Desired Women 2014
Fall 2013 - Fall 2014
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Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. After attending one semester of college between gigs, she realized that she wanted to act for the rest of her life. She started acting when she was nine years old, when her father heard about an acting class on the radio and decided to enroll Mila in it. There, she met her future agent. Her first gig was when she played a character named Melinda in Make a Wish, Molly (1995). From there, her career skyrocketed into big-budget films.
Although she is mostly known for playing Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show (1998), she has shown the world that she can do so much more. Since 1999, she provided the voice of self-conscious daughter Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy (1999). Her breakthrough film was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), in which she played a free-spirited character named Rachel Jansen. She has since starred or co-starred in the films Max Payne (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Mila Kunis is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was born on February 2, 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia to Nidia del Carmen Mebarak (née Ripoll Torrado) & William Alberto Mebarak Chadid. She is of Lebanese, Spanish & Italian descent. Shakira began her musical career at the age of 12 and quickly captured fans around the world. She won the 2001 Best Latin pop Grammy for her MTV Unplugged album.- Producer
- Actress
- Costume Designer
Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner military figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle.
Theron received an education as a ballet dancer and has danced both the "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker". There was not much work for a young actress or dancer in South Africa, so she soon traveled to Europe and the United States, where she got a job at the Joffrey Ballet in New York. She was also able to work as a photo model. However, an injured knee put a halt to her dancing career.
In 1994, her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, and Charlize started visiting all of the agents on Hollywood Boulevard, but without any luck. She went to a bank to cash a check for $500 she received from her mother, and became furious when she learned that the bank would not cash it because it was an out-of-state check. She made a scene and an agent gave her his card, in exchange for learning American English, which she did by watching soap operas on television.
Her first role was in the B-film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995), a non-speaking part with three seconds of screen time. Her next role was as Helga Svelgen in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), which landed her the role of Tina Powers in That Thing You Do! (1996). Since then, she has starred in movies like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Italian Job (2003). On February 29, 2004, she won her first Academy Award, a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Monster (2003).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Emma Roberts was born in Rhinebeck, New York. She was a baby when her parents separated, and she grew up living with her mother, Kelly Cunningham. She was educated at Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, California.
Emma is the daughter of Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts, and the niece of Oscar-winner Julia Roberts. As a child she spent some time on the sets of movies with her aunt Julia. This helped Emma decide that she wanted to follow a career in acting. Her first movie role came in Blow (2001), where she played the daughter of Johnny Depp's character. Various small parts followed, until she was cast in the lead role of Addie Singer in Nickelodeon's "Unfabulous" (2004). Her performance lead to many award nominations as well as a foray into the music industry, including the release of an album, "Unfabulous and More".
More roles followed in various projects, including the eponymous heroine in Nancy Drew (2007), Hotel for Dogs (2009), 4.3.2.1. (2010) and Scream 4 (2011). In 2011, Emma began attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York, studying English Literature.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Anna Kendrick was born in Portland, Maine, to Janice (Cooke), an accountant, and William Kendrick, a teacher. She has an older brother, Michael Cooke Kendrick, who has also acted. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent.
For her role as "Dinah" in "High Society" on Broadway, Anna Kendrick was nominated for a Tony Award (second youngest ever), a Drama Desk Award, and a Fany Award (best actress featured in a musical). Her spectacular performance landed her the Drama League and Theatre World Award.
She was a lead performer with Cabaret's Kit Kat Club at "Carnegie Hall Live" in My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies (1999) (TV). She also had the privilege of working with director Scott Ellis and choreographer Susan Stroman at the New York City Opera House with Jeremy Irons amongst many more celebrity status actors, playing the role of "Fredrika" in "A Little Night Music".
Anna work-shopped "Jane Eyre" & "The Little Princess" for Broadway and starred in the feature film Camp (2003) with director Todd Graff.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984 in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Her mother, Melanie Sloan is from a Jewish family from the Bronx and her father, Karsten Johansson is a Danish-born architect from Copenhagen. She has a sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, a brother, Adrian, a twin brother, Hunter Johansson, born three minutes after her, and a paternal half-brother, Christian. Her grandfather was writer Ejner Johansson.
Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions. She made her professional acting debut at the age of eight in the off-Broadway production of "Sophistry" with Ethan Hawke, at New York's Playwrights Horizons. She would audition for commercials but took rejection so hard her mother began limiting her to film tryouts. She made her film debut at the age of nine, as John Ritter's character's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). Following minor roles in Just Cause (1995), as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw's character, and If Lucy Fell (1996), she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female, and positive reviews, one noting, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson", while San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle commentated on her "peaceful aura", and wrote, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress."
After appearing in minor roles in Fall (1997) and Home Alone 3 (1997), Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford, where she played Grace MacLean, a teenager traumatized by a riding accident. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film. In 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the music video for Mandy Moore's single, "Candy". Although the film was not a box office success, she received praise for her breakout role in Ghost World (2001), credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age". She was also featured in the Coen Brothers' dark drama The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand. She appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002) with David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer.
In 2003, she was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation (2003)), her breakout role, starring opposite Bill Murray, and receiving rave reviews and a Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival. Her film roles include the critically acclaimed Weitz brothers' film In Good Company (2004), as well as starring opposite John Travolta in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which garnered her a third Golden Globe Award nomination.
She dropped out of Mission: Impossible III (2006) due to scheduling conflicts. Her next film role was in The Island (2005) alongside Ewan McGregor which earned weak reviews from U.S. critics. After this, she appeared in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) and was nominated again for a Golden Globe Award. In May 2008, she released her album "Anywhere I Lay My Head", a collection of Tom Waits covers featuring one original song. Also that year, she starred in Frank Miller's The Spirit (2008), the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and played Mary Boleyn opposite Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008).
Since then, she has appeared as part of an ensemble cast in the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You (2009), the action superhero film Iron Man 2 (2010), the comedy-drama We Bought a Zoo (2011) and starred as the original scream queen, Janet Leigh, in Hitchcock (2012). She then played her character, Black Widow, in the blockbuster action films The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Black Widow (2021), and also headlined the sci-fi action thriller Lucy (2014), a box office success. With more than a decade of work already under her belt, Scarlett has proven to be one of Hollywood's most talented young actresses. Her other starring roles are in the sci-fi action thriller Ghost in the Shell (2017) and the dark comedy Rough Night (2017).
Scarlett and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were engaged in May 2008 and married in September of that year. In 2010, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced a year later. In 2013, she became engaged to French journalist Romain Dauriac, the couple married a year later. In January 2017, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced in March of that year. They have a daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac (born 2014). The couple divorced in September 2017.
She married Colin Jost in October 2020. They have one child, a son.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Avril Lavigne was born on September 27, 1984 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, to Judith-Rosanne (Loshaw) and Jean-Claude Joseph Lavigne. Her ancestry is French-Canadian, Polish, English, Irish, and Scottish. At sixteen, she moved to Manhattan and began work on her debut album. She dropped out of high school after the 11th grade when she secured a record deal. When Avril was almost 18, she released "Complicated" from her debut album titled: "Let Go," which went 6x platinum. As a petite skater girl from a small town, Avril has shown she is independent, full of confidence and determination, providing a good combination to make "Complicated" and Avril a musical breakthrough. "Complicated" went to number #1 on Billboards Top 100 while also earning her 5 Grammy nominations, MTV music awards, MTV European music awards and many more.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Taylor Alison Swift is a multi-Grammy award-winning American singer/songwriter who, in 2010 at the age of 20, became the youngest artist in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2011 Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year. She also has been named the American Music Awards Artist of the Year, as well as the Entertainer of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, among many other accolades. As of this writing, she is also the top-selling digital artist in music history.
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Andrea (Finlay), a one-time marketing executive, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a financial adviser. Her ancestry includes German and English, as well as some Scottish, Irish, Welsh and 1/16th Italian. She was named after James Taylor, and her mother believed that if she had a gender neutral name it would help her forge a business career. Taylor spent most of her childhood on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. When she was nine years old the family moved to Wyomissing, PA, where she attended West Reading Elementary Center and Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. Taylor spent her summers at her parents' vacation home at the Jersey shore. Her first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother put her in a saddle when she was nine months old and Swift later competed in horse shows. At the age of nine she turned her attention to musical theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of "Grease", "Annie", "Bye Bye Birdie" and "The Sound of Music". She traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. However, after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything, she became interested in country music. At age 11, after many attempts, Taylor won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes' "Big Deal", and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. This interest in country music isolated Swift from her middle school peers.
At age 12 she was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem entitled "Monster in My Closet", but now began to focus on songwriting. She moved to Nashville at age 14, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. She left RCA Records when she was 15--the label wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was 18 to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material. At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Café in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records. Taylor was one of the new label's first signings.
Taylor released her debut album, "Taylor Swift", in October of 2006 and received generally positive reviews from music critics. The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice". Her single "Our Song" made her the youngest solo writer and singer of a #1 country song. The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week. In 2008 she released her second studio album, "Fearless". The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released in September 2008 and became the second best-selling country single of all time, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Four more singles were released throughout 2008 and 2009: "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. It was the top-selling album of 2009 and brought Swift much crossover success.
In September 2009 she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Ye, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents. West declared Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated in the same category, to be "one of the best videos of all time". When Beyoncé later won the award for Video of the Year, she invited Taylor onstage to finish her speech. In November 2009 Taylor Swift became the youngest ever artist, and one of only six women, to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association.
She released her third studio album in October 2010, "Speak Now", and wrote all the songs herself. She originally intended to call the album "Enchanted" but Scott Borchetta, her record label's CEO, felt the title did not reflect the album's more adult themes. Swift toured throughout 2011 and early 2012 in support of "Speak Now". As part of the 13-month, 111-date world tour, Swift played seven shows in Asia, 12 in Europe, 80 in North America and 12 in Australasia (three dates on the US tour were rescheduled after she fell ill with bronchitis). The stage show was inspired by Broadway musical theatre, with choreographed routines, elaborate set-pieces, pyrotechnics and numerous costume changes. Swift invited many musicians to join her for one-off duets during the North American tour. Appearances were made by James Taylor, Jason Mraz, Shawn Colvin, Johnny Rzeznik, Andy Grammer, Tal Bachman, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj, Nelly, B.o.B., Usher, Flo Rida, Tip 'T.I.' Harris, Jon Foreman, Jim Adkins, Hayley Williams, Hot Chelle Rae, Ronnie Dunn, Darius Rucker, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney. In May 2012 Taylor featured in B.o.B's song "Both of Us".
Swift's fourth studio album, "Red", was released on October 22, 2012. She wrote nine of the album's 16 songs alone; the remaining seven were co-written with Max Martin, Liz Rose, Dan Wilson, Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody. Nathan Chapman served as the album's lead producer but Jeff Bhasker, Butch Walker, Jacknife Lee, Dann Huff and Shellback (aka Shellback) also produced individual tracks. Chapman has said he encouraged Swift "to branch out and to test herself in other situations". She has described the collaborative process as "an apprenticeship" that taught her to "paint with different colors". "Red" examines Swift's attraction to drama-filled relationships; she believes that, since writing the record, such relationships no longer appeal to her. Musically, while there is some experimentation with "slick, electronic beats", the pop sheen is limited to a handful of tracks sprinkled among more recognizably Swiftian fare. "Rolling Stone" enjoyed "watching Swift find her pony-footing on Great Songwriter Mountain. She often succeeds in joining the Joni/Carole King tradition of stark-relief emotional mapping . . . Her self-discovery project is one of the best stories in pop." The Guardian described Swift as a "Brünnhilde of a rock star" and characterized "Red" as "another chapter in one of the finest fantasies pop music has ever constructed". "USA Today" felt that the "engaging" record saw Swift "write ever-more convincingly--and wittily and painfully--about the messy emotions of a young twenty something nearing the end of her transition from girl to woman". The "Los Angeles Times" noted the exploration of "more nuanced relationship issues" on "an unapologetically big pop record that opens new sonic vistas for her".
As part of the "Red" promotional campaign, representatives from 72 worldwide radio stations were flown to Nashville during release week for individual interviews with Swift. She made television appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003), Good Morning America (1975), The View (1997), Late Show with David Letterman (1993), ABC News Nightline (1980) and All Access Nashville with Katie Couric (2012). She performed at Los Angeles' MTV VMAs and London's Teen Awards, and will also perform at Nashville's CMA Awards, Frankfurt's MTV Europe Music Awards, Los Angeles' AMA Awards and Sydney's ARIA Music Awards. Swift offered exclusive album promotions through Target, Papa John's and Walgreens. She became a spokesmodel for Keds sneakers, released her sophomore Elizabeth Arden fragrance and continued her partnerships with Cover Girl, Sony Electronics and American Greetings, as well as her unofficial brand tie-ins with Ralph Lauren and Shellys. The album's lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", was released in August 2012. The song became Swift's first #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, recording the highest ever one-week sales figures for a female artist. Two further singles have since been released: "Begin Again" (country radio) and "I Knew You Were Trouble" (pop and international radio).In her career, as of May 2012, Swift has sold over 23 million albums and 54.5 million digital tracks worldwide.
Taylor Swift is only beginning to emerge as an acting talent, having voiced the role of Audrey in the animated feature The Lorax (2012). She also made appearances in the theatrical release Valentine's Day (2010) and in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000). She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games (2012) soundtrack: "Safe & Sound featuring The Civil Wars" and "Eyes Open". Taylor released her fifth album, titled "1989", on October 27, 2014. This album is when she finally made the complete transition from country to pop. She says that she will not be going to any Country Music Award shows. The album is named after the year she was born, and is a sort of '80s-sounding album, in the sense that it's more electronic.
In March 2015 she began dating Scottish Disc Jockey Calvin Harris after having met at the Brit Awards in February. They were together for thirteen months.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Ke$ha was born on March 1, 1987, in Los Angeles, California. Her big break came from cameo on rapper Flo Rida's 2009 No. 1 hit "Flo Rida Feat. Ke$ha: Right Round (2009)." Soon after, she landed a record contact with RCA and released her first single, Ke$ha: TiK ToK (2009). The party anthem developed quite a following. Her debut album, Animal, reached the top of the charts after its release in January 2010. Her second album, Warrior, was released in 2012. Ke$ha was exposed to music at an early age through her mother Pebe Sebert, a songwriter.The first few years of Ke$ha's life were a struggle for her family. Her mother had difficulty earning enough to support Ke$ha and her older brother. "We were on welfare and food stamps," the artist explained on her website. "One of my first memories is my mom telling me, 'If you want something, just take it.'" When she was 4, Ke$ha moved to Nashville with her family, where her mother had landed a songwriting contract. Sometimes tagging along with her mother, Ke$ha spent a lot of time in recording studios during her early adolescence. Her mother encouraged her interest in singing, allowing Ke$ha to work on some of her song demos. Ke$ha also went to a music school, where she learned about songwriting. Deep in the heart of the country music scene, she was inspired by the likes of Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. At 17, Ke$ha left high school to pursue a music career. She changed her name to Ke$ha and moved to Los Angeles to work with producer Dr. Luke, who had worked on hit singles for Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson among others. Ke$ha was determined to break into the business. According to one story, she paid off a gardener to get inside music legend Prince's house to leave one of her demos for him. She landed a few gigs as a back-up vocalist as well, performing on songs by Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Soon after her work with Flo Rida, Ke$ha landed a record contact with RCA. She released her first single, "Ke$ha: TiK ToK (2009)" later that year. The party anthem developed quite a following, soon becoming one of the most downloaded songs in America, and then reaching the top of the Billboard pop charts in January 2010. Her debut album, Animal, reached the top of the charts after its release in January 2010. In addition to [ink=tt6942460], Ke$ha scored two more Top 10 hits: "Ke$ha: Blah Blah Blah (Feat. 3Oh!3) (2010)" and "Ke$ha: Your Love Is My Drug (2010)". Accompany this work was the extended play release Cannibal. She followed up her initial success with 2012's Warrior, which featured the single "Ke$ha: Die Young (2012)." A companion extended work, Deconstructed, was released in 2013.- Actress
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- Writer
Hayley Williams was born on December 27, 1988 in Meridian, Mississippi, USA as Hayley Nichole Williams. She moved to Franklin, Tennessee, USA as a teenager. At the age of 15, she joined / created the band Paramore. They have released six studio albums to date - landing multiple global #1 chart placings - and were awarded the GRAMMY for "Best Rock Song" in 2015 for "Ain't It Fun", making Williams the first women to be awarded in the category since Alanis Morissette's 1999 win.
In 2014 she was awarded the inaugural "Trailblazer of The Year" title at Billboard's Women In Music Awards.
Williams released two critically lauded solo albums during the Covid-19 pandemic: "Petals For Armor" and "Flowers for Vases / Descansos".
Her Paramore bandmates are Taylor York (guitar) and Zac Farro (drums). The band's most recent album, "This Is Why" landed multiple #1 placings on the Billboard Charts with thee title track also giving them their first #1 at Alternative Radio in the US. The album topped the charts in both the UK and Australia.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Amber Laura Heard was born in Austin, Texas, to Patricia Paige Heard (née Parsons), an internet researcher, and David C. Heard (David Clinton Heard), a contractor. She has English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Welsh ancestry.
Heard appeared in the Academy Award-nominated film, North Country (2005), in which she played Charlize Theron's character in flashbacks. Her other early film credits include: Syrup (2013), Drive Angry (2011) 3D, The Joneses (2009), Never Back Down (2008), Alpha Dog (2006) and Friday Night Lights (2004). On television, Heard starred on The CW drama, Hidden Palms (2007), and had guest starring roles on Showtime's Californication (2007) and CBS's Criminal Minds (2005).
In 2009, Heard starred in the box office hit, Zombieland (2009), opposite Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray and Jesse Eisenberg. She also starred in the suspense thriller, The Stepfather (2009), with Sela Ward, Dylan Walsh and Penn Badgley. In 2008, she garnered attention for her role in the comedic hit, Pineapple Express (2008), with Seth Rogen and James Franco. Heard received a 2008 Young Hollywood Award for her breakthrough performance in "Pineapple Express".
She appeared in The Rum Diary (2011), opposite Johnny Depp, and John Carpenter's The Ward (2010), which premiered at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. She also starred in the independent film, And Soon the Darkness (2010), in which she additionally served as a co-producer.
Heard starred in Paranoia (2013), opposite Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman. The film was released by "Relativity Media" on August 16, 2013. She also starred in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013), which was released by "Open Road Films" on March 4, 2013, and McG's 3 Days to Kill (2014), opposite Kevin Costner and Hailee Steinfeld, which was released in 2014.
Additionally, her film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), which premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, was released by The Weinstein Co. in theaters in the fall of 2013.
Heard resides in Los Angeles, where she is actively involved with Amnesty International. In 2015, she married actor Johnny Depp, and the two divorced in 2017.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rachel Anne McAdams was born on November 17, 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada, to Sandra Kay (Gale), a nurse, and Lance Frederick McAdams, a truck driver and furniture mover. She is of English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish descent. Rachel became involved with acting as a teenager and by the age of 13 was performing in Shakespearean productions in summer theater camp; she went on to graduate with honors with a BFA degree in Theater from York University. After her debut in an episode of Disney's The Famous Jett Jackson (1998), she co-starred in the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows (2003), a comedy-drama about the trials and travails of a Shakespearean theater group, and won a Gemini award for her performance in 2003.
Her breakout role as Regina George in the hit comedy Mean Girls (2004) instantly catapulted her onto the short list of Hollywood's hottest young actresses. She followed that film with a star turn opposite Ryan Gosling in the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks bestseller The Notebook (2004), which was a surprise box office success and became the predominant romantic drama for a new, young generation of moviegoers. After filming, McAdams and Gosling became romantically involved and dated through mid-2007. McAdams next showcased her versatility onscreen with the manic comedy Wedding Crashers (2005), the thriller Red Eye (2005), and the holiday drama The Family Stone (2005).
McAdams then explored the independent film world with Married Life (2007), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and also starred Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Starring roles in the military drama The Lucky Ones (2008), the newspaper thriller State of Play (2009), and the romance The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) followed before she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Guy Ritchie's international blockbuster Sherlock Holmes (2009). McAdams played the plucky producer of a failing morning TV show in Morning Glory (2010), the materialistic fiancée of Owen Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and returned to romantic drama territory with the hit film The Vow (2012) opposite Channing Tatum. The actress also stars with Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick's To the Wonder (2012) and alongside Noomi Rapace in Brian De Palma's thriller Passion (2012).
In 2005, McAdams received ShoWest's "Supporting Actress of the Year" Award as well as the "Breakthrough Actress of the Year" at the Hollywood Film Awards. In 2009, she was awarded with ShoWest's "Female Star of the Year." As of 2011, she has been romantically linked with her Midnight in Paris (2011) co-star Michael Sheen.- Rose Leslie is a Scottish actress. Her leading on screen debut was at age 21 in the television film New Town (2009). She is famous for playing Ygritte in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011). Leslie also appeared in the films Now Is Good (2012) and The Last Witch Hunter (2015).
Leslie was born Rose Eleanor Arbuthnot-Leslie in Aberdeen, Scotland, near Lickleyhead Castle, where her family has lived for more than 500 years. Rose is the daughter of Candida Mary Sibyl (Weld) and Sebastian Arbuthnot-Leslie, who is the Aberdeenshire Chieftain of Clan Leslie. She is the middle of five children, and went to the local primary school in Rayne, before going to Millfield, a co-ed public school in England. It was at Millfield that Rose really cultivated her love for acting, as the school had an excellent drama department. After five years at Millfield, Rose went on to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) to earn a bachelor's degree with honors in 2008.
Rose's first acting job was in a television documentary series, called Locked Up Abroad (2007), in 2008. In 2009, she appeared in the made-for-TV film, Purves + Pekkala (2009), in which she received a Scottish BAFTA Award for Best Acting Performance - New Talent Award. In 2010, Rose appeared in the British TV Series, Downton Abbey (2010), as "Gwen Dawson", for 7 episodes. Later that year, she appeared in the play, "Bedlam", at the Globe Theatre in London. In 2011, Rose appeared in the British drama television series, Case Histories (2011), as "Laura Wyre", for 2 episodes. In 2012, Rose played "Lena Holgate" in the episode, The Ghost Position (2012), in the British detective television series, Vera (2011). Later that same year, Rose would make her iconic appearance in the 2nd season of the HBO epic fantasy series, Game of Thrones (2011), opposite Kit Harington as the wildling "Ygritte". - Actress
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Lauren Cohan is a British-American actress and model, best known for her role as Maggie Greene on The Walking Dead (2010) and recurring roles on The Vampire Diaries (2009), Supernatural (2005), and Chuck (2007). After her film debut on Casanova (2005) as Sister Beatrice, she starred in the sequel to National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj (2006), as Charlotte Higginson. Her next role was in the 2007 film, Float (2008). In February 2010, she was cast in Death Race 2 (2010), with Sean Bean and Danny Trejo, and also the supernatural-horror film The Boy (2016), where Lauren played the main character, Greta Evans. In 2016, Cohan also appeared as Martha Wayne in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).
She was born in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and moved to the United Kingdom as a teen. She graduated from the University of Winchester / King Alfred's College where she studied Drama and English Literature, before touring with a theatre company she co-founded at the University. Lauren then split her time and work between London and Los Angeles, working on several films as well as some non-commercial projects.- Actress
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Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an actress known for her versatile work in a variety of film and television projects. Possibly most known for her role as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), she has also starred in critically acclaimed independent films such as Smashed (2012), for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination, as well as genre fare like Final Destination 3 (2006) and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007).
Winstead was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina but largely raised in Sandy, Utah, which is where she discovered a love for the performing arts. She grew up training to be a ballerina and attended the Joffrey Ballet School training program at the age of 12. It was also around this time that she began to pursue a career in acting and soon started working steadily in television and film.
Winstead is also a recording artist and performs under the name "Got a Girl" alongside producer Dan the Automotor.- Actress
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Evangeline Lilly, born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, in 1979, was discovered on the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia, by the famous Ford modeling agency. Although she initially decided to pass on a modeling career, she went ahead and signed with Ford anyway, to help pay for her University of British Columbia tuition and expenses.Lost- Actress
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Priyanka Chopra Jonas (née Chopra) was born on July 18, 1982 in Jamshedpur, India, to the family of Capt. Dr. Ashok Chopra and Dr. Madhu Chopra, both Indian Army physicians. She had a very varied upbringing. She started her education at La Martinière Girls College in Lucknow as a resident student; a short stay at Maria Goretti College in Bareilly prepared her for further studies in the U.S. Having completed tenth grade in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., she decided to become a software engineer or a criminal psychologist. She enjoys Indian music and dance; flair for writing poetry and short stories; reading, especially biographies; and has worked for a lot of social welfare programs.- Actress
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Vanessa Anne Hudgens was born in Salinas, California. Her family moved to San Diego, California, while she was still a toddler. She has a younger sister, Stella Hudgens, who is also an actress. Her mother, Gina Hudgens (née Guangco), an office worker, is from the Philippines. Her father, Greg Hudgens, a firefighter, was from a family from Missouri and Illinois.
Vanessa was interested in acting and singing at a young age, inspired by her grandparents, who were musicians. At the age of 8, she started appearing in musical theater. She fell deeper in love with the arts and began studying acting, singing, and dance more seriously with Jailyn Osborne. Vanessa very briefly attended Orange County High School of the Arts. After years of auditioning, she began seeing some success. This prompted her family to move to Los Angeles, California. She started homeschooling, so she missed out on the high school experience, and she finally landed her breakthrough role in High School Musical (2006).- Actress
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Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).- Actress
- Writer
Lisa Olivia Munn was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Her mother, Kimberly Schmid, lived in Vietnam, and is of Chinese ancestry, while her father, Winston Barrett Munn, is from a family with deep roots in the American South. Olivia's parents divorced when she was two years old, and she was raised by her mother and stepfather, a member of the United States Air Force. Although the family departed Oklahoma and resided in many locations, she was mainly raised in Tokyo, Japan. During this time, she appeared in a number of local theater productions and later became a model in the Japanese fashion industry. When the family eventually returned to the United States, Olivia moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. After a few small roles, her career took a very promising turn when she landed the role of Mily Acuna on the Hawaii-lensed TV series Beyond the Break (2006) and the role of Rob Schneider's receptionist in Big Stan (2007). She hosts "The Daily Nut" and the "Formula D" Podcasts on G4.- Actress
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Amy Smart was born in Topanga Canyon, California to Judy, who worked at a museum, and John Boden Smart, a salesman. She has German, English, and Irish ancestry.
Smart was a relatively new arrival when she first gained notice for her supporting roles in the 1999 hit teen films Varsity Blues (1999) and Outside Providence (1999). The Los Angeles native got her start in TV-movies and made her feature debut in Stephen Kay's The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), which was screened at 1997's Sundance Film Festival alongside Keanu Reeves. She was briefly seen in Paul Verhoeven's big-budget sci-fi actioner Starship Troopers (1997) with actor Casper Van Dien and had an impressive turn in the vastly different, quirkily independent How to Make the Cruelest Month (1998), in which she played Dot, the graceful golden girl who seduces the one-time boyfriend of her sister, troubled protagonist Bell (Clea DuVall). The by-the-numbers horror film Campfire Tales (1997) followed in 1997, along with the topically chilling but clumsily executed Internet stalker thriller Dee Snider's Strangeland (1998), written and produced by and starring the titular Twisted Sister frontman as a deranged torturer who meets his victims in web chatrooms. Amy reached her widest audience with a co-starring role opposite James Van Der Beek in Brian Robbins' surprise box office hit "Varsity Blues (1999)". She played Jules Harbor, a girl who longs for life beyond her small town's high-school-football-obsessed culture but is tied to it as sister of the injured star quarterback (Paul Walker) and girlfriend of his idealistic replacement (Van Der Beek). Her next role was that of Shawn Hatosy's upper-class love interest in Michael Corrente's poignant 1970s-era comedy "Outside Providence (1999)". Based on Peter Farrelly's novel, the film followed a working-class teen (Hatosy) sent by his abrasive but loving father (Alec Baldwin) to a tony prep school after running into trouble at home.- Actress
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Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in Hounslow, Middlesex, England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the series Rising Damp (1974), Porridge (1974) and The Lovers (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 31.
Kate attended the private school Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens she twice won the British bookseller W.H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting.
Her major acting debut came in a TV film about World War II called One Against the Wind (1991), filmed in Luxembourg during the summer of 1991. It first aired on American television that December. Kate began attending Oxford University's New College in the fall of 1991, majoring in French and Russian literature. She had already decided that she wanted to act, but to broaden her horizons she chose university over drama school. While in her first year at Oxford, Kate received her big break in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Kate worked in three other films while attending Oxford, beginning with a part in the medieval historical drama Royal Deceit (1994), cast as Ethel. The film was shot during the spring of 1993 on location in Denmark, and she filmed her supporting part during New College's Easter break. Later in the summer of that year she played the lead in the contemporary mystery drama Uncovered (1994). Before she went back to school, her third year at university was spent at Oxford's study-abroad program in Paris, France, immersing herself in the French language, Parisian culture and French cigarettes.
A year away from the academic community and living on her own in the French capital caused her to re-evaluate the direction of her life. She faced a choice: continue with school or concentrate on her flourishing acting career. After much thought, she chose the acting career. In the spring of 1994 Kate left Oxford, after finishing three years of study. Kate appeared in the BBC/Thames Television satire Cold Comfort Farm (1995), filmed in London and East Sussex during late summer 1994 and which opened to spectacular reviews in the United States, grossing over $5 million during its American run. It was re-released to U.K. theaters in the spring of 1997.
Acting on the stage consumed the first part of 1995; she toured in England with the Thelma Holts Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". After turning down several mediocre scripts "and going nearly berserk with boredom", she waited seven months before another interesting role was offered to her. Her big movie of 1995 was the romance/horror movie Haunted (1995), starring opposite Aidan Quinn and John Gielgud, and filmed in West Sussex. In this film she wanted to play "an object of desire", unlike her past performances where her characters were much less the siren and more the worldly innocent. Kate's first film project of 1996 was the British ITV production of Jane Austen's novel Emma (1996). Her last film of 1996 was the comedy Shooting Fish (1997), filmed at Shepperton Studios in London during early fall. She played the part of Georgie, an altruistic con artist. She had a daughter, Lily, in 1999 with actor Michael Sheen.- Actress
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Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series Get Real (1999). She gained widespread recognition for her roles in The Princess Diaries (2001) and its 2004 sequel as a young girl who discovers she is a member of royalty, opposite Julie Andrews and Heather Matarazzo.
She also had a notable role in Nicholas Nickleby (2002) opposite Charlie Hunnam and Jamie Bell, and a starring role in Ella Enchanted (2004). A former top-ranking soprano in New York, Hathaway was reportedly a front-runner for the role of "Christine" in the 2004 The Phantom of the Opera (2004). However, due to scheduling conflicts with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she couldn't take the role, which was later given to newcomer Emmy Rossum.
Hathaway soon started to move away from family-friendly films. Following The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she appeared topless in the films Havoc (2005) opposite Josh Peck and Brokeback Mountain (2005) opposite Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Her desire to break out of her "Princess Diaries" image parallels that of her one-time co-star, Julie Andrews, who went topless in the film S.O.B. (1981) in order to break away from the image she created from her 1960s musicals. In interviews, Hathaway said that doing family-friendly films didn't mean she was similar to their characters or mean she objected to appearing nude in other films.- Actress
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British actress Emilia Clarke was born in London and grew up in Oxfordshire, England. Her father was a theatre sound engineer and her mother is a businesswoman. Her father was working on a theatre production of "Show Boat" and her mother took her along to the performance. This is when, at the age of 3, her passion for acting began. From 2000 to 2005, she attended St. Edward's School of Oxford, where she appeared in two school plays. She went on to study acting at the prestigious Drama Centre London, where she took part in 10 plays. During this time, Emilia first appeared on television with a guest role in the BBC soap opera Doctors (2000).
In 2010, after graduating from the Drama Centre London, Emilia got her first film role in the television movie Triassic Attack (2010). In 2011, her breakthrough role came in when she replaced fellow newcomer Tamzin Merchant on Game of Thrones (2011) after the filming of the original pilot episode. From March to April 2013, she played Holly Golightly in a Broadway production of "Breakfast at Tiffany's". She played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys (2015), opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jai Courtney and Jason Clarke. She played the lead role of Louisa Clark in the romantic comedy blockbuster Me Before You (2016) and went on to star in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) as Qi'ra.
Since her rise to prominence, Emilia has contributed to various charitable organisations. In 2018, she was named as the ambassador to the Royal College of Nursing because of her efforts in raising awareness about the working condition of the nurses in the UK. In 2019, she was named as the first ambassador for the global Nursing Now campaign. In 2019, in a personal essay published in The New Yorker, Emilia revealed that she had suffered from two life threatening brain aneurysms in 2011 and 2013. She launched her own charity SameYou in 2019, which aims to broaden neurorehabilitation access for young people after a brain injury or stroke.- Music Artist
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Rihanna was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988 in Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados to Monica Braithwaite, an accountant & Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor. Her mother is Afro-Guyanese and her father is of Afro-Barbadian and British Isles ancestry. Rihanna lived the life of a normal island girl going to Combermere, a top sixth form school. Rihanna won numerous beauty pageants and performed Mariah Carey's single, Hero in a school talent show. Her life changed forever when one of her friends introduced her to Evan Rodgers, a producer from New York who was in Barbados for a vacation with his wife, who is a native. Rodgers arranged for her to go to New York to meet Jay-Z, CEO of Def Jam Records. He heard her sing and knew she was going to be incredibly successful. She was age 16 when she was signed to Def Jam. Since then, she's amassed phenomenal success.- Actress
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Samaire Rhys Armstrong is an American actress and fashion designer. She is known for her roles in Stay Alive, The O.C., It's a Boy Girl Thing, and as Juliet Darling in the ABC television series, Dirty Sexy Money. She has appeared on television as Elaine Richards in the ABC fantasy-drama Resurrection. She has also appeared in music videos for "Penny & Me" by Hanson and "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.- Actress
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Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tania Raymonde began her career on Malcolm in the Middle (2000), and is known for her portrayal of Alex Rousseau in the J.J. Abrams series Lost. She played the title role of notorious murderer Jodi Arias in the Lifetime original feature Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013), and starred alongside Billy Bob Thornton and William Hurt in David E. Kelley's legal drama Goliath for Amazon. Other TV credits include recurring roles on The Last Ship, The Big Bang Theory (2007), and Crash (2008), opposite Dennis Hopper.- Actress
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Jessica Marie Alba was born on April 28, 1981, in Pomona, CA, to Catherine (Jensen) and Mark David Alba, who served in the US Air Force. Her father is of Mexican descent (including Spanish and Indigenous Mexican roots), and her mother has Danish, Welsh, English, and French ancestry. Her family moved to Biloxi, MS, when she was an infant. Three years later her father's career brought the family back to California, then to Del Rio, TX, before finally settling in Southern California when Jessica was nine. In love with the idea of becoming an actress from the age of five, she was 12 before she took her first acting class. Nine months later she was signed by an agent. She studied at the Atlantic Theatre Company with founders William H. Macy and David Mamet.
A gifted young actress, Jessica has played a variety of roles ranging from light comedy to gritty drama since beginning her career. She made her feature film debut in 1993 in Hollywood Pictures' comedy Camp Nowhere (1994). Originally hired for two weeks, she got her break when an actress in a principal role suddenly dropped out. Jessica cheerfully admits it wasn't her prodigious talent or charm that inspired the director to tap her to take over the part--it was her hair, which matched the original performer's. The two-week job stretched to two months, and Jessica ended the film with an impressive first credit. Two national TV commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney quickly followed before Jessica was featured in several independent films. She branched out into TV in 1994 with a recurring role in Nickelodeon's popular comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). She played an insufferable young snob, devoted to making life miserable for the the title character, played by Larisa Oleynik. That same year, she won the role of "Maya" in Flipper (1995) and filmed the pilot for the series. She spent 1995 shooting the first season's episodes in Australia. An avid swimmer and PADI-certified SCUBA diver, Jessica was delighted to be doing a show that allowed her to play with dolphins. The show's success guaranteed it a second season, which she also starred in. Her involvement in the show lasted from 1995 to 1997.
In 1996 she appeared in Venus Rising (1995) as "Young Eve." The next year she appeared on The Dini Petty Show (1989), a Canadian talk show, and spoke about her role in "Flipper" and her general acting career. She began working on P.U.N.K.S. (1999), featuring Randy Quaid, in 1998. In early 1998 she appeared in Brooklyn South (1997) as "Melissa." That same year she was in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) as "Leanne" and in two episodes of Love Boat: The Next Wave (1998).
She appeared in "Teen Magazine" in 1995 and various European magazines over the following years. More importantly, she was featured in the February 1999 issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine. She also had major roles in two movies that year: Never Been Kissed (1999) and Idle Hands (1999). In 2000 she had roles in Paranoid (2000) and starred in the sci-fi TV series Dark Angel (2000), gaining worldwide recognition.
Her first starring role in a major studio film was the Honey (2003), Universal Pictures' contemporary urban drama that grossed over $60 million worldwide. She has since made over 25 feature films that have earned a combined box-office total of over $800 million, including comedies and dramas, from gritty independents to major studio blockbusters. In 2005 she starred opposite Bruce Willis and an all-star cast in the provocative and critically acclaimed Sin City (2005), directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. She next starred as Sue Storm--"The Invisible Girl"--in Marvel's action-franchise blockbuster Fantastic Four (2005), which was released by 20th Century-Fox in July 2005 and became a worldwide box-office success with over $300 million in revenue.
Jessica was part of Garry Marshall's all-star ensemble romantic comedy, Valentine's Day (2010), which broke box-office records with the largest opening on a four-day President's Day weekend in history. She starred opposite Casey Affleck and Kate Hudson in director Michael Winterbottom's controversial screen adaptation of The Killer Inside Me (2010), based on Jim Thompson's novel, as well as Robert Rodriquez's Machete (2010). She co-starred in the third installment of the hit "Meet the Parents" franchise Little Fockers (2010), as well as the 4D family adventure Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), marking her third of five collaborations with Robert Rodriguez. Jessica was part of an all-star voice cast for The Weinstein Company's animated adventure, Escape from Planet Earth (2012), also featuring Sarah Jessica Parker, Brendan Fraser and James Gandolfini.
She appeared in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and starred Adam Scott, Jane Lynch and Amy Poehler. She made a cameo appearance in Machete Kills (2013) and co-starred in Robert Rodriquez's highly-anticipated, star-studded sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). That year she had a full slate of acting projects, including the period drama Dear Eleanor (2016), The Englishman opposite Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek; the IFC parody mini-series The Spoils of Babylon (2014), produced by Funny or Die, with a stellar cast including Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Tobey Maguire, Michael Sheen and Tim Robbins; and Stretch (2014), co-starring Patrick Wilson, Chris Pine, Ray Liotta, Ed Helms and Brooklyn Decker.
Jessica has received Golden Globe and People's Choice Award nominations, was voted TV Guide readers' Breakout Star of the Year, and won Favorite TV Actress at the 2001 Teen Choice Awards for "Dark Angel." She won the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Female Actress for her performance in "Fantastic Four" and an MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance in "Sin City." She received another Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress in a Horror/Thriller for The Eye (2008) and was honored by the Young Hollywood Awards as Superstar of Tomorrow in 2005. She has received ALMA Awards for her performances in "Dark Angel" and "Machete," as well as a Fashion Icon in 2009.- Music Artist
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Katy Perry was born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson on October 25, 1984 in Santa Barbara, California to Mary Christine Hudson (née Perry) & Maurice Keith Hudson. She has a big sister named Angela & a little brother named David, and has English, Portuguese, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Her mother's half-brother was director Frank Perry.
Raised in a deeply religious family, Perry's first experience of performing was singing in church. A passion for music grew and at the age of 15, Perry began visiting Nashville, gaining experience of song writing and recording demos.
She signed to a Christian record label, Red Hill, and recorded an album, under her birth name of Katy Hudson. The album was not a success. At age 17 she moved to Los Angeles and collaborated with producer Glen Ballard, but was not able to secure a lasting record deal. Perry did sign to Columbia Records in 2004, but again this did not prove a success, and she was dropped.
An executive at Columbia recommended Perry to the chairman of Virgin Records, Jason Flom, which resulted in her signing for Capitol Music Group. She recorded her second album, "One of the Boys" and in the Spring of 2008 released the lead single, the controversial "I Kissed a Girl". The song proved a smash, hitting the number one slot in several countries. Other hit singles followed and the album was a commercial success.
Perry was now established as a pop superstar and cemented her position with the release of her next album "Teenage Dreams", which spawned more huge hits including "California Gurls" and "Firework". Many awards and music industry records followed. In 2012 Perry made the move into movies, releasing the documentary feature film Part of Me (2012).
Katy has started her own record label called "Metamorphosis Music" and has signed her very first artist Ferras, who was signed to Capitol Records back in 2007 with Katy Perry. He had released an EP the same day that the record label news was released to the public. There is also a duet with Katy on his new EP; they are expected to be on tour together in North America June 22 in Raleigh, North Carolina-October 11 in Houston, Texas.- Actress
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Mack was born in Germany but moved with her family to Long Beach, California, when she was 2. She began acting at 4 with print work and commercials, and began studying at The Young Actors Space in Los Angeles when she was 7. Before joining the cast of Smallville (2001), Allison starred in the short-lived and sorely under-rated Fox television comedy Opposite Sex (2000). Prior to that, she was a regular on Hiller and Diller (1997), working alongside great talents such as Richard Lewis, Kevin Nealon, and Eugene Levy. Allison has also guest-starred in the WB family drama 7th Heaven (1996) as a teenager caught up in the "cutting" trend.
Mack has starred in many movies for television, including the cable film My Horrible Year! (2001), which was directed by Eric Stoltz and starring Karen Allen, Mimi Rogers, and Stoltz himself. She was also in A Private Matter (1992) with Sissy Spacek and Aidan Quinn, Living a Lie (1991) with Peter Coyote and Jill Eikenberry, Unlikely Angel (1996) with Dolly Parton and Roddy McDowall, and Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden (1996) starring Mary Tyler Moore and Linda Lavin. Allison is also an accomplished dancer and singer and she currently living in Los Angeles. She enjoys reading, going to movies and plays and spending time with her friends and family.- Actress
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Milla Jovovich is a Ukrainian-American actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975 in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine). Her Serbian father, Bogdan Jovovich, was a medical doctor in Kyiv. There, he met her mother, Galina Jovovich (née Loginova), a Russian actress. At the age of 5, in 1981, Milla emigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union, moving first to London, UK, then to Sacramento, California, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. There her parents worked as house cleaners for the household of director Brian De Palma. Her parents separated, and eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison.
Young Milla Jovovich was brought up by her single mother in Los Angeles. In addition to her native Ukrainian, she also speaks Russian and English. However, in spite of her cosmopolitan background, Milla was ostracized by some of her classmates, as a kid who emigrated from the Soviet Union amidst the paranoia of the Cold War. Many emotional scars had affected her behavior, but she eventually emerged as a resilient, multi-talented, albeit rebellious and risk-taking girl. She was coached by her actress mother since her childhood, first at home, then studied music, ballet, and acting in Los Angeles.
She shot to international fame after she was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon at the age of 11, and was featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine 'Lei' which was her first cover shoot. She made her first professional model contract at the age of 12, and soon made it to the cover of 'The Face', 'Vogue', 'Cosmopolitan' and many other magazines. In 1994, she appeared on the cover of 'High Times' in the UK, at the age of 18. The total number of her magazine covers worldwide was over one hundred by 2004, and keeps counting. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest paid supermodel in the world.
Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, DKNY, Celine, P&K, H&H, and continues her role as the worldwide spokesperson and model for L'Oreal. Thanks to their continued success with Milla, Giorgio Armani chose her to be the face of his fragrance, Night. In addition to Armani's fragrance, Milla was the face for Calvin Klein's Obsession and Christian Dior's Poison for over 10 years and has most recently become the new face for Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist fragrance, which debuts in August 2009. Milla continues to shoot with the fashion industry's most sought after photographers, including Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Inez & Vinoodh.
Milla made her acting debut in the Disney Channel movie The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and she made guest appearances on television series including Married... with Children (1987) (in 1989 as a French exchange student), Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). In 1988, at age 12, she made her film debut credited as Milla in a supporting role in Two Moon Junction (1988) by writer/director Zalman King. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played several supporting roles as a teenage actress in film and on television, then starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). In 1997, she co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi blockbuster The Fifth Element (1997), then she starred as the title character of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
In the early 2000s, Milla had a few years of uncertainty in her acting career due to the uneven quality of her films, as well as some hectic events in her private life. She appeared with Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She went on to co-star with Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley in The Claim (2000) and in Ben Stiller's spoof of the world of models and high-fashion, Zoolander (2001).
Milla achieved box office success in the U.S. and around the world with the action-packed thriller, Resident Evil (2002), based on the wildly popular video game, Resident Evil. It was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Milla reprised her role as the zombie slaying heroine, Alice, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and again in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) A seventh resident Evil movie is in pre-production.
She received glowing reviews opposite Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Illeana Douglas in Dummy (2002) which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In the spring of 2006, Milla returned to the big screen as action heroine, Violet, in the futuristic film Ultraviolet (2006) directed by Kurt Wimmer.
Focusing on her personal sense of style, her love of fashion led Milla and her friend and business partner, Carmen Hawk, to launch their Jovovich-Hawk clothing line, which achieved instant acclaim in the domestic and international fashion world. The fresh, unique line garnered the attention of red carpet watchers and fashion magazines, including American Vogue, who featured Jovovich-Hawk on their coveted list of "10 Things to Watch Out for in 2005." A student of voice and guitar since she was very young, Milla began writing songs for her first record at the age of 15.
Her first album, "The Divine Comedy", was released by EMI Records in 1994. Informed by her experiences as a child growing up as a Russian emigrant in the Red-bashing Reagan era, the introspective European-folkish debut drew favorable reviews for Milla's songwriting and performing. She continues to write music, and has had songs featured on several film soundtracks. She has been writing music and lyrics to her song-demos, playing her guitar and sampling other sounds from her computer, and allowing free download and remix of her songs from her website.
Charitable work also plays a major part in Milla's life. She has served as Master of Ceremonies and co-chaired with Elizabeth Taylor for the amfAR and Cinema Against AIDS event at the Venice Film Festival, and has been heavily involved with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, as well as The Wildlands Project.
For many years Milla Jovovich has been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, practicing yoga and meditation, trying to avoid junk food, and cooking for herself. Since she was a little girl, Milla has been writing a private diary, a habit she learned from her mother. She has been keeping a record of many good and bad facts of her life, her travels, her relationships, and all important ideas and events in her career, planning eventually to publish an autobiography. After dissolution of her two previous marriages, Milla Jovovich became engaged to film director Paul W.S. Anderson; their daughter, Ever Anderson, was born on November 3, 2007. They got married on August 22, 2009. Their second daughter, Dashiel Edan, was born on April 1, 2015.- Actress
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Kristin Kreuk was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to Deanna Che, who is of Chinese ancestry, and Peter Kreuk, who is of Dutch descent. Her parents are landscape architects. She attended and graduated from Eric Hamber Secondary School. Although she did some stage work in school, she focused more on her studies. She described herself as shy and boring.
For her first professional work, she went to an open casting audition for Edgemont (2000), a teen drama series aired on CBC Television in Canada. She plays the role as "Laurel Yeung". Laurel was the last main character to be cast because the casting director was having a problem finding an actress. Fortunately, for them (and us), they found Kristin just in time.
Her career was set to take off when she landed on the highly acclaimed serial drama series for The WB, Smallville (2001). It follows the story of "Clark Kent" in his pre-Superman days in a small town of Smallville, Kansas. Kreuk played the role as "Lana Lang", Clark Kent's object of desire before he meets "Lois Lane".
Smallville (2001) proved to be a giant step for Kristin's acting career, as she landed several interviews with several magazines, including YM (Young and Modern) and Rolling Stone. She also did a commercial for Neutrogena, popular for its skin care products.- Actress
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- Producer
Janina Zione Gavankar (born November 29, 1980) is an American actress and musician. Gavankar is also trained as a pianist, vocalist, and orchestral percussionist. She majored in Theatre Performance at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Gavankar's roles include Papi, a lesbian lothario in The L Word; Leigh Turner, a police officer on The Gates; Ms. Dewey, the personification of a Microsoft branded search engine who commented on the user's searches; Shiva, the namesake of the sought-after trophy on The League; shapeshifter Luna Garza on HBO's True Blood; McKenna Hall on The CW's Arrow; and Meredith Bose on NBC's The Mysteries of Laura. She also played Diana Thomas on FOX's supernatural drama Sleepy Hollow.
Gavankar was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Peter Ganesh Gavankar, an engineer from Mumbai, who first traveled to the U.S. to pursue a master's degree, and Mohra Gavankar, from Pune, Maharashtra, who also emigrated to the U.S. from India. Her mother is half-Indian and half-Dutch.
Gavankar has acted in theatre, film, television, and online. Her most notable roles include Iden Versio, canon Star Wars character, and protagonist of Star Wars: Battlefront II, shapeshifter Luna Garza in True Blood, lesbian lothario Papi in The L Word; Ms. Dewey, the personification of a Microsoft live search engine; and Shiva, the namesake of the sought after trophy on The League. She regularly appears in Funny or Die shorts.
In 2006 she joined the cast of The L Word as a series regular, and shot all of the clips used for Ms. Dewey. In 2007, she landed a lead in CW pilot Dash 4 Cash. In 2008, Gavankar appeared in TV series Stargate Atlantis, Grey's Anatomy and NCIS, My Boys, and Factory. In 2009, she appeared in the TV shows The Cleaner, Dollhouse, Three Rivers, and The League, as well as indie movies Men, Interrupted, Indian Gangster, and Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey. Gavankar played the voice of Nikki in Quantum Quest. She landed a lead role in The Gates, since cancelled, on ABC. She appears on CW's Arrow as a vice squad police officer and brief girlfriend to Oliver Queen.
Gavankar is an admitted gamer and has appeared on, as well as co-hosted, G4 TV's Attack of the Show!, Epileptic Gaming's Up All Night, where she helped review Rock Band, Burnout Paradise, and Army of Two.
In 2011 Gavankar became a series regular in HBO's True Blood as a public school teacher and shapeshifter, Luna Garza, who gets romantically involved with one of the main characters of the series.
Her indie movie, Satellite of Love, premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival in 2012, and her 2012 indie I'm Afraid of Virginia Wolf is in post-production. On December 20, 2012, Gavankar was the last person interviewed for the now cancelled Attack of the Show! which aired on G4 TV.
On August 3, 2013, Gavankar landed a role as a witch named Qetsiyah in the fifth season of The Vampire Diaries. She guest starred in the third season of Husbands.
In 2014, she starred as Amita in the video game, Far Cry 4. She also played Detective Meredith Bose on The Mysteries of Laura from 2014 to 2016.
She starred as Iden Versio, the main character in the campaign mode of the 2017 Electronic Arts video game Star Wars Battlefront II.
In 2018, she has two films releasing. Blindspotting is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, and The Vanishing of Sidney Hall is being distributed by A24.
Gavankar returned to music with a cover of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". Gavankar's former all female singing group, Endera, was signed to Cash Money Records Universal Records.
She collaborated on a project for a song called "Tell Me What" in India with Pratichee Mohapatra of Viva, Deep, and Navraaz. She has had songs licensed to movies and television, and has sung and played marimba on film scores. Gavankar was featured in Russian artist Ella Leya's music video for "Wish I Could", in the music video by San Francisco-based band Recliner for their single "Float Away", as well as the music video for Manu Narayan's band Darunam.
In August 2012, she released the single for her upcoming EP, entitled Waiting for Godot, and in November, Billboard premiered the official music video. It went on to win numerous film festival awards.
While in high school, Gavankar auditioned for the front ensemble of the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps of Rockford, Illinois. Before hearing whether she had made the corps, she was accepted for the Yale School of Drama's summer camp, and went there. "I fell in love with drum corps when I was 13 years old", Gavankar has stated, and remains a strong fan of the activity. When she heard the Martin Garrix/Usher collaboration, "Don't Look Down", she had the idea of performing it as marching music. With assistance from Drum Corps International, she contacted the Jersey Surf Drum and Bugle Corps and arranger Colin Bell. She went into the studios in New York with fifty members of Jersey Surf and recorded the music video "Don't Look Down- #JustAddDrumCorps Edition" that was released in April 2015.
On May 20, 2015, Gavankar performed a percussion duet at Carnegie Hall with Questlove for the Best Buddies charity benefit.- Actress
- Producer
- Composer
It would seem that 2004, the year of her 18th birthday, will be remembered as pivotal for Emmy Rossum due to her appearance in two very different films, The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004). Emmy's performance in the latter film gained her a Golden Globe nomination.
Emmanuelle Grey Rossum was born in New York City, where she was raised by her single mother, Cheryl Rossum, a corporate photographer (she has only met her father a few times). Her mother is of Russian Jewish descent and her father has English and Dutch ancestry. After passing an audition at the Metropolitan Opera when she was 7 years old, Rossum performed in more than 20 operas in six different languages at Lincoln Center, alongside such figures as Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. She was directed by Franco Zeffirelli in "Carmen." She left the opera when she entered her teenage years, as she had grown too tall to perform as a child. Emmy also appeared in a Carnegie Hall presentation of "The Damnation of Faust." She graduated from the Spence School, a private institution in Manhattan, in 1996 and then earned a high school diploma when 15 years old by taking online extension courses offered by Stanford University (Education Program for Gifted Youth). She later enrolled at Columbia University and studied art history and French.
In a change of venue, Emmy created the role of Abigail Williams in the daytime soap opera As the World Turns (1956) in 1997 and branched out in performances in the made-for-television movies Genius (1999) and The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000), in which she played the title character as a young teenager. Other television work included Snoops (1999), Law & Order (1990), and The Practice (1997).
Emmy made her theatrical feature debut in the indie film Songcatcher (2000), with her good friend Rhoda Griffis, which won the Special Jury Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2000. Rossum received an Independent Spirit Award nomination in the category of Best Debut Performance for her performance as an Appalachian orphan. She played an aspiring songwriter (the title character) in the romantic comedy Nola (2003). Cast as the ill-fated daughter of a small-business owner in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), she projected an aura of innocence that made her character's tragic death memorable and heartbreaking. This was her first major studio film.
After six months of filming her role as the fresh-faced but highly intelligent teenage damsel in distress The Day After Tomorrow (2004) in Montreal, she returned to New York and screen-tested for the role of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera (2004) in full costume and makeup, and was finally selected for the part by Andrew Lloyd Webber after singing for him at his home. Although she was surprised to be chosen ahead of many better-known and older actresses considered for the part, the combination of her vulnerable, fragile beauty and fine, classically trained singing voice ultimately proved that she was perfectly cast. In preparation for the role, she took ballet classes for two months and started polishing her singing. Emmy has commented that, in her approach to acting, she draws heavily upon her own experiences, so she visited locations in Paris and conjured up what she terms "past memories" to draw upon in making her performance emotionally realistic. She stood on the roof of the Opéra Garnier, where Christine sings "All I Ask of You," and went underneath the opera house, where there is actually a gloomy, dark lake. She studied Degas's paintings of ballerinas in the Musée d'Orsay to learn how to stand like one.
Her next project Poseidon (2006) was a mainstream effort, but since its release, she has been more true to advice she obtained from Sean Penn when making Mystic River (2003), that she should be picky and only accept roles that are fun to do, such as Dragonball Evolution (2009).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Leighton Marissa Meester was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Constance Lynn (Haas) and Douglas Jay Meester. Although born in Texas, Meester spent her early years in Marco Island, Florida with her grandparents. There, she became involved with the local playhouse and made her stage debut in a production of "The Wizard of Oz".
She moved to New York with her mother at the age of 11 and was soon working as a model and appearing in TV commercials. A few years later, at age 14, she and her mother moved again, this time to Los Angeles, where she began to pick up TV work, making her debut in Disciple (1999).
A steady stream of TV work followed, and in 2007 she landed the role of Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl (2007), which made her famous. This led to more TV and movie roles. In 2009, she launched a recording career with the single, "Somebody to Love".- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ashley Victoria Benson was born on December 18, 1989 in Anaheim Hills, California, to Shannon (Harte) and Jeff Benson. She has Irish, English, and German ancestry. She has been dancing competitively since she was 2 with hip hop, jazz, ballet, tap and lyrical. She has been singing since she was about 5 and she hopes to pursue that, along with her acting. Ashley started modeling at the age of 5 for dance catalogs. Ashley was then pursued by The Ford Modeling Agency at the age of 8. She worked steadily in print and is still with the Agency. At the age of 10, she wanted to pursue acting. Ashley went on to do 35 commercials, and then on to theatrical roles. Acting was now Ashley's passion. Ashley put all her focus into acting, which left little time for modeling and dancing, anymore. Ashley's most recent role is "Hanna Marin" on ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars (2010). Ashley also had a cameo in Romeo Miller (aka Lil Romeo) and Solange's music video for the song "True Love". She did a photo shoot with Britney Spears for Vogue Magazine. She is in NLT's music video, "That Girl".- Actress
- Producer
Jennifer Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Ilene (Schuman), a dealer of antiques, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father had Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish immigrant family. Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, except for the four years her parents spent in Woodstock, New York. Back in Brooklyn Heights, she attended St. Ann's school. A close friend of the family was an advertising executive. When Jennifer was ten, he suggested that her parents take her to a modeling audition. She began appearing in newspaper and magazine ads (among them "Seventeen" magazine), and soon moved on to television commercials. A casting director saw her and introduced her to Sergio Leone, who was seeking a young girl to dance in his gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Although having little screen time, the few minutes she was on-screen were enough to reveal her talent. Her next role after that was an episode of the British horror anthology TV series Tales of the Unexpected (1979) in 1984.
After Leone's movie, horror master Dario Argento signed her to play her first starring role in his thriller Phenomena (1985). The film made a lot of money in Europe but, unfortunately, was heavily cut for American distribution. Around the same time, she appeared in the rock video "I Drove All Night," a Roy Orbison song, co-starring Jason Priestley. She released a single called "Monologue of Love" in Japan in the mid-1980s, in which she sings in Japanese a charming little song with semi-classical instruments arrangement. On the B-side is "Message Of Love," which is an interview with music in background. She also appeared in television commercials in Japan.
She enrolled at Yale, and then transferred two years later to Stanford. She trained in classical theater and improvisation, studying with the late drama coach Roy London, Howard Fine, and Harold Guskin.
The late 1980s saw her starring in a hit and three lesser seen films. Amongst the latter was her roles in Ballet (1989), as a ballerina and in Some Girls (1988), where she played a self-absorbed college freshman. The hit was Labyrinth (1986), released in 1986. Jennifer got the job after a nationwide talent search for the lead in this fantasy directed by Jim Henson and produced by George Lucas. Her career entered in a calm phase after those films, until Dennis Hopper, who was impressed after having seen her in "Some Girls", cast Jennifer as an ingénue small-town girl in The Hot Spot (1990), based upon the 1950s crime novel "Hell Hath No Fury". It received mixed critical reviews, but it was not a box office success.
The Rocketeer (1991), an ambitious Touchstone super-production, came to the rescue. The film was an old-fashioned adventure flick about a man capable of flying with rockets on his back. Critics saw in "Rocketeer" a top-quality movie, a homage to those old films of the 1930s in which the likes of Errol Flynn starred. After "Rocketeer," Jennifer made Career Opportunities (1991), The Heart of Justice (1992), Mulholland Falls (1996), her first collaboration with Nick Nolte and Inventing the Abbotts (1997). In 1998, she was invited by director Alex Proyas to make Dark City (1998), a strange, visually stunning science-fiction extravaganza. In this movie, Jennifer played the main character's wife, and she delivered an acclaimed performance. The film itself didn't break any box-office record but received positive reviews. This led Jennifer to a contract with Fox for the television series The $treet (2000), a main part in the memorable and dramatic love-story Waking the Dead (2000) and, more important, a breakthrough part in the polemic and applauded independent Requiem for a Dream (2000), a tale about the haunting lives of drug addicts and the subsequent process of decadence and destruction. In "Requiem for a Dream," Jennifer had her career's most courageous, difficult part, a performance that earned her a Spirit Award Nomination. She followed this role with Pollock (2000), in which she played Pollock's mistress, Ruth Klingman. In 2001, Ron Howard chose her to co-star with Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind (2001), the film that tells the true story of John Nash, a man who suffered from mental illness but eventually beats this and wins the Nobel Prize in 1994. Jennifer played Nash's wife and won a Golden Globe, BAFTA, AFI and Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. Connelly continued her career with films including Hulk (2003), her second collaboration with Nick Nolte, Dark Water (2005), Blood Diamond (2006), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), He's Just Not That Into You (2009) and Noah (2014), where she did her second collaboration with both Darren Aronofsky and Russell Crowe and made her third collaboration with Nick Nolte in that same film.
Jennifer lives in New York. She is 5'7", and speaks fluent Italian and French. She enjoys physical activities such as swimming, gymnastics, and bike riding. She is also an outdoors person -- camping, hiking and walking, and is interested in quantum physics and philosophy. She likes horses, Pearl Jam, SoundGarden, Jesus Jones, and occasionally wears a small picture of the The Dalai Lama on a necklace. Her favorite colors are cobalt blue, forest green, and "very pale green/gray -- sort of like the color of the sea". She likes to draw.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kajol Devgn is a well-known Bollywood actress known for her exceptional performances on screen. She attended St. Joseph's Convent School in Panchgani and was actively involved in extra-curricular activities such as dancing. In her early teens, Kajol was supposed to make her debut as an actress in a movie directed by her mother, Tanuja, but the project was cancelled. She eventually made her acting debut at the age of sixteen with the film Bekhudi (1992), while still in school. Later, she quit school to pursue a full-time career in the film industry.
She made her debut with Rahul Rawail's Bekhudi (1992) in 1992. Her film career flourished with commercial successes like Baazigar (1993), Yeh Dillagi (1994), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), which established her as a leading star in the 1990s. She was appreciated critically for her role in Gupt: The Hidden Truth (1997) and as an avenger in Dushman (1998). Another blockbuster Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) won her multiple awards, after which she took a break. She returned to the industry after a brief period with the romantic thriller Fanaa (2006).
She was cast in My Name Is Khan (2010) in 2010 opposite Shah Rukh Khan - it was widely appreciated by critics worldwide. Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan became the first Indian actors to be invited by NASDAQ to open the NYSE American to promote My Name Is Khan (2010). She was also appreciated for her performance in Dilwale (2015) - it also featured other renowned stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Varun Dhawan, and Kriti Sanon. She was also cast in the period film Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior (2020) in 2020.
She also appeared in the social drama Tribhanga (2021), her first collaboration with Netflix.
She holds a managerial position at Devgn Entertainment and Software Ltd., And as the supervisor, she launched the filmmaking-related portal Cineexplore in 2000. Devgn established another company, Ajay Devgn Films, in 2009.
She appeared with Ajay Devgn, and her mother Tanuja as the supervisor in Zee TV's 2008 reality show Rock-N-Roll Family. She was named a part-time public broadcaster Prasar Bharati member in 2016.
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis honored her with the Swabhimani Mumbaikar Awards. She was also included on Forbes India's "Celebrity 100", a list based on the income and popularity of India's celebrities, in 2012, 2013, and 2017.
She has won 23 awards, including 6 Filmfare Awards, 5 Screen Awards, 4 Zee Cine Awards, 1 Stardust Award and 1 Bengal Film Journalists' Association Award, and one Bollywood Movie Award till the year 2021. She was also honored with the Rajiv Gandhi Award for her contribution to Indian cinema in 2002. Kajol was listed in the Box Office India's "Top Actresses" for five consecutive years (1995-1999), topping the list in 1998.
In 2001 and 2006, she was featured in Rediff annual "Top Bollywood Actresses" listing. And in 2007, she received Karamveer Puraskar, presented by the Mumbai Pradesh Young Congress, for her social work in helping educate unprivileged children.
During the shooting of Gundaraj in 1994, Kajol and Ajay Devgn started dating. They eventually tied the knot on 24th February 1999 in a traditional Maharashtrian wedding ceremony held at Devgn's residence.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. Rachel has a sister, Minnie, a curator and photographer.
Rachel started modeling when she was 14, and began acting during her studies at Cambridge University. While there, she formed a theater company named "Talking Tongues", which won the Guardian Award, at the Edinburgh Festival, for its take on Neville Southall's "Washbag". Rachel went on to star on stage in the lauded Sean Mathias revival of Noël Coward's "Design For Living". It was a role that won her a vote for Most Promising Newcomer by the London Critics' Circle.
She has starred in many movies, including The Mummy (1999), Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Stealing Beauty (1996). Rachel can also be seen in the movies The Shape of Things (2003), About a Boy (2002), Constantine (2005) and The Constant Gardener (2005), for which she won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rachel has a son with her former partner, director Darren Aronofsky. In June 2011, she married "James Bond" actor Daniel Craig in a private ceremony in New York.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, France. She is the daughter of Annick, a ballet teacher, and Pierre, a voice actor, who is most recognized for the French version of The Simpsons (1989). She has a younger brother, Mathieu, and has both Sephardi Jewish (from Tunisia) and Ashkenazi Jewish (from Poland) ancestry. In 1998, Laurent was visiting the set of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1999) with a friend when she caught the attention of Gérard Depardieu. He offered her a role in his next film The Bridge (1999). She only played a small role, but it was enough to further Mélanie's interest in acting.- Actress
- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26, 1985 in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her father is English, while her Scottish-born mother is of Scottish and Welsh origin. Brought up immersed in the acting profession from both sides - writing and performing - it is little wonder that the young Keira asked for her own agent at the age of three. She was granted one at the age of six and performed in her first TV role as "Little Girl" in Royal Celebration (1993), aged seven.
It was discovered at an early age that Keira had severe difficulties in reading and writing. She was not officially dyslexic as she never sat the formal tests required of the British Dyslexia Association. Instead, she worked incredibly hard, encouraged by her family, until the problem had been overcome by her early teens. Her first multi-scene performance came in A Village Affair (1995), an adaptation of the lesbian love story by Joanna Trollope. This was followed by small parts in the British crime series The Bill (1984), an exiled German princess in The Treasure Seekers (1996) and a much more substantial role as the young "Judith Dunbar" in Giles Foster's adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's novel Coming Home (1998), alongside Peter O'Toole, Penelope Keith and Joanna Lumley. The first time Keira's name was mentioned around the world was when it was revealed (in a plot twist kept secret by director George Lucas) that she played Natalie Portman's decoy "Padme" to Portman's "Amidala" in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). It was several years before agreement was reached over which scenes featured Keira as the queen and which featured Natalie!
Keira had no formal training as an actress and did it out of pure enjoyment. She went to an ordinary council-run school in nearby Teddington and had no idea what she wanted to do when she left. By now, she was beginning to receive far more substantial roles and was starting to turn work down as one project and her schoolwork was enough to contend with. She reappeared on British television in 1999 as "Rose Fleming" in Alan Bleasdale's faithful reworking of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1999), and traveled to Romania to film her first title role in Walt Disney's Princess of Thieves (2001) in which she played Robin Hood's daughter, Gwyn. Keira's first serious boyfriend was her Princess of Thieves (2001) co-star Del Synnott, and they later co-starred in Peter Hewitt's 'work of fart' Thunderpants (2002). Nick Hamm's dark thriller The Hole (2001) kept her busy during 2000, and featured her first nude scene (15 at the time, the film was not released until she was 16 years old). In the summer of 2001, while Keira studied and sat her final school exams (she received six A's), she filmed a movie about an Asian girl's (Parminder Nagra) love for football and the prejudices she has to overcome regarding both her culture and her religion). Bend It Like Beckham (2002) was a smash hit in football-mad Britain but it had to wait until another of Keira's films propelled it to the top end of the US box office. Bend It Like Beckham (2002) cost just £3.5m to make, and nearly £1m of that came from the British Lottery. It took £11m in the UK and has since gone on to score more than US$76m worldwide.
Meanwhile, Keira had started A-levels at Esher College, studying Classics, English Literature and Political History, but continued to take acting roles which she thought would widen her experience as an actress. The story of a drug-addicted waitress and her friendship with the young son of a drug-addict, Pure (2002), occupied Keira from January to March 2002. Also at this time, Keira's first attempt at Shakespeare was filmed. She played "Helena" in a modern interpretation of a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" entitled The Seasons Alter (2002). This was commissioned by the environmental organization "Futerra", of which Keira's mother is patron. Keira received no fee for this performance or for another short film, New Year's Eve (2002), by award-winning director Col Spector. But it was a chance encounter with producer Andy Harries at the London premiere of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) which forced Keira to leave her studies and pursue acting full-time. The meeting lead to an audition for the role of "Larisa Feodorovna Guishar" - the classic heroine of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (2002), played famously in the David Lean movie by Julie Christie. This was to be a big-budget TV movie with a screenplay written by Andrew Davies. Keira won the part and the mini-series was filmed throughout the Spring of 2002 in Slovakia, co-starring Sam Neill and Hans Matheson as "Yuri Zhivago". Keira rounded off 2002 with a few scenes in the first movie to be directed by Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley writer Richard Curtis. Called Love Actually (2003), Keira played "Juliet", a newlywed whose husband's Best Man is secretly besotted with her. A movie filmed after Love Actually (2003) but released before it was to make the world sit up and take notice of this beautiful fresh-faced young actress with a cute British accent. It was a movie which Keira very nearly missed out on, altogether. Auditions were held in London for a new blockbuster movie called Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), but heavy traffic in the city forced Keira to be tagged on to the end of the day's auditions list. It helped - she got the part. Filming took place in Los Angeles and the Caribbean from October 2002 to March 2003 and was released to massive box office success and almost universal acclaim in the July of that year.
Meanwhile, a small British film called Bend It Like Beckham (2002) had sneaked onto a North American release slate and was hardly setting the box office alight. But Keira's dominance in "Pirates" had set tongues wagging and questions being asked about the actress playing "Elizabeth Swann". Almost too late, "Bend It"'s distributors realized one of its two stars was the same girl whose name was on everyone's lips due to "Pirates", and took the unusual step of re-releasing "Bend It" to 1,000 screens across the US, catapulting it from no. 26 back up to no. 12. "Pirates", meanwhile, was fighting off all contenders at the top spot, and stayed in the Top 3 for an incredible 21 weeks. It was perhaps no surprise, then, that Keira was on producer Jerry Bruckheimer's wanted list for the part of "Guinevere" in a planned accurate telling of the legend of "King Arthur". Filming took place in Ireland and Wales from June to November 2003. In July, Keira had become the celebrity face of British jeweller and luxury goods retailer, Asprey. At a photoshoot for the company on Long Island New York in August, Keira met and fell in love with Northern Irish model Jamie Dornan. King Arthur (2004) was released in July 2004 to lukewarm reviews. It seems audiences wanted the legend after all, and not necessarily the truth. Keira became the breakout star and 'one to watch in 2004' throughout the world's media at the end of 2003.
Keira's 2004 started off in Scotland and Canada filming John Maybury's time-travelling thriller The Jacket (2005) with Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. A planned movie of Deborah Moggach's novel, "Tulip Fever", about forbidden love in 17th Century Amsterdam, was canceled in February after the British government suddenly closed tax loopholes which allowed filmmakers to claw back a large proportion of their expenditure. Due to star Keira and Jude Law in the main roles, the film remains mothballed. Instead, Keira spent her time wisely, visiting Ethiopia on behalf of the "Comic Relief" charity, and spending summer at various grandiose locations around the UK filming what promises to be a faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride & Prejudice (2005), alongside Matthew Macfadyen as "Mr. Darcy", and with Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench in supporting roles. In October 2004, Keira received her first major accolade, the Hollywood Film Award for Best Breakthrough Actor - Female, and readers of Empire Magazine voted her the Sexiet Movie Star Ever. The remainder of 2004 saw Keira once again trying a completely new genre, this time the part-fact, part-fiction life story of model turned bounty hunter Domino (2005). 2005 started with the premiere of The Jacket (2005) at the Sundance Film Festival, with the US premiere in LA on February 28th. Much of the year was then spent in the Caribbean filming both sequels to Pirates Of The Caribbean. Keira's first major presenting role came in a late-night bed-in comedy clip show for Comic Relief with presenter Johnny Vaughan. In late July, promotions started for the September release of Pride & Prejudice (2005), with British fans annoyed to learn that the US version would end with a post-marriage kiss, but the European version would not. Nevertheless, when the movie opened in September on both sides of the Atlantic, Keira received her greatest praise thus far in her career, amid much talk of awards. It spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK box office.
Domino (2005) opened well in October, overshadowed by the death of Domino Harvey earlier in the year. Keira received Variety's Personality Of The Year Award in November, topped the following month by her first Golden Globe nomination, for Pride & Prejudice (2005). KeiraWeb.com exclusively announced that Keira would play Helene Joncour in an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco's novella Silk (2007). Pride & Prejudice (2005) garnered six BAFTA nominations at the start of 2006, but not Best Actress for Keira, a fact which paled soon after by the announcement she had received her first Academy Award nomination, the third youngest Best Actress Oscar hopeful. A controversial nude Vanity Fair cover of Keira and Scarlett Johansson kept the press busy up till the Oscars, with Reese Witherspoon taking home the gold man in the Best Actress category, although Keira's Vera Wang dress got more media attention. Keira spent early summer in Europe filming Silk (2007) opposite Michael Pitt, and the rest of the summer in the UK filming Atonement (2007), in which she plays Cecilia Tallis, and promoting the new Pirates movie (her Ellen Degeneres interview became one of the year's Top 10 'viral downloads'). Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) broke many box office records when it opens worldwide in July, becoming the third biggest movie ever by early September. Keira sued British newspaper The Daily Mail in early 2007 after her image in a bikini accompanied an article about a woman who blamed slim celebrities for the death of her daughter from anorexia. The case was settled and Keira matched the settlement damages and donated the total amount to an eating disorder charity. Keira filmed a movie about the life of Dylan Thomas, The Edge Of Love (2008) with a screenplay written by her mother Sharman Macdonald. Her co-star Lindsay Lohan pulled out just a week before filming began, and was replaced by Sienna Miller.
What was announced to be Keira's final Pirates movie in the franchise, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007), opened strongly in June, rising to all-time fifth biggest movie by July. Atonement (2007) opened the Venice Film Festival in August, and opened worldwide in September, again to superb reviews for Keira. Meanwhile, Silk (2007) opened in September on very few screens and disappeared without a trace. Keira spent the rest of the year filming The Duchess (2008), the life story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, based on Amanda Foreman's award-winning biography of the distant relation of Princess Diana. The year saw more accolades and poll-topping for Keira than ever before, including Women's Beauty Icon 2007 and gracing the covers of all the top-selling magazines. She won Best Actress for Atonement (2007) at the Variety Club Of Great Britain Showbiz Awards, and ended the year with her second Golden Globe nomination. Christmas Day saw - or rather heard - Keira on British TV screens in a new Robbie The Reindeer animated adventure, with DVD proceeds going to Comic Relief. At the start of 2008, Keira received her first BAFTA nomination - Best Actress for Atonement, and the movie wins Best Film: Drama at the Golden Globes. Seven Academy Award nominations for Atonement soon follow. Keira wins Best Actress for her role as Cecilia Tallis at the Empire Film Awards. In May, Keira's first Shakespearean role is announced, when she is confirmed to play Cordelia in a big-screen version of King Lear, alongside Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow, with Sir Anthony Hopkins as the titular monarch. After two years of rumours, it is confirmed that Keira is on the shortlist to play Eliza Doolittle in a new adaptation of My Fair Lady. The Edge Of Love opens the Edinburgh Film Festival on June 18th, and opens on limited release in the UK and US. A huge round of promotions for The Duchess occurs throughout the summer, with cast and crew trying to play down the marketers' decision to draw parallels between the duchess and Princess Diana. Keira attends the UK and US premieres and Toronto Film Festival within the first week of September. The Duchess opens strongly on both sides of the Atlantic. Two more movies were confirmed for Keira during September - a tale of adultery called Last Night (2010), and a biopic of author F Scott Fitzgerald entitled The Beautiful and the Damned.
Keira spent October on the streets of New York City filming Last Night alongside Sam Worthington and Guillaume Canet. Keira helped to promote the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, by contributing to a series of short films produced to mark the occasion. In January 2009 it was announced Keira had signed to play a reclusive actress in an adaptation of Ken Bruen's novel London Boulevard (2010), co-starring Colin Farrell. Keira continues her close ties with the Comic Relief charity by helping to launch their British icons T-shirts campaign. In the same week King Lear was revealed to have been shelved, it was announced that Keira would instead star alongside her Pride & Prejudice co-star Carey Mulligan in an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010). A new short film emerges in March, recorded in the January of 2008 in which Keira plays a Fairy! The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers (2009) was written by Keira's boyfriend Rupert Friend and actor Tom Mison. It went to be shown at the London Film Festival in October and won Best Comedy Short at the New Hampshire Film Festival. Keira continued to put her celebrity to good use in 2009 with a TV commercial for WomensAid highlighting domestic abuse against women. Unfortunately, UK censors refused to allow its broadcast and it can only be viewed on YouTube. May and June saw Keira filming Never Let Me Go (2010) and London Boulevard (2010) back-to-back. In October, a new direction for Keira's career emerged, when it was announced she would appear on the London stage in her West End debut role as Jennifer, in a reworking of Moliere's The Misanthrope, starring Damian Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald. More than $2m of ticket sales followed in the first four days, before even rehearsals had begun! The play ran from December to March at London's Comedy Theatre.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Mayte Michelle Rodríguez was born on July 12, 1978 in San Antonio, Texas to Carmen Milady Pared Espinal, a housewife, and Rafael Rodríguez Santiago, a U.S. Army solider. Known for tough-chick roles, Michelle is proof that there is a cross between beauty and brawn. Michelle always knew she was destined to become a star, she just didn't know how to get there. Michelle lived in San Antonio until the age of 8 when her parents divorced & moved to the Dominican Republic where she lived for two years before moving to Puerto Rico. At 11, Michelle's family relocated for the last time to Jersey City, New Jersey. Although she has been working since 1999 as an extra in such films as Summer of Sam (1999) and Cradle Will Rock (1999), it only took a magazine ad announcing an open casting call in New York for Michelle to decide to finally step into the spotlight. The role was the female lead, the movie was Girlfight (2000). Despite the lack of experience in film and boxing, Michelle auditioned, along with another 350 girls. After various trials inside an actual boxing ring and five arduous months of training in Brooklyn's Gleason's Gym, she was finally chosen to portray the role of Diana Guzman. As soon as the independent film began making the rounds at various film festivals, Michelle began gaining critical acclaim for her performance earning her awards like the Deauville Festival of American Cinema award for Best Actress and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society for Female Breakthrough performance. As Girlfight (2000) continued to gain notoriety with its September 2000 release, Michelle was already hard at work with films like 3 A.M. (2001), the blockbuster hit The Fast and the Furious (2001), and Resident Evil (2002). With Hollywood calling her name, the future for this feisty Jersey girl is as strong as the punches she throws.- Actress
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Jessica Biel, has become one of Hollywood's most sought-out actresses. She was born in Ely, Minnesota, to Kimberly (Conroe) and Jonathan Edward Biel, who is a business consultant and GM worker. Biel was raised in Boulder, Colorado. She is of Hungarian Jewish, Danish, English, and German descent.
As a child, Biel initially pursued a career as a vocalist, performing in musical theater. Beginning at age nine, she starred in such productions as "Annie," "The Sound of Music," and "Beauty and the Beast." Biel soon turned to modeling and commercial work by competing in The International Modeling and Talent Association's Annual Conference in 1994.
Her Film debut was in the Kid's Rock Opera It's a Digital World (1994) where she demonstrated her acting and singing abilities. Her television series acting debut, playing Mary Camden on the WB's #1-rated show, 7th Heaven (1996), helped her emerge as a breakout star. She terrified moviegoers with her portrayal of Erin, "Leatherface's" greatest nemesis to date, in New Line Cinema's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), a remake of the original. Having finished filming, Blade: Trinity (2004) in Vancouver with Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, and Kris Kristofferson, she the portrayed a jet-fighter pilot in Stealth (2005), starring Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Sam Shepherd, for director Rob Cohen. Biel's film career began at age 14 when she played alongside Peter Fonda in his Golden Globe-winning performance in Ulee's Gold (1997). Her other film credits include I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998), Summer Catch (2001), Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction (2002), and Cellular (2004), which stars Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, and William H. Macy.
In her spare time, Biel is involved with charities such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and PETA. Her hobbies include ballet, soccer, running, yoga and hiking with her dog "East." She resides in Los Angeles.
In 2012, she married actor and singer Justin Timberlake. The two have a son.- Actress
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Jennifer Love Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas, to Patricia Mae (Shipp), a speech-language pathologist, and Herbert Daniel Hewitt, a medical technician. She has English, Italian, French, Scottish, and German ancestry. She got her first name from her older brother Todd Daniel Hewitt (b. November 8, 1970), who picked the name after a little blonde girl on whom he'd had a crush. Her mother selected Jennifer's middle name, Love (which she goes by offstage), from her best college friend. Her parents separated when she was six months old and her mother raised her in Killeen, Texas.
Hewitt made her official performing debut at age 3 when she sang at a livestock show. At age 5, she was taking tap, jazz, and ballet lessons, which led to her joining the Texas Show Team, who toured the Soviet Union and Europe. When she was 10 her family moved to Los Angeles with encouragement from talent scouts, while Todd stayed behind to finish high school in Texas Jennifer quickly found commercial work and a role on Disney's Kids Incorporated (1984) in 1989. She went through a series of television flops before finally hitting it big on Party of Five (1994) in 1995.- Actress
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Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.
Jolie was born Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, California. In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her actor parents, Jon Voight, an Oscar-winner, and Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. Her good looks may derive from her ancestry, which is German and Slovak on her father's side, and French-Canadian, Dutch, Polish, and remote Huron, on her mother's side. At age eleven, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she was seen in several stage productions. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos.
In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997), and in George Wallace (1997) which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) again garnered a Golden Globe Award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.
Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.
With her newfound prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced, and in 2000, she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.
In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The eponymous character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the movie was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in the movie, and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.
One of the Lara Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.
Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox, and in 2005, adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the movie was not popular among critics or at the box office.
In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The movie became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.
Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple, who married in 2014 and divorced in 2019, continue to pursue movie and humanitarian projects, and now have a total of six children. She was appointed Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to United Kingdom foreign policy and the campaign to end warzone sexual violence.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Megan Denise Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee to Gloria Darlene Tonachio (née Cisson), a real estate manager and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She began her drama and dance training at age 5 and at age 10, she moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida where she continued her training and finished school. Megan began acting and modeling at age 13 after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school using correspondence and eventually moved to Los Angeles, California. Megan made her film debut as Brianna Wallace in the Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen film, Holiday in the Sun (2001). Her best-known roles are as Sam Witwicky's love interest, Mikaela Banes in Transformers (2007) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), as April O'Neil in the remake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and as Jennifer Check in the horror comedy Jennifer's Body (2009).- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Zooey Deschanel's quirky charm, striking blue eyes, and distinctively offbeat humor have made her one of the most beloved indie darlings of recent decades. Hailing from a renowned entertainment family, she began her career in the late 1990s. Deschanel's talent shines through her diverse roles, encompassing both comedic and dramatic territory, as well as her musical abilities.
After a brief guest appearance on the sitcom 'Veronica's Closet,' Deschanel made her feature film debut in Lawrence Kasdan's 'Mumford' (1999). Her breakout role came courtesy of Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical 'Almost Famous' (2000), where she portrayed the enigmatic Anita Miller, the older sister of the film's protagonist. Deschanel effortlessly embodies the rebellious and free-spirited youth of the 1970s rock scene. Her nuanced performance in 'Almost Famous' solidified her status as a rising star.
Deschanel's reputation is built on her ability to portray endearingly awkward and unconventional female characters. Her portrayal of the heartbroken yet resilient Summer Finn in '(500) Days of Summer' (2009) became an iconic portrayal of unconventional romance in the 21st-century. Her deadpan delivery and self-aware humor found perfect expression in her most well-known role, Jessica Day, in the hit sitcom 'New Girl' (2011 - 2018). As the bubbly and optimistic school teacher who moves in with three male roommates, she quickly became a beloved television icon, earning numerous award nominations for her performance.
While widely recognized for her comedic roles, Deschanel has also proven her dramatic chops in independent films such as 'All the Real Girls' (2003). This critically-acclaimed film earned her recognition for authentically portraying a young woman navigating a complex relationship. She further demonstrated her versatility with the role of Trillian in the science-fiction comedy 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'(2005), demonstrating her ability to adapt to fantastical and quirky settings.
Deschanel's off-screen talents extend to her musical abilities. She often showcases her singing in films and television, notably in 'Elf' (2003) where her rendition of 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' with Will Ferrell is a holiday classic. She also starred in the television adaptation of 'Once Upon a Mattress' (2005). Deschanel formed the musical duo 'She & Him' in 2006 with singer-songwriter M. Zooey Claire Deschanel, is an American actress and musician.
Ward, where her retro-inspired vocals and songwriting talents have produced multiple successful albums.
Beyond acting and music, Deschanel has become a multi-faceted figure in popular culture. Her co-founding of the women-focused digital media company HelloGiggles in 2011 demonstrated her entrepreneurial spirit and desire to empower women. Her carefully curated personal style, often featuring vintage-inspired pieces, has also earned her recognition as a fashion icon.
Deschanel's career has continued to thrive in recent years. She lent her voice to the animated film 'Trolls' (2016) and its sequel 'Trolls World Tour' (2020), playing the cheerful and optimistic Princess Bridget. She also took on supporting roles in films like 'Rock the Kasbah' (2015) and 'The Driftless Area' (2015). Alongside her continued musical endeavors, Deschanel remains an active figure on television, hosting 'The Celebrity Dating Game' (2021).
Looking ahead, Deschanel has several projects in development. She's attached to star in 'Dreamin' Wild', a biopic where she will portray legendary singer-songwriter Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas. Deschanel is also slated to make a return to dramatic territory with the film 'Harold and the Purple Crayon,' a live-action adaptation of the beloved children's book. Her continued willingness to experiment across genres solidifies her place as a dynamic and enduring talent in the entertainment world.
With her endearing personality, comedic timing, and the ability to imbue both quirky and serious characters with depth and heart, Zooey Deschanel has built a captivating and enduring career. Her contributions to film, television, and music have earned her a devoted following and a position as a beloved figure in popular culture. As she ventures into new projects, Deschanel continues to captivate audiences with her unique blend of charm, talent, and undeniable individuality.- Actress
- Music Department
- Composer
Bridgit Claire Mendler was born in Washington DC, and lived there until she was eight years old. Her family moved to the west coast, just outside of San Francisco, California. This is when she first expressed an interest in acting and began booking local jobs. In 2004, she landed her first role in the animated film, The Legend of Buddha (2004), as "Lucy". When she was 13, she landed her first acting role, as a guest star on General Hospital (1963). In 2008, she landed a role, as "Kristen Gregory", in the film, The Clique (2008). In 2009, Mendler became a recurring character on the Disney channel sitcom, Wizards of Waverly Place (2007), as "Juliet Van Heusen", until the series finale in 2012. Also in 2009, Mendler auditioned for the role of "Sonny Monroe" in Sonny with a Chance (2009). But the part was won by Demi Lovato. In 2010, Mendler won the role of "Teddy Duncan" on Good Luck Charlie (2010). In 2011, she starred as "Olivia White", the lead role in the Disney Channel original movie, Lemonade Mouth (2011). Also in 2011, Mendler had the role of "Appoline" in the film, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (2011). Mendler later co-wrote and sang the Disney's "Friends for Change Games" anthem, called "We Can Change the World". In 2012, she guest-starred on the television series, House (2004), as "Callie Rogers". She later voiced the lead role of "Arrietty" in The Secret World of Arrietty (2010). Mendler's debut album, "Hello, My Name Is...", was released on October 22, 2012, by Hollywood Records. On February 12, 2013, her second single, "Hurricane", was released for radio airplay. The song peaked at number 1 Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100, in United States, and sold over 300,000 digital copies.- Actress
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Sonam Kapoor comes from an established film family. She is the daughter of actor and producer Anil Kapoor and the grandchild of filmmaker Surinder Kapoor. Sonam is Bollywood royalty with immense support in the Indian film fraternity.
Unlike most star children, Sonam started life with a structured education and a grounding in the process of filmmaking. She graduated from college in Political Science and Economics. She is interested in writing and direction and has assisted the celebrated director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali in the production of his films including the path-breaking 'Black'.
The veteran director then asked her to star in his next project, the critically acclaimed "Saawariya". Sonam made a confident debut and elicited notable reviews for it. She was nominated for a number of film awards as a debutante and an actress. She won the "Stardust Superstar of Tomorrow" award.
Her second movie, "Delhi 6" got her glowing reviews and established her as an actress of calibre. 2010 has been the turning point for Sonam, with two back-to-back hits - "I Hate Luv Storys" and "Aisha". These hits propelled her into the league of superstars.
Sonam was named the "Best Dressed Celebrity" of 2009 by People's Magazine. Sonam is associated with prestigious brands like L'Oreal Paris, Electrolux, Spice Mobile, Mont Blanc and Anant Diamond Jewellery (a sub brand of Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council).