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William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for El Pollo Loco.
Pitt's earliest credited roles were in television, starting on the daytime soap opera Another World (1964) before appearing in the recurring role of Randy on the legendary prime time soap opera Dallas (1978). Following a string of guest appearances on various television series through the 1980s, Pitt gained widespread attention with a small part in Thelma & Louise (1991), in which he played a sexy criminal who romanced and conned Geena Davis. This led to starring roles in badly received films such as Johnny Suede (1991) & Cool World (1992).
But Pitt's career hit an upswing with his casting in A River Runs Through It (1992), which cemented his status as an multi-layered actor as opposed to just a pretty face. Pitt's subsequent projects were as quirky and varied in tone as his performances, ranging from his unforgettably comic cameo as stoner roommate Floyd in True Romance (1993) to romantic roles in such visually lavish films as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) and Legends of the Fall (1994), to an emotionally tortured detective in the horror-thriller Se7en (1995). His portrayal of frenetic oddball Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys (1995) won him a Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.
Pitt's portrayal of Achilles in the big-budget period drama Troy (2004) helped establish his appeal as an action star and was closely followed by a co-starring role in the stylish spy-versus-spy flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Pitt, who married Jennifer Aniston in a highly publicized ceremony in 2000, met Angelina Jolie. Pitt left Aniston for Jolie in 2005, a break-up that continues to fuel tabloid stories years after its occurrence.
He continues to wildly vary his film choices, appearing in everything from high-concept popcorn flicks such as Megamind (2010) to adventurous critic-bait like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Tree of Life (2011). He has received two Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In 2014, he starred in the war film Fury (2014), opposite Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña.
Pitt and Jolie have 6 children, 3 adopted & 3 biological.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
John Cusack is, like most of his characters, an unconventional hero. Wary of fame and repelled by formulaic Hollywood fare, he has built a successful career playing underdogs and odd men out--all the while avoiding the media spotlight. John was born in Evanston, Illinois, to an Irish-American family. With the exception of mom Nancy (née Carolan), a former math teacher, the Cusack clan is all show business: father Dick Cusack was an actor and filmmaker, and John's siblings Joan Cusack, Ann Cusack, Bill Cusack and Susie Cusack are all thespians by trade. Like his brother and sisters, John became a member of Chicago's Piven Theatre Workshop while he was still in elementary school. By age 12, he already had several stage productions, commercial voice overs and industrial films under his belt. He made his feature film debut at 17, acting alongside Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy in the romantic comedy Class (1983). His next role, as a member of Anthony Michael Hall's geek brigade in Sixteen Candles (1984), put him on track to becoming a teen-flick fixture. Cusack remained on the periphery of the Brat Pack, sidestepping the meteoric rise and fall of most of his contemporaries, but he stayed busy with leads in films like The Sure Thing (1985) and Better Off Dead (1985). Young Cusack is probably best remembered for what could be considered his last adolescent role: the stereo-blaring romantic Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything (1989). A year later, he hit theaters as a grown-up, playing a bush-league con man caught between his manipulative mother and headstrong girlfriend in The Grifters (1990).
The next few years were relatively quiet for the actor, but he filled in the gaps with off-screen projects. He directed and produced several shows for the Chicago-based theater group The New Criminals, which he founded in 1988 (modeling it after Tim Robbins' Actors' Gang in Los Angeles) to promote political and avant-garde stage work. Four years later, Cusack's high school friends Steve Pink and D.V. DeVincentis joined him in starting a sister company for film, New Crime Productions. New Crime's first feature was the sharply written comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), which touched off a career renaissance for Cusack. In addition to co-scripting, he starred as a world-weary hit man who goes home for his ten-year high school reunion and tries to rekindle a romance with the girl he stood up on prom night (Minnie Driver). In an instance of life imitating art, Cusack actually did go home for his ten-year reunion (to honor a bet about the film's financing) and ended up in a real-life romance with Driver. Cusack's next appearance was as a federal agent (or, as he described it, "the first post-Heston, non-biblical action star in sandals") in Con Air (1997), a movie he chose because he felt it was time to make smart business decisions. He followed that with Clint Eastwood's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), in which he played a Yankee reporter entangled in a Savannah murder case.
Cusack has always favored offbeat material, so it was no surprise when he turned up in the fiercely original Being John Malkovich (1999). Long-haired, bearded and bespectacled, he was almost unrecognizable in the role of a frustrated puppeteer who stumbles across a portal into the brain of actor John Malkovich. The convincing performance won him a Best Actor nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards. In 2000, Cusack was back to his clean-shaven self in High Fidelity (2000), another New Crime production. He worked with Steve Pink and D.V. DeVincentis to adapt Nick Hornby's popular novel (relocating the story to their native Chicago), then starred as the sarcastic record store owner who revisits his "Top 5" breakups to find out why he's so unlucky in love. The real Cusack has been romantically linked with several celebs, including Driver, Alison Eastwood, Claire Forlani and Neve Campbell. He's also something of a family man, acting frequently opposite sister Joan Cusack and pulling other Cusacks into his films on a regular basis. He seems pleased with the spate of projects on his horizon, but admits that he still hasn't reached his ultimate goal: to be involved in a "great piece of art".- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Jason Statham was born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, to Eileen (Yates), a dancer, and Barry Statham, a street merchant and lounge singer. He was a Diver on the British National Diving Team and finished twelfth in the World Championships in 1992. He has also been a fashion model, black market salesman and finally of course, actor. He received the audition for his debut role as Bacon in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) through French Connection, for whom he was modeling. They became a major investor in the film and introduced Jason to Guy Ritchie, who invited him to audition for a part in the film by challenging him to impersonate an illegal street vendor and convince him to purchase fake jewelry. Jason must have been doing something right because after the success of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) he teamed up again with Guy Ritchie for Snatch (2000), with co-stars including Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina and Benicio Del Toro. After Snatch (2000) came Turn It Up (2000) with US music star Ja Rule, followed by a supporting actor role in the sci-fi film Ghosts of Mars (2001), Jet Li's The One (2001) and another screen partnership with Vinnie Jones in Mean Machine (2001) under Guy Ritchie's and Matthew Vaughn's SKA Films. Finally in 2002 he was cast as the lead role of Frank Martin in The Transporter (2002). Jason was also in the summer 2003 blockbuster remake of The Italian Job (1969), The Italian Job (2003), playing Handsome Rob.
Throughout the 2000s, Statham became a star of juicy action B-films, most significantly Crank (2006) and Crank: High Voltage (2009), and also War (2007), opposite Jet Li, and The Bank Job (2008) and Death Race (2008), among others. In the 2010s, his reputation for cheeky and tough leading performances led to his casting as Lee Christmas in The Expendables (2010) and its sequels, the comedy Spy (2015), and as (apparently) reformed villain Deckard Shaw in Fast & Furious 6 (2013), Furious 7 (2015), The Fate of the Furious (2017), and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019). Apart from these blockbusters, he continued headlining B-films such as Homefront (2013).
In 2017, he had his first child, a son with his partner, model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Vin Diesel was born Mark Sinclair in Alameda County, California, along with his fraternal twin brother, Paul Vincent. He was raised by his astrologer/psychologist mother, Delora Sherleen (Sinclair), and adoptive father, Irving H. Vincent, an acting instructor and theatre manager, in an artists' housing project in New York City's Greenwich Village. He never knew his biological father. His mother is white (with English, German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry), and his adoptive father is African-American; referring to his biological father's background, Diesel has said that he himself is "definitely a person of colour".
His first break in acting happened by chance, when at the age of seven he and his friends broke into a theatre to vandalize it. A woman stopped them and offered them each a script and $20, on the condition that they would attend everyday after school. From there, Vin's fledgling career progressed from the New York repertory company run by his father, to the Off-Off-Broadway circuit. At age seventeen and already sporting a well-honed physique, he became a bouncer at some of New York's hippest clubs to earn himself some extra cash. It was at this time that he changed his name to Vin Diesel.
Following high school, Vin enrolled as an English major at Hunter College, but dropped out after three years to go to Hollywood to further his acting career. Being an experienced theatre actor did not make any impression in Hollywood and after a year of struggling to make his mark, he returned to New York. His mother then gave him a book called "Feature Films at used Car Prices" by Rick Schmidt. The book showed him that he could take control of his career and make his own movies. He wrote a short film based on his own experiences as an actor, called Multi-Facial (1995), which was shot in less than three days at a cost of $3,000. Multi-Facial (1995) was eventually accepted for the 1995 Cannes Film Festival where it got a tumultuous reception.
Afterwards, Vin returned to Los Angeles and raised almost $50,000 through telemarketing to fund the making of his first feature, Strays (1997). Six months after shooting, the film was accepted for the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, and although it received a good reception, it did not sell as well as hoped. Yet again Vin returned disappointed to New York only to receive a dream phone call. Steven Spielberg was impressed by Multi-Facial (1995) and wanted to meet Vin, leading him to be cast in Saving Private Ryan (1998). Multi-Facial (1995) earned Vin more work, when the director of The Iron Giant (1999) saw it and decided to cast Vin in the title role. From there, Vin's career steadily grew, with him securing his first lead role, as Richard B. Riddick in the sci-fi film Pitch Black (2000). The role has earned him a legion of devoted fans and the public recognition he deserves.
Since then, he has headlined a series of blockbusters, often but not only centered on fast-driving motor vehicles: The Fast and the Furious (2001), xXx (2002), The Pacifier (2005), Fast & Furious (2009), Fast Five (2011), Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Furious 7 (2015). He also voiced Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and starred in the lower-budgeted courtroom drama Find Me Guilty (2006), the latter directed by Sidney Lumet.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon was born in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to Édith (Arnold) and Fabien Delon. His father was of French and Corsican Italian descent, and his mother was of French and German ancestry. His parents divorced early on, and Delon had a stormy childhood, being frequently expelled from school.
In 1953/1954 he served with the French Marines in Indochina. In the mid-'50s he worked at various odd jobs including waiter, salesman and porter in Les Halles market. He decided to try an acting career and in 1957 made his film debut in Yves Allégret's Quand la femme s'en mêle (1957). He declined an offer of a contract from producer David O. Selznick, and in 1960 he received international recognition for his role in Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960). In 1961 he appeared on the stage in "'Tis a Pity She's a Whore", directed by Visconti, in Paris. In 1964 he formed his own production company, Delbeau Productions, and he produced a short film directed by Guy Gilles. In 1968 he found himself involved in murder, drug and sex scandal that indirectly implicated major politicians and show-business personalities, but he was eventually cleared of all charges. In the late 1960s he formed another company. Adel Film, and the next year he began producing features. In 1981 he directed his first film, To Kill a Cop (1981).
Delon was a sensation early in his career; he came to embody the young, energetic, often morally corrupted man. With his breathtaking good looks he was also destined to play tender lovers and romantic heroes, and he was a French embodiment of the type created in America by James Dean. His first outstanding success came with the role of the parasite Tom Ripley in 'Rene Clement''s sun-drenched thriller Purple Noon (1960). Delon presented a psychological portrait of a murderous young cynic who attempts to take on the identity of his victim. A totally different role was offered to him by Visconti in Rocco and His Brothers (1960). In this film Delon plays the devoted Rocco, who accepts the greatest sacrifices to save his shiftless brother Simon.
After several other films in Italy, Delon returned to the criminal genre with Jean Gabin in Any Number Can Win (1963). This work, a classic example of the genre, was distinguished not only by a soundly worked-out screenplay, but also by the careful production and the excellent performances of both Delon and Gabin. It was only in the late 1960s that the sleek and lethal Delon came to epitomize the calm, psychopathic hoodlum, staring into the camera like a cat assessing a mouse. His tough, ruthless side was first used to real effect by Jean-Pierre Melville in The Samurai (1967). In 1970 he had a huge success in the bloodstained Borsalino (1970)--which he also produced--playing a small-time gangster in the 1930s who, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, becomes king of the Marseilles underworld. Delon later won critical acclaim for his roles, against type, in Joseph Losey's Mr. Klein (1976) in which he played (brilliantly) the icily sinister title role, and the art-movie Swann in Love (1984). He has an older son Anthony Delon (who has also acted in a number of movies) from his first marriage to Nathalie Delon, and has a young son and daughter, Alain-Fabien and Anouchka with Rosalie.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Antonio Banderas, one of Spain's most famous faces, was a soccer player until breaking his foot at the age of fourteen; he is now an international movie star known for playing Zorro in the eponymous movie series.
He was born José Antonio Domínguez Banderas on August 10, 1960, in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain. His father, Jose Dominguez, was a policeman in the Spanish civil guards. His mother, Doña Ana Banderas Gallego, was a school teacher. Young Banderas was brought up a Roman Catholic. He wanted to play soccer professionally and made much success playing for his school team until the age of 14, albeit his dream ended when he broke his foot. At that time, he developed a passion for theatre after seeing the stage production of "Hair". Banderas began his acting studies at the School of Dramatic Arts in Málaga, and made his acting debut at a small theatre in Málaga. He was arrested by the Spanish police for performance in a play by Bertolt Brecht, because of political censorship under the rule of General Francisco Franco. Banderas spent a whole night at the police station, he had three or four such arrests while he was working with a small theatre troupe that toured all over Spain and was giving performances in small town theatres and on the street.
In 1979, at age 19, he moved to Madrid in pursuit of an acting career. Being a struggling young actor, he also worked as a waiter and took small modeling jobs. At that time, he joined the troupe at the National Theatre of Spain, becoming the youngest member of the company. Banderas' stage performances caught the attention of movie director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his movie debut Labyrinth of Passion (1982). Banderas and Almodovar joined forces in making innovative and sexually provocative movies during the 1980s. In 1984, Banderas made headlines in Spain with his performance as a gay man, making his first male-to-male on-screen kiss in Almodovar's Law of Desire (1987). Banderas' long and fruitful collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar eventually prepared him for international recognition that came with his work in the Academy Award-nominated film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). In 1991, he appeared as an object of Madonna's affection in Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991).
In 1992, Banderas made his Hollywood debut with The Mambo Kings (1992). Because he did not speak English at that time, his dialogue for the movie was taught to him phonetically. Banderas shot to international fame with his sensitive performance as a lover of Tom Hanks' AIDS-infected lawyer in Philadelphia (1993), then played opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). Banderas further established himself as one of Hollywood's leading men after co-starring in Evita (1996) opposite Madonna in the title role. In 1998, he won acclaim for his portrayal of Zorro, opposite Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, in The Mask of Zorro (1998). For the role as Zorro, Banderas took training with the Olympic national fencing team in Spain, and practiced his moves with real steel swords, then he used the lighter aluminum swords in the movie. He also took a month-long course of horse-riding before the filming. He later returned to the role in The Legend of Zorro (2005). In 1999, Banderas made his directorial debut in Crazy in Alabama (1999), starring his wife, Melanie Griffith. He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros opposite Salma Hayek in Frida (2002). He voiced Puss in Boots in the Shrek franchise.
Banderas established himself as internationally known Latin heartthrob with charismatic looks, and was chosen as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People magazine in 1996. He won numerous awards and nominations for his works in film, including three ALMA awards and three Golden Globe nominations, among many other. From 1996 to 2014, Banderas was married to American actress Melanie Griffith and the couple have one daughter, Stella (born 1996). Outside of his acting profession, Banderas has been a passionate soccer fan and a staunch supporter of the Real Madrid Football Club. He shares time between his two residencies, one in the United States, and one in the South of Spain.- Producer
- Actor
- Composer
American actor Mark Wahlberg is one of a handful of respected entertainers who successfully made the transition from teen pop idol to acclaimed actor. A Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for The Departed (2006) who went on to receive positive critical reviews for his performance in The Fighter (2010), Wahlberg also is a solid comedy actor, proven by his starring role in Ted (2012).
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born June 5, 1971 in a poor working class district, Dorchester, of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the son of Alma Elaine (Donnelly), a nurse's aide and clerk, and Donald Edward Wahlberg, a delivery driver. Wahlberg is the youngest of nine children. He is of Swedish (from his paternal grandfather), French-Canadian, English, Irish and Scottish, descent. The large Wahlberg brood didn't have a lot growing up, especially after his parents divorced when he was eleven. The kids crammed into a three-bedroom apartment, none of them having very much privacy. Mark's mother has said that after the divorce, she became very self-absorbed with her own life. She has blamed herself for her son's subsequent problems and delinquency. Wahlberg dropped out of high school at age fourteen (but later got his GED) to pursue a life of petty crime and drugs. He'd spend his days scamming and stealing, working on the odd drug deal before treating himself to the substances.
The young man also had a violent streak - one which was often aimed at minorities. At age sixteen, he was convicted of assault against two Vietnamese men after he had tried to rob them. As a result of his assault conviction, he was sentenced to serve 50 days in prison at Deer Island penitentiary. Whilst there, he began working out to pass time and, when he emerged at the end of his sentence, he had gone from being a scrawny young kid to a buff young man. Wahlberg also credits jail time as being his motivation to improve his lifestyle and leave crime behind him.
Around this time, his older brother Donnie Wahlberg had become an overnight teen idol as a member of the 1980s boy band New Kids on the Block. A precursor to the boy-band craze, the group was dominating the charts and were on top of their game. Mark himself had been an original member of the band but had backed out early on - uncomfortable with the squeaky clean image of the group. Donnie used his connections in the music business to help his little brother secure a recording contract, and soon the world was introduced to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, with Wahlberg as a bad-boy rapper who danced in his boxers. Despite a lack of singing ability, promoters took to his dance moves and a physique they knew teenage girls would love.
Donnie scripted some easy songs for Mark, who collected a troupe of dancers and a DJ to become his "Funky Bunch" and "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch" was born. His debut album, "Music for the People", was a smash hit, which was propelled along by the rapper's willingness to disrobe down to boxer-briefs on stage, not to mention several catchy tunes. Teenage girls thrilled to the rapping "bad boy". Record producer David Geffen saw in Wahlberg a cash-cow of marketing ability. After speaking to designer Calvin Klein, Marky Mark was set up as the designer's chief underwear model.
His scantily clad figure soon adorned billboards across the nation. Ironically, while the New Kids on the Block's fame was dwindling as audiences tired of their syrupy lyrics, "Marky Mark's" bad boy image was becoming even more of a commodity. He was constantly in the headlines (often of the tabloids) after multiple scandals. In 1992, he released a book dedicated to his penis. Wahlberg was constantly getting into rumored fights, most memorably with Madonna and her entourage at a Los Angeles party. While things were always intense, they were relatively harmless and made for enjoyable reading for the public. However, when the story of his arrest for assault (and the allegations of racism) broke in the press, things took on a decidedly darker note. People were not amused. Soon after, while on a British talk show along with rapper Shabba Ranks, he got into even more trouble. After Ranks made the statement that gays should be crucified, Wahlberg was accused of condoning the comments by his silence. Marky Mark was suddenly surrounded by charges of brutality, homophobia and racial hatred. His second album, "You Gotta Believe", had not been faring well and, after the charges surfaced, it plummeted from the charts.
Adding to the hoopla, Wahlberg was brought to court for allegedly assaulting a security guard. He was ordered to make amends by appearing in a series of anti-bias advertisements. Humbled and humiliated by his fall from grace in the music world, Wahlberg decided to pursue another angle, acting. He dropped the "Marky Mark" moniker and became known simply as Mark Wahlberg. His first big screen role came in Penny Marshall's Renaissance Man (1994). Despite the name change, many people snickered at the idea of the has-been rapper thinking he could make it as an actor. From the get-go, he was proving them wrong. In Renaissance Man (1994), he gave an utterly charming performance as a simple but sincere army recruit. What naysayers remained found it increasingly difficult to write Mark Wahlberg off as he delivered one fine performance after another. He blew them away in the controversial The Basketball Diaries (1995) and chilled them in Fear (1996) as every father's worst nightmare.
The major turning point in Wahlberg's career came with the role of troubled porn star Dirk Diggler in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997). Since then, Wahlberg has chosen roles that demonstrate a wide range of dramatic ability, starring in critically acclaimed dramas such as Three Kings (1999) and The Perfect Storm (2000), popcorn flicks like Planet of the Apes (2001) and Contraband (2012), and even indies such as I Heart Huckabees (2004).
Wahlberg was the executive producer of such television series as Boardwalk Empire (2010), In Treatment (2008) and the highly successful comedy Entourage (2004), which was partly based on his experiences in Hollywood.
Wahlberg and his wife Rhea Durham have four children.- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
Brendan James Fraser was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Canadian parents Carol Mary (Genereux), a sales counselor, and Peter Fraser, a journalist and travel executive. He is of Irish, Scottish, German, Czech, and French-Canadian ancestry. As his parents frequently moved, Brendan can claim affinity with Ottawa, Indianapolis, Detroit, Seattle, London and Rome. His early exposure to theatre, particularly in London, led him to Seattle's Cornish Institute. After graduation he found a minor role as Sailor #1 in River Phoenix's Dogfight (1991), then somewhat more substantial roles in Encino Man (1992) and School Ties (1992). He expresses a preference for playing "fish out of water" men. Five more years of supporting work led finally to the title role in George of the Jungle (1997), a role which fully utilized his charm and beefy good looks, as well as offering him a chance to show off his comic talents. He describes this role as the one which dramatically altered his career. Critical raves for his role in Gods and Monsters (1998) pointed to yet another dimension to his dramatic persona.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Since making her uncredited debut as a dancer in Beatlemania (1981), Gina Gershon has established herself as a character actress and one of the leading icons of American camp. For it was fourteen years after her movie debut that Gina made movie history as the predatory bisexual who was the leading light of a Las Vegas leg-line in director Paul Verhoeven's kitsch classic Showgirls (1995). Exploding out of a plaster-of-Paris volcano clad in nothing but body makeup and a G-string, Gina Gershon obtained cinema immortality. After Showgirls (1995), she solidified her reputation, playing a lesbian sexpot in the Wachowskis' neo-noir Bound (1996).
Gina Gershon was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, the last in a brood of three kids. Her mother, Mickey (Koppel), worked as an interior decorator, and her father, Stanley Gershon, was a salesman and worked in the import/export business. Her paternal grandparents were from Russian Jewish families, and her maternal grandparents were born in Holland and Belgium, both of them to Jewish families from Poland. Gina was raised in the San Fernando Valley, and got the acting bug early, appearing at the age of seven in a school production of Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Because of her acting ambitions, her parents moved to Beverly Hills so Gina could attend Beverly Hills High, where she indulged her acting jones by appearing in a student production of The Music Man (1962). Her first love, she says, is singing.
After graduating from high school in 1980, she attended Emerson College in Boston, but took a part in the musical "Runaways". She transferred to New York University, where her official biography says she studied philosophy and psychology, but she graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts, taking a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama in 1983. In New York City, while perfecting her craft, she co-founded the theater company Naked Angels with Helen Slater.
Her big-screen breakthrough came with a part in the 1986 "Brat Pack" teenage hit Pretty in Pink (1986). She also had parts in the Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail (1988) and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Red Heat (1988). Of this period, she says, "One of my first gigs, a movie called Cocktail (1988), I found myself at 8 in the morning, in bed, practically naked, having to make out with Tom Cruise; hmmmm... movie business - so far, so good".
Citing Frank Sinatra's song "My Way" as an inspiration, she says that following Cocktail (1988), "I was fortunate enough to play many diversified roles in film, television and stage. Not always to the liking of my managers and agents, but I always did what I wanted...." She played Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Frank's first wife, in the TV miniseries Sinatra (1992).
Gina Gershon became a celebrity in Showgirls (1995). The following year, Gershon solidified her claim on second-tier stardom playing the calculating lesbian "Corky" in the crime movie Bound (1995). She never did capitalize on her mid-1990s breakthrough, but Gershon is established as a character actress and is never out of work, unlike most of her female peers who started out in the industry at the same time. Though no classic beauty, the talented thespian remains gainfully employed while many actresses of her vintage are out of work as she is possessed of a unique look and smoldering sex appeal that comes across on camera.
Gershon is versatile, too, as at home on stage as she is in front of the camera. After appearing in off-Broadway and regional theater productions, she made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Sam Mendes' revival of Cabaret (1972) in January 2001. For six months, she played the key role of "Sally Bowles", returning that October to reprise the role for another month. In 2008, she once again appeared on Broadway in the revival of the farce "Boeing Boeing" on Broadway, which won the Tony award for Best Revival.
Gina Gershon also is a children's book writer. In 2008, Putmam Juvenile published her "Camp Creepy Time", a tale of a boy who discovers aliens at his summer camp, which she co-wrote with her brother, Dann Gershon. "Camp Creepy Time" recently was optioned by DreamWorks, which plans to turn it into a movie. In 2008, she also released "In Search Of Cleo", a CD featuring nine songs which she wrote or co-wrote.- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.
Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical psychologist. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Nicole's father pursued his research on breast cancer, and then, three years later, made the pilgrimage back to her parents' native Sydney in Australia, where Nicole was raised. Young Nicole's first love was ballet, but she eventually took up mime and drama as well (her first stage role was a bleating sheep in an elementary school Christmas pageant). In her adolescent years, acting edged out the other arts and became a kind of refuge -- as her classmates sought out fun in the sun, the fair-skinned Kidman retreated to dark rehearsal halls to practice her craft. She worked regularly at the Philip Street Theater, where she once received a personal letter of praise and encouragement from audience member Jane Campion (then a film student). Kidman eventually dropped out of high school to pursue acting full-time. She broke into movies at age 16, landing a role in the Australian holiday favorite Bush Christmas (1983). That appearance touched off a flurry of film and television offers, including a lead in BMX Bandits (1983) and a turn as a schoolgirl-turned-protester in the miniseries Vietnam (1987) (for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award). With the help of an American agent, she eventually made her US debut opposite Sam Neill in the at-sea thriller Dead Calm (1989).
Kidman's next casting coup scored her more than exposure. While starring as Tom Cruise's doctor/love interest in the racetrack romance Days of Thunder (1990), she won over the Hollywood hunk hook, line and sinker. After a whirlwind courtship (and decent box office returns), the couple wed on December 24, 1990. Determined not to let her new marital status overshadow her fledgling career, the actress pressed on. She appeared as a catty high school senior in the Australian film Flirting (1991), then as Dustin Hoffman's moll in the gangster flick Billy Bathgate (1991). She reunited with Cruise for Far and Away (1992), the story of young Irish lovers who flee to America in the late 1800s, and starred opposite Michael Keaton in the tear-tugger My Life (1993). Despite her steady employment, critics and moviegoers still had not quite warmed to Kidman as a leading lady. She tried to spice up her image by seducing Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), but achieved her real breakthrough with Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995). As a fame-crazed housewife determined to eliminate any obstacle in her path, Kidman proved that she had an impressive range and deadly comic timing. She took home a Golden Globe and several critics' awards for the performance. In 1996, Kidman stepped into a corset to work with her countrywoman and onetime admirer, Jane Campion, on the adaptation of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1996). A few months later, she tore across the screen as a nuclear weapons expert in The Peacemaker (1997), adding "action star" to her professional repertoire.
She and Cruise then disappeared into a notoriously long, secretive shoot for Stanley Kubrick's sexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The couple's on-screen shenanigans prompted an increase in public speculation about their sex life (rumors had long been circulating that their marriage was a cover-up for Cruise's rumored homosexuality); tired of denying tabloid attacks, they successfully sued The Star for a story alleging that they needed a sex therapist to coach them through love scenes. Family life has always been a priority for Kidman. Born to social activists (mother was a feminist; father, a labor advocate), Nicole and her little sister, Antonia Kidman, discussed current events around the dinner table and participated in their parents' campaigns by passing out pamphlets on street corners. When her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, 17-year-old Nicole stopped working and took a massage course so that she could provide physical therapy (her mother eventually beat the cancer). She and Cruise adopted two children: Isabella Jane (born 1993) and Connor Antony (born 1995). Despite their rock-solid image, the couple announced in early 2001 that they were separating due to career conflicts. Her marriage to Cruise ended mid-summer of 2001.- Actress
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Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Dick and Donna Pfeiffer. She has an older brother and two younger sisters - Dedee Pfeiffer, and Lori Pfeiffer, who both dabbled in acting and modeling but decided against making it their lives' work. She graduated from Fountain Valley High School in 1976, and attended one year at the Golden West College, where she studied to become a court reporter. But it was while working as a supermarket checker at Vons, a large Southern California grocery chain, that she realized her true calling. She was married to actor/director Peter Horton ("Gary" of Thirtysomething (1987)) in 1981. They were later divorced, and she then had a three year relationship with actor Fisher Stevens. When that didn't work out, Pfeiffer decided she didn't want to wait any longer before having her own family, and in March of 1993, she adopted a baby girl, Claudia Rose. On November 13th of the same year, she married lawyer-turned-writer/producer David E. Kelley, creator of Picket Fences (1992), Chicago Hope (1994), The Practice (1997), and Boston Public (2000). On August 5, 1994 their son, John Henry was born.- Actor
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Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (née Elsie Ann Ford). Robert's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, descent, while Robert's mother was of English, Scottish, German, and Swiss-German ancestry. Robert and his sister, Allyson Downey, were immersed in film and the performing arts from a very young age, leading Downey Jr. to study at the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York, before moving to California with his father following his parents' 1978 divorce. In 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School to pursue acting full time. Downey Sr., himself a drug addict, exposed his son to drugs at a very early age, and Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades.
Downey Jr. made his debut as an actor at the age of five in the film Pound (1970), written and directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr.. He built his film repertoire throughout the 1980s and 1990s with roles in Tuff Turf (1985), Weird Science (1985), True Believer (1989), and Wonder Boys (2000) among many others. In 1992, Downey received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin (1992).
In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), he appeared as an aspiring film make-up artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits a murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. For the comedy Heart and Souls (1993), Downey starred as a young man with a special relationship with four ghosts. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen, directed by Michael Hoffman. Also that year, he starred in Richard III (1995), in which he appears opposite his Restoration (1995) co-star McKellen.
In 1997, Downey was seen in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998), alongside Kenneth Branagh, Daryl Hannah and Embeth Davidtz; in One Night Stand (1997), directed by Mike Figgis and starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski; and in Hugo Pool (1997), directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr. and starring Sean Penn and Patrick Dempsey. In September of 1999, Downey appeared in Black & White (1999), written and directed by James Toback, along with Ben Stiller, Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffmann, Brooke Shields and Claudia Schiffer. In January of 1999, he starred with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn in In Dreams (1999), directed by Neil Jordan.
In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (2000), directed by Curtis Hanson. In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. In 2001, Downey made his prime-time television debut when he joined the cast of the Fox-TV series Ally McBeal (1997) as attorney "Larry Paul". For this role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
The actor's drug-related problems escalated from 1996 to 2001, leading to arrests, rehab visits and incarcerations, and he was eventually fired from Ally McBeal (1997). Emerging clean and sober in 2003, Downey Jr. began to rebuild his career.
He marked his debut into music with his debut album, titled "The Futurist", on the Sony Classics Label on November 23rd, 2004. The album's eight original songs, that Downey wrote, and his two musical numbers debuting as cover songs revealed his sultry singing voice and his musical talents. Downey displayed his versatility in two different films in October 2003: the musical/drama The Singing Detective (2003), a remake of the BBC hit of the same name, and the thriller Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz. Downey starred in powerful yet humbling roles inspired by real-life accounts of some of history's most precious kept secrets, including Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (2006) in 2006 co-starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) co-starring Nicole Kidman, a film inspired by the life of Diane Arbus, the revered photographer whose images captured attention in the early 1960s. These roles exhibited Downey's momentum from the previous year of 2005, in which he starred in the Academy Award®-nominated feature film Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), directed by George Clooney and in Shane Black's action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) co-starring Val Kilmer. In 2007, he co-starred in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s.
In May 2008, Downey achieved critical acclaim and worldwide box office success for his starring role in Iron Man (2008), Jon Favreau's big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero. The film co-starred Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard. In August of 2008, Downey starred with Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), and went on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his, Kirk Lazarus.
In December 2009, Downey starred in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009). The film, directed by Guy Ritchie, co-starred Jude Law and Rachel McAdams and earned Downey a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in January of 2010. In early Summer 2010, Downey re-teamed with director Jon Favreau and reprised his role as "Tony Stark/Iron Man" in the hugely successful sequel to the original film, Iron Man 2 (2010), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Mickey Rourke.
Downey next starred in Due Date (2010), a comedy directed by Todd Phillips, in which he plays the role of an expectant father on a road trip racing to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Due Date (2010), starring The Hangover (2009)'s Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010.
Downey was honored by Time Magazine's "Time 100" in 2008, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His laurels include two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe wins, numerous other award nominations and wins, and tremendous popular and commercial success, particularly in his roles as Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark (the latter of which he has so far played in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). For three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2015, Downey has topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80 million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.
In 2005, Downey Jr. married Susan Downey, with whom he has two children. Downey also has another son, Indio Falconer Downey, born 1993, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer, from whom he was officially divorced in 2004.
Robert has jump-started the Team Downey Production Company with wife Susan Downey.- Actor
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In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.
Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.
With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise.
In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.- Actor
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Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.- Actor
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From Timothy Olyphant's first screen appearances, such as his two-minute bit in The First Wives Club (1996), to "Nicko", whose presence at times dwarfed the island in A Perfect Getaway (2009), he has been a force to be reckoned with.
Born in Hawaii, Timothy David Olyphant was raised in Modesto, California. He is the son of Katherine Lyon (Gideon) and John Vernon Bevan Olyphant, a college teacher who was also an executive at E & J Gallo Winery. He has an older brother, Andy, who is in A&R for Warner Bros. Records, and a younger brother, Matt Olyphant, who was the lead singer for the punk rock group, Fetish, and is also an artist. He is a descendant of the prominent Vanderbilt and Olyphant families of businesspeople, and his ancestry includes Russian Jewish (from a maternal great-grandfather), English, German, Scottish, Dutch, and Irish. Timothy quickly became Modesto's favorite son, competing as a pro swimmer and excelling at drawing. It was, by chance, that he enrolled in an acting course as an elective and decided to pursue an acting career. He took his family and headed to New York City, where he studied the craft and began auditioning for roles. From the beginning, he tried to choose diversified roles and take chances with every genre and always approached everything he did with commitment, humor and grace. Timothy is married to his college sweetheart, Alexis Knief, and, together, they raise three children, one son and two daughters in California. He has managed to keep his personal life out of the tabloids. He obviously has his priorities straight, as this is no easy task in Hollywood.
Highlights of Olyphant's career include his riveting portrayal of "Sheriff Seth Bullock" in HBO's hit drama, Deadwood (2004). He now personifies intensity as complex Kentucky Marshal, "Raylan Givens", in FX's Justified (2010). On the big screen, in 2010's The Crazies (2010), he had the chance to infuse his character with doubts, fears and humaneness in an inhumane situation. Mr. Olyphant proved he could carry a major movie on his talent, alone. He recently appeared in I Am Number Four (2011), a sci-if thriller, in which Tim provided the adult mentorship, taking a back seat to the teen cast.- Actor
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Keanu Charles Reeves, whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, was born September 2, 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the son of Patric Reeves, a showgirl and costume designer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. Keanu's father was born in Hawaii, of British, Portuguese, Native Hawaiian, and Chinese ancestry, and Keanu's mother is originally from Essex England. After his parents' marriage dissolved, Keanu moved with his mother and younger sister, Kim Reeves, to New York City, then Toronto. Stepfather #1 was Paul Aaron, a stage and film director - he and Patricia divorced within a year, after which she went on to marry (and divorce) rock promoter Robert Miller. Reeves never reconnected with his biological father. In high school, Reeves was lukewarm toward academics but took a keen interest in ice hockey (as team goalie, he earned the nickname "The Wall") and drama. He eventually dropped out of school to pursue an acting career.
After a few stage gigs and a handful of made-for-TV movies, he scored a supporting role in the Rob Lowe hockey flick Youngblood (1986), which was filmed in Canada. Shortly after the production wrapped, Reeves packed his bags and headed for Hollywood. Reeves popped up on critics' radar with his performance in the dark adolescent drama, River's Edge (1986), and landed a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with director Stephen Frears.
His first popular success was the role of totally rad dude Ted "Theodore" Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). The wacky time-travel movie became something of a cultural phenomenon, and audiences would forever confuse Reeves's real-life persona with that of his doofy on-screen counterpart. He then joined the casts of Ron Howard's comedy, Parenthood (1989) and Lawrence Kasdan's I Love You to Death (1990).
Over the next few years, Reeves tried to shake the Ted stigma with a series of highbrow projects. He played a slumming rich boy opposite River Phoenix's narcoleptic male hustler in My Own Private Idaho (1991), an unlucky lawyer who stumbles into the vampire's lair in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and Shakespearean party-pooper Don John in Much Ado About Nothing (1993).
In 1994, the understated actor became a big-budget action star with the release of Speed (1994). Its success heralded an era of five years in which Reeves would alternate between small films, like Feeling Minnesota (1996) and The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), and big films like A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and The Devil's Advocate (1997). (There were a couple misfires, too: Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and Chain Reaction (1996).) After all this, Reeves did the unthinkable and passed on the Speed sequel, but he struck box-office gold again a few years later with the Wachowski siblings' cyberadventure, The Matrix (1999).
Now a bonafide box-office star, Keanu would appear in a string of smaller films -- among them The Replacements (2000), The Watcher (2000), The Gift (2000), Sweet November (2001), and Hardball (2001) - before The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003) were both released in 2003.
Since the end of The Matrix trilogy, Keanu has divided his time between mainstream and indie fare, landing hits with Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Lake House (2006), and Street Kings (2008). He's kept Matrix fans satiated with films such as Constantine (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). And he's waded back into art-house territory with Ellie Parker (2005), Thumbsucker (2005), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), and Henry's Crime (2010).
Most recently, as post-production on the samurai epic 47 Ronin (2013) waged on, Keanu appeared in front of the camera in Side by Side (2012), a documentary on celluloid and digital filmmaking, which he also produced. He also directed another Asian-influenced project, Man of Tai Chi (2013).
In 2014, Keanu played the title role in the action revenge film John Wick (2014), which became popular with critics and audiences alike. He reprised the role in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), taking the now-iconic character to a better opening weekend and even more enthusiastic reviews than the first go-around.- Actress
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Blonde-haired, blue-eyed with an effervescent personality, Meg Ryan was born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut, to Susan (Duggan), an English teacher and one-time actress, and Harry Hyra, a math teacher. She is of Ruthenian, Polish, Irish, and German ancestry ("Hyra" is a Ruthenian surname, and "Ryan" is her maternal grandmother's maiden name). Meg graduated from Bethel high school in June 1979. Moving to New York, she attended New York University where she majored in journalism. To earn extra money while working on her degree, Meg went into acting using her new name Meg Ryan. In 1981, she had her big screen debut with a brief appearance as Candice Bergen's daughter in George Cukor's last film Rich and Famous (1981).
She tried out and was cast as Betsy in the day time television soap As the World Turns (1956). She was part of the cast from 1982 to 1984. Meg also had a part in the television series One of the Boys (1982), but this show was soon canceled. In 1984, she moved to tinsel town and landed a job in the western television Series Wildside (1985). Meg's small part in the blockbuster movie Top Gun (1986) led to her being cast in Steven Spielberg's Innerspace (1987) where she co-starred with Dennis Quaid. She again co-starred with Quaid in the remake of D.O.A. (1988) and they married on Saint Valentine's Day in 1991. In 1989, Meg appeared in When Harry Met Sally... (1989) and the scene at the restaurant became famous. Meg was nominated for both the Golden Globe and the BAFTA.
In 1990, she co-starred with Tom Hanks in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and this time she played three roles as DeDe/Angelica/Patricia. She appeared again with Tom in the very successful Sleepless in Seattle (1993) for which she was again nominated for the Golden Globe. In 1994, Meg decided to act against type when she appeared as the alcoholic wife and mother in When a Man Loves a Woman (1994). After that, she went back to "cute" with both I.Q. (1994) and French Kiss (1995). In 1994, Meg won the Harvard Hasty Pudding Award as "Woman of the Year" and was voted as being one of "The 50 most beautiful people in the world 1994" by People Magazine.- Actress
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Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a highly unorthodox and internationally-minded family. She is the daughter of Nena Thurman (née Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge), a fashion model and socialite who now runs a mountain retreat, and of Robert Thurman (Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman), a professor and academic who is one of the nation's foremost Buddhist scholars. Uma's mother was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to a German father and a Swedish mother (who herself was of Swedish, Danish, and German descent). Uma's father, a New Yorker, has English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry. Uma grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father worked at Amherst College.
She and her siblings all have names deriving from Buddhist mythology; and Middle American behavior was little understood, much less pursued. And so it was that the young Thurman confronted childhood with an odd name and eccentric home life -- and nature seemingly conspired against her as well. She is six feet tall, and from an early age towered over everyone else in class. Her famously large feet would soon sprout to size 11 -- and even beyond that -- and although they would eventually be lovingly filmed by director Quentin Tarantino, as a child she generally wore the biggest shoes in class, which only provided another subject of ridicule. Even her long nose moved one of her mother's friends to helpfully suggest rhinoplasty -- to the ten-year-old Thurman. To make matters worse yet, the family constantly relocated, making the gangly, socially inept Thurman perpetually the new kid in class. The result was an exceptionally awkward, self-conscious, lonely and alienated childhood.
Unsurprisingly, the young Thurman enjoyed making believe she was someone other than herself, and so thrived at acting in school plays -- her sole successful extracurricular activity. This interest, and her lanky frame, perfect for modeling, led the 15-year-old Thurman to New York City for high school and modeling work (including a layout in Glamour Magazine) as she sought acting roles. The roles soon came, starting with a few formulaic and forgettable Hollywood products, but immediately followed by Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988), both of which brought much attention to her unorthodox sensuality and performances that intriguingly combined innocence and worldliness. The weird, gangly girl became a sex symbol virtually overnight.
Thurman continued to be offered good roles in Hollywood pictures into the early '90s, the least commercially successful but probably best-known of which was her smoldering, astonishingly-adult performance as June, Henry Miller's wife, in Henry & June (1990), the first movie to actually receive the dreaded NC-17 rating in the USA. After a celebrated start, Thurman's career stalled in the early '90s with movies such as the mediocre Mad Dog and Glory (1993). Worse, her first starring role was in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), which had endured a tortured journey from cult-favorite book to big-budget movie, and was a critical and financial debacle. Fortunately, Uma bounced back with a brilliant performance as Mia Wallace, that most unorthodox of all gangster's molls, in Tarantino's lauded, hugely successful Pulp Fiction (1994), a role for which Thurman received an Academy Award nomination.
Since then, Thurman has had periods of flirting with roles in arty independents such as A Month by the Lake (1995), and supporting roles in which she has lent some glamorous presence to a mixed batch of movies, such as Beautiful Girls (1996) and The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996). Thurman returned to smaller films after playing the villainess Poison Ivy in the reviled Joel Schumacher effort Batman & Robin (1997) and Emma Peel in a remake of The Avengers (1998). She worked with Woody Allen and Sean Penn on Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and starred in Richard Linklater's drama Tape (2001) opposite Hawke. Thurman also won a Golden Globe award for her turn in the made-for-television film Hysterical Blindness (2002), directed by Mira Nair.
A return to the mainstream spotlight came when Thurman re-teamed with Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), a revenge flick the two had dreamed up on the set of Pulp Fiction (1994). She also turned up in the John Woo cautioner Paycheck (2003) that same year. The renewed attention was not altogether welcome because Thurman was dealing with the break-up of her marriage with Hawke at about this time. Thurman handled the situation with grace, however, and took her surging popularity in stride. She garnered critical acclaim for her work in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and was hailed as Tarantino's muse. Thurman reunited with Pulp Fiction (1994) dance partner John Travolta for the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005) and played Ulla in The Producers (2005).
Thurman had been briefly married to Gary Oldman, from 1990 to 1992. In 1998, she married Ethan Hawke, her co-star in the offbeat futuristic thriller Gattaca (1997). The couple had two children, Levon and Maya. Hawke and Thurman filed for divorce in 2004.- Actor
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Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.
Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene Kassel, and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.
After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). His sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. is seen by some as a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988), in which Willis' character single-handedly battled a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. He reprised the role of McClane in the sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), set at a snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), this time co-starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shop owner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in New York.
Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyper-violent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993).
During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller 12 Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).
Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less than gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".
Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three daughters.- Actress
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Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of noted producer and director Bruce Paltrow and Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner. Her father was from a Jewish family, while her mother is of mostly German descent. When Gwyneth was eleven, the family moved to Massachusetts, where her father began working in summer stock productions in the Berkshires. It was here that she received her early acting training under the tutelage of her parents. She graduated from the all-girls Spence School in New York City and moved to California where she attended the UC Santa Barbara, majoring in Art History. She soon quit, realizing it was not her passion. She made her film debut with a small part in Shout (1991) and for the next five years had featured roles in a mixed bag of film fare that included Flesh and Bone (1993); Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994); Se7en (1995); Jefferson in Paris (1995); Moonlight and Valentino (1995); and The Pallbearer (1996). It was her performance in the title role of Emma Woodhouse in Emma (1996) that led to her being offered the role of Viola in Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she was awarded the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her roles have also included The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Shallow Hal (2001), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Proof (2005), Iron Man (2008), Two Lovers (2008), and Country Strong (2010). She has two children with her former husband, English musician Chris Martin.- Actor
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Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer and producer. Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as superhero, period, and romance characters. He is best known for his long-running role as Wolverine in the X-Men film series, as well as for his lead roles in the romantic-comedy fantasy Kate & Leopold (2001), the action-horror film Van Helsing (2004), the drama The Prestige and The Fountain (2006), the epic historical romantic drama Australia (2008), the film version of Les Misérables (2012), and the thriller Prisoners (2013). His work in Les Misérables earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in 2013. In Broadway theatre, Jackman won a Tony Award for his role in The Boy from Oz. A four-time host of the Tony Awards themselves, he won an Emmy Award for one of these appearances. Jackman also hosted the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009.
Jackman was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to Grace McNeil (Greenwood) and Christopher John Jackman, an accountant. He is the youngest of five children. His parents, both English, moved to Australia shortly before his birth. He also has Greek (from a great-grandfather) and Scottish (from a grandmother) ancestry.
Jackman has a communications degree with a journalism major from the University of Technology Sydney. After graduating, he pursued drama at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, immediately after which he was offered a starring role in the ABC-TV prison drama Correlli (1995), opposite his future wife Deborra-Lee Furness. Several TV guest roles followed, as an actor and variety compere. An accomplished singer, Jackman has starred as Gaston in the Australian production of "Beauty and the Beast." He appeared as Joe Gillis in the Australian production of "Sunset Boulevard." In 1998, he was cast as Curly in the Royal National Theatre's production of Trevor Nunn's Oklahoma. Jackman has made two feature films, the second of which, Erskineville Kings (1999), garnered him an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actor in 1999. Recently, he won the part of Logan/Wolverine in the Bryan Singer- directed comic-book movie X-Men (2000). In his spare time, Jackman plays piano, golf, and guitar, and likes to windsurf.- Actor
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Christian Michael Leonard Slater was born on August 18, 1969 in New York City, to Michael Hawkins, a well-known soap actor, and Mary Jo Slater (née Lawton), a casting agent. Christian started in show business early, appearing on the soap opera The Edge of Night (1956) in 1976 at the age of 7. He went on to star in many Broadway shows in the early-1980s. He rose to fame in Hollywood after landing the role of Binx Davey in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985). He moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue a further acting career after dropping out of high school. After having a starring role in the cult classic Heathers (1988), he became somewhat known as the Hollywood bad-boy, having many run-ins with the law. He is also well-known for having dated stars such as Winona Ryder, Christina Applegate, Samantha Mathis and was at one time engaged to actress/model Nina Huang. In 2000, he married Ryan Haddon, the daughter of 1970s model Dayle Haddon. The couple have two children, Jaden Christopher (b. 1999) and Eliana Sophia (b. 2001). As of early 2005, they separated and later divorced, but remain dedicated to bring up their children.- Actor
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Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi) and Sal Pacino. They divorced when he was young. His mother moved them into his grandparents' home in the South Bronx. Pacino found himself often repeating the plots and voices of characters he had seen in the movies. Bored and unmotivated in school, he found a haven in school plays, and his interest soon blossomed into a full-time career. Starting onstage, he went through a period of depression and poverty, sometimes having to borrow bus fare to succeed to auditions. He made it into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1966, studying under Lee Strasberg, creator of the Method Approach that would become the trademark of many 1970s-era actors.
After appearing in a string of plays in supporting roles, Pacino finally attained success off-Broadway with Israel Horovitz's "The Indian Wants the Bronx", winning an Obie Award for the 1966-67 season. That was followed by a Tony Award for "Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?" His first feature films made little departure from the gritty realistic stage performances that earned him respect: he played a drug addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) after his film debut in Me, Natalie (1969). The role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) was one of the most sought-after of the time: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro and a host of other actors either wanted it or were mentioned, but director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Pacino for the role.
Coppola was successful but Pacino was reportedly in constant fear of being fired during the very difficult shoot. The film was a monster hit that earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, instead of taking on easier projects for the big money he could now command, Pacino threw his support behind what he considered tough but important films, such as the true-life crime drama Serpico (1973) and the tragic real-life bank robbery film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He was nominated three consecutive years for the "Best Actor" Academy Award. He faltered slightly with Bobby Deerfield (1977), but regained his stride with And Justice for All (1979), for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately, this would signal the beginning of a decline in his career, which produced flops like Cruising (1980) and Author! Author! (1982).
Pacino took on another vicious gangster role and cemented his legendary status in the ultra-violent cult film Scarface (1983), but a monumental mistake was about to follow. Revolution (1985) endured an endless and seemingly cursed shoot in which equipment was destroyed, weather was terrible, and Pacino fell ill with pneumonia. Constant changes in the script further derailed the project. The Revolutionary War-themed film, considered among the worst films ever made, resulted in awful reviews and kept him off the screen for the next four years. Returning to the stage, Pacino did much to give back and contribute to the theatre, which he considers his first love. He directed a film, The Local Stigmatic (1990), but it remains unreleased. He lifted his self-imposed exile with the striking Sea of Love (1989) as a hard-drinking policeman. This marked the second phase of Pacino's career, being the first to feature his now famous dark, owl eyes and hoarse, gravelly voice.
Returning to the Corleones, Pacino made The Godfather Part III (1990) and earned raves for his first comedic role in the colorful adaptation Dick Tracy (1990). This earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and two years later he was nominated for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He went into romantic mode for Frankie and Johnny (1991). In 1992, he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his amazing performance in Scent of a Woman (1992). A mixture of technical perfection (he plays a blind man) and charisma, the role was tailor-made for him, and remains a classic.
The next few years would see Pacino becoming more comfortable with acting and movies as a business, turning out great roles in great films with more frequency and less of the demanding personal involvement of his wilder days. Carlito's Way (1993) proved another gangster classic, as did the epic crime drama Heat (1995) directed by Michael Mann and co-starring Robert De Niro. He directed the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Looking for Richard (1996). During this period, City Hall (1996), Donnie Brasco (1997) and The Devil's Advocate (1997) all came out. Reteaming with Mann and then Oliver Stone, he gave commanding performances in The Insider (1999) and Any Given Sunday (1999).
In the 2000s, Pacino starred in a number of theatrical blockbusters, including Ocean's Thirteen (2007), but his choice in television roles (the vicious, closeted Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003) and his sensitive portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, in the television movie You Don't Know Jack (2010)) are reminiscent of the bolder choices of his early career. Each television project garnered him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Never wed, Pacino has a daughter, Julie Marie, with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, and a set of twins with former longtime girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo. His romantic history includes Jill Clayburgh, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Carole Mallory, Debra Winger, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Carmen Cervera, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, Penelope Ann Miller, and a two-decade intermittent relationship with "Godfather" co-star Diane Keaton. He currently lives with Argentinian actress Lucila Solá, who is 36 years his junior.
As of 2022, Pacino is 82-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to appear regularly in film.- Actor
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Actor, producer, writer, and director Til Schweiger is Germany's best-known actor and also the country's most successful director. With more than 51 Million admissions no other German filmmaker drew more people to cinemas. He runs his own production company Barefoot Films based in Berlin, Germany.
Til Schweiger (born December 19, 1963) was raised along with his two brothers in his hometown Giessen. In his early years, Schweiger began studying German and Medicine. He decided to drop out of university to pursue his career as an actor and went to drama school from 1986-1989. After graduation, he played at several theaters as a stage actor to gain more experience.
In 1991, Schweiger landed his first lead role in Manta, Manta (1991) following his big breakthrough role on Maybe... Maybe Not (1994) with the support of Germany's renowned film producer and mentor Bernd Eichinger. In 1996, Til Schweiger founded his first film production company Mr. Brown Entertainment together with business partner and film producer Tom Zickler. Schweiger debuted as producer with Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997) winning several Festival Awards. The road movie remains a cult favorite with audiences worldwide. Within the same year, Schweiger was the first foreign actor to win the "Polish Oscar" at the International Warsaw Film festival for his performance in in Bandyta (1997). He has since built up acting credits in dozens of German movies including Der Eisbär (1998), where Schweiger made his debut as director.
Judas Kiss (1998) was Schweiger's first role in an international film. He then appeared in several internationally acclaimed movies including SLC Punk! (1998), The Replacement Killers (1998), Driven (2001), Intimate Affairs (2001), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003), King Arthur (2004), New Year's Eve (2011), and many more.
To this day, Schweiger has delivered a series of German-language hits and won numerous Awards as actor/writer/director/producer: Barefoot (2005) grossed about $7,7 million with 1,5 million admissions, Rabbit Without Ears (2007) was up to 2014 Schweiger's most successful film and earned some $74 million locally, followed by the sequel Rabbit Without Ears 2 (2009). In 2011, Schweiger wrote, produced and directed Kokowääh (2011), which grossed $43 million, starring alongside his youngest daughter Emma. A sequel hit theaters in 2013.
As an actor, he received widespread critical acclaim and further recognition for his portrayal as the legendary Hugo Stieglitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009).
In December 2014, Til Schweiger released the family-friendly dramedy Head Full of Honey (2014) , which he co-wrote, directed, produced and starred in. It is his most successful film to date breaking the 6, 3 million admissions barrier of his 2007 hit Rabbit Without Ears (2007).
Schweiger, who started his career in German TV, plays the lead role on hit local crimes series Tatort (1970)(Hamburg) (Scene of the Crime). His debut generated the best ratings for the long-running procedural in 20 years.- Actress
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Alicia Silverstone was born on October 4, 1976 in San Francisco, California, the youngest of three children. She is the daughter of Didi (Radford), a former flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, a real estate investor. Her English-born father is from a Jewish family, while her Scottish-born mother converted to Judaism. Alicia's career began at the tender age of six, when her father took some photos of his young daughter, which eventually led to her getting several television commercials. After a guest spot on The Wonder Years (1988) as a literal "dream girl", she moved on to movies. She landed a role in The Crush (1993), a sort of Fatal Attraction (1987) for teenagers in which she portrayed a disturbed young girl obsessed with an older man. The nasty little role did not impress the critical establishment but it wowed its target audience: teenagers. In fact, the role won her the 1994 MTV Movie Award for "Best Villain" and "Breakthrough Performance". It is interesting to note that during the filming of the movie, Alicia became an emancipated minor in order to get around child labor laws which would have interfered with her working hours. She was a dedicated actress from early on.
The film also caught the attention of Aerosmith, who hired her to appear in a string of their music videos. The first of them, "Cryin'", was voted the #1 video of all time on MTV. Silverstone was definitely a hit with the MTV crowd, but larger commercial success still eluded her. That all changed when she landed the role of Cher in Amy Heckerling's Clueless (1995). Cher was the antithesis of Alicia's role in The Crush; this time around, she was a rich, naive yet endearing girl from Beverly Hills in search of love in the 1990s. The film was a huge box-office hit and wowed both audiences and critics alike and demonstrated Alicia's strength and bankability. She was hailed as the woman of the hour, and branded the spokeswoman for an emerging young generation. She signed a deal with Columbia TriStar worth $10 million and got the coveted role of Batgirl in the Batman franchise. Also, as part of the package, she received a three-year first-look deal for her own production company, First Kiss Productions. The first film released by First Kiss was Excess Baggage (1997).- Actress
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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.- Actor
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Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles, eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema. First in La haine (1995), the young actor, actually coming from upper classes, succeeded to express the despair of a social class living in the suburbs of towns. This veracity in his play comes from the fact that he was in fact since years in connection with many hip-hop artists from the rising generation, (his own brother was leader of a legendary french rap group). Then the success of The Crimson Rivers (2000), where he plays a young French cop alongside Jean Reno, made of him "the man to count on." He never hid his taste for rap music, break dance, Capoeira, Brasil and his endless energy, but Vincent is also a family man, married to Monica Bellucci, his Italian co-star from The Apartment (1996) (aka The Apartment); and recently a father.- Actor
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George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.
After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.
While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).
In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.
Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.- Jean Reno was born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez in Casablanca, Morocco, to Spanish parents (from Andalucía) who moved to North Africa to seek work. His father was a linotypist. Reno settled in France at 17. He began studying drama and has credits in French television and theater as well as films. His first two marriages both ended in divorce, and he had two children with each of them. He keeps homes in Paris and Los Angeles.
- Rupert Penry-Jones was born on 22 September 1970 in London, England, UK. He is an actor, known for MI-5 (2002), Match Point (2005) and The Four Feathers (2002). He has been married to Dervla Kirwan since August 2007. They have two children.
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British actor Clive Owen is one of a handful of stars who, though he is best known for his art house films, can handle more mainstream films with equal measures of grace and skill. Owen is typically cast as characters whose primary traits are a balance of physical strength, intellect, conflicting soul but forceful will. He is best known to film audiences for his work in Children of Men (2006), Closer (2004) and his breakout part in Croupier (1998).
Born in Coventry, in England's West Midlands county, on 3 October 1964, Owen is the fourth of five brothers. He is the son of Pamela (Cotton) and Jess Owen, a country and western singer. His father abandoned the family when he was three years old, and Owen was subsequently raised by his mother and stepfather. He attended Binley Park Comprehensive School and joined the youth theater at 13 after playing the scene-stealing role of the Artful Dodger in a production of "Oliver!"
Acting was not his first choice as a profession, but he changed his mind and went on to graduate from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1987. Owen proceeded to join the Young Vic Theatre Company, where he honed his craft while performing in a number of Shakespearean productions.
Clive made his film debut in the British-made Vroom (1990) co-starring with David Thewlis as two fellows who restore a classic American car and take off on the road. Within two years, Clive became a full-fledged TV star playing devilish rogue Stephen Crane in Chancer (1990). However, the now-sought-after Clive abandoned the star-making part at the height of the show's popularity because of unwanted invasion of privacy and his fear of typecasting. His next project raised more than a few eyebrows when he filmed Close My Eyes (1991) in which he played a brother who acts on his incestuous desires for his older sister. Clive's reputation as a lovable shyster was completely shattered and he lost profitable commercial endorsements following the film's release. Offers fell off for the next two years as a result. But the persistent Clive carried on with stage work, including the role of a bisexual in a production of Noël Coward's "Design For Living." He returned to TV at that time as well and played a number of roles in both mini-movies and series.
In 1997, Clive had a huge hit on the London stage with "Closer," a cynical, contemporary ensemble piece about relationships. Controversy surrounded him again in the film role of Max in Bent (1997) playing a brash, reckless homosexual lothario in decadent pre-war Germany who finds unconditional love while interned in a Nazi war camp. His biggest film break, however, was in Mike Hodges' Croupier (1998), as a struggling writer-turned-casino employee who gets in over his head with a femme fatale scam artist. English audiences stayed away in droves but the U.S. embraced the film and Hollywood took notice of Clive, who was virtually unknown outside of England. Despite playing detective Ross Tanner in a series of successful "Second Sight" mini-movies and finding critical acclaim on stage with "The Day in the Death of Joe Egg" in 2001, Clive has focused primarily on film, including the offbeat Brit romantic comedy Greenfingers (2000), the classy and popular Robert Altman period piece Gosford Park (2001), the Matt Damon star-vehicle The Bourne Identity (2002), and the title role in King Arthur (2004). He has since reached the top rungs of the Hollywood ladder with the film version of his stage smash Closer (2004), in which he received an Academy Award nomination and won both the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for "Supporting Actor." He also had noteworthy roles opposite Denzel Washington in Inside Man (2006); and Julianne Moore and Michael Caine in Children of Men (2006), as well as handling a few biopics, playing Sir Walter Raleigh opposite Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth I in the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Ernest Hemingway (Emmy nomination) in Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012) also starring Nicole Kidman.
More recent films include starring roles in The International (2009), Duplicity (2009), The Boys Are Back (2009), Trust (2010), Intruders (2011), Blood Ties (2013), Last Knights (2015), The Confirmation (2016) and Anon (2018). He also played Claudius in a retelling of "Hamlet" per Ophelia's perspective in Ophelia (2018); and played in support to Will Smith in the sci-fi thriller Gemini Man (2019).
Owen is married to former actress Sarah-Jane Fenton, who played Juliet to his Romeo at the Young Vic in 1998. The couple has two daughters.- Actor
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Jude Law is an English actor. Law has been nominated for two Academy Awards and continues to build a prolific body of work that spans from early successes such as Gattaca (1997) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) to more recent turns as Dr. John Watson in Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), as Hugo's father in Hugo (2011) and in the titular role in Dom Hemingway (2013).
David Jude Law was born on December 29, 1972 in Lewisham, London, England, to Margaret Anne (Heyworth) and Peter Robert Law, both of whom taught at comprehensive schools; his father later became a headmaster. Law has said that he was named after both the book Jude the Obscure and the song Hey Jude.
In 1992, Jude began his stage career. He starred in many plays throughout London, and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award of "Outstanding Newcomer" After doing the play "Indiscretions" in London, he moved and did it again on Broadway. This time, he was alongside Kathleen Turner. He then received a Tony Nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actor". He was then rewarded the Theatre World Award. After Broadway, Jude started on the big screen, in many independent films. His first big-named movie was Gattaca (1997), with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. He also had a good role in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). Jude's latest rise to fame has been because of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), in which he plays Matt Damon's obsession. The film did very well at the box office, and critics loved Jude's acting.
Following the success of Gattaca (1997) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Law's feature film career continued to gain momentum throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s with roles in such films as Enemy at the Gates (2001), Road to Perdition (2002), I Heart Huckabees (2004), The Aviator (2004) and many others. Law is one of three actors, along with Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp, to take over acting responsibilities in the Terry Gilliam project The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) following Heath Ledger's death.
Law is a partner in the production company "Natural Nylon". His partners include Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor and his ex-wife Sadie Frost.
Law has been active in many charitable activities and supports several different foundations and causes, doing work for organizations including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Make Poverty History, Breast Cancer Care and others. Law is also a peace advocate, and in 2011, participated in street protests against the rule of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.
Law married Sadie Frost in 1997 and the couple had two sons (Rafferty and Rudy) and a daughter (Iris) before divorcing in 2003. Law and Alfie (2004) co-star Sienna Miller were engaged to be married in 2005 and separated in 2006 (they would later rekindle their relationship in 2009, splitting once again in 2011). Law and American model Samantha Burke had a brief relationship in 2008 that resulted in the birth of Law's fourth child, daughter Sophia. Law's fifth child, with an ex-girlfriend, Catherine Harding, was born in 2015.- Actress
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Brittany Murphy was born Brittany Anne Bertolotti on November 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her father's ancestry is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Slovak descent. Her father moved the family back to Edison, New Jersey as a native New Yorker and to be closer to other siblings from previous marriages. While dining out one night in the presence of Hollywood royalty, Brittany at the age of 5 approached an adjoining table when Academy Award nominee Burt Reynolds and George Segal were seated. Brittany introduced herself to the Hollywood legends and confidently told them that someday she too would be a star.
She comes from a long line of international musicians and performers with three half-brothers and a sister. Angelo Bertolotti was torn from their tight-knit family as a made-man with the Italian Mafia. The Senior Bertolotti, who coined the nickname of "Britt" for his daughter, was also an entrepreneur and diplomat for organized crime families and one of the first to be subjected to a RICO prosecution. Brittany's interests and well-being were always her father's first goal and objective. To distance his talented daughter from his infamous past, Angelo allowed Sharon to use her maiden name for Brittany's, so that her shining star would not be overshadowed by a father's past, with the couple divorcing thereafter.
Brittany began receiving accolades and applause in regional theater at the early age of 9. At the age of 13, she landed several national commercials. She appeared on television and caught the attention of a personal manager and an agent. Soon, Brittany's mother Sharon turned full-time to being a "Stage Mom" where Angelo provided financial support throughout and their relationship is memorialized with a long and close history in pictures. The hopeful daughter and mother moved to Burbank, CA, where Brittany landed her first television role on Blossom (1990). Hearts and doors opened up for a starring role on Drexell's Class (1991), a short lived TV series.
Brittany's big screen movie debut started with Clueless (1995), where she was co-starring with Alicia Silverstone. Britt soared, demonstrating her musical and artistic talents with dramatic and comedic roles landing a nomination for best leading female performance in the Young Artist Awards for her role in the television film David and Lisa (1998). She garnered tremendous attention for her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999) with Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie. Brittany's band, "Blessed Soul" was growing with her as lead singer and Britt lent her vocal talents to the TV hit, cartoon sensation, King of the Hill (1997) as the voice of Luanne.
She is alleged to have been a witness in the case of the former Department of Homeland Security employee and persecuted whistleblower Julia Davis. According to Davis, Brittany and her fiancée Simon Monjack were then targeted for retaliation that included land and aerial surveillance and a threatened prosecution. Monjack was arrested and detained by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Brittany and Simon confided in Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter, telling him in an interview that they were under surveillance by helicopters and their telephones have been wiretapped. This information was published by THR posthumously, in an article entitled "The Last Difficult Days of Brittany Murphy."
On December 20, 2009, Brittany Murphy died an untimely death. The LAPD and Los Angeles County Coroner closed the case within one hour, attributing her death to pneumonia and anemia. Five months after Brittany's unexpected demise, her husband Simon Monjack was found dead in the house he shared with Brittany. The chief/spokesperson at the Los Angeles County Dept of Coroner, Craig Harvey, stated that Simon also died from the same exact causes as his wife, namely pneumonia and anemia. Neither Brittany, nor Simon, were given a thorough and complete forensic autopsy for poisons. Brittany's father, Angelo "AJ" Bertolotti, is pursuing the investigation of the true reasons behind Brittany's and Simon's sudden demise, as he believes that the two were murdered. Abnormally high levels of heavy metals and poisons were discovered in Brittany's hair, tested by two other independent forensic labs with famed Pathologist, attorney Cyril Wecht concluded from the appearances, Brittany could have been murdered and should be exhumed. Her father Angelo is preparing court actions to ensure she obtains justice.- Actor
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American actor, filmmaker and activist Edward Harrison Norton was born on August 18, 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Columbia, Maryland.
His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (Rouse), was a foundation executive and teacher of English, and a daughter of famed real estate developer James Rouse, who developed Columbia, MD; she passed away of brain cancer on March 6, 1997. His father, Edward Mower Norton, was an environmental lawyer and conservationist, who works for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Edward has two younger siblings, James and Molly.
From the age of five onward, the Yale graduate (majoring in history) was interested in acting. At the age of eight, he would ask his drama teacher what his motivation in a scene was. He attended theater schools throughout his life, and eventually managed to find work on stage in New York as a member of the Signature players, who produced the works of playwright and director Edward Albee. Around the time when he was appearing in Albee's Fragments, in Hollywood, they were looking for a young actor to star opposite Richard Gere in a new courtroom thriller, Primal Fear (1996). The role was offered to Leonardo DiCaprio but he turned it down. Gere was on the verge of walking away from the project, fed up with the wait for a young star to be found, when Edward auditioned and won the role over 2000 other hopefuls. Before the film was even released, his test screenings for the part were causing a Hollywood sensation, and he was soon offered roles in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Edward won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Primal Fear (1996). In 1998, Norton gained 30 pounds of muscle and transformed his look into that of a monstrous skinhead for his role as a violent white supremacist in American History X (1998). This performance earned him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor.
He received his third Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014). His most prominent roles also include the critically acclaimed Everyone Says I Love You (1996), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), Fight Club (1999), Red Dragon (2002), 25th Hour (2002), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Illusionist (2006), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He has also directed and co-written films, including his directorial debut, Keeping the Faith (2000). He has done uncredited work on the scripts for The Score (2001), Frida (2002), and The Incredible Hulk (2008).
Alongside his work in cinema, Norton is an environmental and social activist, and is a member of the board of trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit organization for developing affordable housing founded by his grandfather James Rouse.- Actor
- Producer
Vance is best known for his lead role as Frank Martin in Transporter: The Series. Vance is also remembered for his role as Whistler in the FOX series Prison Break and Jack Gallagher in the FOX series Mental as well as others.
Bit of background... Vance was born unto a very loving Irish family and raised in the UK. He signed youth football contracts with West Bromwich Albion and Bristol Rovers, donned his skimpy shorts and tromped his way around more muddy pitches in mid-winter than he should have, given his present state of enlightenment.
Vance graduated from the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne with an honors degree in Civil Engineering, passing tests that he probably couldn't pass anymore, and yet he is generally more proud of a blurry recollection that he played for an England Students football team somewhere along the way.
Vance embarked on his acting career at age 25, and was breathtakingly awful in his first role, that of Paris in a production of Romeo & Juliet in Oxford. When he wasn't engaged in delivering lines that one can count on one hand, he was firmly committed to moving furniture around the stage for other actors to sit on. If he knew then what he does now, he might surely have questioned his efforts, but the draw of storytelling in all its forms draws a deep cut in Vance, thus to this day he still persists...
Next up Vance firmly, wholeheartedly, and most passionately butchered numerous roles on the London Fringe and in small Reparatory Theatres, grasping experience where it was badly needed. During this time he also launched his own theatre company, writing, directing and producing plays. Fond note: The company was funded, for the most part; by him selling anything and everything that could be considered personal possessions, in compensation for the dire lack of bums on theatre seats.
Vance's efforts, or solid determination, were rewarded with him landing his first real gig at the Royal National Theatre in a touring version of the play "Closer." After treading the back-stages of Europe and Russia for several months, Vance returned to London for a role in the play "Speer," by David Edgar, once again at the National Theatre, under the ever-treasured guidance of Sir Trevor Nunn.
Good times... but not enough for Vance, who ventured further thus...
He made his British television debut in a show called Kavanagh QC. Such was his bearing on the industry at the time, that Vance was more than enthusiastic when called upon to appear stark-naked for a less than critical one-liner in the story. To clear up any misunderstanding, Vance was keen to work, but not keen to liberate his tackle on a cold London set, that should have been a 'closed' London set. But no harm done... the leading actress, the grips, the gaffers, camera, lighting, make-up ladies, and caterers all got more than they bargained for in his humble opinion.
Vance also made guest appearances in the British television shows Peak Practice, The Bill, Doctors and Family Affairs.
At about age 30 Vance moved to Australia and performed in several television series there, including Stingers, Blue Heelers and The Secret Life of Us. His first series-regular role in TV was Dr. Sean Everleigh in the medical drama/soap All Saints, in which Vance performed from 2005 to 2007.
Somewhere around then Vance also relished a small role in the feature Macbeth, directed by the very talented Jeffery Wright.
In 2007 Vance moved to the U.S. when he booked a regular role in the third and forth seasons of the (afore mentioned) hit TV series Prison Break, for 20th Century Fox in which he played James Whistler within a cast of peers who outdid him entirely.
The following year, Vance landed his first leading role in TV, playing Dr. Jack Gallagher in Mental, for Fox, which was filmed in Bogota Columbia.
In 2011 Vance was approached to play Frank Martin in the television series based on the Transporter films created by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Not one to turn down a challenge, especially one filled with fast cars, pretty women and snappy one-liners, Vance embarked on the adventure and brought his own take on the character of Frank to the fast-paced action series.
In between leading roles, Vance has also guest-starred on Fairly Legal, Burn Notice, Dexter, Rizzoli and Isles, Supergirl, Hawaii 5-O, and Bosch, most often because he loves what he does and cherishes the people he meets along the journey...
Due to the COVID pandemic and the years 2020/21, Vance was Vaccinated, locked himself in his home outside LA and got stuck into writing a passion project that has been on and off for many a year; a series of novels bound firmly in historical fiction and fairy-tale.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Thomas William Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to English-born Diana Patricia (Servaes) and Scottish-born James Norman Hiddleston. His mother is a former stage manager, and his father, a scientist, was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. He started off at the preparatory school, The Dragon School in Oxford, and by the time he was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. He continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first in Classics. He continued to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 2005.
Whilst at University of Cambridge, he was seen by the Hamilton Hodell agency in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" and was signed. Following this, he was cast in his first television role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (2001). Hiddleston won his first film role as Oakley in Joanna Hogg's award-winning first feature, Unrelated (2007). His breakthrough role came when he portrayed the nemesis Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feature film Thor (2011). He reprised the character in The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Avengers: Infinity War (2018).
He has also appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011), The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011), and the romantic vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). On television, he appeared on the BBC series The Hollow Crown (2012), in the adaptations of Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and "Henry V". In theatre, he has been in the productions of "Cymbeline" (2007) and "Ivanov" (2008). In December 2013, he starred as the title character in the Donmar Warehouse production of "Coriolanus" which played until February 2014. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play for his role in "Cymbeline" while also being nominated for the same award the same year for his role as Cassio in "Othello".- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Damian Lewis was born on February 11, 1971, in St. John's Wood, London, England, to Charlotte Mary (Bowater), from an upper-class background, and J. Watcyn Lewis, a city broker whose own parents were Welsh. He was raised on Abbey Road in London until the age of 8 with his siblings Gareth, William, and Amanda. In 1979, he was sent to Ashdown House boarding school, then was educated at Eton College. At age 16, he formed his own theater company, then worked in South London, then traveled around Africa. From 1990 to 1993, he studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, alongside Daniel Craig and Joseph Fiennes. Among his teachers was RSC stalwart Colin McCormack. Lewis graduated in 1993, and worked on the stage, particularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he was seen by director Steven Spielberg, who subsequently cast him as Richard Winters in the HBO/BBC miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe, among other awards. Lewis continues his career in films, TV, and theater.- Actor
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Christopher "Chris" Hemsworth was born on August 11, 1983 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to Leonie Hemsworth (née van Os), an English teacher & Craig Hemsworth, a social-services counselor. His brothers are actors, Liam Hemsworth & Luke Hemsworth; he is of Dutch (from his immigrant maternal grandfather), Irish, English, Scottish, and German ancestry. His uncle, by marriage, was Rod Ansell, the bushman who inspired the comedy film Crocodile Dundee (1986).
Chris saw quite a bit of the country in his youth, after his family moved to the Northern Territory before finally settling on Phillip Island, to the south of Melbourne. In 2004, he unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Robbie Hunter in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (1988) but was recalled for the role of Kim Hyde which he played until 2007. In 2006, he entered the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars (2004) and his popularity in the soap enabled him to hang on until show 7 (Episode #5.7 (2006)) when he became the fifth contestant to be eliminated.
His first Hollywood appearance was in the science fiction blockbuster Star Trek (2009), but it was his titular role in the superhero blockbuster Thor (2011) which propelled him to prominence worldwide. He reprised the character in the superhero blockbusters The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Chris's American representative, management company ROAR, also manages actress Elsa Pataky, and it was through them that the two met, marrying in 2010. The couple have a daughter and twin sons. He was appointed Member of the Order of Australia at the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours for his services to the performing arts and to charitable organisations.- Actress
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Sarah Shahi was born Aahoo Jahansouzshahi in Euless, Texas, to an Iranian father and Spanish-Iranian mother. She is a former NFL cheerleader and a descendant of a 19th-century Persian Shah. She attended Trinity High School and Southern Methodist University, studied opera and majored in English. As a teenager, she won several beauty contests and took first place in the Miss Fort Worth USA pageant in 1997. She joined the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and was part of the 1999-2000 squad. She also appeared on the cover of their 2000 calendar.
While working as an extra on the set of Dr. T & the Women (2000), she met director Robert Altman, who encouraged her to move to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actress. Shahi was the first ghost in Supernatural (2005), the CW paranormal drama series. She had recurring roles in several TV series, such as Alias (2001), in which she played "Jenny"; and Dawson's Creek (1998), where she was "Sadia Shaw". She became a fan favorite in her role as the Mexican-American DJ "Carmen de la Pica Morales" in the Showtime series, The L Word (2004), which she joined in its second season. Sarah did not renew her contract with the show for a fourth season and, consequently, her character was written out.
However, she is best-known for her main role as "Sameen Shaw" on the CBS show Person of Interest (2011) playing a CIA agent turned-vigilante with a heart of gold.
She also appeared on HBO's The Sopranos (1999), in the episode Kennedy and Heidi (2007) as "Sonya Aragon", a stripper and a college student who spends a weekend with Tony after a death in his family. Although uncredited by most sources, Sarah also appeared in the Jackie Chan film, Rush Hour 3 (2007), as one of the girls being handcuffed along with Mia Tyler for a traffic offense by Chris Tucker early in the film. She also starred with Damian Lewis in the NBC show, Life (2007).
Sarah speaks English, Farsi, and some Spanish, and has a brown belt in karate.- Actor
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Hugh was born in Oxford, England on June 11, 1959, to Patricia (Laidlaw) and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie, a doctor, both of Scottish descent. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge. Son of an Olympic gold medalist in the sport, he rowed for the England youth team (1977) and for Cambridge (1980). He met Emma Thompson at Cambridge in 1978 when both joined "Footlights" and was introduced to Stephen Fry by Emma in 1980. Hugh is married and lives in Los Angeles. His wife and three children, who previously lived in London, are moving to Los Angeles to live with him. Besides acting and comedy, he has written the best-selling thriller The Gun Seller. A second novel, titled The Paper Soldier, is forthcoming.- Actor
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Tom Ellis is a Welsh actor from Cardiff, Wales. He is best known for playing Lucifer Morningstar in the American television series Lucifer (2016-2021).
Ellis was born in Cardiff. He studied BA Dramatic Studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (previously the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama).
Ellis' notable roles include Hollywood physician in the USA Network series Rush, Mark Etches in the British supernatural drama The Fades and Gary Preston in the hit TV show Miranda which aired on the BBC from November 9, 2009 to January 1, 2015.
In February 2015, it was announced that Ellis was cast as Lucifer Morningstar in the Fox television drama Lucifer, based on the comic of the same name, which premiered on 25 January 2016. The show was continued by Netflix from its fourth to sixth season, later was released on the 10th of September 2021.- Actor
- Music Department
Taylor Kinney is an American actor and model. On TV, he is best known for his role as Kelly Severide on the hit series, Chicago Fire (2012), and its spin-off Chicago P.D. (2014) on NBC, also as Mason Lockwood on The Vampire Diaries (2009), on The CW; and as Glenn Morrison on Trauma (2009) on NBC. His film work includes The Other Woman (2014), Consumed (2015), and The Forest (2016).
Taylor was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Pamela Heisler, a dental hygienist, and Daniel Kinney, a banker. He is of German, Swiss-German, and English ancestry. He and his three brothers were raised in Neffsville, Pennsylvania by their single mother. Kinney studied business management at West Virginia University, before developing an interest in acting.- Actor
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One of the British theatre's most famous faces, Daniel Craig, who waited tables as a struggling teenage actor with the National Youth Theatre, has gone on to star as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on March 2, 1968, at 41 Liverpool Road, Chester, Cheshire, England. His father, Timothy John Wroughton Craig, was a merchant seaman turned steel erector, and then became landlord of the "Ring O'Bells" pub in Frodsham, Cheshire. His mother, Carol Olivia (Williams), was an art teacher. Craig has English, as well as Irish, Scottish and Welsh, ancestry. His parents split up in 1972, and young Daniel was raised with his older sister, Lea, in Liverpool, then in Hoylake, Wirral, in the home of his mother. His interest in acting was encouraged by visits to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre arranged by his mother. From the age of six, Craig started acting in school plays, making his debut in the Frodsham Primary School production of "Oliver!", and his mother was the driving force behind his artistic aspirations. The first Bond movie he ever saw at the cinema was Roger Moore's Live and Let Die (1973); young Daniel Craig saw it with his father, so it took a special place in his heart. He was also a good athlete and was a rugby player at Hoylake Rugby Club.
At age 14, Craig played roles in "Oliver", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella" at Hilbre High School in West Kirby, Wirral. He left Hilbre High School at age 16 to audition at the National Youth Theatre's (NYT) troupe on their tour in Manchester in 1984. He was accepted and moved down to London. There, his mother and father watched his stage debut as Agamemnon in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida". As a struggling actor with the NYT, he was toiling in restaurant kitchens and as a waiter. Craig performed with NYT on tours to Valencia, Spain, and to Moscow, Russia, under the leadership of director Edward Wilson. He failed at repeated auditions at the Guildhall, but eventually his persistence paid off, and in 1988, he entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican. There, he studied alongside Ewan McGregor and Alistair McGowan, then later Damian Lewis and Joseph Fiennes, among others. He graduated in 1991, after a three-year course under the tutelage of Colin McCormack, the actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1992-1994, he was married to Scottish actress Fiona Loudon, their daughter, named Ella Craig (born 1992).
Craig made his film debut in The Power of One (1992). His film career continued on television, notably the BBC2 serial Our Friends in the North (1996). He shot to international fame after playing supporting roles in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Road to Perdition (2002). He was nominated for his performances in the leading role in Layer Cake (2004), and received other awards and nominations. Craig was named as the sixth actor to portray James Bond, in October 2005, weeks after he finished his work in Munich (2005), where he co-starred with Eric Bana under the directorship of Steven Spielberg. Craig's reserved demeanor and his avoidance of the showbiz-party-red-carpet milieu makes him a cool 007. He is the first blond actor to play Bond, and also the first to be born after the start of the film series, and also the first to be born after the death of author Ian Fleming in 1964. Four of the past Bond actors: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan have indicated that Craig is a good choice as Bond.
He was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) by Queen Elizabeth II at the 2022 Queen's New Years Honours for his services to Film and Theatre.