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- Jessica Parker Kennedy is a Canadian actress of film and television. Born in Calgary, Alberta her first string of screen work began with the television film, Santa Baby (2006), as Lucy the Elf, a role she reprises in the television film sequel, Santa Baby 2: Christmas Maybe (2009). With a repertoire of television credits, Jessica's continuing work ties with series such as V (2009), Undercovers (2010) and Smallville (2001). She made several supporting role appearances in television-made features, including Behemoth (2011) and Collision Earth (2011). Jessica has also appeared in high-profile movies, such as the biographical comedy 50/50 (2011), starring rising stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick. She also had a role in the action film, In Time (2011), starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. Jessica is best known for her roles on Smallville and, more recently, on the supernatural drama, The Secret Circle (2011), as "Melissa". Jessica can be seen in the hit STARZ show, Black Sails (2014), and will be appearing in The Perfect Guy (2015) with Michael Ealy (2015). Jessica Parker Kennedy is also a trained singer and splits her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles.
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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.- Actress
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Natalie Dormer born February 11, 1982 is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Anne Boleyn on the Showtime series The Tudors (2007-10), as Margaery Tyrell on the HBO series Game of Thrones (2012-14), Irene Adler on the CBS series Elementary (2013-15), and as Cressida in the science-fiction adventure films The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) and Part 2 (2015). She has been nominated for Best Performance at the Gemini Awards for her work in The Tudors. She has also been nominated for a Screen Actor's Guild Award for her performance in Game of Thrones.- Actress
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One of Europe's most celebrated actresses, Carice van Houten is perhaps best known as 'Melisandre' in the iconic TV show Game of Thrones, a performance for which she has been recognized with an Emmy Award nomination in 2019. Other projects include Paul Verhoeven's award-winning Black Book and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie opposite Tom Cruise and as Melisandre on Game of Thrones. Recent projects include Instinct and Temple, a TV show for Sky opposite Mark Strong, which has been picked up for a second season.
Her Dutch-language feature Love Life, gained her further critical acclaim and broke box office records in her native Holland. Her next film Happy Housewive won her a record breaking 5th Golden Calf at The Netherlands Film Festival and was voted 'Best Dutch Actress of All Time' by the Dutch audience. Other awards include Best Actress for Black Butterflies at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Best Performance award for Instinct at the Les Arcs Film Festival 2019.
Her credits include Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders and Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, the Jesse Owens biopic, Race, with Jason Sudekis and Jeremy Irons and voiced a character in The Simpsons. She can also be seen in Brian de Palma's Domino and in Brimstone, opposite Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce and Kit Harrington, and The Glass Room, with Claes Bang. She played a leading role in Halina Reijn's directorial feature debut Instinct, opposite Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin), which won the Variety Piazza Grande Award in Locarno Film Festival 2019. Instinct is the first outing for the Carice and Halina's production banner, Man Up.
Up next is the new Dutch series Red Light, in which she not only plays the lead role but she is also creative producer of the show, together with Halina and their production company Man Up The show is expected to air in Autumn 2020.- Actress
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Taissa Farmiga is an American actress, and the younger sister of Academy Award nominee Vera Farmiga, who is 21 years her senior. She was born in Readington Township, New Jersey, USA, to Ukrainian-born parents Michael and Lubomyra (Spas) Farmiga.
Unlike her older sister, Taissa initially had no interest in becoming an actor. However, she was persuaded to make her acting debut in Vera's directorial debut film Higher Ground (2011). Also playing the lead, Vera wanted to cast someone who was physically similar to play the younger version of her character. Taissa was 15 years old and, apart from a second grade school play, had no previous acting experience. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and Taissa's performance received critical acclaim. It was after Sundance that Taissa officially decided to pursue acting. At age 16, she landed a leading role as Violet Harmon in the Fox horror series American Horror Story (2011).
Farmiga has since starred in films from a range of genres, including Sofia Coppola's crime film The Bling Ring (2013), Jorge Dorado's psychological thriller Anna (2013), Todd Strauss-Schulson's horror comedy The Final Girls (2015), Hannah Fidell's romantic drama 6 Years (2015), Ti West's western In a Valley of Violence (2016), and Warren Beatty's comedy-drama Rules Don't Apply (2016).- Actress
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Yvonne Jaqueline Strzechowski was born and raised in Australia. Her parents were Polish immigrants. She attended the Santa Sabina College for her high school education. She then went on to study Performance at the University of Western Sydney's School of Contemporary Arts, graduating in 2003. Shortly afterwards, she landed her first role on television in an episode of Fear Factory (2004). Her next role was also on Australian television, appearing in several episodes of Headland (2005). In 2007, she made her big screen debut in Gone (2006). This performance caught the attention of casting directors in Hollywood. She decided to move from Australia to Los Angeles and, on her third day of arrival, she landed her breakthrough role as "Sarah Walker" in Chuck (2007).- Actress
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Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, where she made her stage debut in a production of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". She appeared in many more productions through her early teens until, at the age of fifteen, she decided that she wanted to make acting her career.
The official story is that she made a PowerPoint presentation, backed by Madonna's "Hollywood" and itself entitled "Project Hollywood", in an attempt to persuade her parents to allow her to drop out of school and move to Los Angeles. The pitch was successful and she and her mother moved to LA with her schooling completed at home while she spent her days auditioning.
She had her TV breakthrough when she won the part of Laurie Partridge in the VH1 talent/reality show In Search of the Partridge Family (2004) which led to a number of small TV roles in the following years. Her movie debut was as Jules in Superbad (2007) and, after a string of successful performances, her leading role as Olive in Easy A (2010) established her as a star.- Actress
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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.- Actress
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Amanda Seyfried was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Ann (Sander), an occupational therapist, and Jack Seyfried, a pharmacist. She is of German, and some English and Scottish, ancestry. She began modeling when she was eleven, and acted in high school productions as well as taking singing lessons.
More soap work followed as she completed her schooling and had already secured a place at Fordham University when she was offered a role in the Tina Fey-penned teen comedy Mean Girls (2004). She deferred her university education to complete the film. More television work followed, raising her profile across America, while her appearances in Mamma Mia! (2008) and Red Riding Hood (2011) helped establish her international fame.- Actress
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Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and Occultum Luciferus. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).- Actress
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Award-winning actress, director, producer, Katheryn Winnick, is best known for starring and directing the critically acclaimed, Emmy award-winning television series "Vikings." Winnick made her directorial debut in sixth and final season which earned her "Best Director" at the 2020 WIN Awards. She produced and starred in Sean Penn's "Flag Day" that premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and recently starred in David E. Kelley's critically acclaimed series "Big Sky" that was ABC's most watched and highest-rated debut since 2017. She started her production company, Kat Scratch Inc., to champion strong female-lead stories.- Willa Joanna Chance Holland (born June 18, 1991) is an American actress, voice actress and model. She is known for her role as Kaitlin Cooper in the FOX teen drama The O.C., Agnes Andrews in The CW series Gossip Girl and, most recently, Thea Queen / Speedy in Arrow. Holland was born in Los Angeles, to cinematographer Keith Holland and actress Darnell Gregorio-De Palma. Her mother was remarried to director Brian De Palma from 1995-97. She grew up with two sisters: Brianna Holland (b. 1988) and Piper De Palma (b. 1996). Holland attended Palisades Charter High School for only six weeks because her career was taking off and school peers were dismissive of her acting pursuits. At age seven, Holland played at her stepfather's neighbor's house in The Hamptons, New York. The neighbor, Steven Spielberg, was filming home videos and told Holland's parents, "You've got to put her in front of a camera".
Upon returning to Los Angeles that September, Holland signed with Ford Modeling Agency at age seven, and immediately booked a shoot for Burberry. The following year, 1999, De Palma took Holland to a theatrical talent agency. Since then she has appeared in many national commercials. During 2001 when Holland was ten, she worked alongside her cinematographer father in Ordinary Madness (2001). She was even slated to co-star in the 2005 Fox series The Inside with fellow model Rachel Nichols, but left the show when writer Tim Minear was brought in to overhaul it. She played the role of Kaitlin Cooper on The O.C. (2003); initially as a recurring character in season 3, but then as a regular in season four. In December 2007, Holland was cast in the independent drama film Garden Party (2008), playing the role of April, a troubled teenage aspiring model who tries to make it in Los Angeles. In September 2008, The CW announced Holland would appear in three episodes of the second season of the teen-drama television series Gossip Girl (2007), created by The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz. Holland played the role of Agnes Andrews, a rebellious 16-year-old model who befriends and creates havoc for Taylor Momsen's character. She also appeared in the films Middle of Nowhere (2008) and A Summer in Genoa (2008).
In March 2010, Holland made a one-off return in the 16th episode of the third season, The Empire Strikes Jack (2010), which aired March 29, 2010. She voiced Aqua in the PlayStation Portable title, "Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep", which was released on September 7, 2010 in North America. That same year, Holland starred in her first major studio film in the apocalyptic thriller film Legion (2010), playing the role of a bratty teenager.
She played teen-temptress Janice Heddon in the film Straw Dogs (2011), a remake of the 1971 film of the same name. The film opened in September 2011. In February 2012, Holland was cast in The CW action-adventure series Arrow (2012), based on the Green Arrow comic books, where she plays Thea Queen, the sister of Oliver Queen. In the film Tiger Eyes (2012), released in April 2012, Holland starred as Davey Wexler. The film was based on the 1981 novel of the same name, written by Judy Blume. - Actress
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Summer is a native of San Antonio, Texas. She's been a ballerina most of her life. Her debut was in various commercials and a guest appearance on the WB's Angel (1999). She has gone on to star on the TV series Firefly (2002) as well as its follow-up movie Serenity (2005) and the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008).- Lili Simmons is an American actress who was born in San Diego, California, USA as Lili Marie Simmons. At the age of fifteen she was discovered by a talent manager. She would begin her career as a Ford Model and continue her work for Bebe Stores, Roxy, J.C. Penny, and Saturn. In 2010 she began her acting career and starred in recurring roles in several television series including Hollywood Is Like High School with Money (2010), Banshee (2013), and Hawaii Five-0 (2015). Her film work includes a starring role in the movie Bone Tomahawk (2015).
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Vera Farmiga is an American actress who has received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Up in the Air (2009) and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in Bates Motel (2013) and When They See Us (2019).
She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, the second of seven children, on August 6, 1973, in Clifton, New Jersey, USA, to Ukrainian parents. She did not speak English until the age of six, and was raised in the Ukrainian Catholic home of her mother, Luba (Spas), a schoolteacher, and her father, Michael Farmiga, a computer systems analyst. Her younger sister is actress Taissa Farmiga, who is 21 years her junior. Young Vera was a shy, nearsighted girl, who played piano and folk danced with a Ukrainian touring company in her teens.
In 1991, she graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School. Farmiga initially dreamed of becoming an optometrist, but she later changed her mind and studied acting at Syracuse University's School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1995. The following year, she began her professional acting career, making her Broadway debut as an understudy in the play "Taking Sides". Her stage credits included performances in "The Tempest", "Good", "The Seagull", and in a well-reviewed off-Broadway production of "Second-Hand Smoke" (1997). That same year, she made her television debut as the female lead, opposite a then-unknown Heath Ledger, in Fox's adventure series Roar (1997).
In 1998, Farmiga made her big screen debut in the drama Return to Paradise (1998), then played the daughters of Christopher Walken in The Opportunists (1999) and Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (2000). She starred as a working-class mother struggling to keep her life and marriage together while hiding her drug addiction in Down to the Bone (2004), for which she was awarded Best Actress from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Farmiga's acting talent shone in a range of characters, from her role as a senator's daughter in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), the wife of a mobster in Running Scared (2006), a humorous prostitute in Breaking and Entering (2006), and a police psychiatrist in The Departed (2006).
In 2010, Farmiga received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Up in the Air (2009). In 2011, she made her directorial debut with the drama Higher Ground (2011), in which she also appeared in the leading role. Although the film had a limited release, Farmiga's direction and performance received attention at several festivals. In 2013, she began starring in the drama thriller series Bates Motel (2013), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in the first season. In 2019, she received a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie category, for her role in the drama miniseries When They See Us (2019).
Farmiga was formerly married to actor Sebastian Roché, whom she met during production of Roar (1997). The two eloped to the Bahamas after the series ended in 1997. They separated and subsequently divorced in 2004. On September 13, 2008, she married musician Renn Hawkey, with whom she has two children, son Fynn McDonnell (b. 2009) and daughter Gytta Lubov Hawkey (b. 2010). Farmiga lives with her family in Hudson Valley, New York. Her other activities, outside her acting profession, include reading, playing piano, boxing, jujitsu, and spending time with her pet angora goats.- Actress
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Olivia Cooke was born and raised in Oldham, a former textile manufacturing town in Greater Manchester, North West England. She comes from a family of non-actors; her father, John, is a retired police officer, and her mother is a sales representative. Cooke attended Royton and Crompton Secondary School and studied drama at Oldham Sixth Form College, leaving before the end of her A-levels to star in Blackout.
At a young age, Cooke practiced ballet and gymnastics. She started acting when she was 8 years old at an after-school drama programme in her hometown, called the Oldham Theatre Workshop. For years, Cooke performed only as part of the ensemble, until she was 17, when she starred as Maria in Oldham Sixth Form College's production of West Side Story. Soon after, Cooke landed her first and last leading role for the Oldham Theatre, in Prom: The Musical, a remake of Cinderella.- Actress
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Chloe Bennet is an American actress and singer. She is best known for ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013).
Bennet was born Chloe Wang in Chicago, Illinois. Her father is Han Chinese and her mother is Caucasian American.
At 15, she moved to China to pursue a singing career under her birth name, Chloe Wang. While in China, Bennet lived with her paternal grandmother in Beijing, and studied Mandarin. She performed as a singer and then moved to Los Angeles, California. Her first on-screen appearance was as a host for the short-lived TeenNick summer dance series The Nightlife.
While pursuing an acting career in Hollywood, she changed her professional name to "Chloe Bennet", after having trouble booking gigs with her last name. According to Bennet, using her father's first name rather than his last name avoids difficulties being cast as an ethnic Asian American while respecting her father.
From 2012-2013, she played a recurring supporting role in the ABC drama series Nashville as Hailey. In December 2012, she was cast as a series regular on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.- Actress
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Antonia Thomas is an English actress. She is best known for her work in the TV series Misfits, Lovesick and the The Good Doctor.
She studied for a Bachelor of Arts in acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating in 2009, and then joined the National Youth Theatre.
Her acting debut was in the TV movie Stanley Park (2010).- Daniela Bobadilla is most renowned for her role as Sam Goodson in the FX series "Anger Management" where she starred opposite Charlie Sheen as his high octane daughter. She also portrayed the role of Emma in the NBC series "Awake" alongside Jason Isaacs. Most recently she played Riley Taft "Perfect High" opposite Bella Thorne. Daniela has three feature films premiering in 2016. She can be currently seen as Lexie Brooks in ABC's award winning show "The Middle"
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Camilla Luddington was born in Ascot, Berkshire, England. She has traveled to the U.S. as a teenager and has lived in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, and California.
She was educated at an all-girls school in Ascot, Berkshire, later attending the American School in England at Thorpe in Surrey. She also lived in suburban Austin, Texas for a year when she was fourteen, and attended Westwood High School.
When she was eighteen, she enrolled in Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, before moving to New York City, and studying at New York Film Academy. She then moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting.
She has since appeared at several high profile TV shows, before rising to prominence as Catherine Princess of Wales in the Lifetime TV movie, William & Kate (2011). She went on to appear in Californication (2007) and True Blood (2008). Luddington was a guest star during the ninth season of ABC's Grey's Anatomy (2005) as Dr. Jo Wilson. She was upgraded to series regular for the tenth season. In June 2012, Crystal Dynamics confirmed Luddington would voice Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider (2013) video game reboot. She did both the voice and the motion capture in the course of three years. She is set to appear in The Pact II (2014) in 2014. She is also returning to the role of Lara Croft for the latest Tomb Raider Game, Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015).- Actress
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Paula Marshall was born on 12 June 1964 in Rockville, Maryland, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Gary Unmarried (2008), Cupid (1998) and Californication (2007). She has been married to Danny Nucci since 12 October 2003. They have one child. She was previously married to Tom Ardavany.- Actress
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Meagan Monique Good was born on 8 August 1981 in Panorama City, California, USA, to Tyra Wardlow-Doyle, who worked as her manager, and Leondis "Leon" Good, an LAPD officer. She began appearing on commercials at the age of four. Then she started guest-starring on series like The Parent 'Hood (1995), Touched by an Angel (1994), Moesha (1996), The Steve Harvey Show (1996) and The Division (2001). She also starred in Raising Dad (2001) with Bob Saget.- Actress
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Nina Dobrev is a Bulgarian-born Canadian actress. Her best-known television roles are Mia Jones in Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001) and Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The Vampire Diaries (2009). Her film work includes The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Let's Be Cops (2014), The Final Girls (2015), xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017), and Dog Days (2018).
From a very young age, she showed great enthusiasm and talent for the arts: dance, gymnastics, theater, music, visual arts, and acting. Modeling jobs led to commercials, which turned into film auditions; she booked roles in the feature films Fugitive Pieces (2007), Away from Her (2006), and the popular CTV television series Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001), which led to The Vampire Diaries (2009), where she played the lead role for 6 seasons.
Nina loves to travel and has often visited Europe for pleasure, as well as to compete internationally, representing Canada in Aesthetic gymnastics. She enjoys playing volleyball and soccer, swimming, rock climbing, wakeboarding, snowboarding, and horseback riding.
Above all, acting is her passion, and she sees it as an adventure that has just begun; she believes that the journey and the characters we create along the way will help us understand ourselves.- Actress
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Kat Graham is an actress, singer, dancer and producer. Working across a variety of genres in film, television and music, she is one of most accomplished and versatile young talents working today.
Graham was recently seen in the 70s period crime thriller "The Poison Rose" opposite Morgan Freeman and John Travolta. Graham plays Freeman's daughter, a club owner and singer suspected of murder, while Travolta plays a hard-drinking L.A. private eye who takes the case. Previously she starred in Netflix's "How It Ends" as Samantha. The film, follows a man (Theo James) and his estranged father-in-law's (Forest Whitaker) desperate race to save his pregnant wife, Samantha, after a mysterious apocalypse. Graham made history lending her voice to Nickelodeon's animated television show, "Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" as the first African-American April O'Neil.
Graham can be seen as the female lead in RZA's "Cut Throat City" starring Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Terrence Howard, and Eiza Gonzalez scheduled for release summer 2020. The film tells the story of a heist set in New Orleans' lower ninth ward after Hurricane Katrina. Graham who stars in Mark Amin's period drama "Emperor" with Dayo Okeniyi, Bruce Dern and James Cromwell following the true tale of Shields Green, a runaway slave who helped spark the civil war, is scheduled for release August 2020. Graham also stars in Netflix's "Operation: Christmas Drop" with Alexander Ludwig. The film, scheduled for release November 2020, follows a congressional aid played by Graham, on a mission to shut down the Christmas Drop mission. Operation Christmas Drop is a real life air force mission that started in 1952 that serves as training for the U.S. Air Force. It has since become the longest-running U.S. Department of Defense mission in full operation, and the longest-running humanitarian airlift in the world. In addition to the "Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series and accompanying Netflix 2021 film, Graham's 2020 animation releases will also include Dreamwork's and Hulu's "Trolls", as well as "Robot Chicken".
Graham starred as Jada Pinkett in the highly anticipated Tupac Shakur biopic "All Eyez on Me," released by Lionsgate. She has also starred in Lionsgate's "Where's the Money?" a comedy about a guy who must pledge a fraternity to recover a stash of stolen money, both released in 2017. Graham can also be seen as the lead in Netflix's holiday hit film "The Holiday Calendar" with Quincy Brown. Graham made her television debut in 2002 on Disney Channel's popular teen comedy "Lizzie McGuire." She starred as Bonnie Bennett, considered to be her breakout role, in the CW's "The Vampire Diaries." The show premiered in 2009 and her award winning performances throughout the series received praise from fans and critics alike. The supernatural drama ran for eight seasons. She also appeared on a number of hit television shows for Disney, Fox, CBS and ABC. Other notable film credits include "17 Again", "The Roommate," "Addicted", and the starring role in "Honey 2."
Graham has also produced and sold multiple film and television projects including the series "Breaking the Record" with Disney's Maker Studios. She is set to star in and produce a biopic about iconic Motown singer Tammi Terrell produced with Brad Krevoy. She is currently producing "The Consciousness Collective", a doc series and podcast presented by Deepak Chopra, slated for 2020.
A talented singer and music producer, Graham released her second album, "Love Music, Funk Magic," in 2017 which she worked on with Babyface and Prince. She released her debut EP "Against the Wall" in May 2012 after signing with A&M/Octone/Interscope records, and her first single, "Put Your Graffiti On Me", reached over 7 million views on VEVO and hit #5 on the Billboard Dance Chart. She has had multiple Billboard/Chart top fives including "Sometimes", and the Prince penned "If Eye Could Get UR Attention". Her debut album "Roxbury Drive," which included her single "Secrets" featuring Babyface, was released in 2015. Graham, who has a degree in recording engineering, produced the 90s-inspired album with Jean-Yves "Jeeve" Ducornet and co-wrote the entire album with Babyface.
A trained dancer, Graham has appeared in music videos for a myriad of artists including Grammy winners Pharrell, Missy Elliot, John Legend, Nelly, Diddy and Usher. She has also performed on tracks with Snoop Dogg and Will.I.Am, and toured with the Black Eyed Peas on their 2007 world tour as Will.I.Am's artist.
Graham has served as the face of many campaigns and endorsements for brands such as Wet 'N Wild, Degree, Samsung, Avon, Bing, Ford, Aquafina, Abercrombie, Nivea, Armani Exchange and Fanta. Graham is currently a L'Oreal Ambassador, the face of Foster Grant and the new Dior campaign.
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Graham is a strong advocate for human rights. Her PSA short film for Black Lives Matter landed her an Emmy nomination for best PSA short. Graham is particularly passionate about the plight of refugees worldwide. As such, Graham became a High Profile Supporter of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees) in 2013. In 2019, she also became a Goodwill Ambassador for Rotary International, another organization providing key support and services on the global stage. In addition to her work with refugees, Graham is a council member for GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), Governor for the Recording Academy's Atlanta Chapter, as well as co-founder of the Modern Nirvana Wellness Group.- Actress
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Curry grew up as the youngest of three children in Orange County, California. She graduated from Sonora High School in La Habra, California in 2004. She attended California State University Fullerton, receiving a degree in theater. She has worked with The Second City, Phantom Projects theater groups, performing roles as Jennie Mae in The Diviners, Monique in Out, Out, Brief Candle!, Oklahoma!, Bus Stop, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and The Diary of Anne Frank.- Actress
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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
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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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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.- 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.- 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
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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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Actress and activist Olivia Wilde is a modern day renaissance woman, starring in many acclaimed film productions, while simultaneously giving back to the community.
She was born on March 10, 1984 in New York City. Her parents are Leslie Cockburn (née Leslie Corkill Redlich) and Andrew Cockburn. Her mother is American-born and her father was born in London, England to an upper-class British family; he also later became a citizen of Ireland. Wilde is the middle child, having an older sister, Chloe Cockburn, and, a younger brother, Charlie Cockburn. She is of English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Manx descent.
She was raised in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and spent her summers in Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland. She attended the private Georgetown Day School, as well as, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. She was accepted to Bard College, another highly selective private school in Duchess County, New York but deferred her enrollment three times in order to pursue an acting career. She later studied at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland.
Wilde is known for her television roles as Alex Kelly in The O.C. (2003) from 2004-2005 and Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley in the medical-drama television series, House (2004) when she joined the cast in 2007 and appeared on the show until the series end in 2012.
Wilde is a board member of the organization "Artists for Peace and Justice," which supports communities in Haiti through programs in education, health care, and dignity through the performing arts. She has served as executive producer on several documentary short films, including, Sun City Picture House (2010), which is about a community in Haiti that rallies to build a movie theater after the disastrous 2010 earthquake and Baseball in the Time of Cholera (2012), which explored the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
Wilde is known for her roles in Year One (2009), Tron: Legacy (2010), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), In Time (2011), People Like Us (2012), Her (2013), Rush (2013), Drinking Buddies (2013), The Longest Week (2014), Love the Coopers (2015), and Meadowland (2015).
Since 2011, Wilde had been in a relationship with Jason Sudeikis. They have two children together, Otis Alexander Sudeikis (born April 20, 2014) and Daisy Josephine Sudeikis (born October 11, 2016). In November 2020, they announced that they had ended their relationship.
Wilde made her Broadway debut in the play "1984" at the Hudson Theatre in New York City in 2017. She has recently starred in Life Itself (2018) and A Vigilante (2018).- Actress
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Hayden Lesley Panettiere was born on August 21, 1989 in Palisades, New York, to actress Lesley Vogel and fire department captain Skip Panettiere. Her younger brother was actor Jansen Panettiere (1994-2023). Her parents are both of half Italian descent, along with German and English. Her mother got her started in the business by doing commercials when she was just 11 months old. Then, at only 4 1/2, she was cast on the soap opera One Life to Live (1968), where she remained until 1997. Since then, she has gone on to appear in many feature films and TV movies. But she is probably best known in the United States for her role as "Claire" on the hit TV show, Heroes (2006).
As for movies, Hayden starred in Remember the Titans (2000) with Denzel Washington and Joe Somebody (2001) with Tim Allen. When Hayden isn't working, she enjoys singing, dancing, horseback riding, gymnastics, taking piano lessons, and swimming.
She has been involved with many animated movies, beginning with A Bug's Life (1998) as "Dot", later to follow was Dinosaur (2000), the video game Kingdom Hearts (2002), and The Mark of Kri (2002). Her next movie is Racing Stripes (2005), a partly animated film, but Hayden will star in the human role; other cast members include the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Dustin Hoffman, Joshua Jackson and Mandy Moore.
In 2003, she joined the likes of Jessica Lange, Tom Wilkinson and Clancy Brown in Jane Anderson's Normal (2003), a film about a Midwestern husband and father who announces his plans to have a sex-change operation. In July of the same year, Hayden appeared in a John Guare play, "Landscape of the Body", for the Williamstown theater festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts.- Actress
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Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she heeded her true calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. The resulting contract landed her several roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos, which in turn paved the way for a career on the big screen. Cruz made her movie debut in El laberinto griego (1993) (The Greek Labyrinth), then appeared briefly in the Timothy Dalton thriller Framed (1992). Her third film was the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), in which she played one of four sisters vying for the love of a handsome army deserter. The film also garnered several Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Her resume continued to grow by three or four films each year, and soon Cruz was a leading lady of Spanish cinema. Live Flesh (1997) (Live Flesh) offered her the chance to work with renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (who would later be her ticket to international fame), and the same year she was the lead actress in the thriller/drama/mystery/sci-fi film Open Your Eyes (1997), a huge hit in Spain that earned eight Goyas (though none for Cruz). Her luck finally changed in 1998, when the movie-industry comedy The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) won her a Best Actress Goya. Cruz made a few more forays into English-language film, but her first big international hit was Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999), in which she played an unchaste but well-meaning nun. As the film was showered with awards and accolades, Cruz suddenly found herself in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Her next big project was Woman on Top (2000), an American comedy about a chef with bewitching culinary skills and a severe case of motion sickness. While in the US, she also signed up to star opposite Johnny Depp in the drug-trafficking drama Blow (2001) and opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000). Cruz says she's wary of being typecast as a beautiful young damsel, but it's hard to imagine disguising her wide-eyed charms and generous nature. Fortunately, with Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) (a remake of Open Your Eyes (1997)) and a John Madden collaboration looming in her future, Damsel Penelope isn't likely to disappear just yet.- 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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Kristen Anne Bell (born 1980) is an American actress and singer. She was born and raised in Huntington Woods, Michigan, and is the daughter of Lorelei (Frygier), a nurse, and Tom Bell, a television news director. Her ancestry is Polish (mother) and German, English, Irish, and Scottish (father). Kristen found her talent in entertainment at an early age. In 1992, she went to her first audition and won a role in Raggedy Ann and Andy. Bell's mother established her with an agent before she was 13, and she was cast in newspaper advertisements and television commercials. At this time, she also began private acting lessons. Bell had an uncredited role in the film Polish Wedding (1998) in 1998.
Bell attended Shrine Catholic High School, where she took part in drama and music club. She won the starring role of Dorothy in her high school's production of The Wizard of Oz. After graduation Bell moved to New York City to attend prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied musical theater. In 2001, Bell left university to play the role of Becky in Tom Sawyer. That same year, she made her first credited debut in Pootie Tang (2001), but her scene was cut and her appearance exists only in the credit sequence. In 2002, Bell appeared in the Broadway revival of The Crucible with Liam Neeson and Angela Bettis. She then moved to Los Angeles, California, and appeared in a handful television shows as a special guest, finding trouble gaining a recurring role in a television series.
In 2004, Bell appeared in the Lifetime's television film, Gracie's Choice, which received high ratings. At the age 24, Bell won the title role in Veronica Mars (2004), which started broadcasting in the fall of 2004, created by Rob Thomas. Bell starred as a seventeen-year-old detective, which put her alongside actors Enrico Colantoni who played her father, Percy Daggs III, Jason Dohring and Ryan Hansen. This series received very positive reviews, and Bell received much attention for her performance. Bell and the cast of Veronica Mars were nominated for two Teen Choice Awards.
In 2005, Bell starred in Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (2005) in the role of Mary Lane. Reefer Madness debuted on the Showtime network on April 16, 2005. The following year, Bell won the Saturn Award for 'Best Actress on Television' for her performance in Veronica Mars.
In 2013, Bell voiced the main character, Princess Anna of Arendelle, in the Walt Disney Pictures animated movie, Frozen (2013), which received the 'best animated feature' award at the 86th Academy Awards. She performed the songs: 'For the First Time in Forever', 'Love is an Open Door', 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman', and 'For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)'. Frozen (2013), which was released on November 22, 2013, was hugely successful worldwide.
On March 13, 2013, it was confirmed that a Veronica Mars (2014) movie would finally be coming to fruition. Bell and creator, Rob Thomas, launched a fund raising campaign to produce the film through Kickstarter and attained the $2 million goal in few hours. The movie was released on March 14, 2014.
Bell married Dax Shepard in October, 2013.- Sarah Jones is an American actress, best known for her starring roles as NASA astronaut Tracy Stevens in the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series For All Mankind and as Detective Rebecca Madsen in the Fox TV drama series Alcatraz. Jones was born in Winter Springs, Florida, and graduated from Winter Springs High School in 2001. She "grew up dancing" with the expectation that it would become her career, but she turned to acting as "the next best thing" after her dancing ended because of injuries. She had gotten her first break working as a dancer for the MTV Movie Awards.
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Born in 1979 in London, England, actress Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike is the only child of a classical violinist mother, Caroline (Friend), and an opera singer father, Julian Pike. Due to her parents' work, she spent her early childhood traveling around Europe. Pike attended Badminton School in Bristol, England and began acting at the National Youth Theatre. While appearing in a National Youth Theatre production of "Romeo and Juliet", she was first spotted and signed by an agent, although she continued her education at Wadham College, Oxford, where she read English Literature, eventually graduating with an upper second class honors degree.
Pike appeared in a number of UK television series, including Wives and Daughters (1999), before scoring an auspicious feature film debut as the glacial beauty "Miranda Frost" in the James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002); when the film was released, she was only 23. Though her debut was a big-budget action film, the film work that followed was primarily in smaller, independent films, including Promised Land (2004), The Libertine (2004), (for which she won the Best Supporting Actress award at The British Independent Film Awards), and Pride & Prejudice (2005), as one of the Bennet daughters. A brief foray into Hollywood film followed with the action flick, Doom (2005), and the thriller, Fracture (2007), but she returned to smaller films with exceptional performances in three films: An Education (2009), Made in Dagenham (2010), and the lead opposite Paul Giamatti in Barney's Version (2010).
As she continued her stage work in England, Pike appeared in the spy spoof, Johnny English Reborn (2011), and inhabited the role of "Andromeda" in the sci-fi epic, Wrath of the Titans (2012). She returned to action films with the female lead opposite Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012).
Pike entered into a relationship with a mathematical researcher named Robie Uniacke in 2009. She gave birth to their first son, named Solo, in May 2012. She returned to acting and landed the coveted title role in Gone Girl (2014). The film became a critical and box-office hit, with Pike earning the film's sole Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She also earned nominations as Best Actress from Screen Actor's Guild, Golden Globes, and BAFTA. She gave birth to her second son with Uniacke in December 2014.- Actress
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Lily Jane Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is English musician Phil Collins, while her mother, Jill Tavelman, who is from Los Angeles, California, was president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club for three terms. Lily moved with her mother to LA at the age of five, after her parents split up. She is of Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, and German descent.
Her first screen role was at the age of two in the BBC series Growing Pains, in 1992. Collins performed at the Youth Academy for Dramatic Arts as a child, but her main interest was journalism. She graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School, and attended the USC, where she majored in broadcast journalism. She began writing a column ("NY Confidential") for the British magazine Elle Girl in her teens as well as contributing to Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and the Los Angeles Times magazines.
After some early television appearances as a presenter/reporter (for instance, covering the 2008 US Presidential campaign as a host on the Nickelodeon show, Kids Pick the President (2000)), she made a couple of appearances on 90210 (2008) in 2009. She co-starred as the daughter of Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock's characters in the massive box office hit The Blind Side (2009). More dramatic roles followed, and she came to worldwide attention when she played the starring role in Mirror Mirror (2012), following it up by headlining The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) and Love, Rosie (2014).- Producer
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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
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Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (1912-1970) and Zeta Davies Jones (1917-2008)) is of Welsh descent and her mother (the daughter of William (1921-2000) and Catherine O'Callaghan Fair (1920-2001) ) is of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. Her brothers are David Jones (born 1967), a development executive, and Lyndon Jones (born 1972), who works at her production company. Her birth name was simply Catherine Jones, but she added her paternal grandmother's name ("Zeta") so as to stand out from the many other young women with the exact same name.
She showed an interest early on in entertainment. She starred on stage in "Annie", "Bugsy Malone" and "The Pajama Game". At age 15, she had the lead in the British revival of "42nd Street". She was originally cast as the second understudy for the lead role in the musical but when the star and first understudy became sick the night the play's producer was in the audience, she was given the lead for the rest of the musical's production. She first made a name for herself in the early 1990s when she starred in the Yorkshire Television comedy/drama series The Darling Buds of May (1991). The series was a success and made her one of the United Kingdom's most popular television actresses.
She subsequently played supporting roles in several films including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), the miniseries Catherine the Great (1995) and a larger role as the seductive Sala in The Phantom (1996) before landing her breakthrough role playing the fiery Elena opposite Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro (1998). She starred in many big-budget blockbusters like Entrapment (1999), The Haunting (1999) and Traffic (2000), for which many believed she was robbed of an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as murderous vaudevillian Velma Kelly in the musical comedy Chicago (2002). She then appeared opposite George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and reprised her starring role in the sequel The Legend of Zorro (2005).
In November 2000, she married actor Michael Douglas. She gave birth to their son Dylan Michael in August 2000 followed by daughter, Carys, in April 2003. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.- Actress
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As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Karen (Koch), who manages a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who works in construction. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine, and has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold read, agents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agency, Jennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next day, that agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Again, the agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have it, she did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).
Shortly thereafter, her career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007), and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).
Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010), which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereafter, she secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this time, Lawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies ever, with over $407 million at the US box office, and instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), with Lawrence reprising her role.
In 2012, the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, among other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.
She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), as Roselyn Rosenfield, and teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedy, Joy (2015), for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively).- Actress
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Minka Kelly was born in Los Angeles, California and she is the only child of former Aerosmith guitarist, Rick Dufay, and Maureen Kelly, an exotic dancer and single mother, who often moved with her daughter to different communities before settling in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by the time Minka was in junior high school.
Her paternal grandfather was actor Richard Ney. Minka's ancestry includes Austrian, German, French, Irish, English, Scottish, and Dutch.