Actors I should know

by milanbauters | created - 13 Sep 2022 | updated - 14 Sep 2022 | Public

1. Daniel Craig

Actor | Casino Royale

One of the British theatre's most famous faces, Daniel Craig, who waited tables as a struggling teenage actor with the National Youth Theatre, has gone on to star as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).

He was born ...

2. Chris Evans

Actor | The Avengers

Christopher Robert Evans is an American actor, film producer, and director. Evans began his acting career in typical fashion: performing in school productions and community theatre.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Lisa (Capuano), who worked at the Concord Youth Theatre, and G. ...

3. Ana de Armas

Actress | Blade Runner 2049

Ana de Armas was born in Cuba on April 30, 1988. At the age of 14 (2002) she began her studies at the National Theatre School of Havana, where she graduated after 4 years. At the age of 16 (2004) she made her first film, Virgin Rose (2006), directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. A few titles came ...

4. 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...

5. Michael Shannon

Actor | Take Shelter

Michael Corbett Shannon was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Geraldine Hine, a lawyer, and Donald Sutherlin Shannon, an accounting professor at DePaul University. His grandfather was entomologist Raymond Corbett Shannon.

Shannon began his professional stage career in Chicago. His ...

6. Don Johnson

Actor | Miami Vice

Best known for his starring role as Det. Sonny Crockett on the hugely successful TV series Miami Vice (1984), Don Johnson is one of the stars who really defined the 1980s. As James "Sonny" Crockett he went toe-to-toe with drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, assassins, illegal arms-dealers and crooked...

7. Toni Collette

Actress | The Sixth Sense

Toni Collette is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress, best known for her roles in The Sixth Sense (1999) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Collette was born Toni Collett (she later added an "e") on November 1, 1972, in Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is the first of three...

8. LaKeith Stanfield

Actor | Sorry to Bother You

LaKeith Lee Stanfield is an actor and rapper from Victorville, California. At the age of fifteen, LaKeith began attending the John Casablancas Modeling & Career Center in Orange County. A few years later, he auditioned for Destin Cretton's then college thesis film Short Term 12 (2008). Later, the ...

9. Christopher Plummer

Actor | Beginners

Legendary actor Christopher Plummer, perhaps Canada's greatest thespian, delivered outstanding performances as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree (1979), the chilling villain in The Silent Partner (1978), the iconoclastic Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), the empathetic psychiatrist in A ...

10. Jaeden Martell

Actor | St. Vincent

Jaeden Martell is an American actor known for his compelling performances in both film and television. He first gained recognition for his role as Bill Denbrough in the 2017 film adaptation of Stephen King's novel It (2017) and reprised this character in the 2019 sequel It Chapter Two (2019). His ...

11. Edi Patterson

Actress | The Righteous Gemstones

Edi grew up in Texas and lives in Los Angeles. She is a Groundlings Main Company member, and regularly performs there in improv and sketch comedy shows. She is also a member of improvisational theatre company Impro Theatre, which performs full-length, completely improvised plays. Edi likes fun and ...

12. Sean Connery

Actor | The Rock

The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he ...

13. Timothy Dalton

Actor | The Living Daylights

At a consistently lean 6' 2", green-eyed Timothy Dalton may very well be one of the last of the dying breed of swashbuckling, classically trained Shakespearean actors who have forged simultaneous successful careers in theater, television and film. He has been comparison-shopped roundly for stepping...

14. George Lazenby

Actor | On Her Majesty's Secret Service

George Robert Lazenby was born September 5, 1939 in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia, to Sheila Joan (Bodel) and George Edward Lazenby. He moved to London, England in 1964, after serving in the Australian Army. Before becoming an actor, he worked as an auto mechanic, used car salesman, prestige...

15. Roger Moore

Actor | Moonraker

Roger Moore will perhaps always be remembered as the man who replaced Sean Connery in the James Bond series, arguably something he never lived down.

Roger George Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in Stockwell, London, England, the son of Lillian (Pope) and George Alfred Moore, a policeman. His ...

16. Pierce Brosnan

Actor | The World Is Not Enough

Pierce Brendan Brosnan was born in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, to May (Smith), a nurse, and Thomas Brosnan, a carpenter. He lived in Navan, County Meath, until he moved to England, UK, at an early age (thus explaining his ability to play men from both backgrounds convincingly). His father left...

17. Ram Charan

Actor | RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)

Konidela Ram Charan is an Indian actor, producer and entrepreneur who primarily works in Telugu cinema. He is one of the highest-paid actors in Indian cinema and has featured in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list since 2013. Ram Charan is the recipient of several National & International awards. Ram...

18. Rami Malek

Actor | Bohemian Rhapsody

Rami Said Malek (born May 12, 1981) is an American actor. He won a Critics' Choice Award and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his lead role as Elliot Alderson in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot. He also received Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors ...

19. 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 ...

20. Lashana Lynch

Actress | No Time to Die

Lashana Lynch (born 27 November 1987) is a British actress. She plays the leading role of Rosaline in the ABC period drama series Still Star-Crossed.

Lynch is a graduate of the BA Acting course at ArtsEd drama school in London. She made her film debut in the 2011 drama film Fast Girls. She later ...

21. Ralph Fiennes

Actor | The Constant Gardener

Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus ...

22. Ben Whishaw

Actor | Skyfall

Proclaimed by many critics as one of the best young actors of his generation, Benjamin John Whishaw was born in Clifton, Bedfordshire, to Linda (Hope), who works in cosmetics, and Jose Whishaw, who works in information technology. He has a twin brother, James. He is of French, German, Russian (...

23. Naomie Harris

Actress | Moonlight

British actress Naomie Harris was born in London, England, the only child of television scriptwriter Lisselle Kayla. Her father is from Trinidad and her mother is from Jamaica. They separated before she was born, and Harris was raised by her mother and has no relationship with her father. She ...

24. Rory Kinnear

Actor | The Imitation Game

Rory Michael Kinnear is an English actor and playwright who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. In 2014, he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Shakespeare's villain Iago in the National Theatre production of Othello.

He is known for ...

25. Jeffrey Wright

Actor | The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun

Born and raised in Washington DC, Jeffrey Wright graduated from Amherst College in 1987. Although he studied Political Science while at Amherst, Wright left the school with a love for acting. Shortly after graduating he won an acting scholarship to NYU, but dropped out after only two months to ...

26. Billy Magnussen

Actor | Game Night

William Gregory Magnussen is an American actor. He has been featured in the films Into the Woods (2014), Birth of the Dragon (2016), Game Night (2018), and Aladdin (2019), and has had supporting television roles in Get Shorty (2017) and Maniac (2018). In 2021, Magnussen starred in the sci-fi series...

27. Christoph Waltz

Actor | Django Unchained

Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won...

28. Rian Johnson

Producer | Knives Out

Rian Johnson was born in Maryland and at a young age his family moved to San Clemente, California, where he was raised. After graduating from high school, he went on to attend the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. His first feature film, Brick (2005), was released in 2005 ...

29. John Travolta

Actor | Pulp Fiction

John Joseph Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, one of six children of Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) and Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His father owned a tire repair shop called Travolta Tires in Hillsdale, ...

30. Uma Thurman

Actress | Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a highly unorthodox and internationally-minded family. She is the daughter of Nena Thurman (née Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge), a fashion model and socialite who now runs a mountain retreat, and of Robert Thurman (Robert Alexander ...

31. Samuel L. Jackson

Actor | Pulp Fiction

Samuel L. Jackson is an American producer and highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000), Formula 51 (2001), Black Snake Moan (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005), ...

32. Bruce Willis

Actor | Die Hard

Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.

Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany,...

33. Tim Roth

Actor | Rob Roy

Often mistaken for an American because of his skill at imitating accents, actor Tim Roth was born Timothy Simon Roth on May 14, 1961 in Lambeth, London, England. His mother, Ann, was a teacher and landscape painter. His father, Ernie, was a journalist who had changed the family name from "Smith" to ...

34. Amanda Plummer

Actress | Pulp Fiction

The daughter of Canadian actor Christopher Plummer and American actress Tammy Grimes, Amanda Plummer was born in New York City on March 23, 1957. Her breakthrough role came when she starred opposite Robin Williams in The Fisher King (1991). However, Plummer may be best remembered for her work in ...

35. Ving Rhames

Actor | Pulp Fiction

Strikingly featured and muscular American actor Ving Rhames was born Irving Rameses Rhames in Harlem, New York, to Reather, a homemaker, and Ernest Rhames, an auto mechanic. A good student, Ving entered the New York High School of Performing Arts, where he discovered his love of acting. He studied ...

36. Quentin Tarantino

Writer | Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.

In January of...

37. Lana Wachowski

Writer | The Matrix

Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight ...

38. Hugo Weaving

Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Hugo Wallace Weaving was born on April 4, 1960 in Nigeria, to English parents Anne (Lennard), a tour guide and teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. Hugo has an older brother, Simon, and a younger sister, Anna, who both also live and work in Australia. During his early childhood, the ...

39. Natalie Portman

Actress | Black Swan

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 ...

40. Rupert Graves

Actor | Sherlock

Britain's Rupert Graves made his professional stage debut in 1983 in The Killing of Mr. Toad and went on to co-star with Harvey Fierstein in the London production of Torch Song Trilogy. By the mid-80s he was a presence in quality films and TV, including Merchant Ivory films Room With A View where ...

41. Stephen Fry

Actor | Gosford Park

Writer, actor, comedian, doer of good works, excellent good friend to the famous and not, Fry lives in his London SW1 flat and his Norfolk house when not traveling. Famous for his public declaration of celibacy in the "Tatler" back in the 1980s, Emma Thompson has characterised her friend as "90 ...

42. John Hurt

Actor | Nineteen Eighty-Four

One of stage, screen and TV's finest transatlantic talents, slight, gravel-voiced, pasty-looking John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Shirebrook, a coal mining village, in Derbyshire, England. The youngest child of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Reverend ...

43. Tim Pigott-Smith

Actor | V for Vendetta

A familiar patrician-looking face both here and abroad, blue-eyed, fair-haired classical stage and TV actor Tim Pigott-Smith, the son of a journalist, was born on in Rugby, Warwickshire, on May 13, 1946. The Britisher attended King Edward VI School in Stratford-upon-Avon, graduated from Bristol ...

44. Keanu Reeves

Actor | The Matrix

Keanu Charles Reeves, whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, was born September 2, 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the son of Patric Reeves, a showgirl and costume designer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. Keanu's father was born in Hawaii, of British, Portuguese...

45. Carrie-Anne Moss

Actress | The Matrix

Carrie-Anne Moss was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. At age 20, after studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she moved to Europe to pursue a career in modeling. While in Spain she was cast in the TV show Dark Justice which was produced in Barcelona for its first season and Los ...

46. Jonathan Groff

Actor | Frozen

Jonathan Drew Groff is an American actor and singer. Known for his performances on screen, stage and television, Groff is the recipient of such accolades as a Grammy Award and has been nominated for two Tony Awards, two Drama League Awards, a Drama Desk Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.

47. Jessica Henwick

Actress | The Royal Hotel

Jessica Yu Li Henwick is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Nymeria Sand in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011), X-wing pilot Jessika Pava in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Colleen Wing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making her debut in the Netflix television series Iron...

48. Neil Patrick Harris

Actor | How I Met Your Mother

Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His parents, Sheila Gail (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. ...

49. Bryan Cranston

Actor | Breaking Bad

Bryan Lee Cranston was born on March 7, 1956 in Hollywood, California, to Audrey Peggy Sell, a radio actress, and Joe Cranston, an actor and former amateur boxer. His maternal grandparents were German, and his father was of Irish, German, and Austrian-Jewish ancestry. He was raised in the Canoga ...

50. Aaron Paul

Actor | Breaking Bad

Aaron Paul was born Aaron Paul Sturtevant in Emmett, Idaho, to Darla (Haynes) and Robert Sturtevant, a retired Baptist minister. While growing up, Paul took part in church programs, and performed in plays.

He attended Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho. It was there, in eighth grade, that Aaron ...

51. Anna Gunn

Actress | Breaking Bad

An actress on both stage and screen, Anna Gunn has portrayed a vast array of complex and powerful characters throughout her career.

Anna grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico after her parents, Sharon (Peters) and Clemens Gunn, Jr., transplanted the family from Cleveland, Ohio to the Southwest in the late...

52. Betsy Brandt

Actress | Breaking Bad

Betsy Brandt was born on March 14, 1973 in Bay City, Michigan, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Breaking Bad (2008), Magic Mike (2012) and The Valet (2022). She has been married to Grady Olsen since 1996. They have two children.

53. RJ Mitte

Actor | Breaking Bad

In 2006 R.J. Mitte moved to Hollywood, California, with his family to support the foray of his sister, actress Lacianne Carriere, into print and commercial work. For fun, Mitte began training with Los Angeles talent manager Addison K. Witt in Sherman Oaks, Cal. And though many of the actors in the ...

54. Dean Norris

Actor | Breaking Bad

Dean Joseph Norris is an American actor. He is well known for playing DEA agent Hank Schrader on the AMC series Breaking Bad (2008-2013). He also portrayed town councilman James "Big Jim" Rennie on the CBS series Under the Dome (2013-2015) and played mob boss Clay "Uncle Daddy" Husser on the TNT ...

55. Bob Odenkirk

Actor | Nobody

Robert John Odenkirk was born in Berwyn, Illinois, to Barbara (Baier) and Walter Odenkirk, who worked in printing. His ancestry includes German and Irish. He grew up in Naperville, IL, the second of seven children. He worked as a DJ for WIDB, his college radio station at Southern Illinois ...

56. Jonathan Banks

Actor | Mudbound

Versatile veteran character actor Jonathan Banks was born in Washington, D.C. in 1947. While growing up he always had an interest in acting and stage work, so decided to pursue a career in entertainment. To this day he is a very accomplished stage actor. While acting in film, he usually plays ...

57. Giancarlo Esposito

Actor | Breaking Bad

Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to an Italian carpenter/stagehand father from Naples, Italy, and an African-American opera singer mother from Alabama. His parents, working in Europe at the time of his birth, settled in Manhattan by the time he was 6, and ...

58. Jesse Plemons

Actor | Game Night

Jesse Lon Plemons is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor and achieved a career breakthrough with his major role as Landry Clarke in the NBC drama series Friday Night Lights (2006-2011). He subsequently portrayed Todd Alquist in season 5 of the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad...

59. Laura Fraser

Actress | A Knight's Tale

Laura Fraser was born on 24th July 1975 and brought up in Glasgow. Her father, Alister, used to run a small building company but is now an aspiring scriptwriter; her mother, Rose, used to be a nurse but is now a college lecturer. She has an older brother who works with computers, a younger sister ...

60. Mark Margolis

Actor | Pi

Mark Margolis was an American actor who is well-known for his collaborations with film director Darren Aronofsky, particularly Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), Noah (2014), Black Swan (2010), and The Fountain (2006). Margolis also gained notoriety for his portrayal of "Tio" Hector Salamanca ...

61. Tom Hardy

Actor | Inception

With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream audiences worldwide. However, the versatile actor has been steadily working on both stage and screen since his television debut...

62. Michelle Williams

Actress | Blue Valentine

A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was ...

63. Riz Ahmed

Actor | Sound of Metal

Riz Ahmed (born 1 December 1982), also known by his stage name Riz MC and birth name Rizwan Ahmed, is a British Pakistani actor, rapper, and activist. As an actor, he has won one Emmy Award, out of two Emmy nominations, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, and three...

64. Scott Haze

Actor | Child of God

Scott Haze was named one of Variety's 10 Actors To Watch For 2013. Since its inception 15 years ago, Variety's "10 Actors to Watch" program has become a key showcase celebrating the finest acting talents from all corners of the globe. Past talented that have been spotlighted include Adrien Brody, ...

65. Reid Scott

Actor | Veep

Born and raised in upstate New York.

Attended Syracuse University, where he was the first undergraduate to receive a combined Directing degree from the Theatre and Film schools.

He is involved with several charitable organizations including Oceana, The Humane Society, and The Creative Coalition.

He ...

66. Jenny Slate

Actress | Obvious Child

Jenny Sarah Slate is an American actress, comedian, and author. Born and raised in Milton, Massachusetts, Slate was educated at Milton Academy and studied literature at Columbia University, where she became involved in the improvise and comedy scene. She lent voice performances to the animated ...

67. Woody Harrelson

Actor | True Detective

Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor Woodrow Tracy Harrelson was born on July 23, 1961 in Midland, Texas, to Diane Lou (Oswald) and Charles Harrelson. He grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, where his mother was from. After receiving degrees in theater arts and English from Hanover College, he...

68. Johnny Depp

Actor | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one ...

69. Geoffrey Rush

Actor | The King's Speech

Geoffrey Roy Rush was born on July 6, 1951, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, to Merle (Bischof), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His mother was of German descent and his father had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. ...

70. Javier Bardem

Actor | Skyfall

Javier Bardem belongs to a family of actors that have been working on films since the early days of Spanish cinema.

He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, to actress Pilar Bardem (María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz) and businessman José Carlos Encinas Doussinague. His maternal grandparents were...

71. Orlando Bloom

Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Copeland Bloom was born on January 13, 1977 in Canterbury, Kent, England. His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine Bloom (née Copeland), was born in Kolkata, India, to an English family then-resident there. The man he first knew as his father, Harry Bloom, was a legendary ...

72. Kaya Scodelario

Actress | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Kaya Rose Scodelario was born in Haywards Heath, Sussex, England, to Katia (Scodelario) and Roger Humphrey. Her father was English and her mother is Brazilian, of Italian and Portuguese descent. Her surname comes from her mother's Italian grandfather. Thanks to her mother, Kaya grew up fluent in ...

73. Kevin McNally

Actor | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Kevin McNally was born on April 27, 1956, in Bristol, England. He grew up in Birmingham where he attended Redhill and Mapledene Junior schools and Central Grammar School for Boys. At the age of 16, he got his first job at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. A year later he received a scholarship to the ...

74. Stephen Graham

Actor | This Is England

Stephen Graham was born August 3, 1973, in the small town of Kirkby, Lancashire, to a pediatric nurse mother and a social worker father. His paternal grandfather was Jamaican, and one of his grandmothers was Swedish. After years of small parts, he finally got his big break in an unexpected way, ...

75. Keira Knightley

Actress | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26, 1985 in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her father is English, while her Scottish-born ...

76. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Tenet

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...

77. Christian Bale

Actor | The Dark Knight

Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries ...

78. Michael Caine

Actor | The Dark Knight

Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of ...

79. Ken Watanabe

Actor | The Last Samurai

Ken Watanabe was born on October 21, 1959 in Uonuma, Japan. Both of his parents were teachers: his mother taught general education and his dad taught calligraphy. He became interested in acting at the age of 24, when a director of England's National Theater Company, where he was studying, told him ...

80. Liam Neeson

Actor | Kinsey

Liam Neeson was born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. He was raised in a Catholic household. During his early years, Liam worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, a truck driver, an assistant architect and an ...

81. Katie Holmes

Actress | Batman Begins

Born two months premature at four pounds, Kate Noelle Holmes made her first appearance on December 18, 1978, in Toledo, Ohio. She is the daughter of Kathleen Ann (Craft), a philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr., a lawyer. She is of German, Irish, and English ancestry. Her parents have said ...

82. Gary Oldman

Actor | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), ...

83. Cillian Murphy

Actor | 28 Days Later...

Striking Irish actor Cillian Murphy was born in Douglas, the oldest child of Brendan Murphy, who works for the Irish Department of Education, and a mother who is a teacher of French. He has three younger siblings. Murphy was educated at Presentation Brothers College, Cork. He went on to study law ...

84. Morgan Freeman

Actor | Driving Miss Daisy

With an authoritative voice and calm demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman...

85. Angelina Jolie

Actress | Maleficent

Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...

86. Jon Voight

Actor | Midnight Cowboy

Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first ...

87. Robert Zemeckis

Writer | Back to the Future

A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect ...

88. Michael J. Fox

Actor | Back to the Future

Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, ...

89. Christopher Lloyd

Actor | Back to the Future

Christopher Lloyd is an American actor with a relatively long career. His better known roles include drug-using taxicab driver Jim Ignatowski in the sitcom Taxi (1978), Klingon Commander Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), inventor Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the Back to the Future ...

90. Elisabeth Shue

Actress | Leaving Las Vegas

Elisabeth Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Anne Brewster (Wells), who worked for the Chemical Banking Corporation, and James William Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer. She is of German and English ancestry, including descent from Mayflower passengers. Shue's parents divorced while ...

91. Daniel Radcliffe

Actor | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on July 23, 1989 in Fulham, London, England, to casting agent Marcia Gresham (née Jacobson) and literary agent Alan Radcliffe. His father is from a Northern Irish Protestant background, while his mother was born in South Africa, to a Jewish family (from Lithuania, ...

92. Rupert Grint

Actor | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint was born in Harlow, Essex, England, the elder son of Joanne (Parsons) and Nigel Grint, who dealt in memorabilia. The first of 5 children, Rupert has one brother and three sisters.

Rupert grew up in Hertfordshire, the English county directly to the north of London, ...

93. Emma Watson

Actress | The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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,...

94. Robbie Coltrane

Actor | Cracker

Robbie Coltrane, one of Britain's most popular comedians who was head of debating society at school and won prizes for his art, is now a film star who played in two James Bond films and in the "Harry Potter" franchise.

Coltrane was born Anthony Robert McMillan on March 30, 1950, in Rutherglen, a ...

95. Alan Rickman

Actor | Die Hard

Alan Rickman was born on a council estate in Acton, West London, to Margaret Doreen Rose (Bartlett), of English and Welsh descent, and Bernard Rickman, of Irish descent, who worked at a factory. Alan Rickman had an older brother (David), a younger brother (Michael), and a younger sister (Sheila). ...

96. Richard Harris

Actor | Unforgiven

Richard St John Harris was born on October 1, 1930 in Limerick, Ireland, to a farming family, one of nine children born to Mildred (Harty) and Ivan Harris. He attended Crescent College, a Jesuit school, and was an excellent rugby player, with a strong passion for literature. Unfortunately, a bout ...

97. Michael Gambon

Actor | Gosford Park

Sir Michael Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland, to Mary (Hoare), a seamstress, and Edward Gambon, an engineer. After joining the National Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier, Gambon went on to appear in a number of leading roles in plays written by Alan Ayckbourn...

98. Maggie Smith

Actress | Gosford Park

One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...

99. Warwick Davis

Actor | Willow

English actor Warwick Davis was born in Epsom, Surrey, England, the son of Susan J. (Pain) and Ashley Davis, an insurance broker. Davis was born with the condition spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenital (SED), which caused his dwarfism. He was educated at City of London Freemen's School. When he ...

100. David Bradley

Actor | The World's End

David Bradley was born on April 17, 1942 in York, Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The World's End (2013), Hot Fuzz (2007) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). He has been married to Rosanna Bradley since 1978. They have three children.



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