Roman Polanski's gripping film adaptation of Death and the Maiden (1994), the thriller Copycat (1995) and Paul Rudnick's comedy Jeffery (1995). Weaver also starred in Showtime's live-action film Snow White (1997) based on the original Grimm's fairy tale, which earned her an Emmy nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination.
In 1997 Weaver joined the ensemble of Ang Lee's critically acclaimed film The Ice Storm alongside Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci. Her performance garnered her a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She later gave a galvanizing performance in A Map of the World (1999), Scott Elliott's powerful drama based on the novel by Jane Hamilton, which earned her universal critical praise and a Golden Globe nomination for best actress. Also in 1999, Weaver appeared in the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest directed by Dean Parisot alongside Tim Allen and Alan Rickman. She delighted audiences with her flair for comedy, and the film proved to be a hit of the 1999 holiday season. She followed this with the popular comedies Company Man (2000) written and directed by Douglas McGrath and David Mirkin's Heartbreakers (2001) opposite Gene Hackman, Jennifer Love-Hewitt and the late Ray Liotta.
In 2002 Weaver starred in the film version of The Guys, with Anthony LaPaglia, directed by Jim Simpson, and in 2003 she portrayed the cold-blooded, red-headed warden in the hit comedy Holes directed by Andy Davis. The next year, Weaver appeared in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village and received rave reviews for her performance in Imaginery Heroes written and directed by Dan Harris.
In 2006 she appeared in three films - as Babe Paley in Douglas McGrath's Infamous, in Jake Kasdan's The TV Set, and in Snow Cake opposite Alan Rickman. In the following years, Weaver lent her voice to Pixar's 2008 box office smash WALL-E as well as The Tale of Despereaux (2008) with Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Watson. She also starred in the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Baby Mama (2008) and Andy Fickman's comedy You Again (2010) with Jamie Lee Curtis. In December 2009 Weaver starred as Dr. Grace Augustine in Jim Cameron's groundbreaking film Avatar, which went on to be the highest grossing film of all time. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Picture and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
Other credits include Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Miguel Arteta's Cedar Rapids (2011), Paul (2011), Amy Heckerling's Vamps (2012), and Neil Blomkamp's Chappie (2015). In December 2016 she starred in Focus Features' A Monster Calls alongside Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones and newcomer, Lewis MacDougall, followed by Lionsgate's The Assignment (2017) with Michelle Rodriguez directed by Walter Hill.
After coming to New York in the fall of 1975, Weaver performed Off-Off Broadway in Christopher Durang's The Nature and Purpose of the Universe (1974), Titanic (1976) and Das Lusitania Songspiel (1980). She and Durang co-wrote Das Lusitania which earned them both Drama Desk nominations. She has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions in New York, working with writers such as John Guare, Albert Innaurato, Richard Nelson and Len Jenkin. In regional repertory she has performed works by Pinter, Williams, Feydeau and Shakespeare. Weaver also appeared in the PBS mini-series "The Best of Families" (1977) and John Cheever's The Sorrows of Gin (1979), adapted by Wendy Wasserstein for PBS.
Weaver received a Tony Award nomination for her starring role in Hurlyburly (1984) on Broadway, directed by Mike Nichols. She played Portia in the Classic Stage Company of New York's production of The Merchant of Venice (1986). In 1996 Weaver returned to Broadway in the Lincoln Center production of Sex and Longing, written by Christopher Durang. In the Fall of 2012, she starred in the Lincoln Center production of Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike which moved to Broadway in 2013. That year Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike took home the Tony award for Best Play.
Weaver originated the female lead in Anne Nelson's The Guys (2001) at The Flea where it was commissioned and directed by Jim Simpson. The Guys tells the story of a fire captain played by Bill Murray dealing with the aftermath of 9/11. In 2002 she starred in Neil LaBute's play The Mercy Seat opposite Liev Schreiber - which John Lahr of The New Yorker described as offering "performances of a depth and concentration that haven't been seen in New York for many seasons." Weaver also originated roles in two A.R. Gurney world premieres, Mrs. Farnsworth (2004) at the Flea Theater (New York Times 10 Best Plays for 2004), and Crazy Mary (2007) at Playwrights Horizons.
In television Weaver received Emmy, Screen Actors' Guild and Golden Globe nominations for her role as Mary Griffith in Lifetime's "Prayers for Bobby," which was also Emmy nominated for Outstanding Made for Television Movie. In 2012 she was seen in USA Network's miniseries "Political Animals," for which she received SAG, Golden Globe, and Emmy nominations. Weaver also appeared in the Marvel series "The Defenders," released globally on Netflix in August 2017.
Ms. Weaver was honored to receive the GLAAD Media Award for her work in "Prayers for Bobby" as well as the Trevor Life Award in 2011. She has been the Honorary Chair of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for the last 33 years. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, and she also served on the Board of Human Rights First for 25 years. Weaver was proud to receive the National Audubon Society's Rachel Carson Award in 2009 for her environmental work. She was also a co-founder of the original Flea Theater on White Street which championed young artists and new work.
Weaver appeared in season 4 of the French television series "Call My Agent!" which was released globally on Netflix in 2021 and won the International Emmy for Comedy Series. Additionally, she starred in Philippe Falardeau's My Salinger Year which opened the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival. In April 2021 Weaver narrated James Cameron's "Secrets of the Whales," which debuted on Disney+ and garnered an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Narrator. The series also won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
Weaver's recent film work includes Phyllis Nagy's drama Call Jane alongside Elizabeth Banks, Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky's The Goos House alongside Kevin Kline. James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water premiered at the end of 2022 with Weaver playing Kiri, Grace Augustine's Na'vi daughter. A2 received "Best Picture" nominations for the Oscars, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice awards and has grossed almost 2.5 billion dollars. Upcoming projects include Amazon Studios' drama series, "The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart," which she also executive produced, and Paul Schrader's Master Gardener, opposite Joel Edgerton, which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.Her body of work speaks for itself (but, I must admit ... her work in the "Alien" franchise is what won me over)!
Movie: "Gorillas in the Mist"!- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. In 1976 she went to Pittsburgh to pursue a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1980, she went to New York City, where she met playwright Beth Henley in a stalled elevator. Hunter went on to get roles in a number of Henley's southern Gothic plays, including Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest. In 1982 the actress went to Los Angeles. She landed her first starring role in the movies in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987), a part that is said to have been written with her in mind. She gained stardom in 1987 when she played the driven TV news producer Jane Craig in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987). In 1993 she earned an Academy Award and worldwide acclaim with her performance as a mute bride to a New Zealand planter in The Piano (1993).All-around GREAT actress!
Movie: "Always"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Her father is Tariq Anwar and her mother is Shireen Anwar. Anwar attended Laleham Church of England Primary and Middle School from 1975 to 1982. Trinian's sketch in the school concert of 1982 gave an early indication of her theatrical leanings. She studied at the London drama and dance school, "Italia Conti". She appeared in many British television productions before making her film debut in Manifesto (1988).
Her first American movie was If Looks Could Kill (1991), in which she played the daughter of a murdered British Agent (played by Roger Daltrey). In 1992, she made a guest appearance on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) as "Tricia Kinney". She followed that with the films, Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (1991) (inspired by "A Girl and Five Brave Horses"), Scent of a Woman (1992), Body Snatchers (1993), For Love or Money (1993) and The Three Musketeers (1993). In 1994, People magazine named her one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. One of her most memorable moments on screen came in 1992's Scent of a Woman (1992), when she danced a tango with Al Pacino, whose character was blind.I just like her work!
Movie: "For Love or Money"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Emily Watson was born and raised in London, the daughter of Katharine (Venables), an English teacher, and Richard Watson, an architect. After a self-described sheltered upbringing, Watson attended university for three years in Bristol, studying English literature. She applied to drama school and was rejected on her first attempt.
After three years of working in clerical and waitress jobs she was finally accepted. In 1992, she took a position with the Royal Shakespeare Company where she met her future husband, Jack Waters. Continuing stage work, Watson landed her first screen role as Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves (1996) after Helena Bonham Carter pulled out of the role. For this initial foray into movies, Watson was nominated for an Academy Award. She continued to gain success in Britain in the leading roles in Metroland (1997) and The Mill on the Floss (1997), but her first popular film in the United States came in 1997 when she played Daniel Day-Lewis's long-suffering love interest in The Boxer (1997).
In the next two years she won critical acclaim for her portrayal of cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Hilary and Jackie (1998) and landed a small part in the ensemble cast of Tim Robbins's Cradle Will Rock (1999). Critical acclaim and North American success came together for Watson in 1999 with the release of Angela's Ashes (1999), the film adaptation of Frank McCourt's bestselling book of the same name. She achieved top billing as Angela McCourt, the hardworking mother of several children and wife of a drunken husband in depression-era Ireland. After less-celebrated roles in 2000's Trixie (2000) and The Luzhin Defence (2000), Watson again returned to an ensemble cast in Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001).
Watson's status as a leading actress in major Hollywood productions was cemented in 2002 with her roles in Red Dragon (2002), the third installment of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lechter series; the futuristic Equilibrium (2002); and, most notably, in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002), playing opposite Adam Sandler. While returning to the stage in 2002 and 2003 on both sides of the Atlantic, Watson has expressed interest in again working with Anderson. Emily Watson lives in London, England, UK, with her husband, Jack Waters.Another "I just like her work" actress!
Movie: "Angela's Ashes"!- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Olga Kurylenko is a Ukrainian-French actress and model, went from sharing a cramped flat with her aunt, uncle, grandparents and cousin to starring as a Bond girl opposite Daniel Craig.
She was born Olga Konstantinovna Kurylenko on November 14, 1979, in Berdyansk, Ukraine, Soviet Union. Her mother, Marina Alyabysheva, divorced her father, Konstantin Kurylenko, soon after her birth. After the divorce her mother struggled to survive as an art teacher. Young Olga was brought up by her mother and her grandmother, Raisa. During her youth Olga had the humbling experience of living in poverty; she had no choice but to wear rags and had to darn the holes on her sweater. During her years in Ukraine she studied art and languages and spent seven years studying piano at a local school of music in Berdyansk. She also went to a ballet studio until 13.
At age 13 Olga and her mother made a trip to Moscow. There she was spotted by an agent, who approached her at a subway station and offered her a job as a model. Initially Olga's mother was suspicious, but she checked the agent's credentials and eventually allowed Olga to accept training as a model in Moscow, which turned out to be a good career choice.
By age 16 she was ready for the next step. She moved to Paris, learned French in six months and was signed by the Madison agency. At age 18 she appeared on the cover of Glamour, and in short order graced the covers of Elle, Madame Figaro, Marie Claire, and Vogue. She also became the face of Lejaby lingerie, Bebe clothing, Clarins and Helena Rubinstein cosmetic companies.
In 1999 Olga married French photographer Cedric Van Mol, but divorced him 3-1/2 years later. One day Olga presented herself to an acting agency. Eventually she swapped the catwalk for the movie screen, and her acting career took off. In 2005 she made her film debut as "Iris", a sensual beauty, in The Ring Finger (2005), by director Diane Bertrand.
Olga's cinematic roles have been notably steamy, and her natural beauty and explicit nudity attracted the attention of the male audiences. She appeared opposite Elijah Wood in Paris, I Love You (2006) and as "Sofia" in The Snake (2006), then co-starred as Russian beauty "Nika Boronina" opposite Timothy Olyphant in Hitman (2007). She also appeared as "Mina Harud" in the indie surveillance-thriller Tyranny (2008). On Christmas Eve 2007, Olga was offered to play what will become her biggest hit: co-starring as "Camille", the Bond girl, opposite Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace (2008), a sequel to Casino Royale (2006).
With the international success as Bond Girl, Olga also made appearances on various TV productions in Russia and Ukraine. In 2012, Olga Kurylenko was cast as Julia, supporting role in the Sci-Fi adventure Oblivion (2013) opposite Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman.Building a pretty good body of work!
Movie: "Hitman"!- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Zoe Saldana was born on June 19, 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey, to Asalia Nazario and Aridio Saldaña. Her father was Dominican and her mother is Puerto Rican. She was raised in Queens, New York. When she was 10 years old, she and her family moved to the Dominican Republic, where they would live for the next seven years. While living there, Zoe discovered a keen interest in performance dance and began her training at the prestigious ECOS Espacio de Danza Dance Academy where she learned ballet as well as other dance forms. Not only did her training provide an excellent outlet for the enthusiastic and energetic youngster, it would also prove to be a fortunate precursor for the start of her professional acting career. At age 17, Zoe and her family moved back to the United States where her love for dance followed and an interest in theater performance became stronger.
She began performing with the Faces theater troupe which put on plays geared to provide positive messages for teens with themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and sex. These performances not only gave her valuable experience but also a source of great pride knowing that she was making a difference in the lives of young people like herself. While performing with the Faces troupe and also the New York Youth Theater, Zoe was recruited for a talent agency and her dance training years before coupled with her acting experience greatly helped her land her first big screen role as Eva Rodriguez, the talented and headstrong ballet dancer in the film Center Stage (2000). Since her professional career began several years ago, Zoe's talent and determination have allowed her to be involved in blockbuster films and act with major actors, actresses and industry insiders at a pace that very few young professionals have experienced.
Zoe has not only held her own in major motion picture productions but gained the respect and praise from industry insiders such as Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg and actors/actresses such as Tom Hanks, Bernie Mac, Keira Knightley, Ashton Kutcher, Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom. According to many of her co-stars, producers and directors, the sky is no limit for this young star who has incredible range, intense concentration, and a steely determination to be involved with projects that challenge her professionally with wide-ranging subject matters and characters. Just to ask practically anyone who she has worked for or with about her, glowing comments abound and earned friendships and respect are readily revealed. A star has been born, and growing every day.She's finally won me over !!!
Movie: "Columbiana"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Carla Gugino was born in Sarasota, Florida, to Carl Gugino, an orthodontist. She is of Italian (father) and English-Irish (mother) ancestry. Gugino moved with her mother to Paradise, California, when Carla was just five years old. During her childhood, they moved many times within the state. But she remained a straight-A student throughout high school and graduated as valedictorian. A major modeling agency discovered Carla in San Diego and sent her to New York to begin a new career when she was 15. New York was more than she could handle at that young age, so she returned to LA in the summer, modeling and enrolling in an acting class at the suggestion of her aunt, Carol Merrill, known from Let's Make a Deal (1963). During her free time, Carla enjoys yoga, traveling and spending time with her friends in Los Angeles.Great, under-rated actress ... loved her in "Sin City"!!!
Movie: "Sin City"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Rosanna Arquette has acted extensively in film and television, and has come to be acknowledged as an actress of rare depth and scope.
Arquette was born in New York City, New York. Her parents, Lewis Arquette, an actor, and Brenda Denaut (née Nowak), an acting teacher and therapist, had 4 other children: Richmond Arquette, Patricia Arquette, Alexis Arquette, and David Arquette, all actors. Her paternal grandfather, Cliff Arquette, also was an entertainer. Rosanna's mother was from an Ashkenazi Jewish family (from Poland and Russia), while Rosanna's father had French-Canadian, Swiss-German, and English ancestry.
Growing up in a family of actors, she began working at a young age. Her first big break came as a teenager with a role in the Movie of the Week The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978), which starred Bette Davis. Several television roles followed, including an ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) and a part on the series James at 16 (1977) before her talents led to her film debut in Gorp (1980). Since then she has acted in a steady stream of films, including John Sayles' Baby It's You (1983), Fathers & Sons (1992) with Jeff Goldblum, Silverado (1985) (which also featured Goldblum), The Linguini Incident (1991), Martin Scorsese's segment of New York Stories (1989) with Nick Nolte, and many others. She feels particularly proud of her offbeat roles in such independent films as After Hours (1985), Nobody's Fool (1986), and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), for which she won the British Academy Award. Ms. Arquette was nominated for an Emmy for her work in the controversial The Executioner's Song (1982). She continues her work on television as well as the big screen.Been a favorite of mine for years !!!
Movie: "Desperately Seeking Susan"!- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
She has show biz in her blood. Martha Plimpton was born November 16, 1970, in New York City to two actors: Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton. Martha began her career at age 8, when her mom had a friend of hers, composer Elizabeth Swados, enroll her in an actors' workshop. At age 10, she got a small part in Rollover (1981), and also made a series of Calvin Klein commercials.
Her first substantial film role was as a tomboy in The River Rat (1984); the following year, Steven Spielberg cast her in The Goonies (1985). Martha met River Phoenix while they were both filming The Mosquito Coast (1986), but since she was only 15 at the time, she did not go out with him. Even though she had a small part in the movie, it established her as a serious actress. Martha appeared in movies such as the screwball comedy Stars and Bars (1988) and, that same year, she was paired again with Phoenix in Running on Empty (1988). They dated for a while and then broke up. For a while, she was engaged to actor Jon Patrick Walker.
As if making movies didn't keep her busy enough, Martha frequently worked at theaters and made her Chicago debut with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company Ensemble in "The Libertine" in 1996. As a member of that ensemble, she received a National Medal of Arts award in the autumn of 1998. As for movies, Colin Fitz Lives! (1997) and Eye of God (1997) in which she plays the starring role, have been run at the Sundance Film Festival. Although some recent movies have had low box office (Pecker (1998) $2.1 million, and 200 Cigarettes (1999) $6.8 million), Martha's performances shine and she often rises above her material.
Perhaps recalling how important acting lessons were to her as a child, she donates her time and efforts to the "52nd Street Project" which is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to matching the inner-city children with professional theater artists to create original theater, by writing, directing and performing their own plays. Perhaps one of the inner-city kids she is coaching will be the next famous actress in Hollywood.Another GREAT, under-rated actress!
Movie: "Running on Empty"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jessica Biel, has become one of Hollywood's most sought-out actresses. She was born in Ely, Minnesota, to Kimberly (Conroe) and Jonathan Edward Biel, who is a business consultant and GM worker. Biel was raised in Boulder, Colorado. She is of Hungarian Jewish, Danish, English, and German descent.
As a child, Biel initially pursued a career as a vocalist, performing in musical theater. Beginning at age nine, she starred in such productions as "Annie," "The Sound of Music," and "Beauty and the Beast." Biel soon turned to modeling and commercial work by competing in The International Modeling and Talent Association's Annual Conference in 1994.
Her Film debut was in the Kid's Rock Opera It's a Digital World (1994) where she demonstrated her acting and singing abilities. Her television series acting debut, playing Mary Camden on the WB's #1-rated show, 7th Heaven (1996), helped her emerge as a breakout star. She terrified moviegoers with her portrayal of Erin, "Leatherface's" greatest nemesis to date, in New Line Cinema's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), a remake of the original. Having finished filming, Blade: Trinity (2004) in Vancouver with Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, and Kris Kristofferson, she the portrayed a jet-fighter pilot in Stealth (2005), starring Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Sam Shepherd, for director Rob Cohen. Biel's film career began at age 14 when she played alongside Peter Fonda in his Golden Globe-winning performance in Ulee's Gold (1997). Her other film credits include I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998), Summer Catch (2001), Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction (2002), and Cellular (2004), which stars Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, and William H. Macy.
In her spare time, Biel is involved with charities such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and PETA. Her hobbies include ballet, soccer, running, yoga and hiking with her dog "East." She resides in Los Angeles.
In 2012, she married actor and singer Justin Timberlake. The two have a son.I like all her work!
Movie: "Blade: Trinity"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Robin Tunney studied acting at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, spending her summer performing in such plays as "Bus Stop" and "Agnes of God". She moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen and shortly landed roles in such television shows as Life Goes On (1989), Class of '96 (1993) (recurring), Law & Order (1990), HBO's Dream On (1990) and the ABC mini-series J.F.K.: Reckless Youth (1993), in which she played "Kit Kennedy". The Craft (1996) was Tunney's first film lead though she has appeared in many supporting roles.I've always enjoyed all her movies ... especially "The Craft", "End of Days" and "Supernova"!
Movie: "Vertical Limit"!- Raven-haired beauty Jordana Brewster was born on April 26, 1980 in Panama City, Panama. Her mother, Maria João Leal de Sousa, is a Brazilian-born model who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1978. Her father, Alden Brewster, is an American-born investment banker, who has English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Her paternal grandfather, Mayflower descendant Kingman Brewster, Jr., was president of Yale University from 1963 to 1977. Jordana was raised in London, England up until the age of six. At this time, her family decided to move back to her mother's native Rio de Janeiro. Here, they would stay for the next 4 years. Jordana learned to speak fluent Portuguese during her 4 year stay in Rio de Janeiro. At the age of ten, Jordana's family decided to move again, only this time they would relocate to Manhattan. It was here where Jordana studied at Sacred Heart, an all-girl Catholic school before moving on to the New York Professional Children's School. It was in her teens that Jordana began to make a name for herself by appearing in two of daytime television's longest-running soap operas, All My Children (1970) and in 1996 As the World Turns (1956), where she played the role of "Nikki Munson" for three years. Jordana also went on to co-star in the NBC mini-series The '60s (1999). The year 1998 marked her big-screen debut as "Delilah Profitt" in the teen-driven film, The Faculty (1998). However, it was her role as "Mia Toretto" in the blockbuster hit The Fast and the Furious (2001) that led her to reach Hollywood stardom. Despite her success, Jordana continued to attend Yale University, in the class of 2003. She played the lead in the prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), and reprised her role, Mia, in the sequels Fast & Furious (2009), Fast Five (2011), Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Furious 7 (2015).
Brewster was married to producer Andrew Form in 2007, and they have two sons.Besides being a pretty darn good actress ... we share the same birthday (along with Channing Tatum)!
Movie: "Fast and Furious"! - Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
French actress and model Eva Gaëlle Green was born on July 6, 1980, in Paris, France. Her father, Walter Green, is a dentist who appeared in the 1966 film Au hasard Balthazar (1966). Her mother, Marlène Jobert, is an actress turned children's book writer. Eva's mother was born in Algeria, of French, Spanish, and Sephardic Jewish heritage (during that time, Algeria was part of France), and Eva's father is of Swedish, French, and Breton descent. She has a fraternal twin sister, Joy. Eva left French school at 17. She switched to the American School in France for one year. She left the American School and studied acting at Saint Paul Drama School in Paris for three years, then had a 10-week polishing course at the Weber Douglas Academy of dramatic Art in London. She returned to Paris as an accomplished young actress, and played on stage in several theater productions: "La Jalousie en Trois Fax" and "Turcaret". There, she caught the eye of director Bernardo Bertolucci. Green followed a recommendation to work on her English. She studied for two months with an English coach before doing The Dreamers (2003) with Bernardo Bertolucci. During their work, Bertolucci described Green as being "so beautiful it's indecent".
Green won critical acclaim for her role in The Dreamers (2003). After "The Dreamers", Green played the love interest of cult French gentleman-thief, Arsène Lupin (2004), opposite Romain Duris. In 2005, she co-starred, opposite Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson, in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), produced and directed by Ridley Scott. The film brought her a wider international exposure. She turned down the femme fatale role in The Black Dahlia (2006), that went to Hilary Swank, because she didn't want to end up typecast after her role in "The Dreamers". Instead, Eva accepted the prestigious role of "Vesper Lynd", one of three Bond girls, opposite Daniel Craig, in Casino Royale (2006) and became the fifth French actress to play a James Bond girl, after Claudine Auger in Thunderball (1965), Corinne Cléry in Moonraker (1979), Carole Bouquet in For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Sophie Marceau in The World Is Not Enough (1999). She achieved international recognition for the film, one of the highest-grossing Bond movies ever.
Since then, Green has starred in the films Dark Shadows (2012), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016). She also starred as Vanessa Ives in Showtime's horror drama Penny Dreadful (2014). Her performance in the series earned her a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
Since her school years, Green has been a cosmopolitan multilingual and multicultural person. Yet, since her father always lived in France with them and her mother, she and her twin sister can't speak Swedish. She developed a wide scope of interests beyond her acting profession and became an aspiring art connoisseur and an avid museum visitor. Her other activities, outside of acting, include playing and composing music, cooking at home, walking her terrier, and collecting art. She shares time between her two residencies, one is in Paris, France, and one in London, England.Good actress who, with a few more "meatier" roles, could become GREAT (and PLEASE, get a better "profile" pic)!!!
Movie: "Kingdom of Heaven"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she heeded her true calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. The resulting contract landed her several roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos, which in turn paved the way for a career on the big screen. Cruz made her movie debut in El laberinto griego (1993) (The Greek Labyrinth), then appeared briefly in the Timothy Dalton thriller Framed (1992). Her third film was the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), in which she played one of four sisters vying for the love of a handsome army deserter. The film also garnered several Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Her resume continued to grow by three or four films each year, and soon Cruz was a leading lady of Spanish cinema. Live Flesh (1997) (Live Flesh) offered her the chance to work with renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (who would later be her ticket to international fame), and the same year she was the lead actress in the thriller/drama/mystery/sci-fi film Open Your Eyes (1997), a huge hit in Spain that earned eight Goyas (though none for Cruz). Her luck finally changed in 1998, when the movie-industry comedy The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) won her a Best Actress Goya. Cruz made a few more forays into English-language film, but her first big international hit was Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999), in which she played an unchaste but well-meaning nun. As the film was showered with awards and accolades, Cruz suddenly found herself in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Her next big project was Woman on Top (2000), an American comedy about a chef with bewitching culinary skills and a severe case of motion sickness. While in the US, she also signed up to star opposite Johnny Depp in the drug-trafficking drama Blow (2001) and opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000). Cruz says she's wary of being typecast as a beautiful young damsel, but it's hard to imagine disguising her wide-eyed charms and generous nature. Fortunately, with Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) (a remake of Open Your Eyes (1997)) and a John Madden collaboration looming in her future, Damsel Penelope isn't likely to disappear just yet.She very slowly won me over!
Movie: "Volver"!- Actress
- Art Department
- Additional Crew
Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, France, to Monique Yvette Stalens, a director, teacher, and actress, and Jean-Marie Binoche, a sculptor, director, and actor. Her mother was born in Czestochowa, Poland, of French, Walloon Belgian, and Polish descent, while her father is French. Juliette was only 23 when she first attracted the attention of international film critics with The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times film critic with an international following of his books on film and TV reviews, wrote that she was "almost ethereal in her beauty and innocence". That innocence was gone by the time Binoche completed Louis Malle's Damage (1992) (aka "Fatale"). In an interview after the film was released, Binoche said: "Malle was trying direct and wanted something more sophisticated". A year later, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors: Blue (1993) was added to her film credits. After a sabbatical from film-making to become a mother in 1994, Binoche was selected as the heroine of France's most expensive ($35 million) movie ever: The Horseman on the Roof (1995). More recently, she has made The English Patient (1996), for which she won an Oscar for 'Best supporting actress' and Chocolat (2000).I love her acting (especially her earlier work)!
Movie: "The English Patient"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).Fantastic ... from childhood, all the way up to now! Ultimate thespian!
Movie: "The Silence of the Lambs"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from Burlington, New Jersey, has German, Irish, Welsh, German-Jewish, and English ancestry.
Moore spent the early years of her life in over two dozen locations around the world with her parents, during her father's military career. She finally found her place at Boston University, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in acting from the School of the Performing Arts. After graduation (in 1983), She took the stage name "Julianne Moore" because there was another actress named "Julie Anne Smith". Julianne moved to New York and worked extensively in theater, including appearances off-Broadway in two Caryl Churchill plays, Serious Money and Ice Cream With Hot Fudge and as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theatre. But despite her formal training, Julianne fell into the attractive actress' trap of the mid-1980's: TV soaps and miniseries. She appeared briefly in the daytime serial The Edge of Night (1956) and from 1985 to 1988 she played two half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina on the soap As the World Turns (1956). This performance later led to an Outstanding Ingénue Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Her subsequent appearances were in mostly forgettable TV-movies, such as Money, Power, Murder. (1989), The Last to Go (1991) and Cast a Deadly Spell (1991).
She made her entrance into the big screen with 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), where she played the victim of a mummy. Two years later, Julianne appeared in feature films with supporting parts in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the comedy The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992). She kept winning better and more powerful roles as time went on, including a small but memorable role as a doctor who spots Kimble Harrison Ford and attempts to thwart his escape in The Fugitive (1993). (A role that made such an impression on Steven Spielberg that he cast her in the Jurassic Park (1993) sequel without an audition in 1997). In one of Moore's most distinguished performances, she recapitulated her "beguiling Yelena" from Andre Gregory's workshop version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Director Todd Haynes gave Julianne her first opportunity to take on a lead role in Safe (1995). Her portrayal of Carol White, an affluent L.A. housewife who develops an inexplicable allergic reaction to her environment, won critical praise as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Later that year she found her way into romantic comedy, co-starring as Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in Nine Months (1995). Following films included Assassins (1995), where she played an electronics security expert targeted for death (next to Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas) and Surviving Picasso (1996), where she played Dora Maar, one of the numerous lovers of Picasso (portrayed by her hero, Anthony Hopkins). A year later, after co-starring in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), opposite Jeff Goldblum, a young and unknown director, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Julianne to appear in his movie, Boogie Nights (1997). Despite her misgivings, she finally was won over by the script and her decision to play the role of Amber Waves, a loving porn star who acts as a mother figure to a ragtag crew, proved to be a wise one, since she received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Julianne started 1998 by playing an erotic artist in The Big Lebowski (1998), continued with a small role in the social comedy Chicago Cab (1997) and ended with a subtle performance in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1960). 1999 had Moore as busy as an actress can be.
As the century closed, Julianne starred in a number of high-profile projects, beginning with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) , in which she was cast as the mentally challenged but adorable sister of a decidedly unhinged Glenn Close. A portrayal of the scheming Mrs. Cheveley followed in Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband (1999) with a number of critics asserting that Moore was the best part of the movie. She then enjoyed another collaboration with director Anderson in Magnolia (1999) and continued with an outstanding performance in The End of the Affair (1999), for which she garnered another Oscar nomination. She ended 1999 with another great performance, that of a grieving mother in A Map of the World (1999), opposite Sigourney Weaver.VERY slowly won me over!
Movie: "Lost World: Jurassic Park"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Mary Stuart Masterson started acting before the age of ten, when she appeared in The Stepford Wives (1975) in 1975 with her father. Afterwards, at the direction of her parents, Mary Stuart led a life outside of the limelight, attending school in New York. She appeared in a few productions at New York's Dalton School. At the age of 15, the young actress appeared on Broadway in Eva Le Gallienne's version of Alice In Wonderland. She played two parts, the Four of Hearts and the Small White Rabbit. She returned to films in 1985 with the role of Dani in Heaven Help Us (1985). For eight months afterwards, Mary Stuart attended New York University, where she studied anthropology.Unfortunately, not getting the work she deserves anymore BUT ... she's done enuff to earn a spot on MY list!
Movie: "Some Kind of Wonderful"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
British actress Imogen Poots was born in Hammersmith, London, England, the daughter of English-born Fiona (Goodall), a journalist, and Trevor Poots, a Northern Ireland-born television producer. She was educated at Bute House Preparatory School for Girls, Queen's Gate School for Girls and Latymer Upper School, all in London. When she was a teenager she began attending the Youngblood Theatre Company, and developed a love of acting.
Poots' initial screen debut was a (2004) role in British medical drama Casualty (1986). She made her big screen debut as Young Valerie in V for Vendetta (2005), then went on to appear in various projects, including 28 Weeks Later (2007), Me and Orson Welles (2008), Centurion (2010), Bouquet of Barbed Wire (2010), Fright Night (2011), A Late Quartet (2012), Greetings from Tim Buckley (2012), and The Look of Love (2013).Great up-and-coming actress (tho, some would say she's already "arrived")!
Movie: "The Eagle"!- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Lea Katherine Thompson was born May 31, 1961 in Rochester, Minnesota. She is the youngest of five children. Her parents are Barbara and Cliff Thompson. Since all her siblings were much older than her, Lea says it seemed like she had more than two parents. The family lived in the Starlight motel, all the kids sharing a room. Things began to look up for the family when Lea's father got a job in Minneapolis, where the family moved.
Lea's parents divorced when she was six, and her mother decided to maintain the family. This wasn't the easiest job, considering her mother was alcohol-addicted at the time. When she found the strength to quit drinking, she took a job playing the piano and singing in a bar to support Lea and her siblings. When Lea was seven, her mother remarried. Ever since Lea was little, she loved to dance -- ballet to be exact. She would practice three to four hours every day. Her first role was as a mouse in "The Nutcracker". After Lea turned fourteen, she had performed in more than 45 ballets on stages, such as The Minnesota Dance Theatre, The Pennsylvania Ballet Company, and The Ballet Repertory. She won scholarships to The American Ballet Theatre and The San Francisco Ballet. At age nineteen, she auditioned for Mikhail Baryshnikov, who later told her that she was "a beautiful dancer... but too stocky." Lea knew her dreams had been crushed. At that point, she decided to turn to acting. She began working as a waitress, also making 22 Burger King commercials and a few Twix commercials. She was perfect for these parts simply because she was the average girl-down-the-street, from the Midwest. Everyone who knows her can't believe she was and still is so completely different...trying to be independent and fight against the system. In 1982, Lea made some type of a computer game or interactive movie known as "Murder, Anyone."
Her first role was in the movie, Jaws 3-D (1983), as a water ski bunny, although she couldn't swim or ski, which she still can't! There, she met Dennis Quaid, who became her fiancée and acting coach. Her next role was in All the Right Moves (1983), where she acted opposite Tom Cruise. Director Michael Chapman was so disappointed with her performance, that he almost fired her. Between 1983 and 1984, Lea appeared in other "teen" movies, such as Red Dawn (1984), The Wild Life (1984), and Going Undercover (aka Going Undercover (1985)), and believes it was lucky that, in these movies, they were able to use anyone who could walk and talk! Lea's biggest known accomplishment, and her big break, came from the first Back to the Future (1985). It was the biggest hit of 1985, and Lea was suddenly the most wanted actress. She could have her pick of any role she wanted to take on. She chose Howard the Duck (1986). Although it was a George Lucas production, the critics turned the movie, and Lea, down. Afterwards, director Howard Deutch offered Lea a part in his movie, Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), but she refused. After he urged her to do it, she reconsidered. She won the Young Artist Award for best young actress. During filming, Howard and Lea fell in love, and she called it off with Dennis. She then went on to film The Wizard of Loneliness (1988), which was her first movie as a woman, rather than a youngster. Lea went on to film Back to the Future Part II (1989) and an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989). She then married Howard Deutch. She continued filming Back to the Future Part III (1990), Montana (1990), and Article 99 (1992). Lea then took a break to stay home with her first born, Madelyn Deutch.
She jumped back into acting in Dennis the Menace (1993), where she says she just played herself. Then it was on to The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Stolen Babies (1993), The Little Rascals (1994), and The Substitute Wife (1994). In 1994, she had her second child, Zoey Deutch. Lea then went into filming The Unspoken Truth (1995). It was then that she was first given the script of a new NBC sitcom, Caroline in the City (1995). It was probably the best decision Lea ever made. She won a People's choice Award for best actress in a new sitcom. Unfortunately, with all of NBC's problems, Caroline in the City (1995) kept being moved to a worse and worse time slot, giving it horrible ratings. The show ended after only four seasons. Bad ideas from the creators (Julia, etc.) didn't help, either.
Lea quickly went onto The Right to Remain Silent (1996), The Unknown Cyclist (1998), and A Will of Their Own (1998). She also guest-starred in the Friends (1994) episode, The One with the Baby on the Bus (1995), as "Caroline Duffy," and on The Larry Sanders Show (1992). Lea also did some stage work, including starring as "Sally Bowles" in "Cabaret." The show toured and also appeared on Broadway. She then did "The Vagina Monologues" in L.A. She had a stint in a dramatic role as a Chief Deputy Assistant District Attorney, "Camille Paris," on For the People (2002).
Thompson has starred in more than 30 films, 25 television movies, 4 television series, more than 20 ballets, and starred on Broadway in "Cabaret." Lea can currently be seen on ABC Family's Peabody Award winning hit show "Switched at Birth," where she acts and directs. Lea's movie credits include: "All the Right Moves," "Red Dawn," "Some Kind of Wonderful," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Howard The Duck," (star and vocals) Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar," the 2014 Sundance favorite Ping Pong Summer (2014), Fliegen (2005) starring Nicolas Cage, and The Year of Spectacular Men (2017), a film written by her daughter Madelyn Deutch. Thompson partnered with international Mirrorball Trophy holder Artem Chigvintsev on the 19th season of Dancing with the Stars (2005), placing sixth.
Lea lives in Los Angeles with her husband of over thirty years, film/television director Howard Deutch, and their two talented daughters, Madelyn and Zoey Deutch, along with many dogs, fish, horses, chickens, a cat, tortoise, and parrot. She supports and often performs for breast cancer, mental health, and Alzheimer's charities. Lea is currently writing her first book of essays.I LOVE her ... especially her early work!
Movie: "Some Kind of Wonderful"!- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was first known as bad girl Jen Lindley in the television series Dawson's Creek (1998). She appeared in the comedy film Dick (1999), which was a parody of the Watergate Scandal along with Kirsten Dunst, as well as Prozac Nation (2001) with Christina Ricci. Since then, Michelle has worked her way into the world of independent films such as The Station Agent (2003), Imaginary Heroes (2004), and The Baxter (2005). But her real success happened in 2005 when she starred in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) as Alma Beers Del Mar. A woman who realizes her husband is in love with another man. Her talent shown in Brokeback Mountain (2005) landed her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she received her first lead role Academy Award nomination for Blue Valentine (2010). She followed this in 2012 with a lead role Academy Award nomination for My Week with Marilyn (2011).
Michelle has a daughter, Matilda, with late Australian actor Heath Ledger.Possibly the most fantastic acting couple ever ... when she and Heath Ledger were together !!!
Movie: "Oz the Great and Powerful"!- Leslie Jean Mann was born in San Francisco, California. She was raised in Newport Beach, California by her mother, Janet Ann Ayres. At the age of seventeen, she launched her career, appearing in various TV commercials.
Her screen break came when she was cast as Nurse Mary in the short-lived Birdland (1994). Further TV and film roles followed, including The Cable Guy (1996), where she met her husband, Judd Apatow, who was a producer on the film. The story goes that after Mann left her audition for the role, Apatow turned to his colleagues and said "there goes the future Mrs. Apatow".
Further successes followed for Mann in such projects as George of the Jungle (1997) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). She also appeared alongside her daughters - Maude Apatow and Iris Apatow - in Knocked Up (2007), Funny People (2009) and This Is 40 (2012).See "Judy Greer", above ...
Movie: "Knocked Up"! - Actress
- Producer
The dark and classically beautiful British actress and social activist Julia (Karin) Ormond was born on January 4, 1965, in Surrey, into England, the second of five children. Born of privilege as the daughter of a well-to-do laboratory technician, her parents divorced when she was young. Julia attended Guildford High School and Cranleigh, a private school, where she showed interest in theatre at that time appearing in a couple of their musicals.
Julia's grandparents were artists, and she initially intended to be one herself but, after one year of art school, renewed her dedication to acting and transferred to Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where she graduated in 1988.
Appearing in the play "Wuthering Heights" as Catherine, she met and eventually married her Heathcliff (actor Rory Edwards) in real life. In 1989 she won the London Drama Critic's Award for her performance in "Faith, Hope and Charity" as "best newcomer." Julia also made an immediate impression on TV with her debuting role as a young drug addict in the series Traffik (1989)
She earned star-making attention in the TV-movie Young Catherine (1991), in which she portrayed Catherine the Great (also featuring husband Edwards). She then portrayed wife Nadya in the TV movie Stalin (1992) starring Robert Duvall in the title role. She made the jump into feature films scoring a top-billed debut opposite Ralph Fiennes in The Baby of Mâcon (1993), a drama about a woman giving an "immaculate birth." She followed this this with lead or second lead roles in such films as the European biopic Nostradamus (1994); the romantic drama Captives (1994) co-starring Tim Roth; and the period war drama Legends of the Fall (1994) as the object of affection for both Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn. It was around the time of this career rise (1994) that her marriage ended.
With Hollywood now taking a firm notice, Julia was given the fetching role of Queen Guinevere alongside Sean Connery's King Arthur and Richard Gere's Lancelot in First Knight (1995) and, more importantly, was entrusted with Audrey Hepburn's title role in the revival of Sabrina (1995), her radiant presence nearly stealing the picture away from handsome co-stars Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear.
Strangely, Julia's major rise led her in a different direction. From there she instead went on to grace a number of independents and foreign features. She played the title role in the Danish/German/Swedish co-production Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) as a woman who gets involved with a strange murder mystery; the Russian period drama The Barber of Siberia (1998) as a lovely American who gets dangerously involved with a young Russian cadet; and involved herself in another messy affair with Vince Vaughn in the indie drama The Prime Gig (2000). On stage, she appeared in David Hare's "My Zinc Bed," for which she received a 2001 Olivier Award nomination for "Best Actress."
Into the millennium, Julia found herself busy film-wise with the political drama Resistance (2003), cult filmmaker David Lynch's thoroughly offbeat Inland Empire (2006), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Music Never Stopped (2011), Albatross (2011), My Week with Marilyn (2011) (as Vivien Leigh), Chained (2012), Ladies in Black (2018) and Son of the South (2020). On TV she appeared in the mini-series Beach Girls (2005), and had recurring roles on CSI: NY (2004), Nurse Jackie (2009), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Mad Men (2007), Gold Digger (2019), plus a series starring role as one of Witches of East End (2013). She also co-starred in the short-lived series Incorporated (2016).
In 1999, she married a second time to political activist Jon Rubin. They had one daughter, Sophie, before their divorce. On a political front, Julia has been involved fighting human trafficking since the mid-1990s. In 2005, she was appointed United Nations Goodwill Ambassador with a focus on anti-human-trafficking initiatives and awareness.Absolutely beautiful actress!
Movie: "Legends of the Fall"!- Actress
- Music Department
- Director
Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance (1981) in which she appeared with her husband, Michael Williams, and Best Supporting Actress in A Handful of Dust (1988) and A Room with a View (1985). She received an ACE award for her performance in the television series Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill (1985). She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005.Very good actress!
Movie: "Quantum of Solace"!- Actress
- Producer
- Director
American actress and political activist Ashley Judd was born Ashley Tyler Ciminella on April 19, 1968, in Granada Hills, California. She grew up in a family of successful performing artists as the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the sister of Wynonna Judd. While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades, she has increasingly become involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism.I love her acting ... (even tho she has fallen off the "A-list" ... for reasons foreign to me)!
Movie: "Double Jeopardy"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ally Sheedy was born in New York City, to Charlotte (Baum), a press agent and writer, and John J. Sheedy, Jr., an advertising executive. She is of Russian Jewish (mother) and Irish and German (father) descent. While at New York's Bank Street School, twelve-year-old Ally Sheedy wrote about a mythical encounter between Queen Elizabeth I and an inquisitive mouse. The result, "She Was Nice to Mice", was published by McGraw-Hill and became an instant bestseller. Although it proved a springboard to an acting career, Sheedy's strongest memories of childhood remain those of "dancing and doing plays". From six until fourteen, she danced with the American Ballet Theatre and, during summers at Fire Island, she'd "get a bunch of kids together and stage shows on back lawns and porches". When she discovered that to stay with dancing meant staying with starvation diets, she shifted her focus to acting for good. Meanwhile, her book brought her requests from several publications. The Village Voice asked her to review movies and the New York Times wanted her to review children's books. The assignment she accepted was from Ms. Magazine, which requested an article about her mother and herself. It was an appearance on "The Mike Douglas Show (1961) to promote her book, however, that brought Sheedy work as a performer.
Signed by an agent who caught the show, she was sent out on television commercials, immediately. Only 15 at the time, she also performed off-Broadway and on a series of after-school specials. The day she turned 18, Sheedy packed her bags and headed for Los Angeles, where she enrolled in the drama department at USC, and soon landed roles in the television drama The Best Little Girl in the World (1981), The Day the Loving Stopped (1981), Splendor in the Grass (1981) and Homeroom (1981) and played a recurring character on Hill Street Blues (1981). The strength of her performances led directly to her film debut as Sean Penn's naive-but-knowing girlfriend, "J.C.", in Bad Boys (1983). That same year (1983), she starred as Matthew Broderick's zany partner in WarGames (1983). After starring as Rob Lowe's would-be romantic interest in Oxford Blues (1984), the withdrawn adolescent of The Breakfast Club (1985) and Gene Hackman's adoring daughter in Twice in a Lifetime (1985), Sheedy played her first fully-adult role in St. Elmo's Fire (1985), the 1985 hit about college friends.She's always been one of my favorites!
Movie: "St. Elmo's Fire"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Emma Roberts was born in Rhinebeck, New York. She was a baby when her parents separated, and she grew up living with her mother, Kelly Cunningham. She was educated at Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, California.
Emma is the daughter of Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts, and the niece of Oscar-winner Julia Roberts. As a child she spent some time on the sets of movies with her aunt Julia. This helped Emma decide that she wanted to follow a career in acting. Her first movie role came in Blow (2001), where she played the daughter of Johnny Depp's character. Various small parts followed, until she was cast in the lead role of Addie Singer in Nickelodeon's "Unfabulous" (2004). Her performance lead to many award nominations as well as a foray into the music industry, including the release of an album, "Unfabulous and More".
More roles followed in various projects, including the eponymous heroine in Nancy Drew (2007), Hotel for Dogs (2009), 4.3.2.1. (2010) and Scream 4 (2011). In 2011, Emma began attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York, studying English Literature.Daughter of Eric, niece of Julia ... starting to show her acting "chops"!
Movie: "We're the Miller's"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rachel Anne McAdams was born on November 17, 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada, to Sandra Kay (Gale), a nurse, and Lance Frederick McAdams, a truck driver and furniture mover. She is of English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish descent. Rachel became involved with acting as a teenager and by the age of 13 was performing in Shakespearean productions in summer theater camp; she went on to graduate with honors with a BFA degree in Theater from York University. After her debut in an episode of Disney's The Famous Jett Jackson (1998), she co-starred in the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows (2003), a comedy-drama about the trials and travails of a Shakespearean theater group, and won a Gemini award for her performance in 2003.
Her breakout role as Regina George in the hit comedy Mean Girls (2004) instantly catapulted her onto the short list of Hollywood's hottest young actresses. She followed that film with a star turn opposite Ryan Gosling in the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks bestseller The Notebook (2004), which was a surprise box office success and became the predominant romantic drama for a new, young generation of moviegoers. After filming, McAdams and Gosling became romantically involved and dated through mid-2007. McAdams next showcased her versatility onscreen with the manic comedy Wedding Crashers (2005), the thriller Red Eye (2005), and the holiday drama The Family Stone (2005).
McAdams then explored the independent film world with Married Life (2007), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and also starred Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Starring roles in the military drama The Lucky Ones (2008), the newspaper thriller State of Play (2009), and the romance The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) followed before she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Guy Ritchie's international blockbuster Sherlock Holmes (2009). McAdams played the plucky producer of a failing morning TV show in Morning Glory (2010), the materialistic fiancée of Owen Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and returned to romantic drama territory with the hit film The Vow (2012) opposite Channing Tatum. The actress also stars with Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick's To the Wonder (2012) and alongside Noomi Rapace in Brian De Palma's thriller Passion (2012).
In 2005, McAdams received ShoWest's "Supporting Actress of the Year" Award as well as the "Breakthrough Actress of the Year" at the Hollywood Film Awards. In 2009, she was awarded with ShoWest's "Female Star of the Year." As of 2011, she has been romantically linked with her Midnight in Paris (2011) co-star Michael Sheen.Very good actress ... definitely has earned a spot on MY list!
Movie: "State of Play"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Diane Lane was born on January 22, 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene "Burt" Lane and nightclub singer/centerfold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia. Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the age of six. Her work in such acclaimed theater productions as "The Cherry Orchard" and "Medea" led to her being called to Hollywood. She was 13 when she was cast by director George Roy Hill in his wonderful 1979 film A Little Romance (1979), opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. The film only did so-so commercially, but Olivier praised his young co-star, calling her the new Grace Kelly. After her well-received debut, Diane found herself on magazine covers all over the world, including "Time", which declared her the "new young acting sensation". However, things quietened down a bit when she found herself in such critical and financial flops as Touched by Love (1980), Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980), Movie Madness (1982), Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982) and, most unmemorably, Six Pack (1982), all of which failed to set her career on fire.
She also made several TV movies during this period, but it was in 1983 that she finally began to fulfill the promise of stardom that had earlier been predicted for her. Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola took note of Diane's appeal and cast her in two "youth"-oriented films based on S.E. Hinton novels. Indeed, Rumble Fish (1983) and The Outsiders (1983) have become cult classics and resulted in her getting a loyal fan base. The industry was now taking notice of Diane Lane, and she soon secured lead roles in three big-budget studio epics. She turned down the first, Splash (1983) (which was a surprise hit for Daryl Hannah). Unfortunately, the other two were critical and box-office bombs: Walter Hill's glossy rock 'n' roll fable Streets of Fire (1984) was not the huge summer success that many had thought it would be, and the massively troubled Coppola epic The Cotton Club (1984) co-starring Richard Gere was also a high-profile flop. The back-to-back failure of both of these films could have ended her career there and then -- but thankfully it didn't. Possibly "burned out" by the lambasting these films received and unhappy with the direction her career was taking, she "retired" from the film business at age 19, saying that she had forgotten what she had started acting for. She stayed away from the screen for the next three years. Ironically, the two films that were the main causes of her "retirement" have since grown in popularity, and "Streets of Fire" especially seems to have found the kind of audience it couldn't get when it was first released.
The process of rebuilding her career was a slow and gradual one. First came the obscure and very sexy straight-to-video thriller Lady Beware (1987), followed by the critically acclaimed but little seen The Big Town (1987) with Matt Dillon and Tommy Lee Jones. In the former, Diane plays a very mysterious and sexy stripper and her memorable strip sequence is a highlight of the film. Despite her sexy new on-screen image, it wasn't until 1989's smash hit TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989) that Diane made another big impression on a sizable audience. Her performance in the hugely popular and critically acclaimed western epic as a vulnerable "whore with a heart" won her an Emmy nomination and much praise. Film producers were interested in her again. Another well-received TV production, Descending Angel (1990), was followed by smaller roles in major films like Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and Mike Binder's Indian Summer (1993), and larger parts in small independent films like My New Gun (1992), Vital Signs (1990) and Knight Moves (1992). Indeed, the latter two films co-starred her then-husband, Christopher Lambert, with whom she had a daughter named Eleanor.
Diane was now re-established in Hollywood and started to appear in higher-profile co-starring roles in some big-budget, major movies like Walter Hill's Wild Bill (1995), the Sylvester Stallone actioner Judge Dredd (1995), the Robin Williams's comedy Jack (1996) and Murder at 1600 (1997) co-starring Wesley Snipes. However, all of these still did not quite make Diane a "big-name star" and, by 1997, she found herself, possibly by choice, back in smaller, personal projects.
Her next role as a frustrated 1960s housewife in the independent hit A Walk on the Moon (1999) deservedly won her rave notices and, at last, gave her career the big lift it needed. The cute but tear-jerking comedy My Dog Skip (2000) also proved to be a small-scale success. However, it was the £330-million worldwide grossing blockbuster hit The Perfect Storm (2000) that finally made Diane Lane the household name that she always should have been.
After the worldwide success of "The Perfect Storm", she was more in demand than ever. She played Leelee Sobieski's sinister junkie guardian in the slick thriller The Glass House (2001), and co-starred with Keanu Reeves in the #1 smash hit Hardball (2001). However, her greatest career moment was still to come with her lead role in the enormous critical and commercial hit Unfaithful (2002), in which she superbly portrayed Richard Gere's adulterous wife. Her performance won the respect of critics and audiences alike, as well as many awards and nominations including Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
Her follow-up films including Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), Must Love Dogs (2005), Hollywoodland (2006), Secretariat (2010), and the blockbuster, Man of Steel (2013), were all received and her performances were highly praised. She won further Best Actress Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and Cinema Verite (2011).
She is very well regarded within the industry, adored by film fans, and has a credibility and quality that is all too rare today. Her immense talent at playing human and real characters, her "drop dead gorgeous" beauty and down-to-earth grittiness guarantees that she will stay on top, and she guarantee has already shown the kind of resilience that will keep her working for a long, long time.On my list, despite that "Josh Brolin" hiccup!
Movie: "The Perfect Storm"!- Actress
- Soundtrack
Cherry Jones was born on 21 November 1956 in Paris, Tennessee, USA. She is an actress, known for The Village (2004), Signs (2002) and The Perfect Storm (2000). She has been married to Sophie Huber since 2015.Great actress who should get more accolades than she does. I hope an "Oscar" caliber role comes her way ... soon!
Movie: "Signs"!- Actress
- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26, 1985 in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her father is English, while her Scottish-born mother is of Scottish and Welsh origin. Brought up immersed in the acting profession from both sides - writing and performing - it is little wonder that the young Keira asked for her own agent at the age of three. She was granted one at the age of six and performed in her first TV role as "Little Girl" in Royal Celebration (1993), aged seven.
It was discovered at an early age that Keira had severe difficulties in reading and writing. She was not officially dyslexic as she never sat the formal tests required of the British Dyslexia Association. Instead, she worked incredibly hard, encouraged by her family, until the problem had been overcome by her early teens. Her first multi-scene performance came in A Village Affair (1995), an adaptation of the lesbian love story by Joanna Trollope. This was followed by small parts in the British crime series The Bill (1984), an exiled German princess in The Treasure Seekers (1996) and a much more substantial role as the young "Judith Dunbar" in Giles Foster's adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's novel Coming Home (1998), alongside Peter O'Toole, Penelope Keith and Joanna Lumley. The first time Keira's name was mentioned around the world was when it was revealed (in a plot twist kept secret by director George Lucas) that she played Natalie Portman's decoy "Padme" to Portman's "Amidala" in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). It was several years before agreement was reached over which scenes featured Keira as the queen and which featured Natalie!
Keira had no formal training as an actress and did it out of pure enjoyment. She went to an ordinary council-run school in nearby Teddington and had no idea what she wanted to do when she left. By now, she was beginning to receive far more substantial roles and was starting to turn work down as one project and her schoolwork was enough to contend with. She reappeared on British television in 1999 as "Rose Fleming" in Alan Bleasdale's faithful reworking of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1999), and traveled to Romania to film her first title role in Walt Disney's Princess of Thieves (2001) in which she played Robin Hood's daughter, Gwyn. Keira's first serious boyfriend was her Princess of Thieves (2001) co-star Del Synnott, and they later co-starred in Peter Hewitt's 'work of fart' Thunderpants (2002). Nick Hamm's dark thriller The Hole (2001) kept her busy during 2000, and featured her first nude scene (15 at the time, the film was not released until she was 16 years old). In the summer of 2001, while Keira studied and sat her final school exams (she received six A's), she filmed a movie about an Asian girl's (Parminder Nagra) love for football and the prejudices she has to overcome regarding both her culture and her religion). Bend It Like Beckham (2002) was a smash hit in football-mad Britain but it had to wait until another of Keira's films propelled it to the top end of the US box office. Bend It Like Beckham (2002) cost just £3.5m to make, and nearly £1m of that came from the British Lottery. It took £11m in the UK and has since gone on to score more than US$76m worldwide.
Meanwhile, Keira had started A-levels at Esher College, studying Classics, English Literature and Political History, but continued to take acting roles which she thought would widen her experience as an actress. The story of a drug-addicted waitress and her friendship with the young son of a drug-addict, Pure (2002), occupied Keira from January to March 2002. Also at this time, Keira's first attempt at Shakespeare was filmed. She played "Helena" in a modern interpretation of a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" entitled The Seasons Alter (2002). This was commissioned by the environmental organization "Futerra", of which Keira's mother is patron. Keira received no fee for this performance or for another short film, New Year's Eve (2002), by award-winning director Col Spector. But it was a chance encounter with producer Andy Harries at the London premiere of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) which forced Keira to leave her studies and pursue acting full-time. The meeting lead to an audition for the role of "Larisa Feodorovna Guishar" - the classic heroine of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (2002), played famously in the David Lean movie by Julie Christie. This was to be a big-budget TV movie with a screenplay written by Andrew Davies. Keira won the part and the mini-series was filmed throughout the Spring of 2002 in Slovakia, co-starring Sam Neill and Hans Matheson as "Yuri Zhivago". Keira rounded off 2002 with a few scenes in the first movie to be directed by Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley writer Richard Curtis. Called Love Actually (2003), Keira played "Juliet", a newlywed whose husband's Best Man is secretly besotted with her. A movie filmed after Love Actually (2003) but released before it was to make the world sit up and take notice of this beautiful fresh-faced young actress with a cute British accent. It was a movie which Keira very nearly missed out on, altogether. Auditions were held in London for a new blockbuster movie called Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), but heavy traffic in the city forced Keira to be tagged on to the end of the day's auditions list. It helped - she got the part. Filming took place in Los Angeles and the Caribbean from October 2002 to March 2003 and was released to massive box office success and almost universal acclaim in the July of that year.
Meanwhile, a small British film called Bend It Like Beckham (2002) had sneaked onto a North American release slate and was hardly setting the box office alight. But Keira's dominance in "Pirates" had set tongues wagging and questions being asked about the actress playing "Elizabeth Swann". Almost too late, "Bend It"'s distributors realized one of its two stars was the same girl whose name was on everyone's lips due to "Pirates", and took the unusual step of re-releasing "Bend It" to 1,000 screens across the US, catapulting it from no. 26 back up to no. 12. "Pirates", meanwhile, was fighting off all contenders at the top spot, and stayed in the Top 3 for an incredible 21 weeks. It was perhaps no surprise, then, that Keira was on producer Jerry Bruckheimer's wanted list for the part of "Guinevere" in a planned accurate telling of the legend of "King Arthur". Filming took place in Ireland and Wales from June to November 2003. In July, Keira had become the celebrity face of British jeweller and luxury goods retailer, Asprey. At a photoshoot for the company on Long Island New York in August, Keira met and fell in love with Northern Irish model Jamie Dornan. King Arthur (2004) was released in July 2004 to lukewarm reviews. It seems audiences wanted the legend after all, and not necessarily the truth. Keira became the breakout star and 'one to watch in 2004' throughout the world's media at the end of 2003.
Keira's 2004 started off in Scotland and Canada filming John Maybury's time-travelling thriller The Jacket (2005) with Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. A planned movie of Deborah Moggach's novel, "Tulip Fever", about forbidden love in 17th Century Amsterdam, was canceled in February after the British government suddenly closed tax loopholes which allowed filmmakers to claw back a large proportion of their expenditure. Due to star Keira and Jude Law in the main roles, the film remains mothballed. Instead, Keira spent her time wisely, visiting Ethiopia on behalf of the "Comic Relief" charity, and spending summer at various grandiose locations around the UK filming what promises to be a faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride & Prejudice (2005), alongside Matthew Macfadyen as "Mr. Darcy", and with Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench in supporting roles. In October 2004, Keira received her first major accolade, the Hollywood Film Award for Best Breakthrough Actor - Female, and readers of Empire Magazine voted her the Sexiet Movie Star Ever. The remainder of 2004 saw Keira once again trying a completely new genre, this time the part-fact, part-fiction life story of model turned bounty hunter Domino (2005). 2005 started with the premiere of The Jacket (2005) at the Sundance Film Festival, with the US premiere in LA on February 28th. Much of the year was then spent in the Caribbean filming both sequels to Pirates Of The Caribbean. Keira's first major presenting role came in a late-night bed-in comedy clip show for Comic Relief with presenter Johnny Vaughan. In late July, promotions started for the September release of Pride & Prejudice (2005), with British fans annoyed to learn that the US version would end with a post-marriage kiss, but the European version would not. Nevertheless, when the movie opened in September on both sides of the Atlantic, Keira received her greatest praise thus far in her career, amid much talk of awards. It spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK box office.
Domino (2005) opened well in October, overshadowed by the death of Domino Harvey earlier in the year. Keira received Variety's Personality Of The Year Award in November, topped the following month by her first Golden Globe nomination, for Pride & Prejudice (2005). KeiraWeb.com exclusively announced that Keira would play Helene Joncour in an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco's novella Silk (2007). Pride & Prejudice (2005) garnered six BAFTA nominations at the start of 2006, but not Best Actress for Keira, a fact which paled soon after by the announcement she had received her first Academy Award nomination, the third youngest Best Actress Oscar hopeful. A controversial nude Vanity Fair cover of Keira and Scarlett Johansson kept the press busy up till the Oscars, with Reese Witherspoon taking home the gold man in the Best Actress category, although Keira's Vera Wang dress got more media attention. Keira spent early summer in Europe filming Silk (2007) opposite Michael Pitt, and the rest of the summer in the UK filming Atonement (2007), in which she plays Cecilia Tallis, and promoting the new Pirates movie (her Ellen Degeneres interview became one of the year's Top 10 'viral downloads'). Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) broke many box office records when it opens worldwide in July, becoming the third biggest movie ever by early September. Keira sued British newspaper The Daily Mail in early 2007 after her image in a bikini accompanied an article about a woman who blamed slim celebrities for the death of her daughter from anorexia. The case was settled and Keira matched the settlement damages and donated the total amount to an eating disorder charity. Keira filmed a movie about the life of Dylan Thomas, The Edge Of Love (2008) with a screenplay written by her mother Sharman Macdonald. Her co-star Lindsay Lohan pulled out just a week before filming began, and was replaced by Sienna Miller.
What was announced to be Keira's final Pirates movie in the franchise, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007), opened strongly in June, rising to all-time fifth biggest movie by July. Atonement (2007) opened the Venice Film Festival in August, and opened worldwide in September, again to superb reviews for Keira. Meanwhile, Silk (2007) opened in September on very few screens and disappeared without a trace. Keira spent the rest of the year filming The Duchess (2008), the life story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, based on Amanda Foreman's award-winning biography of the distant relation of Princess Diana. The year saw more accolades and poll-topping for Keira than ever before, including Women's Beauty Icon 2007 and gracing the covers of all the top-selling magazines. She won Best Actress for Atonement (2007) at the Variety Club Of Great Britain Showbiz Awards, and ended the year with her second Golden Globe nomination. Christmas Day saw - or rather heard - Keira on British TV screens in a new Robbie The Reindeer animated adventure, with DVD proceeds going to Comic Relief. At the start of 2008, Keira received her first BAFTA nomination - Best Actress for Atonement, and the movie wins Best Film: Drama at the Golden Globes. Seven Academy Award nominations for Atonement soon follow. Keira wins Best Actress for her role as Cecilia Tallis at the Empire Film Awards. In May, Keira's first Shakespearean role is announced, when she is confirmed to play Cordelia in a big-screen version of King Lear, alongside Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow, with Sir Anthony Hopkins as the titular monarch. After two years of rumours, it is confirmed that Keira is on the shortlist to play Eliza Doolittle in a new adaptation of My Fair Lady. The Edge Of Love opens the Edinburgh Film Festival on June 18th, and opens on limited release in the UK and US. A huge round of promotions for The Duchess occurs throughout the summer, with cast and crew trying to play down the marketers' decision to draw parallels between the duchess and Princess Diana. Keira attends the UK and US premieres and Toronto Film Festival within the first week of September. The Duchess opens strongly on both sides of the Atlantic. Two more movies were confirmed for Keira during September - a tale of adultery called Last Night (2010), and a biopic of author F Scott Fitzgerald entitled The Beautiful and the Damned.
Keira spent October on the streets of New York City filming Last Night alongside Sam Worthington and Guillaume Canet. Keira helped to promote the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, by contributing to a series of short films produced to mark the occasion. In January 2009 it was announced Keira had signed to play a reclusive actress in an adaptation of Ken Bruen's novel London Boulevard (2010), co-starring Colin Farrell. Keira continues her close ties with the Comic Relief charity by helping to launch their British icons T-shirts campaign. In the same week King Lear was revealed to have been shelved, it was announced that Keira would instead star alongside her Pride & Prejudice co-star Carey Mulligan in an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010). A new short film emerges in March, recorded in the January of 2008 in which Keira plays a Fairy! The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers (2009) was written by Keira's boyfriend Rupert Friend and actor Tom Mison. It went to be shown at the London Film Festival in October and won Best Comedy Short at the New Hampshire Film Festival. Keira continued to put her celebrity to good use in 2009 with a TV commercial for WomensAid highlighting domestic abuse against women. Unfortunately, UK censors refused to allow its broadcast and it can only be viewed on YouTube. May and June saw Keira filming Never Let Me Go (2010) and London Boulevard (2010) back-to-back. In October, a new direction for Keira's career emerged, when it was announced she would appear on the London stage in her West End debut role as Jennifer, in a reworking of Moliere's The Misanthrope, starring Damian Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald. More than $2m of ticket sales followed in the first four days, before even rehearsals had begun! The play ran from December to March at London's Comedy Theatre.Just a great actress!
Movie: "King Arthur"!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an actress known for her versatile work in a variety of film and television projects. Possibly most known for her role as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), she has also starred in critically acclaimed independent films such as Smashed (2012), for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination, as well as genre fare like Final Destination 3 (2006) and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007).
Winstead was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina but largely raised in Sandy, Utah, which is where she discovered a love for the performing arts. She grew up training to be a ballerina and attended the Joffrey Ballet School training program at the age of 12. It was also around this time that she began to pursue a career in acting and soon started working steadily in television and film.
Winstead is also a recording artist and performs under the name "Got a Girl" alongside producer Dan the Automotor.She has just "stormed" onto my list !!!
Movie: "The Thing"!