Best actress of 1994 (no order)
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Toni Collette is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress, best known for her roles in The Sixth Sense (1999) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
Collette was born Toni Collett (she later added an "e") on November 1, 1972, in Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is the first of three children of Judith (Cook), a customer service representative, and Bob Collett, a truck driver. From age six, she was brought up in suburban Sydney. At the age of eleven, she showed her phenomenal acting skills when she faked appendicitis out of boredom and longing for attention; her act was so convincing that doctors had to remove her appendix, even though the test showed nothing was wrong with it. At 16, she left school and enrolled in the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA). At that time, she was a struggling actress, supporting herself by delivering pizzas. After 18 months of studies, she left NIDA for her feature film debut as "Wendy Robinson", opposite Russell Crowe and Anthony Hopkins, in The Efficiency Expert (1991), and earned herself a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from the Australian Film Institute. Collette made her stage debut with the Sydney Theatre Company, as "Sonya" in Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", a performance that won her a critic's circle award as Best Newcomer. She also appeared in stage productions at the Belvoir Street Theatre, under directorship of Geoffrey Rush. In 1994, she won the Australian Best Actress in a Lead Role for her work in Muriel's Wedding (1994), for which she had to gain 40 pounds in seven weeks. In 1995, Toni Collette came to Hollywood with a supporting role in The Pallbearer (1996), then had a string of supporting roles. Her first lead as "Diana Spencer", an Australian woman who shares the name and birthday of Princess Diana, in the comedy, Diana & Me (1997), was obscured by the real Diana's death, which practically occurred at the same time when the movie was released. Her breakthrough came with the role as "Lynn Sear" in The Sixth Sense (1999), for which she quite rightly won an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Her latest memorable role as "Sheryl", a beaten-down but loving mother, in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), is also a fine ensemble work with Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, and Alan Arkin. Since 2003, Toni Collette has been married to musician Dave Galafassi, with whom she recorded her singing and songwriting debut album, titled "Beautiful Awkward Pictures", in 2006. She co-owns an independent production company in Australia, and also continues her music career as a singer. Toni resides with her husband in Sydney, Australia, and owns a second home in Ireland.for "Muriel's wedding"- Actress
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Kathleen Turner was born June 19, 1954 in Springfield, Missouri, to Patsy (Magee) and Allen Richard Turner, a U.S. Foreign Service officer. She graduated from American School in London in 1972. After the death of her father, the Turner family moved back to the United States where Kathleen later enrolled at Missouri State University for two years, and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in 1977. Kathleen made her film debut in Body Heat (1981), her role as the relentless Matty Waker brought her astronomical success, and is remembered as one of the sexiest roles in film history. After her initial success, Kathleen continued to flourish with performances in The Man with Two Brains (1983), Romancing the Stone (1984), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Prizzi's Honor (1985), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The War of the Roses (1989), and Serial Mom (1994).for "Serial Mom"- Peng Phan is known for The Rice People (1994), One Evening After the War (1998) and Jirai wo fundara sayônara (1999).for "Rice people"
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Irene Bedard (born July 22, 1967) is an Alaska Native actress enrolled in the Native Village of Koyuk who has played many American Indian characters in a variety of television shows and films. She is best known for her voice role as the title character in the Disney animated film "Pocahontas," and the cult-classic "Smoke Signals" as Suzy Song. She is known for bringing a powerful emotional presence to her characters.
Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska, raised primarily in Alaska, but also spent a few years as a child in Washington state. Her father was Bruce Bedard, and mother was Carol Bedard, and she is their oldest of four - Leslie Bedard, Joseph Bedard, and David Bedard are her younger siblings. She is Inupiaq and Yup'ik on her mother's side, and Cree on her father's side. She graduated from Anchorage's Dimond High School in 1985, and then earned a Musical Theatre degree from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bedard's son Quinn Wilson was born in 2003.
Her first role was as Mary Crow Dog in the television production, "Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee," which depicted the 1970s standoff between police and Native Americans, many of the Pine Ridge Reservation, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. She received a Golden Globe nomination for the role. Besides the first Disney Pocahontas movie, she also voiced direct-to-video sequel "Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World." Bedard was the physical model for the character. She appeared in a different take of the Pocahontas story in Terence Malick's 2005 film "The New World," as Pocahontas's mother, Nonoma Winanuske Matatiske. In 2005, she was cast in the television mini-series Into the West, portraying the half-Lakota, half-white adult Margaret "Light Shines" Wheeler. In 2011 Bedard portrayed the Messenger in the Academy Award-nominated film, "Tree of Life." In 2018, Bedard reprised her voiced role of Pocahontas for Disney's "Ralph Breaks the Internet."
Her television roles span from 1995, including Stephen Spielberg's "Into the West," "The Spectacular Spider-Man," "Longmire," "Westworld," and "FBI: Most Wanted." She has performed in two Stephen King series, 2017's "The Mist" as Kimi Lucero, and 2020's "The Stand" as Ray Rentner. In the 2017 she portrayed the future Co-President of the United States for the Jay-Z music video "Family Feud," directed by Ava Duverney.
Bedard's decades of creative work includes singing, theatre, spoken word, producing television and movies, speaking, and teaching. She fosters a passion of many creative disciplines, and is a great lover, and adopter, of animals. Bedard was chosen in 1995 as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People." She's served on the American Indian Enterprise and Business Council to the United Nations, and is involved in frequent activist work around the environmental and Indigenous issues.for "Lakota woman: siege at Wounded Knee"- Actress
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Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).for "Leon"