Favourite Actresses

1. Cybill Shepherd

Actress | Cybill

Cybill Lynne Shepherd was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Patty, a homemaker, and William Shepherd, a small business owner. Named after her grandfather, Cy, and her father, Bill, Shepherd's career began at a young age in modeling, when she won the "Miss Teenage Memphis" contest in 1966 and the "...

2. Sophie Marceau

Actress | La boum

Sophie Marceau was born Sophie Danièle Sylvie Maupu in Paris, France, to Simone (Morisset), a shop assistant, and Benoît Maupu, a truck driver. She grew up far from the studio spotlights. When she was 14 she was living in the Paris suburb of Gentilly with her father. She learned from friends that ...

3. Julie Christie

Actress | Doctor Zhivago

Julie Christie, the British movie legend whom Al Pacino called "the most poetic of all actresses," was born in Chabua, Assam, India, on April 14, 1940, the daughter of a tea planter and his Welsh wife Rosemary, who was a painter. The young Christie grew up on her father's plantation before being ...

4. Sigourney Weaver

Actress | Alien Resurrection

Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has ...

5. Jennifer Connelly

Actress | A Beautiful Mind

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 ...

6. Helen Mirren

Actress | The Queen

Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...

7. Gemma Arterton

Actress | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Gemma Christina Arterton was born in Gravesend, Kent, England, where she was raised. She is the daughter of Sally-Anne (Heap), a cleaner, and Barry J. Arterton, a welder. Her mother's cousin is singer-songwriter Eric Goulden.

Her parents divorced when she was age five, and Gemma subsequently lived ...

8. Hayley Atwell

Actress | Captain America: The First Avenger

Born in London, England, Hayley Elizabeth Atwell has dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and the United States. An only child, Hayley was named after actress Hayley Mills. Her parents, Alison (Cain) and Grant Atwell, both motivational speakers, met at a London workshop of Dale Carnegie's ...

9. Anna Friel

Actress | Land of the Lost

Anna Friel is an English actress, born in Rochdale. She has been acting since the age of 13, appearing in a number of British television programmes. She made her West End stage debut in London in 2001, and has subsequently appeared on stage in several productions, including an adaptation of ...

10. Theresa Russell

Actress | Spider-Man 3

Theresa Russell, named one of the "100 sexiest stars in film history" (Empire Magazine), was born in San Diego, California. She was discovered by a photographer at the age of 12, and made her film debut in Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon (1976), opposite Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Robert ...

11. Catherine Zeta-Jones

Actress | Chicago

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 (...

12. Sascha Zacharias

Actress | Rebecka Martinsson

Sascha Zacharias was born on February 23, 1979 in Sweden. She is an actress, known for Rebecka Martinsson (2017), Tequila & Bonetti (2000) and Primetime Murder (2000).

13. Susan Sarandon

Actress | Thelma & Louise

It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who ...

14. Diane Lane

Actress | Unfaithful

Diane Lane was born on January 22, 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene "Burt" Lane and nightclub singer/centerfold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia. Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the ...

15. Emily Deschanel

Actress | Bones

Emily Erin Deschanel (born October 11, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is best known for starring in the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama series Bones as Dr. Temperance Brennan since 2005.

Deschanel was born in Los Angeles, California, to cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel ...

16. Kirsten Dunst

Actress | Spider-Man

Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, who also holds German citizenship. She was born on April 30, 1982 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to parents Inez (née Rupprecht), who owned an art gallery, and Klaus Dunst, a medical services executive. She has a younger brother named Christian Dunst, ...

17. Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Actress | 10 Cloverfield Lane

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...

18. Julia Ragnarsson

Actress | Min faster i Sarajevo

Julia Ragnarsson was born on July 30, 1992 in Malmö, Skåne län, Sweden. She is an actress, known for My Aunt in Sarajevo (2016), Stockholm Stories (2013) and Midsommar (2019).

19. Lauren Cohan

Actress | The Boy

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 ...

20. Rosamund Pike

Actress | Gone Girl

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 ...

21. Joanna Lumley

Actress | Absolutely Fabulous

Joanna Lumley was born on 1 May, 1946 in Kashmir, India, to British parents, Thya Beatrice Rose (Weir) and James Rutherford Lumley. Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles, and she spent most of her early childhood in the Far East where her father was posted.

An aspiring actress, she first came ...

22. Amy Adams

Actress | Arrival

Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...

23. Laetitia Casta

Actress | Arbitrage

Born in Pont-Audemer, France, Laetitia Casta spent her childhood in the lush countryside of Normandy. At age 15, she was approached by an agent of Paris' Madison Models while building sand castles on a beach in Corsica. After her father agreed to let the agency take some test photographs, ...

24. Teri Hatcher

Actress | Tomorrow Never Dies

Teri Hatcher is an American actress, writer, presenter, and former NFL cheerleader. She is known for her television roles, portraying Lois Lane on the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997), and as Susan Mayer on the television series Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), ...

25. Brigitte Fossey

Actress | Jeux interdits

This lovely, docile, sensitive-appearing blonde French leading lady started impressively in films at age 6, making a most notable debut in René Clément's Forbidden Games (1952). She abandoned acting a few years later for schooling and a normal upbringing. After a brief career as an interpreter and ...

26. Monica Bellucci

Actress | Malèna

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964 in the Italian village of Città di Castello, Umbria, the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci. She originally pursued a career in the legal profession. While attending the University of Perugia, she modeled on the side to ...

27. Rosabell Laurenti Sellers

Actress | Gli equilibristi

Rosabell Laurenti Sellers grew up in New York City, first performing at the legendary East Village experimental theater club La MaMa. As a child, with her Italian father and American mother, she moved to Rome, Italy where she grew and flourished as a young actress in film and television. Rosabell ...

28. Mira Sorvino

Actress | Mighty Aphrodite

Mira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional ...

29. Barbara Hershey

Actress | Black Swan

Barbara Hershey was born Barbara Lynn Herzstein in Hollywood, California, to Melrose (Moore) and Arnold Nathan Herzstein, a horse racing columnist. Her father, born in Manhattan, was from a Jewish family (from Hungary and Russia), and her mother, originally from Arkansas, had English and ...

30. Morena Baccarin

Actress | Deadpool

Morena Baccarin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to actress Vera Setta and journalist Fernando Baccarin. Her uncle was actor Ivan Setta. She is of Italian as well as Lebanese and Portuguese/Brazilian descent. She moved to New York at the age of ten, when her father was transferred there. She ...

31. Salma Hayek

Actress | Frida

Salma Hayek was born on September 2, 1966 in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. Her father is of Lebanese descent and her mother is of Mexican/Spanish ancestry. After having seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) in a local movie theater, she decided she wanted to become an actress. At age 12, she...

32. Pihla Viitala

Actress | Latin Lover

Pihla Viitala was born on September 30, 1982 in Helsinki, Finland. She is an actress and director, known for Latin Lover (2015), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) and Star Boys (2017). She was previously married to Kerkko Koskinen.

33. Sean Young

Actress | Blade Runner

Mary Sean Young was born on November 20, 1959 in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the daughter of Lee Guthrie (née Mary Lee Kane), an Emmy-nominated producer, screenwriter, public relations executive, and journalist, and Donald Young, Jr., an Emmy award winning television news producer and journalist. ...

34. Marthe Keller

Actress | Marathon Man

Marthe Keller was born on January 28, 1945 in Basel, Switzerland. She studied ballet as a child but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble.

Keller's earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin (...

35. Brie Larson

Actress | Room

Brie Larson has built an impressive career as an acclaimed television actress, rising feature film star and emerging recording artist. A native of Sacramento, Brie started studying drama at the early age of 6, as the youngest student ever to attend the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco...

36. Léa Seydoux

Actress | La vie d'Adèle

French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also ...

37. Jeanne Tripplehorn

Actress | Basic Instinct

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 10, 1963, Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn developed an interest in performing through her father, guitarist Tom Tripplehorn, who at one time recorded with the pop group Gary Lewis & The Playboys on such hits as "This Diamond Ring". (Note: many references list Jeanne's ...

38. Mathilda May

Actress | Lifeforce

Mathilda May (born Karin Haïm) is a French actress and dancer from Paris. She is primarily known to English-speaking audiences for playing the alien vampire Space Girl, the main villain of the cult horror film "Lifeforce" (1985). The role required her to appear naked for most of the film, though ...

39. Alicia Silverstone

Actress | Clueless

Alicia Silverstone was born on October 4, 1976 in San Francisco, California, the youngest of three children. She is the daughter of Didi (Radford), a former flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, a real estate investor. Her English-born father is from a Jewish family, while her Scottish-born ...

40. Christine Dejoux

Actress | La soupe aux choux

Christine Dejoux was born on December 11, 1953 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for The Cabbage Soup (1981), Le diable dans la boîte (1977) and In a Wild Moment (1977).

41. Glenda Jackson

Actress | Women in Love

Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson did. From acclaimed actress to respected MP (Member of Parliament), she was known for her high intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a working-class household in ...

42. Kristin Cavallari

Actress | Fingerprints

Lived with her parents in Colorado, until her parents divorced. Her dad moved to Laguna Beach, California with her brother, and she moved to Illinois with her mother. She also has a stepfather and stepbrother there. She acted out while there to get attention and, after her mother couldn't handle it...

43. Linda Cardellini

Actress | Scooby-Doo

Linda Edna Cardellini was born in Redwood City, California, to Lorraine (Hernan) and Wayne David Cardellini, a businessman. She is of Italian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish (from her mother), German, English, and Scottish descent. Linda grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, California, the...

44. Zooey Deschanel

Actress | New Girl

Zooey Deschanel was born in 1980 into a showbiz family. Her father, Caleb Deschanel, is an Academy Award-nominated cinematographer (perhaps most notably for The Passion of the Christ (2004)) and her mother, Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir), is an actress who appeared in Twin Peaks (1990). Her paternal ...

45. Olivia Munn

Actress | The Newsroom

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 ...

46. Cyd Charisse

Actress | Silk Stockings

Cyd Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1922, in Amarillo, Texas. Born to be a dancer, she spent her early childhood taking ballet lessons and joined the Ballet Russe at age 13. In 1939, she married Nico Charisse, her former dance teacher. In 1943, she appeared in her first film, ...

47. Yvonne Strahovski

Actress | Stateless

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. ...

48. Madeline Kahn

Actress | Paper Moon

Madeline Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson of Russian Jewish descent on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Freda Goldberg (later known as Paula Kahn), who was still in her teens, and Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer. She began her acting career in high school and went on to...

49. Laura Prepon

Actress | Orange Is the New Black

Laura Helene Prepon was born on March 7, 1980, in Watchung, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Marjorie (Coll) and Michael Prepon. Her father died in 1993, when she was 13 years old. Laura is the youngest of five children--she has a brother named Brad and three sisters: Danielle, Jocelyn, and ...

50. Jamie Lee Curtis

Actress | Halloween

Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading...

51. Sarah Silverman

Actress | Wreck-It Ralph

Sarah Silverman was most recently the host of the two-time Emmy-nominated weekly topical series, I Love You America, which streamed on Hulu and also received a Writers Guild Awards nomination.

Silverman is currently working on a musical adaptation of her 2010 memoir and New York Times Bestseller ...

52. Alice Eve

Actress | Before We Go

Alice Sophia Eve was born in London, England. Her father is Trevor Eve and her mother is Sharon Maughan, both fellow actors. She is the eldest of three children. Eve has English, Irish and Welsh ancestry. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California when she was young as her father tried to crack ...

53. Birgitte Hjort Sørensen

Actress | Kraftidioten

Birgitte Hjort Sorensen is a Danish actress. She has been nominated for three Robert Awards and one Bodil Award. Born in Hillerød and raised in Birkerød, Sørensen aspired to an acting career after watching the West End production of the musical Chicago while at school. She graduated from the Danish...

54. Rebecca Liddiard

Actress | Fargo

Rebecca Liddiard was born on January 8, 1991 in London, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for Fargo (2014), Alias Grace (2017) and Frankie Drake Mysteries (2017).

55. Christa B. Allen

Actress | 13 Going on 30

Christa B. Allen was born on November 11, 1991 in Wildomar, California, USA. She is an actress, known for 13 Going on 30 (2004), Revenge (2011) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009).

56. Lily James

Actress | Cinderella

Lily James was born Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson in Esher, Surrey, to Ninette (Mantle), an actress, and Jamie Thomson, an actor and musician. Her grandmother, Helen Horton, was an American actress. She began her education at Arts Educational School in Tring and subsequently went on to study acting at...

57. Chloë Sevigny

Actress | We Are Who We Are

Chloë Sevigny is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress and director who is known for her groundbreaking work across film, television and theatre. Sevigny has spent her career working with innovative and revolutionary filmmakers and artists including Lars von Trier, Jim ...

58. Jodie Whittaker

Actress | Doctor Who

Jodie Whittaker came to prominence after her breakout performance in Venus (2006), which was met with a string of nominations, including British Independent Film Award and Satellite Award nominations for "Most Promising Newcomer" and "Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical." Whittaker ...

59. Ayako Wakao

Actress | Seisaku no tsuma

Ayako Wakao was born on November 8, 1933 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress, known for Seisaku's Wife (1965), Women Are Born Twice (1961) and A Wife Confesses (1961).

60. Sharron Leigh

Actress | Tekken

Sharron Leigh is known for Tekken (2010), 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) and V.I.P. (1998).

61. Tülin Özen

Actress | Pek Yakinda

Her both parents are engineers. She has one younger sister. Her interest in theatre started in her high school years. Graduated from Izmir Bornova Anatolian High School. While she was a third year student studying Electrical Engineering in Istanbul Technical University (ITU), she took an exam from ...

62. Sophie Pfennigstorf

Actress | Homeland

Sophie Pfennigstorf was born on August 11, 1989 in Leipzig, East Germany. She is an actress and production manager, known for Homeland (2011), Sopravvissuti (2022) and Tatort (1970).

63. Caroline Ford

Actress | Carnival Row

Caroline Ford is a British actress. Her mother is of Trinidadian, Scottish, and Chinese heritage, and her father is English. Caroline grew up in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, where she attended the Carol Kristian Theatre School. She then went on to gain a Masters in History of Art from St Andrews ...

64. Eva Amurri

Actress | Saved!

Eva Maria Olivia Amurri Martino (born March 15, 1985) is an American film and television actress Amurri Martino was born in New York City, to Italian director Franco Amurri and American actress Susan Sarandon. She attended Friends Seminary (Manhattan) for middle school, and graduated from Saint ...

65. Kristen Wiig

Actress | Bridesmaids

Kristen Carroll Wiig was born on August 22, 1973 in Canandaigua, New York, to Laurie J. (Johnston), an artist, and Jon J. Wiig, a lake marina manager. She is of Norwegian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, English, and Scottish descent. The family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, before ...

66. Fiona Dolman

Actress | Midsomer Murders

Fiona was born in Findhorn, Scotland, to mother Rosemary Dolman and father Gordon Dolman. She moved to Gibraltar at 15 years old when her father was posted there in the RAF. She won awards for the Gibraltar RAF women's windsurfing championships at the age of 16 and 17 years. She is the youngest ...

67. Brooke Satchwell

Actress | Neighbours

Brooke Satchwell was born in Melbourne, in Victoria Australia, and raised on a small farm about 40 miles south of Melbourne, in Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsular. Her first school was Red Hill Primary. She started High School at Toorak College in Mount Eliza, Victoria, an independent ...

68. Robin Tunney

Actress | The Craft

Robin Tunney studied acting at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, spending her summer performing in such plays as "Bus Stop" and "Agnes of God". She moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen and shortly landed roles in such television shows as Life Goes On (1989), Class of '96 (1993) (recurring), ...

69. Leem Lubany

Actress | Omar

Leem Lubany is a Palestinian actress. She is known for her role as Nadia in the 2013 film Omar, and for playing Gabrielle Joubert in the television series Condor (2018-2020). Lubany was born in Nazareth, Israel to a Palestinian family. She was a senior at Harduf Waldorf School in kibbutz Harduf, ...

70. Karen Gillan

Actress | Selfie

Karen Sheila Gillan was born and raised in Inverness, Scotland, as the only child of Marie Paterson and husband John Gillan, who is a singer and recording artist. She developed a love for acting very early on, attending several youth theatre groups and taking part in a wide range of productions at ...

71. Glenne Headly

Actress | Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

For fourteen years, she said that family was the most important thing to her and she set most of her time aside to be a "present" mother to her son. Movies, plays and television were chosen, for the most part, when they occurred in town or on a school break. She took one year to homeschool her son ...

72. Jane Lynch