name	British Academy Film Awards
current awards	65th British Academy Film Awards
description	The best in film
country	United Kingdom
year	1947
website	bafta.org }}

The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square. The 65th British Academy Film Awards took place on 12 February 2012.

History[link]

BAFTA was founded in 1947 as The British Film Academy, by David Lean, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Charles Laughton, Roger Manvell and others. In 1958, the Academy merged with The Guild of Television Producers and Directors to form The Society of Film and Television, which eventually became The British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1976.

BAFTA's stated charitable remit is to "support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public". In addition to high profile awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings and tribute evenings. BAFTA is supported by a membership of around 6,000 people from the film, television and video game industries.

The Academy's awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers in 1955.

Annual ceremony[link]

The ceremony used to take place in April or May, but from 2002 onwards it takes place in February in order to precede the Oscars. The awards are mostly open to all nationalities, though there is an award for Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Producer or Director. The Short Film and Short Animation awards are also only for UK films.

The Awards ceremony is broadcast on British television, usually the day after it has taken place. It is mostly broadcast on BBC One.

Location[link]

As of 2008 the ceremonies take place at the Royal Opera House, previously it had taken place (since 2000) in the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square.

British Academy Awards of Merit[link]

;Film

BAFTA Award for Best Film (since 1948)

BAFTA Award for Best British Film (since 1948)

BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Film (since 1948)

BAFTA Award for Best Short Film (since 1980)

BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006)

BAFTA Award for Best Documentary (1948-1989, 2012)

;Crew {| |- valign=top |

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (since 1953)

BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (since 1953)

BAFTA Award for Best Direction (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Sound (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Film Music (since 1969)

|

BAFTA Award for Best Production Design (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design (since 1969)

BAFTA Award for Best Editing (since 1978)

BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer (since 1981)

BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (since 1983)

BAFTA Award for Best Makeup and Hair (since 1983)

BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (since 1984)

BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (since 1984)

|}

Retired awards[link]

BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay (awarded 1969-1983)

BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay (awarded 1955-1968)

British Academy Special Awards[link]

BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award (since 1971)

Orange Rising Star Award (since 2006)

See also[link]

British Academy Television Awards

BAFTA Scotland

BAFTA Cymru

References[link]

External links[link]

Official site at BAFTA.org

BAFTA Awards database

Museum of Broadcast Communications: BAFTA

IMDB: BAFTA

BAFTA Awards (British Academy Film Awards) on PIX

Category:Cinema of the United Kingdom Category:Awards established in 1948 Category:British television specials

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birth name	Mary Louise Streep
birth date	June 22, 1949
birth place	Summit, New Jersey, U.S.
alma mater	Vassar College;Yale School of Drama
spouse	Don Gummer(m. 1978–present; 4 children)
children	4 (including Mamie Gummer and Grace Gummer)
partner	John Cazale(1975–1978, his death)
occupation	Actress
years active	1971–present }}

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented actors of all time.

Streep made her professional stage debut in ''The Playboy of Seville'' (1971), before her screen debut in the television movie ''Deadliest Season'' (1977). In that same year, she made her film debut with ''Julia'' (1977). Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978) and ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' (1979), the former giving Streep her first Academy Award nomination and the latter her first win. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in ''Sophie's Choice'' (1982) and ''The Iron Lady'' (2011).

Streep has received 17 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and 26 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, an Australian Film Institute Award, five Grammy Award nominations, and a Tony Award nomination, amongst others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2009 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts, the youngest actress in each award's history.

Early life and background[link]

Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey. Her mother, Mary Wolf (née Wilkinson; 1915-2001), was a commercial artist and former art editor, and her father, Harry William Streep, Jr. (1910-2003), was a pharmaceutical executive. She has two brothers, Dana David and Harry William III. Her patrilineal ancestry originates in Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor. Another line of her father's family was from Giswil in the canton of Obwalden, a small town in Switzerland. Her maternal ancestry originates in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and partly traces back to 17th century immigrants from England. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle Rhode Island. Streep is also a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and records show that her family were among the first purchasers of land in the state.

She was raised a Presbyterian, and grew up in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School. She had many school friends who were Catholic, and regularly attended Mass because she loved its rituals. She received her B.A., in Drama at Vassar College in 1971 (where she briefly received instruction from actress Jean Arthur), but also enrolled as an exchange student at Dartmouth College for a quarter before it became coeducational. She subsequently earned an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama. While at Yale, she played a variety of roles onstage, from the glamorous Helena in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' to an eighty-year old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato.

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Streep performed in several theater productions in New York and New Jersey after graduating from Yale School of Drama, including the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of ''Henry V'', ''The Taming of the Shrew'' with Raúl Juliá, and ''Measure for Measure'' opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale. She started a relationship with Cazale, and was to live with him until his death three years later. She starred on Broadway in the Brecht/Weill musical ''Happy End'', and won an Obie for her performance in the all-sung off-Broadway production of ''Alice at the Palace''.

Streep began auditioning for film roles, and later recalled an unsuccessful audition for Dino De Laurentiis for the leading female role in ''King Kong''. De Laurentiis commented to his son in Italian, "She's ugly. Why did you bring me this thing?" and was shocked when Streep replied in fluent Italian. In New York City, she appeared in the 1976 Broadway double bill of Tennessee Williams' ''27 Wagons Full of Cotton'' and Arthur Miller's ''A Memory of Two Mondays''. For the former, she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Her other early Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov's ''The Cherry Orchard'' and the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical ''Happy End'' in which she originally appeared off-Broadway at the Chelsea Theater Center. She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions.

Streep's first feature film was ''Julia'' (1977), in which she played a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. Streep was living in New York City with Cazale, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer. He was cast in ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), and Streep was delighted to secure a small role because it allowed her to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. She was not specifically interested in the part, commenting, "They needed a girl between the two guys and I was it."

She played a leading role in the television miniseries ''Holocaust'' (1978) as a German woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany. She later explained that she had considered the material to be "unrelentingly noble", and had taken the role only because she had needed money. Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978. She spoke of her grief and her hope that work would provide a diversion; she accepted a role in ''The Seduction of Joe Tynan'' (1979) with Alan Alda, later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot", and performed the role of Katherine in ''The Taming of the Shrew'' for Shakespeare in the Park. With an estimated audience of 109 million, ''Holocaust'' brought a degree of public recognition to Streep, who was described in August 1978 as "on the verge of national visibility". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie for her performance.

''The Deer Hunter'' (1978) was released a month later, and Streep was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Streep played a supporting role in ''Manhattan'' (1979) for Woody Allen, later stating that she had not seen a complete script and was given only the six pages of her own scenes, and that she had not been permitted to improvise a word of her dialogue. Asked to comment on the script for ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' (1979), in a meeting with the producer Stan Jaffee, director Robert Benton and star Dustin Hoffman, Streep insisted that the female character was not representative of many real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles, and was written as "too evil". Jaffee, Benton and Hoffman agreed with Streep, and the script was revised. In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a mother and housewife with a career, and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set. Benton allowed Streep to write her dialogue in two of her key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman. Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting, "She's extraordinarily hardworking, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she's doing."

Streep drew critical acclaim for her performance in each of her three films released in 1979: the romantic comedy ''Manhattan'', the political drama ''The Seduction of Joe Tynan'' and the family drama, ''Kramer vs. Kramer''. She was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in the three films. Among the awards won for ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' were the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.

1980s[link]

After prominent supporting roles in two of the 1970s' most successful films, the consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, ''The Deer Hunter'' and ''Kramer vs. Kramer'', and praise for her versatility in several supporting roles, Streep progressed to leading roles. Her first was ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1981). A story within a story drama, the film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. A ''New York Magazine'' article commented that, while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a "chameleon", willing to play any type of role. Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work.

Her next film, the psychological thriller, ''Still of the Night'' (1982) reunited her with Robert Benton, the director of ''Kramer vs. Kramer'', and co-starred Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Vincent Canby, writing for ''The New York Times'', noted that the film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough".

As the Polish holocaust survivor in ''Sophie's Choice'' (1982), Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise. William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the part of Sophie, but Streep was very determined to get the role. After she obtained a pirated copy of the script, she went to Alan J. Pakula and threw herself on the ground begging him to give her the part. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, as she found shooting the scene extremely painful and emotionally exhausting. Among several notable acting awards, Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. Roger Ebert said of her performance, "Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine."

She followed this success with a biographical film, ''Silkwood'' (1983), in which she played her first real-life character, the union activist Karen Silkwood. She discussed her preparation for the role in an interview with Roger Ebert and said that she had met with people close to Silkwood to learn more about her, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of Silkwood. Streep concentrated on the events of Silkwood's life and concluded, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside."

Her next films were a romantic drama, ''Falling in Love'' (1984) opposite Robert De Niro, and a British drama, ''Plenty'' (1985). Roger Ebert said of Streep's performance in ''Plenty'' that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms."

''Out of Africa'' (1985) starred Streep as the Danish writer Karen Blixen and co-starred Robert Redford. A significant critical success, the film received a 63% "fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Streep co-starred with Jack Nicholson in her next two films, the dramas ''Heartburn'' (1986) and ''Ironweed'' (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the television movie, ''Secret Service'', in 1977. In ''A Cry in the Dark'' (1988), she played the biographical role of Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter in which Chamberlain claimed her baby had been taken by a dingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for several other awards for her portrayal of Chamberlain.

In ''She-Devil'' (1989), Streep played her first comedic film role, opposite Roseanne Barr. Richard Corliss, writing for ''Time,'' commented that Streep was the "one reason" to see the film and observed that it marked a departure from the type of role for which she had been known, saying, "Surprise! Inside the Greer Garson roles Streep usually plays, a vixenish Carole Lombard is screaming to be cut loose."

1990s[link]

From 1984 to 1990, Streep won six People's Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture Actress and, in 1990, was named World Favorite.

In the 1990s, Streep continued to choose a great variety of roles, including a drug-addicted movie actress in a screen adaptation of Carrie Fisher's novel ''Postcards from the Edge'', with Dennis Quaid and Shirley MacLaine. Streep and Goldie Hawn had established a friendship and were interested in making a film together. After considering various projects, they decided upon ''Thelma and Louise'', until Streep's pregnancy coincided with the filming schedule, and the producers decided to proceed with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. They subsequently filmed the farcical black comedy, ''Death Becomes Her'', with Bruce Willis as their co-star. ''Time'''s Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as "''She-Devil'' with a make-over".

Biographer Karen Hollinger describes this period as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, which reached its nadir with the failure of ''Death Becomes Her'', attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious but commercially unsuccessful dramas, and more significantly to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties. Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family, a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care."

In 1995, Streep played opposte Clint Eastwood in the love story ''The Bridges of Madison County'' (1995). Based on a best-selling novel by Robert James Waller, it relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for ''National Geographic'', who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife in Iowa named Francesca (Streep). Streep and Eastwood got along famously during production and such was their on-screen chemistry that a number of people believed that the two were having an affair off-camera, although this was denied by both. The film was a hit at the box office and grossed $70 million in the United States. The film, unlike the novel, surprised film critics and was warmly received. Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' wrote that Clint had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", while Joe Morgenstern of the ''The Wall Street Journal'' described ''The Bridges of Madison County'' as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory".

In addition, Streep appeared with Glenn Close in the movie version of Isabel Allende's ''The House of the Spirits''; ''The River Wild''; ''Marvin's Room'' (with Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio); and ''One True Thing''.

2000s[link]

Streep entered the 2000s with Steven Spielberg's ''A.I. Artificial Intelligence'', a science fiction film about a child-like android, played by Haley Joel Osment, uniquely programmed with the ability to love, voicing the Blue Fairy. The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2001 in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the United Nations and Kofi Annan.

In 2002, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's ''The Seagull'', directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The same year, she began work on Spike Jonze's comedy-drama ''Adaptation'' (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean. Lauded by critics and viewers alike, the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. Also in 2002, Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry's ''The Hours'', based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham. Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel ''Mrs. Dalloway'' by Virginia Woolf, the film was generally well-received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress the following year.

thumb|right|Streep in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2004. The following year, Streep had a cameo as herself in the Farrelly brothers comedy ''Stuck on You'' (2003) and reunited with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play ''Angels in America'', the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan Era politics. Streep, who was cast in four roles in the mini-series, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance. In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute,. She appeared in Jonathan Demme's moderately successful remake of ''The Manchurian Candidate'', co-starring Denzel Washington, playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate. The same year, she played the supporting role of Aunt Josephine in ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'' alongside Jim Carrey, based on the first three novels in Snicket's book series. The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics, and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Streep was next cast in the 2005 comedy ''Prime'', directed by Ben Younger. In the film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma Thurman, who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son (Bryan Greenberg). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$67.9 million internationally. In August and September 2006, she starred onstage at The Public Theater's production of ''Mother Courage and Her Children'' at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner (''Angels in America''), with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori (''Caroline, or Change''); veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play in which she sang and appeared in almost every scene.

Also in 2006, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin, portrayed the last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman's final film ''A Prairie Home Companion''. A comedic ensemble piece featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson, the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film grossed over US$26 million, the majority of which came from domestic markets. Commercially, Streep fared better with a role in ''The Devil Wears Prada'' (2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly, fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway), and her performance drew rave reviews from critics and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe. Upon its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success yet, grossing more than US$326.5 million worldwide.

In 2007, Streep was cast in four films. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng's much-delayed feature drama ''Dark Matter'' (2007), a film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991 University of Iowa shooting, and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve ''Dark Matter'' out of respect for the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007. The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release. Streep played a U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller ''Rendition'' (2007), directed by Gavin Hood. Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts and immediately signed on to the project. Upon its release, ''Rendition'' was less commercially successful, and received mixed reviews.

Also in 2007, Streep had a short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai's drama film ''Evening'', based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot. Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s. The film was released to lukewarm reactions by critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and] a colossal waste of a talented cast." Streep's last film of 2007 was Robert Redfords ''Lions for Lambs'', a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor.

In 2008, Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd's ''Mamma Mia!'', a film adaptation of the musical of the same name, based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA. Co-starring Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth, Streep played a single mother and a former backing singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on an idyllic Greek island. An instant box office success, ''Mamma Mia!'' became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$602.6 million, also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films of all-time. Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well-received by critics, with Wesley Morris of the ''Boston Globe'' commenting "the greatest actor in American movies has finally become a movie star." Streep's other film of 2008 was ''Doubt'' featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings charges of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success, but was hailed by many critics as one of the best of 2008. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and for Shanley's script.

In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's ''Julie & Julia'', co-starring Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci. The first major motion picture based on a blog, it contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook ''Mastering the Art of French Cooking'' in 365 days, a challenge she described on her popular blog, ''The Julie/Julia Project'', that would make her a published author. The same year, Streep also starred in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy ''It's Complicated'', with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. She also received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both of these films and won the award for the former. Streep later received her 16th Oscar nomination for ''Julie & Julia''. She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film ''Fantastic Mr. Fox''.

2010s[link]

Streep's first film of the 2010s was Phyllida Lloyd's ''The Iron Lady'' (2011), a British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher, which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement. Streep, who sat through a session at the House of Commons to observe British MPs in action in preparation for her role, called her cast "a daunting and exciting challenge," and further added: "I am trying to approach the role with as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses – I can only hope my stamina will begin to approach her own." While the film met with mixed critics, Streep's performance got rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs as well as a third statuette at the Academy Awards.

In July 2010, it was announced that Streep will star in an upcoming comedy entitled ''Mommy & Me'' alongside Tina Fey who will play her daughter. The film is being directed by Stanley Tucci.

Accents and dialects[link]

Streep is well known for her ability to imitate foreign and domestic accents, from Danish in ''Out of Africa'' (1985), to British RP in ''Plenty'' (also 1985), ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1981) and ''The Iron Lady'' (2011), and from Italian in ''The Bridges of Madison County'' (1995), to a Minnesota accent in ''A Prairie Home Companion'' (2006). In ''A Cry in the Dark'' (1988), critics were impressed with Streep's ability to master an Australian accent with shades of New Zealand English. For her role in the film ''Sophie's Choice'' (1982), she took language courses to speak both English and German with a Polish accent. In ''The Iron Lady'', she reproduced the vocal style of Margaret Thatcher, from the time before she became Britain's Prime Minister, and after she had taken elocution lessons to change her pitch, pronunciation and delivery. Despite the accolades accorded to her, Streep has emphasised that adopting accents is an element she simply considers an obvious part of creating a character. When asked whether accents helped her get into character, she responded, "I'm always baffled by this question... How could I play that part and talk like me?" When questioned as to how she reproduces different accents, Streep replied, "I listen."

Music[link]

After Streep appeared in ''Mamma Mia!'', her rendition of the song "Mamma Mia" rose to popularity in the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at #8 in October 2008.

At the 35th People's Choice Awards, her version of ''Mamma Mia'' won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack". In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the ''Mamma Mia!'' soundtrack.

Philanthropy[link]

Streep is the spokesperson for the National Women's History Museum, to which she has donated a significant amount of money (including her fee for ''The Iron Lady'') and hosted numerous events.

Personal life[link]

Streep lived with actor John Cazale for three years until his death in March 1978. Streep married sculptor Don Gummer on September 15, 1978. They have four children: Henry "Hank" Wolfe Gummer (born November 13, 1979), Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer (born August 3, 1983), Grace Jane Gummer (born May 9, 1986), and Louisa Jacobson Gummer (born June 12, 1991). Both Mamie and Grace are actresses. Hank is a musician who performs under the name Henry Wolfe.

When asked if religion plays a part in her life, in an interview in 2009, Streep replied, "I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or an ashram." Streep does not rule out the possibility that God exists, “I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from?”

Awards and nominations[link]

In 1999, Streep was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated 17 times since her first nomination in 1979 for her performance in ''The Deer Hunter'' (fourteen for Best Actress and three for Best Supporting Actress) – five more than both Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson, who are tied in second place. With her third Oscar win for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in ''The Iron Lady'' (2011) in 2012, Streep became the fifth performer to receive three Academy Awards: Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan all earned three, while Hepburn won four.

In 2009, Streep became the most-nominated performer in Golden Globe Awards history when her double lead actress nods for ''Doubt'' (2008) and ''Mamma Mia!'' (2008) gave her 23 in total, breaking the tie with Jack Lemmon who had received 22 lead nominations until his death in 2001. The following year, Streep surpassed Jack Nicholson and Angela Lansbury with six Golden Globe awards wins each after receiving her seventh Globe for her performance as Julia Child in ''Julie & Julia'' (2009). In 2012, she broke her own record when she garnered her 26th nomination and overall eighth win for ''The Iron Lady'' at the 69th Golden Globe Awards.

As with the both the Oscars and the Golden Globe Awards, Streep holds the BAFTA record for most nominations at 14 in total. She received her second Best Actress award for ''The Iron Lady'' at the 65th ceremony in February 2012, following her first win in 1981 for her performance in ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1981).

In 1983, Yale University, from which Streep had graduated in 1975, was the first university to award her an honorary degree, a Doctorate of Fine Arts. In 1998, Women in Film awarded Streep with the Crystal Award, an honor for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. The same year, Streep received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2003, Streep was awarded an honorary César Award by the French Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma. In 2004, at the Moscow International Film Festival, Streep was honored with the Stanislavsky Award for the outstanding achievement in the career of acting and devotion to the principles of Stanislavsky's school. Also in 2004, Streep received the AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2008, Streep was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. In 2009, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by Princeton University. In 2010, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree by Harvard University.

On December 4, 2011 (program aired on CBS-TV on December 27, 2011), Streep received the 2011 Kennedy Center Honor (along with Neil Diamond, Yo-Yo Ma, Sonny Rollins, and Barbara Cook). On February 14, 2012, Streep received the Honorary Golden Bear at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. She previously won the Berlinale Camera at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival in 1999.

Selected filmography[link]

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1978	''The Deer Hunter''	Linda
1979		Jill	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress (also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer)National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress (also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer)National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress (also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer)Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1979	''Kramer vs. Kramer''	Joanna Kramer	Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress (also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Manhattan)National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress (also for Manhattan and The Seduction of Joe Tynan)National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress (also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Manhattan)New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (and also The Seduction of Joe Tynan)Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1981		Sarah/Anna	BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
1982		Sophie Zawistowski	Academy Award for Best ActressBoston Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNational Board of Review Award for Best ActressNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1983	''Silkwood''	Karen Silkwood	Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1985		Karen Blixen
1987		Helen Archer	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
1988	''A Cry in the Dark''		Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressBest Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival)Nominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1990		Suzanne Vale
1992	''Death Becomes Her ''	Madeline Ashton	Nominated - Saturn Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1995		Francesca Johnson	Nominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
1998	''One True Thing''	Kate Gulden	Nominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
1999	''Music of the Heart''	Roberta Guaspari	Nominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
2002		Susan Orlean	Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressFlorida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureSatellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureSilver Bear for Best ActressSoutheastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleNominated - Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated - London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the YearNominated - Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best CastNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2002		Clarissa Vaughan	Silver Bear for Best Actress in Berlin International Film Festival (with Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman)Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best CastNominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2004		Eleanor Shaw	Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureNominated - Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2006		Miranda Priestly	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyLondon Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the YearNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActressOnline Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressSatellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated - Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
2008		Donna	Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressPhoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year
2008		Sister Aloysius Beauvier	Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNational Board of Review Award for Best CastPhoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading RoleWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated - Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best CastNominated - Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated - London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the YearNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2009	''Julie & Julia''	Julia Child	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressBroadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressPhoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressSatellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedySoutheastern Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Academy Award for Best ActressNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated - Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the YearNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
2009		Jane Adler	Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2011		Margaret Thatcher	Academy Award for Best ActressAACTA International Award for Best ActressBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleDenver Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNew York Film Critics Online Award for Best ActressLondon Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressUK's Annual Regional Film Awards for Best Actress Nominated - Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best ActressNominated - Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Actress Defying Age and AgeismNominated - Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Female Icon AwardNominated - Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress (runner-up) Nominated - Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated - Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best ActresNominated - Iowa Film Critics Awards for Best ActressNominated - Irish Film & Television Award for Best International ActressNominated - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressNominated - Online Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated - Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion PictureNominated - St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated - Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated - Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
2012		Maeve Soames

See also[link]

List of people from New Jersey

List of American actresses

List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Napoleon, Davi (1991). ''Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater.'' Includes discussion of Streep's performance in Robert Kalfin's production of ''Happy End'' at the Chelsea Theater and on Broadway. Iowa State University Press. ISBN-0-8138-1713-7.

''Finding Herself: The Prime of Meryl Streep'' by Molly Haskell, ''Film Comment'', May/June 2008.

External links[link]

Official web site

Meryl Streep at BAFTA forty-minute webcast, January 2009

Meryl Streep at Emmys.com

Category:1949 births Category:Actors from New Jersey Category:American film actors Category:American musical theatre actors Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of Swiss descent Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:César Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Obie Award recipients Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Bernardsville, New Jersey Category:People from Summit, New Jersey Category:Vassar College alumni Category:Yale School of Drama alumni Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients

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Name	Benedict Cumberbatch
Birth name	Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch
birth date	July 19, 1976
birth place	London, England, UK
occupation	Actor
years active	2001–present
parents	Timothy CarltonWanda Ventham
spouse	}}

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English film, television, radio and theatre actor. His most acclaimed roles include Stephen Hawking in the BBC drama ''Hawking'' (2004); William Pitt in the historical film ''Amazing Grace'' (2006); the protagonist Stephen Ezard in the miniseries thriller ''The Last Enemy'' (2008); Paul Marshall in ''Atonement'' (2007); Bernard in ''Small Island'' (2009); Sherlock Holmes in the modern BBC adaptation series ''Sherlock'' (2010) and Peter Guillam in the spy thriller ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (2011).

In February 2011, he began playing, on alternate nights, both Victor Frankenstein and his creature, opposite Jonny Lee Miller, in Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's ''Frankenstein'' at the National Theatre for a three-month run; in late 2011, he played Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's ''War Horse'' (2011), which received five BAFTA nominations and six Academy Awards nominations including the Best Picture nomination in 2012; he also played Peter Guillam, one of the pivotal roles in Tomas Alfredson's ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'' (2011), which was nominated for 3 Academy Awards and 11 BAFTA Awards, including the Best Picture nomination in 2012 as well.

He reprises the titular role Sherlock Holmes in the second series of the BBC's ''Sherlock'', which aired in the United Kingdom in January 2012 and will be broadcast on PBS in the United States in May 2012. In addition to the BBC's ''Sherlock'', he stars as Christopher Tietjens in the BBC/HBO co-production television miniseries ''Parade's End'', which is expected to be released in 2012. He will portray Smaug the Dragon through motion capture and voice the Necromancer in Peter Jackson's ''The Hobbit: There and Back Again''. He has also joined the cast of director J.J. Abrams’s ''Untitled Star Trek sequel'', which will be released in May 2013.

Early life and education[link]

Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976 in London, the son of actors Timothy Carlton (birth name Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch) and Wanda Ventham. He was educated at two independent schools: Brambletye School in the English county of West Sussex, followed by Harrow School in northwest London, where he began performing as an actor. After school, he took a gap year to teach English in a Tibetan monastery. He then attended the University of Manchester, where he studied drama. After graduating, Cumberbatch continued his training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career[link]

Theatre[link]

Since 2001, Cumberbatch has had major roles in a dozen classic plays at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, Almeida Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, and the National Theatre. He was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for his performance as Tesman in ''Hedda Gabler'', a role he performed at the Almeida Theatre on 16 March 2005, as well as at the Duke of York's Theatre when it transferred to the West End on 19 May 2005.

Cumberbatch acted in ''The Children’s Monologues'', a star-studded theatrical event at London's Old Vic Theatre on 14 November 2010. The show was produced by Dramatic Need. In February 2011, he began playing, on alternate nights, both Victor Frankenstein and his creature, opposite Jonny Lee Miller, in Danny Boyle's stage production of Mary Shelley's ''Frankenstein'' at the National Theatre. ''Frankenstein'' was broadcast to cinemas as a part of National Theatre Live in March 2011. ''The Children’s Monologues'' was directed by Danny Boyle as well.

In April 2012 Cumberbatch won the Olivier Award for Best Actor (jointly with Jonny Lee Miller) for the acclaimed Frankenstein at the National Theatre, directed by Danny Boyle, with the two lead actors alternating the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature.

Television[link]

Cumberbatch's television roles include two separate guest roles in ''Heartbeat'' (2000, 2004), Freddy in ''Tipping the Velvet'' (2002), Edward Hand in ''Cambridge Spies'' (2003), and Rory in the ITV comedy drama series ''Fortysomething'' (2003). He was also featured in ''Spooks'' and ''Silent Witness''.

In 2004, he starred as Stephen Hawking in ''Hawking''. He was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor and won the Golden Nymph for Television Films – Best Performance by an Actor. (He later provided Hawking's voice in the first episode of the television series ''Curiosity''.) He also appeared in the BBC miniseries ''Dunkirk'' as Lieutenant Jimmy Langley.

In 2005, Cumberbatch starred as the protagonist Edmund Talbot in the miniseries ''To the Ends of the Earth'', based on William Golding's trilogy. Director David Attwood said:

We found Benedict Cumberbatch fairly early. We needed a very good actor, someone young enough to be believable as an aristocratic, an almost slightly dislikeable character who is an adolescent in terms of his views of the world, his upbringing. But we also needed someone who could hold the screen for four and half hours, in every scene. We needed someone with experience who was not only a very good actor, but also with terrific comic timing. Benedict was the ideal answer to that.

Producer Lynn Horsford added:

Benedict was remarkable. He carried the Golding novels with him on set and constantly referred to them. We needed him every single day and he just didn't stop, nor complain. He simply became Edmund Talbot. And that commitment spread to every cast member. The process of making this film echoed the journey the characters went on in the story—we really got to know each other during our four months on location and we became very close.

He also made brief appearances in the comedy sketch show ''Broken News'' in 2005.

Cumberbatch next starred alongside Tom Hardy in the television adaptation of the book ''Stuart: A Life Backwards'', which aired on the BBC in September 2007. In 2008, he starred in the BBC miniseries drama ''The Last Enemy'', for which he was nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Film.

In 2009, Cumberbatch starred in ''Marple: Murder Is Easy'' as Luke Fitzwilliam. He played Bernard in the TV adaptation of ''Small Island''; the performance earned him a nomination for BAFTA Television Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also starred in Michael Dobbs' play ''The Turning Point'' which aired as one of a series of TV plays broadcast live on Sky Arts channel. The two-hander depicted a little-known October 1938 meeting between Soviet spy Guy Burgess, then a young man working for the BBC, and Winston Churchill. Cumberbatch portrayed Burgess; Churchill was played by Matthew Marsh, who had played a supporting role in ''Hawking''.

Cumberbatch narrated the 6-part series ''South Pacific'' (U.S. title: ''Wild Pacific''), which aired May to June 2009 on BBC 2.

Cumberbatch, a fan of long-running British science fiction series ''Doctor Who'', suggested in a July 2010 interview that he would be interested in appearing as a main or recurring character on the show, run by ''Sherlock'' producer and personal friend Steven Moffat. In 2008 he had discussed with David Tennant taking over the part of The Doctor but had decided not to try for the role.

In 2010, Cumberbatch portrayed Vincent van Gogh in ''Van Gogh: Painted with Words''. ''The Telegraph'' called his performance "[a] treat ... vividly bringing Van Gogh to impassioned, blue-eyed life." Also in 2010, Cumberbatch began playing Sherlock Holmes in the first series of the BBC television programme ''Sherlock'', to critical acclaim. A second three-part series began on New Years Day 2012 in England and will broadcast on PBS in the United States in May 2012.

He will co-star with Rebecca Hall as Christopher and Sylvia Tietjens in ''Parade's End'', a forthcoming BBC/HBO television miniseries, expected for release in 2012. It is an adaptation of the tetralogy of novels of the same name by Ford Madox Ford. Its five episodes will be directed by Susanna White and written by Tom Stoppard.

Film[link]

In 2006, Cumberbatch played William Pitt the Younger in ''Amazing Grace''. The film is the story of William Wilberforce's intense and lengthy political fight in the late 18th century to eliminate slave trade in the British Empire. Pitt was Wilberforce's closest friend and staunchest political ally, and became Prime Minister at an early age. The role garnered Cumberbatch a nomination for the London Film Critics Circle British Breakthrough Acting Award.

Cumberbatch subsequently appeared in supporting roles in ''Atonement'' (2007) and ''The Other Boleyn Girl'' (2008). In 2009, he appeared in the Darwin biopic ''Creation'' as Darwin's friend Joseph Hooker. In 2010, he appeared in ''The Whistleblower''.

He played Peter Guillam, George Smiley's right-hand man in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré novel ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'', directed by Tomas Alfredson, also starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth. He also portrayed Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's ''War Horse'' (2011).

He will play Smaug the Dragon through motion capture and voice the Necromancer in ''The Hobbit: There and Back Again''.

It has been reported that Cumberbatch will play a lead role in the upcoming J. J. Abrams-directed ''Star Trek sequel''.

Radio[link]

In May 2009, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of John Mortimer's novel ''Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders''. Cumberbatch played the "young Rumpole", and Timothy West took the part of the "old Rumpole". Cumberbatch plays Capt Martin Crieff in the BBC's Cabin Pressure.

Miscellaneous[link]

The British GQ magazine named him "Actor of the Year 2011".

Personal life[link]

Cumberbatch was in a relationship with actress Olivia Poulet, whom he met at university, for over 12 years. They broke up in March 2011.

List of credits[link]

+ Film	! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes, awards and nominations
2002	''Hills Like White Elephants''	The Man	Short film
2003	''To Kill a King''	Royalist
2006		Patrick Watts
2006		William Pitt the Younger
2007	''Inseparable''	Joe/Charlie	Short film
2007		Paul Marshall
2008	''''
2008	''Burlesque Fairytales''	Henry Clark
2009
2010	''Four Lions''	Ed
2010	''Third Star''	James
2010	''''	Nick Kaufman
2010	''Wreckers''	David
2011		Major Stewart
2011		Peter Guillam
2013	''''		Filming
2013	''Untitled Star Trek sequel''	Khan	Filming

+ Television	! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes	Awards and nominations
2002	''Fields of Gold''	Jeremy	TV film
2002		Freddy	Drama serial
2002	''Silent Witness''	Warren Reid	Drama series; 2 episodes
2003	''Cambridge Spies''	Edward Hand	Drama serial; 1 episode
2003	''Spooks''	Jim North	Drama series; 1 episode
2003		Rory Slippery	Comedy drama
2004		Lt. Jimmy Langley	Docu-drama
2004		Stephen Hawking	TV film	Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo
2005	''[[To the Ends of the Earth''	Edmund Talbot	Drama serial
2005	''Broken News''	Will Parker	Comedy series; 3 episodes
2005	''Nathan Barley''	Robin	Comedy series; 2 episodes
2007	''Stuart: A Life Backwards''	Alexander Masters	TV film
2008	''''	Stephen Ezard	Drama serial
2009		Luke Fitzwilliam	TV film
2009	''The Turning Point''	Guy Burgess	TV play
2009		Bernard Bligh	Drama serial
2010	''Van Gogh: Painted with Words''	Vincent van Gogh	Docudrama
2010	''Have I Got News For You''	Guest host	Panel show
2010	''Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking''	Narrator (with Stephen Hawking, reading Hawking's words)	Documentary
2010	''''	Presenter	Documentary
2010–present			Drama series	Crime Thriller Awards – Best Actor (2010) Broadcasting Press Guild Awards – Best Actor (2011)Nominated — National Television Awards – Outstanding Drama Performance (2011)Nominated — BAFTA Television Awards – Best Leading Actor (2011)Nominated — TV Choice Awards – Best Actor (2011)
2012		Christopher Tietjens	Drama series

+ Theatre	! Year	! Title	! Role	Venue	Awards and nominations
2001	''Love's Labour's Lost''	Ferdinand	Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
2001	''A Midsummer Night's Dream''	Demetrius	Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
2002	''As You Like It''		Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
2002	''Romeo and Juliet''	Benvolio	Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
2002	''Oh, What a Lovely War!''		Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
2004	''''	Lyngstrand	Almeida Theatre
2005	''Hedda Gabler''	Tesman	Almeida TheatreDuke of York's Theatre
2006	''Period of Adjustment''	George	Almeida Theatre
2007		Bérenger	Royal Court Theatre
2007	''''	Eisenring	Royal Court Theatre
2008	''''	Chris	Royal Court Theatre
2010		David Scott-Fowler
2011		The Creature/Victor Frankenstein

+ Voice acting	! Year	! Title	! Role	Format
2004	''''	Nigel Rowan	BBC Radio 4 series
2004	''Kepler''	Johannes Kepler	BBC Radio 4
2004	''''	Worthy	BBC Radio 4
2004	''''	Ferdinand	Audiobook
2004	''''	Telemachus	BBC Radio 4
2004	''''	Captain Rob Collins	BBC Radio 4
2004	''''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2004	''''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2004	''Mr Norris Changes Trains''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2005	''Le Pere Goriot''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2005	''Seven Women''	Tovey	BBC Radio 4
2005	''Medical Humanities – Baptism by Rotation''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2005	''Fieldstudy – The Field''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2005	''''	Peter Quilpe	BBC Radio 4
2006	''''	Nikolai Stavrogin	BBC Radio 3
2007	''''	Narrator	Audiobook
2008	''Death in a White Tie''	Narrator	Audiobook
2008	''Artists in Crime''	Narrator	Audiobook
2008	''''	Tadanobu	BBC Radio 4
2008	''Blake 7 The Early Years''	Townsend	Audio plays
2008	''''	GF	BBC Radio 4
2008	''At War With Wellington''	Duke of Wellington	BBC Radio 4
2008	''Chatterton – The Allington Solution''	Thomas Chatterton	BBC Radio 4
2008		Capt. Martin Crieff	BBC Radio 4 comedy series
2008	''Spellbound''	Dr Murchison	BBC Radio 4
2008	''Rainy Season''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2008	''''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2008	''Words and Music – Italian Fantasy''	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2008	''Doctor Who: Forty-Five''	Howard Carter, Thing 2	Audio plays
2009	''Good Evening''	Dudley Moore	BBC Radio 4
2009	Little Red Hen	Narrator	Ladybird
2009		Narrator	TV documentary
2009		Young Rumpole	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
2009	''Metamorphosis''	Narrator	BBC Radio 7
2010		Young Rumpole	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
2010		Young Rumpole	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
2010		Narrator	Discovery Channel/Channel 4 series
2010	Sherlock Holmes: The Rediscovered Railway and Other Stories	Narrator	Audiobook
2010	Words for You – The Next Chapter	Narrator
2011	Curiosity With Stephen Hawking – Did God Create the Universe?	Narrator	Discovery Channel
2011	Tom and Viv	TS Eliot	BBC Radio 7
2011	Jaguar	Narrator	Commercials
2011	Pimms	Narrator	Commercials
2011	Sony	Narrator	Commercials
2011	''''	Narrator	Video game
2012		Young Rumpole	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
2012		Young Rumpole	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
2012	''Google+: "Tom"'' ''The seven ages of man'' (monologue)	Narrator	Commercials

References[link]

External links[link]

Benedict Cumberbatch unofficial website

Benedict Cumberbatch Online

Category:Living people Category:1976 births Category:English film actors Category:English radio actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Audio book narrators Category:Shakespearean actors Category:Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester Category:People associated with the University of Manchester Category:Laurence Olivier Award winners Category:Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Category:Old Harrovians Category:Sherlock Holmes Category:GQ Award winners Category:Evening Standard Award for Best Actor Category:Royal National Theatre Company members

ar:بنديكت كومبرباتش bg:Бенедикт Къмбърбач bs:Benedict Cumberbatch cs:Benedict Cumberbatch da:Benedict Cumberbatch de:Benedict Cumberbatch et:Benedict Cumberbatch es:Benedict Cumberbatch eu:Benedict Cumberbatch fa:بندیکت کامبرباچ fr:Benedict Cumberbatch ko:베네딕트 컴버배치 it:Benedict Cumberbatch he:בנדיקט קמברבאץ' kk:Бенедикт Камбербэтч nl:Benedict Cumberbatch ja:ベネディクト・カンバーバッチ pl:Benedict Cumberbatch pt:Benedict Cumberbatch ru:Камбербэтч, Бенедикт fi:Benedict Cumberbatch sv:Benedict Cumberbatch th:เบเนดิกต์ คัมเบอร์แบทช์ tr:Benedict Cumberbatch uk:Бенедикт Камбербетч zh:班奈狄克·康柏拜區

name	Steven Moffat
birth date	November 18, 1961
birth place	Paisley, Scotland
occupation	Screenwriter and television producer.
period	1988–present
genre	Comedy, drama, adventure, science fiction
spouse	Sue Vertue
children	Joshua and Louis }}

Steven Moffat (, born 18 November 1961) is a Scottish television writer and producer.

Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series ''Press Gang''. His first sitcom, ''Joking Apart'', was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom ''Coupling'' was based upon the development of his relationship with television producer Sue Vertue. In between the two relationship-centred shows, he wrote ''Chalk'', a sitcom set in a comprehensive school inspired by his own experience as an English teacher.

A lifelong fan of ''Doctor Who'', Moffat has written several episodes of the revived version and succeeded Russell T Davies as lead writer and executive producer when production of its fifth series began in 2009. He co-wrote ''The Adventures of Tintin'' for director Steven Spielberg, a project he left for his new senior role on ''Doctor Who''. He co-created ''Sherlock'', an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories.

Many of the programmes upon which he has worked have won awards, including BAFTAs and Hugo Awards for some of his episodes of ''Doctor Who''.

Early life and ''Press Gang''[link]

Moffat was born in Paisley, Scotland, where he attended Camphill High School. He studied at the University of Glasgow, where he was involved with the student television station, GUST (Glasgow University Student Television). After gaining an MA degree in English from Glasgow, he worked as a teacher for three and a half years at Cowdenknowes High School, Greenock. In the 1980s he wrote a play entitled ''War Zones'' (performed at the 1985 Glasgow Mayfest and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe) and a musical called ''Knifer''. His father, Bill Moffat, was a head teacher at Thorn Primary School in Johnstone, Renfrewshire; when the school was used for Harry Secombe's ''Highway'' in the late 1980s, he mentioned to the producers that he had an idea for a television series about a school newspaper. The producers asked for a sample script, to which Bill Moffat agreed on condition his son write it. Producer Sandra Hastie said that it was "the best ever first script" that she had read.

The resulting series was titled ''Press Gang'', starring Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher, and ran for five series on ITV between 1989 and 1993, with Moffat writing all forty-three episodes. The programme won a BAFTA award in its second series.

During production of the second series of ''Press Gang'', Moffat was experiencing an unhappy personal life as a result of the break-up of his first marriage. The producer was secretly phoning his friends at home to check on his state. His wife's new lover was represented in the episode "The Big Finish?" by the character Brian Magboy (Simon Schatzberger), a name inspired by Brian: Maggie's boy. Moffat brought in the character so that all sorts of unfortunate things would happen to him, such as having a typewriter dropped on his foot.

''Joking Apart''[link]

By 1990, Moffat had written two series of ''Press Gang'', but the programme's high cost along with organisational changes at backers Central Independent Television cast its future in doubt. As Moffat wondered what to do next and worried about his future employment, Bob Spiers, ''Press Gang'''s primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski to discuss writing a sitcom. Inspired by his experience working in education, Moffat's initial proposal was a programme similar to what would become ''Chalk'', a sitcom set in a school that eventually aired in 1997. During the pitch meeting at the Groucho Club, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking passionately about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead of a school sitcom. Taking Ptaszynski's advice, Moffat's new idea was about "a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him". Moffat wrote two series of ''Joking Apart'', which was directed by Bob Spiers, and starred Robert Bathurst and Fiona Gillies. The show won the Bronze Rose of Montreux and was entered for the Emmys. In an interview with Richard Herring, Moffat says that "The sit-com actually lasted slightly longer than my marriage." Fiona Gillies, who played the adulteress Becky, says that she was aware that some of her dialogue was based on what had been said to Moffat during his own separation. Moffat recycled his own dialogue: when he had learned that his wife's lover was a fan of ''Press Gang'', he replied, "Well, did he have to fuck my wife? Most people just write in!". The line, with the expletive replaced by "shagged", was used in the first episode of ''Joking Apart''.

Speaking about the autobiographical elements of the show, the writer jokes that he has to remember that his wife didn't leave him ''for'' an estate agent; his wife ''was'' an estate agent. Conversely, his later sitcom ''Coupling'' was based on his relationship with his second wife, TV producer Sue Vertue. Moffat reused the surname 'Taylor', which is Mark's surname in ''Joking Apart'', for Jack Davenport's character Steve in ''Coupling''.

He wrote three episodes of ''Murder Most Horrid'', an anthology series of comedic tales starring Dawn French. The first ("Overkill", directed by Bob Spiers) was identified by the BBC as a "highlight" of the series. His other two episodes were "Dying Live" (dir. Dewi Humphreys) and "Elvis, Jesus and Zack" (dir. Tony Dow).

''Chalk'' and ''Coupling''[link]

Between marriages, Moffat claims that he "shagged [his] way round television studios like a mechanical digger." According to an interview with ''The New York Times'', Moffat met television producer Sue Vertue at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 1996. Vertue had been working for Tiger Aspect, a production company run by Peter Bennett-Jones. Bennett-Jones and his friend and former colleague Andre Ptaszynski, who had worked with Moffat on ''Joking Apart'', told Moffat and Vertue that each fancied the other. A relationship blossomed and they left their respective production companies to join Hartswood Films, run by Beryl Vertue, Sue's mother. The couple have two children together: Joshua and Louis.

Before Moffat left Pola Jones for Hartswood, Ptaszynski produced ''Chalk'', the series that the writer had pitched to him at the beginning of the decade. Set in a comprehensive school and starring David Bamber as manic deputy head Eric Slatt and Nicola Walker as Suzy Travis, the show was based on Moffat's three years as an English teacher. The studio audience responded so positively to the first series when it was taped that the BBC commissioned a second series before the first had aired. However, it was met less enthusiastically by critics upon transmission in February 1997, who had taken exception to the BBC's publicity department comparing the show to the highly-respected ''Fawlty Towers''. In an interview in the early 2000s, Moffat refuses to even name the series, joking that he might get attacked in the street.

After production wrapped on ''Chalk'' in 1997, Moffat announced to the cast that he was marrying Vertue. When she eventually asked him for a sitcom, he decided to base it around the evolution of their own relationship. ''Coupling'' was first broadcast on BBC2 in 2000, with his wife producing for Hartswood Films. The series proved to be highly successful, running until 2004 and producing four series and twenty-eight episodes, all written by Moffat. He also wrote the original, unbroadcast, pilot episode for the American version of the same series, in 2003, although this was less successful and was cancelled after four episodes on the NBC network. Moffat has blamed its failure on an unprecedented level of network interference.

''Jekyll'', ''Tintin'', and ''Sherlock''[link]

He wrote the Hartswood Films drama series ''Jekyll'', a modern version of ''The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'', which aired on BBC One in June and July 2007. In an interview with ''The Age'', James Nesbitt, who played the eponymous character, called Moffat "an eccentric, shy fellow", while commending his writing as "inventive and dark and funny".

In June 2007 Moffat told ''The Stage'' that he is working on a new sitcom. Provisionally titled ''Adam and Eve'', it concerns a boss and his personal assistant, who are long-term friends but never get together. In October 2007 it was reported that Moffat would be scripting a trilogy of ''The Adventures of Tintin'' films for directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. According to ''The Times'' newspaper, Moffat had to be "love bombed" by Spielberg into accepting the offer to write the films, with the director promising to shield him from studio interference with his writing. He had intended to complete work on the whole trilogy before resuming work on ''Doctor Who'', but the intervening WGA strike meant he could submit a finished script for the first film only. In July 2008, Moffat was quoted by the ''Daily Mail'' as saying: "I could not work on the second ''Tintin'' film and work on ''Doctor Who''. So I chose ''Doctor Who''." Moffat says that Spielberg was "lovely" about his decision. The script was completed by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, with a part of Moffat's script used in the film.

Moffat remains a writer for Hartswood Films even after his appointment as show-runner for ''Doctor Who''. During their journeys from London to Cardiff for ''Doctor Who'', Moffat and Mark Gatiss conceived a contemporary update of Sherlock Holmes, called ''Sherlock''. Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as Holmes, with Martin Freeman as Dr Watson. A 60-minute pilot, written by Moffat, was filmed in January 2009. The pilot was not broadcast, but three 90-minute episodes were commissioned. Moffat wrote the first of these, "A Study in Pink", which was broadcast on 25 July 2010 on BBC One and BBC HD. A second series was broadcast in January 2012, for which Moffat wrote the episode "A Scandal in Belgravia", with a third series planned for production in late 2012.

''Doctor Who''[link]

Moffat, a fan of ''Doctor Who'' since childhood, first professionally contributed to ''Doctor Who'' with a prose story, "Continuity Errors", which was published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology ''Decalog 3: Consequences''. In 1999 he scripted the parody ''Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death'', which aired as part of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day charity telethon. The co-producer for that year's ''Comic Relief'' telethon was Moffat's then-new wife, Sue Vertue.

In 2004 Moffat was signed to write for the revival of ''Doctor Who''. He became known, according to ''The Guardian'', for writing "the clever, darker episodes" of the first four series of the show. His contribution for the 2005 series was the Hugo Award-winning two-part story "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". In the DVD audio commentary he says that he waited forty years to see his name appear on top of that theme music. He wrote an episode for each of the two following series of ''Doctor Who'': "The Girl in the Fireplace" in the 2006 series (which won the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form and was nominated for a 2006 Nebula Award) and "Blink" in the 2007 series. In the ''Doctor Who Magazine'' reader poll for the 2007 series, Moffat was voted as best writer and "Blink" as the best story. The episode was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Script. In 2008 it secured him his third Hugo win, again for Best Dramatic Presentation, the BAFTA Craft Award for Best Writer, and a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter. He also wrote the 2007 Children in Need "special scene" "Time Crash".

He wrote a two-part story for series four in 2008, titled "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead". This made Moffat and series executive producer Russell T Davies the only writers to have contributed scripts to all four series of the revived show. In March 2008, Davies said that he often rewrote scripts from other writers, but didn't "touch a word" of Moffat's episodes. Moffat's script for series four secured him his fourth consecutive Hugo Awards nomination, though it did not win.

The BBC announced in May 2008 that Moffat would be taking over from Russell T Davies as head writer and executive producer for the revived show's fifth series, to be broadcast in 2010, although Davies had initiated discussions with Moffat regarding this as far back as July 2007. Commenting on his appointment, Moffat said it was "the proper duty of every British subject to come to the aid of the TARDIS". Production on Moffat's time in charge of the programme began in July 2009. As executive producer and head writer, he was significantly involved in casting Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. Smith first appeared as the Doctor at the end of Davies and David Tennant's final episode "The End of Time, Part 2", in a short post-regeneration scene that Davies left for Moffat to write himself. Moffat wrote the scene in "about ten minutes" as "a bit of fun banter" for the new Doctor.

In addition to his television episodes, Moffat has also contributed stories to Panini Publishing's ''Doctor Who Storybook'' series, penning the short stories "What I Did On My Christmas Holidays By Sally Sparrow" for the 2006 book (which later formed the basis of his TV episode "Blink"), "Corner of the Eye" for the 2007 volume and "A Letter From the Doctor" which opens the 2009 Storybook.

Writing credits[link]

! Production

! Notes

! Broadcaster

''Press Gang''

*43 episodes (1989–1993)

ITV

''Stay Lucky''

*"The Devil Wept in Leeds" (1990)

ITV

''Joking Apart''

*13 episodes (1991–1995)

BBC2

''Murder Most Horrid''

*"Overkill" (1994)

*"Dying Live" (1996)

*"Elvis, Jesus and Zack" (1999)

BBC2

*12 episodes (1997)

BBC1

''Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death''

*Comic Relief special (1999)

BBC One

*28 episodes (2000–2004)

BBC TwoBBC Three

''Doctor Who''

*"The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances" (2005)

*"The Girl in the Fireplace" (2006)

Blink (Doctor Who)>Blink" (2007)

*"Time Crash" (Children in Need mini-episode, 2007)

*"Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead" (2008)

The Eleventh Hour (Doctor Who)>The Eleventh Hour" (2010)

*"The Beast Below" (2010)

*"The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" (2010)

The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang (Doctor Who)>The Big Bang" (2010)

A Christmas Carol (Doctor Who)>A Christmas Carol" (2010)

Space and Time (Doctor Who)>"Space" / "Time" (Comic Relief mini-episodes, 2011)

*"The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon" (2011)

*"A Good Man Goes to War" / "Let's Kill Hitler" (2011)

*"The Wedding of River Song" (2011)

*"The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" (2011)

BBC One

*6 episodes (2007)

BBC One

*"A Study in Pink" (unaired pilot, 2009)

*"A Study in Pink" (2010)

*"A Scandal in Belgravia" (2012)

BBC One

Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (comedian)>Joe Cornish, 2011)

N/A

Awards and nominations[link]

Year	Award	Work	Category	Result
	British Academy Television Awards		Best Children's Programme (Entertainment / Drama)
Royal Television Society Awards	Best Children's Programme
1992	British Academy Television Awards	Best Children's Programme
1995		''Joking Apart''	Comedy
2003	British Comedy Awards		Best TV Comedy
	Hugo Award	''Doctor Who'': "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances"
Nebula Award		Best Script
	Hugo Award	Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
	''Doctor Who'', Series Three
Nebula Award	rowspan="4"	Best Script
	British Academy Television Award	Best Writer
Hugo Award	Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
BAFTA Cymru	Best Screenwriter
BAFTA Scotland	''Doctor Who''	Writing in Film or Television
	Hugo Award	''Doctor Who'': "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead"	Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award	''Doctor Who'', Series Four	Television drama series (with Russell T Davies)
			Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
	Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Emmy Award		Best Script for a TV Movie or Miniseries
Satellite Award	rowspan=2|''The Adventures of Tintin'' (shared with Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish)
	Annie Award
Hugo Award	''Doctor Who'': "A Good Man Goes To War"	Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

See also[link]

Screenplays by Steven Moffat

References[link]

External links[link]

Steven Moffat biography at the Hartswood Films website.

Audio interview with Steven Moffat at the ''Doctor Who'' series two press launch. Source:BBC Wiltshire

StevenMoffat.net The Moff. Thrilling adventures in Time & Space. And Norbridge.

Category:1961 births Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Hugo Award winning authors Category:Living people Category:People from Paisley Category:Scottish comedy writers Category:Scottish science fiction writers Category:Scottish television writers Category:British television writers Category:Doctor Who

de:Steven Moffat es:Steven Moffat fr:Steven Moffat id:Steven Moffat it:Steven Moffat kk:Стивен Моффат nl:Steven Moffat ja:スティーヴン・モファット no:Steven Moffat pt:Steven Moffat ru:Моффат, Стивен fi:Steven Moffat sv:Steven Moffat zh:史蒂芬·莫法特

Name	Brad Pitt
Alt	A Caucasian with light brown hair, blue eyes, and a mustache and short brown beard, in front of a turquoise background. He is wearing a white shirt and white hat.
Birth name	William Bradley Pitt
Birth date	December 18, 1963
Birth place	Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Missouri
Occupation	Actor, producer
Spouse
Partner	Angelina Jolie (2005–present)
Children	6 }}

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received four Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one Golden Globe. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.

Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road movie ''Thelma & Louise'' (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with ''A River Runs Through It'' (1992), ''Interview with the Vampire'' (1994), and ''Legends of the Fall'' (1994). In 1995, he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller ''Seven'' and the science fiction film ''12 Monkeys'', the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later, Pitt starred in the cult hit ''Fight Club''. He then starred in the major international hit ''Ocean's Eleven'' (2001) and its sequels, ''Ocean's Twelve'' (2004) and ''Ocean's Thirteen'' (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been ''Troy'' (2004) and ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005). Pitt received his second and third Academy Award nominations for his leading performances in ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'' (2008) and ''Moneyball'' (2011). In addition, Pitt owns a production company, Plan B Entertainment, whose productions include ''The Departed'' (2006), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and ''Moneyball'', which garnered a Best Picture nomination.

Following a high-profile relationship with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Pitt was married to actress Jennifer Aniston for five years. Pitt lives with actress Angelina Jolie in a relationship that has attracted wide publicity. He and Jolie have six children—Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Since beginning his relationship with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues both in the United States and internationally.

Early life[link]

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is the son of Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a high school counselor, and William Alvin Pitt, a truck company owner, and was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he lived together with his younger siblings, Doug (born 1966) and Julie Neal (born 1969). Born into a conservative household, he was raised as Southern Baptist, although he has since described himself as oscillating between atheism and agnosticism. Pitt has stated that his family's ancestry consists of "probably... Irish-Scots-Germans who settled in the area... I know we have some Seminole, and some Cherokee Indian, in us". Pitt has described Springfield as "Mark Twain country, Jesse James country", having grown up with "a lot of hills, a lot of lakes".

Pitt attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of the basketball, golf, tennis, wrestling and swimming teams. He participated in the school's Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, and in musicals. Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism, with a focus on advertising. As a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, he acted in several fraternity shows. As graduation approached, Pitt did not feel ready to settle down. He loved films—"a portal into different worlds for me"—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided to go to where they were made. Two weeks before earning his degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs.

Career[link]

Early work[link]

While struggling to establish himself in Los Angeles, Pitt took lessons from acting coach Roy London. Pitt's onscreen career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films ''No Way Out'', ''No Man's Land'' and ''Less Than Zero''. His television debut came in May 1987 with a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera ''Another World''. In November of the same year Pitt had a guest appearance on the ABC sitcom ''Growing Pains''. He appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime series ''Dallas'' between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade (played by Shalane McCall). Pitt described his character as "an idiot boyfriend who gets caught in the hay." Speaking of his scenes with McCall, Pitt later said, "It was kind of wild, because I'd never even met her before." Later in 1988, Pitt made a guest appearance on the Fox police drama ''21 Jump Street''.

In the same year, the Yugoslavian–U.S. co-production ''The Dark Side of the Sun'' (1988) gave Pitt his first leading film role, as a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The film was shelved at the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was not released until 1997. Pitt made two motion picture appearances in 1989: the first in a supporting role in the comedy ''Happy Together''; the second a featured role in the horror film ''Cutting Class'', the first of Pitt's films to reach theaters. He made guest appearances on television series ''Head of the Class'', ''Freddy's Nightmares'', ''Thirtysomething'', and (for a second time) ''Growing Pains''.

Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, a drug addict who takes advantage of a young runaway (played by Juliette Lewis) in the 1990 NBC television movie ''Too Young to Die?'', the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder. Ken Tucker, television reviewer for ''Entertainment Weekly'' wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary." The same year, Pitt co-starred in six episodes of the short-lived Fox drama ''Glory Days'', and took a supporting role in the HBO television movie ''The Image''. His next appearance came in the 1991 film ''Across the Tracks''; Pitt portrayed Joe Maloney, a high school runner with a criminal brother, played by Ricky Schroder.

After years of supporting roles in movies and frequent television guest appearances, Pitt attracted wider recognition in his supporting role in the 1991 road film ''Thelma & Louise''. He played J.D., a small-time criminal who befriends Thelma (Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis has been cited as the event that defined Pitt as a sex symbol. After ''Thelma & Louise'', Pitt starred in the 1991 film ''Johnny Suede'', a low-budget picture about an aspiring rock star, and the 1992 film ''Cool World'', although neither furthered his career, having poor reviews and box office performance.

Pitt took the role of Paul Maclean in the 1992 biographical film ''A River Runs Through It'', directed by Robert Redford. His portrayal of the character has been described as a career-making performance, proving that Pitt could be more than a "cowboy-hatted hunk." He has admitted to feeling under pressure when making the film and thought it one of his "weakest performances ... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for." Pitt believed that he benefited from working with such a talented cast and crew. He compared working with Redford to playing tennis with a superior player, saying "when you play with somebody better than you, your game gets better."

In 1993, Pitt reunited with Juliette Lewis for the road film ''Kalifornia''. He played Early Grayce, a serial killer and the boyfriend of Lewis's character in a performance described by Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' as "outstanding, all boyish charm and then a snort that exudes pure menace." Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit ''True Romance'' as a stoner named Floyd, providing much needed comic relief to the action film. He capped the year by winning a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.

Critical success[link]

1994 marked a significant turning point in Pitt's career. Starring as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the feature film ''Interview with the Vampire'', based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, he was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. Despite his winning two MTV Movie Awards at the 1995 ceremony, his performance was poorly received. According to the ''Dallas Observer'', "Brad Pitt ... is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side ... he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."

Following the release of ''Interview with the Vampire'', Pitt starred in ''Legends of the Fall'' (1994), based on a novel by the same name by Jim Harrison, set in the American West during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Portraying Tristan Ludlow, son of Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) a Cornish immigrant, Pitt received his first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the Best Actor category. Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas co-starred as Pitt's brothers. Although the film's reception was mixed, many film critics praised Pitt's performance. Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' said, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way." The ''Deseret News'' predicted that ''Legends of the Fall'' would solidify Pitt's reputation as a lead actor.

In 1995, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow in the crime thriller ''Seven,'' playing a detective on the trail of a serial killer (played by Kevin Spacey). Pitt called it a great movie and declared the part would expand his acting horizons. He expressed his intent to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing [...] and play someone with flaws." His performance was critically well received, with ''Variety'' saying that it was screen acting at its best, further remarking on Pitt's ability to turn in a "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective. ''Seven'' earned $327 million at the international box office.

Following the success of ''Seven'', Pitt took a supporting role as Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 1995 science-fiction film ''12 Monkeys''. The movie received predominantly positive reviews, with Pitt praised in particular. Janet Maslin of the ''New York Times'' called ''Twelve Monkeys'' "fierce and disturbing" and remarked on Pitt's "startlingly frenzied performance", concluding that he "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film." He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

The following year he had a role in the legal drama ''Sleepers'' (1996), based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same name. The film received mixed reviews. In the 1997 movie ''The Devil's Own'' Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as the Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany, a role for which he was required to learn an Irish accent. Critical opinion was divided on his accent; "Pitt finds the right tone of moral ambiguity, but at times his Irish brogue is too convincing – it's hard to understand what he's saying", wrote the ''San Francisco Chronicle.'' ''The Charleston Gazette'' opined that it had favored Pitt's accent over the movie. ''The Devil's Own'' grossed $140 million worldwide, but was a critical failure. Later that year he led as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean-Jacques Annaud film ''Seven Years in Tibet''. Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, including rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis. The film received mostly negative reviews, and was generally considered a disappointment.

Pitt had the lead role in 1998's ''Meet Joe Black''. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man to learn what it is like to be human. The film received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Pitt was unable to "to make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity." Roger Ebert stated "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation."

From 1999 to 2003[link]

In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden, an uncompromising and charismatic individual, in ''Fight Club'', a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming ended. While promoting ''Fight Club'', Pitt said that the film explored not taking one's aggressions out on someone else but to "have an experience, take a punch more and see how you come out on the other end." ''Fight Club'' premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival. Despite divided critical opinion on the film as a whole, Pitt's performance was widely praised. Paul Clinton of CNN noted the risky yet successful nature of the film, while ''Variety'' remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than [...] his breakthrough role in ''Thelma and Louise''". In spite of a worse-than-expected box office performance, ''Fight Club'' became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.

Following ''Fight Club'', Pitt was cast as an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely intelligible accent in Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster film ''Snatch''. Several reviewers were critical of ''Snatch''; however, most praised Pitt. Mick LaSalle of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' said Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him", going on to say that, before ''Snatch'', Pitt had been "shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion;" while Amy Taubin of ''The Village Voice'' claimed that "Pitt gets maximum comic mileage out of a one-joke role".

The following year Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy ''The Mexican'', a film that garnered a range of reviews but enjoyed box office success. Pitt's next role, in 2001's $143 million-grossing Cold War thriller ''Spy Game'', was as Tom Bishop, an operative of the CIA's Special Activities Division, mentored by Robert Redford's character. Mark Holcomb of Salon.com enjoyed the film, although he noted that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience". On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the eighth season of the television series ''Friends'', playing a man with a grudge against Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, to whom Pitt was married at the time. For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In December 2001, Pitt had the role of Rusty Ryan in the heist film ''Ocean's Eleven'', a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack original. He joined an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, and Julia Roberts. Well-received by critics, ''Ocean's Eleven'' was highly successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide.

Pitt appeared in two episodes of MTV's reality series ''Jackass'' in February 2002, first running through the streets of Los Angeles with several cast members in gorilla suits, and participating in his own staged abduction in another episode. In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut ''Confessions of a Dangerous Mind''. He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, speaking as the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film ''Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas'' and playing Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series ''King of the Hill''.

After 2003[link]

Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in ''Troy'', and making a second appearance as Rusty Ryan, in the sequel ''Ocean's Twelve''. He spent six months sword training before the filming of ''Troy'', based on the ''Iliad''. An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks. With a total worldwide gross of $497 million, ''Troy'' remains Pitt's most commercially successful picture to date. The film earned $364 million outside the U.S. and $133 million domestically. Stephen Hunter of ''The Washington Times'' stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role. ''Troy'' was the first film produced by Plan B Entertainment, a film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures. ''Ocean's Twelve'' earned $362 million worldwide, and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described (by CNN's Paul Clinton) as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."

In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'', in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The ''Star Tribune'' noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry." ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.

For his next feature film, Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama ''Babel'' (2006). Pitt's performance was critically well-received, and the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' said that he was credible and gave the film visibility. Pitt later said he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career. The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. ''Babel'' received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, winning the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe. That same year, Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment produced ''The Departed'', which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Pitt was credited on-screen as a producer; however, only Graham King was ruled eligible for the Oscar win.

Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan in a third picture, Pitt starred in 2007's ''Ocean's Thirteen''. While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office. Pitt's next film role was as American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama ''The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'', adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name. Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of ''Film Journal International'', and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. Although Pitt attended the festival to promote the film, he left early after being attacked by a fan who pushed through his bodyguards. He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.

Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy ''Burn After Reading'', his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics, with ''The Guardian'' calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy", noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest. He was later cast as Benjamin Button, the lead in David Fincher's 2008 film ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'', a loosely adapted version of a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story follows a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse, with Pitt's "sensitive" performance making ''Benjamin Button'' a "timeless masterpiece," according to Michael Sragow of ''The Baltimore Sun''. The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination, all in the category for Best Actor. The film received thirteen Academy Award nominations in total, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide.

Since 2008, Pitt's work has included a leading role in Quentin Tarantino's ''Inglourious Basterds'', released in August 2009 at a special presentation at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France. The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide, and garnered generally favorable reviews. The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt. He voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature ''Megamind''. Pitt appeared in Terrence Malick's drama ''The Tree of Life'', co-starring Sean Penn, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In a performance that attracted strong praise, he portrayed the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the drama ''Moneyball'', which is based on the 2003 book of the same name written by Michael Lewis. ''Moneyball'' received six Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Pitt.

He has signed on to appear as a British explorer searching for a mysterious Amazonian civilization in ''The Lost City of Z'', based on David Grann's 2009 book of the same name.

Humanitarian and political causes[link]

Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, in which he supported John Kerry. Later in October he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," he said. In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide federal government funding for stem-cell research.

Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world. He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series ''Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge'', which discusses current global health issues and traveled to Pakistan in November 2005 with Angelina Jolie to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region. Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of "Not On Our Watch", an organization that tries to focus global attention and resources to stop and prevent genocides such as that in Darfur.

Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture and has narrated ''Design e2'', a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design. He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services. Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations. The first six homes were completed in October 2008, and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated. Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of ''green housing'' as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.

In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world. The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders, followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl. According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006 and $3.4 million in 2007. In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants. In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Pitt is a supporter of same-sex marriage. In an October 2006 interview with ''Esquire'', Pitt said that he would marry Jolie when everyone in America is legally able to marry. He reaffirmed his stance to ''Parade'' in August 2009, and again to ''People'' in July 2011. In September 2008, he donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage. Pitt stated his reasons for the stance: "Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8." In March 2012, Pitt was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '''8''' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Judge Vaughn Walker. The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, a non-profit organization funding the plaintiffs' legal team and sponsoring the play.

In the media[link]

Pitt's sex appeal has been picked up by many sources including ''Empire'', who named him one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history in 1995. The same year, Pitt won ''People'''s Sexiest Man Alive, an accolade he won again in 2000. Pitt appeared on ''Forbes'''s annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in 2006, 2007, and 2008, at No. 20, No. 5, and No. 10 respectively. In 2007 he was listed among the Time 100, a compilation of the 100 most influential people in the world, as selected annually by ''TIME''. The magazine credited Pitt with using "his star power to get people to look [to where] cameras don't usually catch". Pitt was again included in the Time 100 in 2009, this time in the Builders and Titans list.

Starting in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After confirming that Jolie was pregnant in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding the couple reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity". To avoid media attention the couple flew to Namibia for the birth of their daughter Shiloh, "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ." Similarly intense media interest greeted the announcement two years later of Jolie's second pregnancy; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.

In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets, Pitt, together with Jolie, was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products worldwide. Pitt has appeared in several television commercials. For the U.S. market, he starred in a Heineken commercial aired during the 2005 Super Bowl; it was directed by David Fincher, who had directed Pitt in ''Seven'', ''Fight Club'' and ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''. Other commercial appearances came in television spots designed for Asian markets, advertising such products as the Acura Integra, in which he was featured opposite Russian model Tatiana Sorokko, as well as SoftBank and Edwin Jeans.

Personal life[link]

Relationships[link]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pitt was involved in successive relationships with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens (''Head of the Class''), Jill Schoelen (''Cutting Class''), and Juliette Lewis (''Too Young to Die?'' and ''Kalifornia''), who, at the age of 16, was ten years his junior when they started dating. In addition, Pitt had a much-publicized romance and engagement to his ''Seven'' co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, whom he dated from 1994 to 1997.

Pitt met ''Friends'' actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. For years their marriage was considered a rare Hollywood success; however, in January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced that they had decided formally to separate after seven years together. Two months later Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005, legally ending their marriage. Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston have an acrimonious relationship, Pitt said in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each others' lives.

During Pitt's divorce from Aniston, his involvement with his ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' co-star Angelina Jolie attracted vigorous media attention. While Pitt denied claims of adultery, he admitted that he "fell in love" with Jolie on the set. In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the pictures were construed in the press as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. During the summer of 2005, the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to ''People'' that she was pregnant with Pitt's child, thereby publicly acknowledging their relationship for the first time. Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012 after seven years together.

Children[link]

In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child, six-month-old Zahara Marley, a decision which Jolie later stated she and Pitt had made together. Pitt's publicist announced in December 2005 that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children, Zahara and Cambodia-born Maddox Chivan. On January 19, 2006, a California judge granted Jolie's request to change the children's surnames from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt". The adoptions were finalized soon after.

Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would have a Namibian passport. The couple sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images; the North American rights were purchased by ''People'' for over $4.1 million, while ''Hello!'' obtained the British rights for approximately $3.5 million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to charities serving African children. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it marked the first time an infant was recreated in wax by Madame Tussauds.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted three-year-old Pax Thien from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since Vietnam does not allow unmarried couples to adopt, Jolie adopted Pax as a single parent. In April 2007, Jolie filed a request to legally change her son's surname from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt", which was approved on May 31, 2007. The rights for the first post-adoption images of Pax were sold to ''People'' for a reported $2 million, as well as to ''Hello!'' for an undisclosed amount. Pitt adopted Pax in the United States on February 21, 2008.

At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins. She gave birth to son Knox Léon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline on July 12, 2008 in Nice, France. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to ''People'' and ''Hello!'' for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The couple donated the proceeds to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Filmography[link]

Actor [link]

! Year	! Film	! Role	Notes
1987		Officer at party
1987		Waiter
1987		Partygoer
1987		Chris	Appeared on the May 14 and 15, 1987 episodes
1987	''Growing Pains''	Jeff	Episodes: "List of Growing Pains episodes#Season 3: 1987-1988
1987–88		Randy	4 episodes
1988	''[[21 Jump Street''	Peter	Episode: "Best Years of Your Life"
1987		Brian
1987	''Cutting Class''	Dwight Ingalls
1987	''Head of the Class''	Chuck	Episode: "Partners"
1987	''Freddy's Nightmares''	Rick Austin	Episode: "Black Tickets"
1990	''''	Cameraman	TV movie
1990	''Too Young to Die?''	Billy Canton	TV movie
1990	''Glory Days''	Walker Lovejoy	6 episodes
1991	''Across the Tracks''	Joe Maloney
1991	''Thelma & Louise''	J.D.
1991	''Johnny Suede''	Johnny Suede
1992	''Contact''	Cox
1992	''Cool World''	Detective Frank Harris
1992	''''	Paul Maclean
1993	''Kalifornia''	Early Grayce
1993	''True Romance''	Floyd
1994	''''	Elliott Fowler
1994		Louis de Pointe du Lac	MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - MaleMTV Movie Award for Most Desirable MaleNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Tom CruiseNominated–Saturn Award for Best Actor
1994	''Legends of the Fall''	Tristan Ludlow	Nominated–Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1995		David Mills	MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable MaleNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Morgan FreemanNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
1995	''12 Monkeys''	Jeffrey Goines
1996		Michael Sullivan
1997	''''	Francis "Frankie" Austin McQuire/Rory Devaney
1997		Heinrich Harrer
1997	''''	Rick
1998	''Meet Joe Black''	Joe Black/Man in the Coffee Shop
1999	''Fight Club''
1999	''Being John Malkovich''	Himself	Cameo
2000		Mickey O'Neil	Nominated–Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
2001	''''	Jerry Welbach
2001	''Spy Game''	Tom Bishop
2001	''''	Rusty Ryan
2001	''Friends''	Will Colbert
2002		Himself
2002	''Confessions of a Dangerous Mind''	Brad, Bachelor No.1
2003	''Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas''		Voice
2003		Himself	Cameo
2003	''King Of The Hill''	Patch Boomhauer	Voice
2004		Achilles
2004	''''	Rusty Ryan	Nominated–Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
2005		John Smith
2006		Richard
2007	''''	Rusty Ryan
2007	''''	Jesse James
2008	''Burn After Reading''	Chad Feldheimer
2008	''''	Benjamin Button
2009	''Inglourious Basterds''	Lt. Aldo Raine
2010	''Megamind''	Metro Man	Voice
2011	''''	Mr. O'Brien
2011		Billy Beane
2011	''Happy Feet Two''	Will the Krill	Nominated – As Seen By Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Voice-Over RoleNominated – Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Actor of the Year
2012	''Cogan's Trade''	Jack Cogan	Post-production
2012		Gerry Lane	Post-production

Producer [link]

! Year	! Film	Notes
2006	''God Grew Tired of Us''	Executive producer
2006	''''	Nominated–BAFTA Award for Best Film
2006
2007	''''	Executive producer
2007		Executive producer
2007	''''	Nominated–Independent Spirit Award for Best Film
2007	''''
2008	''Pretty/Handsome''	Executive producer (TV)
2009	''''	Executive producer
2009	''''	Executive producer
2010
2010	''Eat Pray Love''
2011	''''	Palme d'Or
2011		Nominated – Academy Award for Best Picture
2012	''Cogan's Trade''
2012

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

}}

External links[link]

Not On Our Watch – Founded by: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jerry Weintraub

Category:1963 births Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Oklahoma Category:American agnostics Category:American film actors Category:American film producers Category:American television actors Category:American vegans Category:American voice actors Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Former Baptists Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Category:University of Missouri alumni Category:Volpi Cup winners

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