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• 
  Chicago
  Chicago (ⁱ/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. The city has around 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland", is the third largest in the United States, with an estimated 9.8 million people. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, though a small portion also extends into DuPage County.
  Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, Chicago is listed as an alpha+ global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world on the 2012 Global Cities Index. The city retains its status as an international hub for finance, industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. In 2008^[update], the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. Among metropolitan areas, Chicago has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, ranking just behind Tokyo, New York City, and Los Angeles. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.
  
  wn.com/Chicago
• 
  Illinois
  Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.
  Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan. Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.
  
  wn.com/Illinois
• 
  Israel
  Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
  Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or  /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] ( listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
  Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.^{[neutrality is disputed]} Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
  
  wn.com/Israel

• 
  Abigail Breslin
  Abigail Kathleen Breslin (born April 14, 1996) is an American actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.
  Breslin appeared in her first commercial when she was only three years old, and in her first film, Signs, at the age of five. Her subsequent films include Little Miss Sunshine, Nim's Island, Definitely, Maybe, My Sister's Keeper, Zombieland and Rango.
  Breslin was born in New York City, the daughter of Kim, who manages her career, and Michael, a telecommunications expert, computer programmer, and consultant. Breslin has two older brothers, Ryan and Spencer, who are also actors. Breslin lives in New York with her family, which her maternal grandparents have described as "very close-knit". She is named after First Lady of the United States Abigail Adams.
  
  wn.com/Abigail_Breslin
• Alan Arkin
  Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2006. He is the father of actors Adam Arkin, Anthony Arkin, and Matthew Arkin.
  Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice (née Wortis), a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher. Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion"; his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine. The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Arkin was 11 years old, but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. During the 1950s Red Scare, Arkin's parents were accused of being Communists, which led to David losing his job when he refused to answer questions about his political affiliation. David challenged the dismissal and was ultimately vindicated, but only after his death.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Arkin
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  Alan Bates
  Sir Alain Arthur Bates CBE (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children's story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving. He is also known for his performance with Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, as well as his roles in King of Hearts, Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Fixer, which gave him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film Women in Love with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson.
  Bates went on to star in The Go-Between, An Unmarried Woman, Nijinsky, and The Rose with Bette Midler, as well as playing varied roles in television drama, including The Mayor of Casterbridge, Harold Pinter's The Collection, A Voyage Round My Father, An Englishman Abroad (as Guy Burgess), and Pack of Lies. He also continued to appear on the stage, notably in the plays of Simon Gray, such as Butley and Otherwise Engaged.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Bates
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  Amy Adams
  Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress and singer. Adams was born in Vicenza, Italy to American parents, and began her performing career on stage in dinner theaters, before making her screen debut in the 1999 black comedy film Drop Dead Gorgeous. After a series of television guest appearances and roles in B movies, she was cast in the role of Brenda Strong in 2002's Catch Me If You Can, but her breakthrough role was in the 2005 independent film Junebug, playing Ashley Johnsten, for which she received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
  Adams subsequently starred in Disney's 2007 film Enchanted, a critical and commercial success, and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Princess Giselle. She received her second Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations the following year for her role as a young nun, Sister James, in Doubt. Though she has appeared in a range of dramatic and comedic roles, Adams has gained a reputation for playing characters with cheerful and sunny dispositions. Adams starred in Sunshine Cleaning with Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin, and the following year appeared as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. She appeared in Julie & Julia in 2009 portraying writer Julie Powell followed by Leap Year in 2010. Her recent role as Charlene Fleming in The Fighter earned Adams her third Academy Award nomination, her third Golden Globe Award, second BAFTA Award, and fifth Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. In 2011, Adams appeared in the critically acclaimed musical film The Muppets alongside Jason Segel. She is scheduled to play Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel in 2013.
  
  wn.com/Amy_Adams
• 
  Amy Ryan
  Amy Ryan (born November 30, 1969) is an American actress. She has been nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance in Gone Baby Gone (2007) and is also known for her roles in HBO's The Wire, playing Port Authority Officer Beadie Russell; HBO's In Treatment, playing psychiatrist Adele Brousse; and NBC's The Office, playing human resources representative Holly Flax.
  Ryan was born in Queens, New York City. Ryan is her mother's maiden name. She is of English, Irish, and Polish descent. Growing up in the 1970s, Ryan and her sister delivered the Daily News by bike. At a young age, Ryan attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. At 17, she graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts. Hired for the national tour of Biloxi Blues right out of high school, Ryan worked steadily off-Broadway for the next decade.
  Ryan made her off-Broadway debut in the Westside Theatre's 1987 production of A Shayna Maidel, playing the role of Hanna. The following year she was seen in the Second Stage Theatre Company's revival of The Rimers of Eldritch. Additional off-Broadway credits include As Bees In Honey Drown, Crimes of the Heart and Saved. She also worked in regional theater, where she originated roles in new plays by Neil LaBute, Arthur Miller and Neil Simon. On Broadway she has appeared as Tess in The Sisters Rosensweig, Natasha in the 1997 revival of The Three Sisters, and Peggy in the 2001–2002 revival of The Women.
  
  wn.com/Amy_Ryan
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  Andie MacDowell
  Rosalie Anderson "Andie" MacDowell (born April 21, 1958) is an American model and actress. She has received the Goldene Kamera and an Honorary César.
  Andie MacDowell was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, the daughter of Pauline "Paula" Johnston (née Oswald), a music teacher, and Marion St. Pierre MacDowell, a lumber executive. She is of part Scottish descent. Her family owned an Antebellum period summer house in Arden, North Carolina, which has since been made into a bed-and-breakfast named the Blake House Inn. Graffiti from her childhood visits is preserved in an upstairs bedroom closet. She attended Winthrop College for two years before moving briefly to Columbia, South Carolina. There she worked two jobs; one in a clothing boutique and the other in a restaurant/bar called "Stage Door". "Rosie," as she was known locally, lived with her sister, Beverly, and saved all her money so she could move to New York City and start her career.^{[says who?]} She was initially spotted by a rep from Wilhelmina Models while on a trip to Los Angeles before she would later sign with Elite Model Management in New York City.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Andie_MacDowell
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  Andy Serkis
  Andrew Clement "Andy" Serkis (born 20 April 1964) is an English film actor, director and author.
  He is popularly known for playing through motion capture to animate and voice computer-generated characters: Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and its upcoming prequel The Hobbit, King Kong in the eponymous 2005 film, Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin.
  Andrew also earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of Ian Brady in the British television film Longford. Serkis's motion captured work have been critically acclaimed, especially as Gollum for which he earned several award nominations, becoming the first motion captured actor to win a Empire Award, a Saturn Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
  Serkis, one of five children, was born and brought up in Ruislip Manor in west London. His mother, Lylie (née Weech), was English and taught disabled children; his father, Clement Serkis, was an Iraqi gynaecologist of Armenian ethnicity. His ancestors' original surname had been "Sarkisian".
  
  wn.com/Andy_Serkis
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  Angela Bassett
  Angela Evelyn Bassett (born August 16, 1958) is an American actress and comedienne. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in Malcolm X and Panther, Rosa Parks in The Rosa Parks Story, Katherine Jackson in The Jacksons: An American Dream,and Voletta Wallace in Notorious.
  
  
  Bassett was born Angela Evelyn Bassett in Harlem, New York on August 16, 1958, the daughter of Betty Jane and Daniel Benjamin Bassett. After her parents' separation, she relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she and her sister D'nette were raised by their social worker/civil servant mother. As her interest in entertainment developed, Angela and her sister would often put on shows, reading poems or performing popular music for their family. At Boca Ciega High School, Bassett was a cheerleader and a member of the debate team, student government, drama club and choir.
  
  wn.com/Angela_Bassett
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  Angelina Jolie
  Angelina Jolie ( /dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE, born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress and director. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as the world's "most beautiful" woman, a title for which she has received substantial media attention.
  Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).
  
  wn.com/Angelina_Jolie
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  Anil Kapoor
  Anil Kapoor (Hindi: अनिल कपूर; Punjabi: ਅਨਿਲ ਕਪੂਰ; born 24 December 1959) is an Indian actor, producer and director who has appeared in many Bollywood films and more recently international films.
  He won his first Filmfare Award, in the Best Supporting Actor category, for his role in Yash Chopra's Mashaal (1984). Kapoor earned his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in N. Chandra's Tezaab (1988) and later again for his perfornance in Indra Kumar's Beta (1992). He also starred in many other critically and commercially successful films, including Woh Saat Din (1983), Meri Jung (1985), Janbaaz (1986), Karma (1986), Mr. India (1987), Virasat (1997) for which he won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor, Biwi No.1 (1999), Taal (1999) for which he won his second Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award, Pukar (2000) for which he won his first National Film Award for Best Actor, No Entry (2005), and Welcome (2007).
  Kapoor's first role in an international film was in Danny Boyle's 2008 Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, for which he shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. His performance in the eighth season of the action series 24 generated rave reviews from the American press. Globally, Anil Kapoor is one of the most recognised Indian actors. He has also appeared in the 2011 film Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
  
  wn.com/Anil_Kapoor
• 
  Anthony Andrews
  Anthony Corin Gerald Andrews ( /ˈæntəni ˈændruːz/; born 12 January 1948) is an English actor best known for his role as Lord Sebastian Flyte in the 1981 ITV miniseries Brideshead Revisited.
  Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes (née Cooper), a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, a musical arranger and musical conductor. He grew up in the North Finchley district of London. At the age of eight he undertook dancing lessons, making his stage debut as the White Rabbit in a stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
  After a series of short term "fill-in" jobs that included catering, farming and journalism, he secured a position at the Chichester Theatre where he worked as an assistant stage manager and later as a stand-in producer. He auditioned in 1968 for a production of Alan Bennett's new play, Forty Years On, which featured John Gielgud as the headmaster of a British public school during the First World War period. Andrews was cast as Skinner, one of twenty schoolboys; the role gave him the opportunity at an early age of working with Gielgud.
  
  wn.com/Anthony_Andrews
• 
  August Diehl
  August Diehl (born 4 January 1976) is a German actor, primarily known to international audiences for playing SS-Sturmbannführer Dieter Hellstrom in Inglourious Basterds and Michael "Mike" Krause, Evelyn Salt's husband, in the movie Salt, as well as for his leading role in the Academy Award-winning Austrian film The Counterfeiters (2007).
  Diehl was born in Berlin. His father is actor Hans Diehl, his mother is a costume designer and his brother is a composer. His family was frequently moving around, while he grew up: the Diehls used to live in Hamburg, Vienna, Düsseldorf, Bavaria and France. Growing up in a family of artists, at the age of 18, he played Franz Mohr in a school theatre production of Die Räuber by Friedrich Schiller. After passing the Abitur exams, Diehl studied acting at the renowned Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch in Berlin. In 2000, he was named one of European film's "Shooting Stars" by the European Film Promotion. In 2006, Gala magazine named him "the most important German actor of today." Diehl is married to actress Julia Malik. On 23rd May 2009 the couple had a daughter, Elsa Augusta. Diehl plays the guitar and speaks Spanish, German, French and English.
  
  wn.com/August_Diehl
• 
  Bernard Hill
  Bernard Hill (born 17 December 1944) is a British actor of film, stage and television. In a career spanning thirty years, he is known for playing Yosser Hughes, the troubled 'hard man' whose life is falling apart in Alan Bleasdale's groundbreaking 1980s TV drama, Boys from the Blackstuff. He is also known for a number of iconic roles in blockbuster films, including Captain Edward John Smith in Titanic, King Théoden in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and as the Warden of San Quentin Prison in the Clint Eastwood film True Crime.
  Hill was born in Blackley, Manchester, England. He attended Xaverian College although at the time it was known as "Xaverian School", and then Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama at the same time as Richard Griffiths. He graduated with a diploma in theatre in 1970.
  Hill first came to prominence in Britain through his Yosser Hughes, a Liverpool working class man ultimately driven to the edge by an uncaring system, in Alan Bleasdale's BBC Play for Today, The Black Stuff and its more famous series sequel (also by Bleasdale), Boys from the Blackstuff. His character's much-repeated phrase Gizza job ("Give us a job") became popular with protesters against Margaret Thatcher's government, because of the high unemployment of the time.
  
  wn.com/Bernard_Hill
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  Billy Bob Thornton
  Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone. In the mid-1990s, after writing, directing, and starring in the independent film Sling Blade, he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He appeared in several major film roles following Sling Blade 's success, including 1998's Armageddon and A Simple Plan. During the late 1990s, Thornton began a career as a singer-songwriter. He has released three albums and was the singer in a blues rock band.
  Thornton was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the son of Virginia Roberta (née Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond "Billy Ray" Thornton (November 1929–August 1974), a high school history teacher and basketball coach who died when Thornton was 18. He has two younger brothers, Jimmy Don (April 1958–October 1988), who died of a heart attack at 30, and John David (born 1969), who resides in California. Jimmy Don Thornton wrote a number of songs, two of which—"Island Avenue" and "Emily"—Thornton has recorded on his solo albums. During his childhood, Thornton lived in both Alpine, Arkansas, and Malvern, Arkansas. He was raised a Methodist, in an extended family in a shack that had neither electricity nor plumbing. Thornton graduated from high school in 1973. A good high school baseball player, he tried out for the Kansas City Royals, but was let go after an injury. After a short period laying asphalt for the Arkansas State Transportation Department, he attended Henderson State University to pursue studies in psychology, but he dropped out after two semesters.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Bob_Thornton
• Billy Campbell
  William Oliver "Billy" Campbell (born July 7, 1959) is an American film and television actor. In television, he is best known for his roles as Rick Sammler on Once and Again, as Det. Joey Indelli on Crime Story, as Jordan Collier on The 4400, and as Dr. Jon Fielding on the Tales of the City Miniseries. He is also known for his recurring role as Luke Fuller in Dynasty which was his first prominent role. His most notable films include The Rocketeer, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Enough. He is currently a series regular on the AMC television series The Killing portraying the role of Darren Richmond.
  After appearances in the 1981 British-made war film How Sleep the Brave, and an episode of the hit 1980s sitcom Family Ties, Campbell's first prominent role was that of Luke Fuller, Steven Carrington's lover on Dynasty. Campbell appeared in the show's fifth season (1984–85) when Dynasty was the number one show on American television. Following this, he had a regular role as Detective Joey Indelli on the 1986–88 NBC series Crime Story.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Campbell
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  Blanchard Ryan
  Susan Blanchard Ryan (born January 12, 1967) is an American actress. Since a "Susan Ryan" was previously registered with the Screen Actors Guild, Ryan used her middle name instead.
  Ryan was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Andover, Massachusetts. Her mother, Brenda, is a French teacher. Ryan is an admitted avid ice hockey fan and her father, Ron Ryan, was the president of the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and former Coach and General Manager to the now-defunct Hartford Whalers. Ryan graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Philosophy.
  After graduating from college, she worked at MTV in its special effects department. She started acting in commercials while studying acting and improvisation in New York City. In 2000, she appeared in an episode of Sex and the City (2000). She was in the Broken Lizard films: Super Troopers and Beerfest and Brian Lynch's Big Helium Dog, as well as several independent films. To date Ryan's most notable film role has been her starring role in the 2003 film Open Water, for which she won the 2004 Saturn Award for Best Actress.
  
  wn.com/Blanchard_Ryan
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  Bob Balaban
  Robert Elmer "Bob" Balaban (born August 16, 1945) is an American actor, author and director.
  Balaban was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eleanor (née Pottasch) and Elmer Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television. His family was a dominant force in the theatre business; his uncles founded the Balaban and Katz Theatre circuit in Chicago, a chain which included the Chicago and Uptown Theatres. Balaban and Katz operated some of the most beautiful movie palaces in the United States beginning in the 1920s. Bob Balaban's father and his uncle Harry founded the H & E Balaban Corporation in Chicago. H & E Balaban Corporation operated their own movie palaces including the Esquire Theatre in Chicago. They later owned a powerful group of television stations and cable television franchises. His uncle Barney Balaban was president of Paramount Pictures for nearly 30 years from 1936 to 1964. His grandmother's second husband, Sam Katz, was a vice president at MGM beginning in 1936. Sam had early partnered with Bob's uncles Abe, Barney, John and Max to form Balaban and Katz. Sam also served as President of the Publix theatre division of Paramount Pictures.
  
  wn.com/Bob_Balaban
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  Brad Pitt
  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.
  
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  Brendan Fraser
  Brendan James Fraser (born December 3, 1968) is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series (1999, 2001, and 2008), and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man (1992), George of the Jungle (1997), Dudley Do-Right (1999), Monkeybone (2001), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), and Inkheart (2009). Has also appeared in numerous dramatic roles, including Crash (2004) and The Quiet American (2002). He is set to star in the upcoming movie Gimme Shelter (2012).
  Fraser was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of Canadian parents. His mother, Carol Mary (née Genereux), was a sales counselor, and his father, Peter Fraser, was a former journalist who worked as a Canadian foreign service officer for the Government Office of Tourism. His maternal uncle, George Genereux, was the only Canadian to win a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympics. Fraser has three older brothers: Kevin, Regan, and Sean. His surname is properly pronounced /ˈfreɪzər/, not /ˈfreɪʒər/. The correct pronunciation of his surname is a running gag in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, in which his character's surname is pronounced /frɛrəˈʒʊər/. His ancestry includes Irish, Scottish, German, Czech, and French Canadian.
  
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• Carolyn Warmus
  Carolyn Warmus (born January 8, 1964) is serving a 25-year sentence for the murder of her lover's wife. The murder case attracted national attention and led to comparisons with the movie Fatal Attraction.
  Carolyn Warmus was born in Troy, Michigan and grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, an affluent suburb of Detroit. Her father Tom was a self-made millionaire who accumulated his fortune in the insurance business. Her parents divorced when she was 8-years-old. She attended the University of Michigan, where she drifted into a series of unsuccessful romantic relationships. There was an element of obsessive behavior in her dealings with men. Warmus had a history of stalking boyfriends and hiring private detectives to determine their whereabouts. One of her former boyfriends, Paul Laven, obtained a restraining order against her after Warmus waged a relentless campaign to win him back. She called him and his fiancee and left messages on their answering machine, contacted their friends, and deluged them with notes, including one that falsely claimed Warmus was pregnant with Laven's child. After graduating with a degree in psychology, Warmus moved to New York City. She hired a private detective, Vincent Parco, to trail a married New Jersey bartender when he lost interest in her. Soon after, she earned a master's degree in elementary education from Teachers College, Columbia University and landed a job in September 1987 at the Greenville Elementary in Scarsdale, New York. Here she met colleague, mentor, and soon-to-be lover Paul Solomon, a fifth grade teacher, and his family, wife Betty Jeanne and daughter Kristan. Carolyn became a role model and big sister to Kristan and she would buy her expensive gifts.
  
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  Cate Blanchett
  Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett (/ˈblɑːntʃ.ət/; born 14 May 1969) is an Academy Award–winning Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Blanchett appeared as the elf queen Galadriel in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy from 2001 to 2003. In 2004, Blanchett's portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator brought her numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Blanchett's other films include Babel (2006), Notes on a Scandal (2006), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).
  Blanchett's work has earned her several accolades, including a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTAs, and an Academy Award. Due to her success and character variety, critics have often called her "the new Meryl Streep" or "the Meryl Streep of the next generation".
  
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  Charles Dance
  Walter Charles Dance, OBE (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor, screenwriter, and film director. Dance typically plays assertive bureaucrats or villains.^{[citation needed]} Some of his most high profile roles are Perron in The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Dr Clemens, the doctor who becomes Ellen Ripley's confidante, in Alien 3 (1992), the villain in The Golden Child (1986) and Last Action Hero (1993), and Lord Tywin Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones.
  Dance was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) on 17 June 2006.
  Dance was born in Redditch, Worcestershire, the son of Eleanor (née Perks), a cook, and Walter Dance, an engineer. He attended Widey Technical School for Boys (it closed when known as Widey High School in 1988) in Manadon. He was set for a career in graphic design after graduating from the Plymouth College of Art before turning to acting.
  Dance was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company during the mid- to late-1970s and was in many of their productions in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Later he returned to the RSC to take the title role in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon and Newcastle in 1989, and at the Barbican Theatre in 1990. He received rave reviews and a Critics' Circle Best Actor award for his performance as the Oxford don C. S. Lewis in William Nicholson's Shadowlands, in the 2007 stage revival.
  
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  Christina Ricci
  Christina Ricci (born February 12, 1980) is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper (1995). Ricci made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with The Ice Storm (1997), followed by an acclaimed performance in Buffalo 66 (1998) and then The Opposite of Sex (1998), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She continued her success with well-received performances in Sleepy Hollow (1999), Monster (2003), Penelope (2006) and Black Snake Moan (2007). In 2006 Ricci was nominated for an Emmy award for her role as a paramedic in the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy. She currently stars as Maggie Ryan in the television show Pan Am.
  Ricci was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth and youngest child of Sarah (née Murdoch), a former Ford Model and real estate agent, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and psychiatrist. Regarding her ancestry, Ricci has stated that "the Italian blood has been bred out of me. There's an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all [sic] had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I'm basically Scots-Irish."
  
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  Christine Baranski
  Christine Jane Baranski (born May 2, 1952) is an American stage and screen actress, and is perhaps best known for her Emmy Award-winning portrayal as Maryanne Thorpe in the sitcom Cybill, and her Emmy-nominated portrayal of Diane Lockhart in The Good Wife. Prior to her appearances in film and television, Baranski rose to prominence as a Broadway actress, winning two Tony Awards.
  Baranski was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Virginia (née Mazurowski) and Lucien Baranski, who edited a Polish-language newspaper. She is of Polish descent and her grandparents were actors in the Polish theater. Baranski attended high school at the Villa Maria Academy in Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo. She then studied at New York City's Juilliard School (Drama Division Group 3: 1970–1974) where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974.
  Baranski made her Off-Broadway debut in Coming Attractions at Playwrights Horizons in 1980, and has appeared in several Off Broadway productions at the Manhattan Theatre Club, starting with Sally and Marsha in 1982.
  
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  Christoph Waltz
  Christoph Waltz (German pronunciation: [kristɔf valts]; born 4 October 1956) is an Austrian actor, who also holds German citizenship.
  He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2009.
  Christoph Waltz was born in Vienna, Austria. He is the son of German-born Johannes Waltz and Austrian-born Elisabeth Urbancic, set and stage designers. His maternal grandmother was Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was actor Emmerich Reimers. His great-grandparents also worked in the theatre.
  Waltz studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He also attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York. He started as a stage actor, performing at venues such as Zurich's Schauspielhaus Zürich, Vienna's Burgtheater, and the Salzburg Festival. He became a prolific television actor. In 2000, he made his directorial debut, with the German-language television production Wenn man sich traut.
  
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  Clive Owen
  Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991. He then garnered critical acclaim for his work in the film Close My Eyes (1991) before getting international notice for his performance as a struggling writer in Croupier (1998). In 2005, Owen won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his appearance in the drama Closer (2004). He has since played leading roles in films such as Sin City (2005), Inside Man (2006), Children of Men (2006), and The International (2009).
  The fourth of five brothers, Owen was born in Coventry, in the English Midlands, a son of Pamela (née Cotton) and Jess Owen, a country and western singer of Welsh descent. His father left the family when Owen was three years old, and despite a brief reconciliation when Owen was nineteen, the two have remained estranged. Raised by his mother and stepfather, a railway ticket clerk, he has described his childhood as "rough." While initially opposed to drama school, he changed his mind in 1984, after a long and fruitless period of searching for work. Owen graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1987 with a class that included Rebecca Pidgeon, Serena Harragin, Mark Womack, and Liza Tarbuck. After graduation, he won a position at the Young Vic, performing in several Shakespearean plays.
  
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  Colin Firth
  A Darcy Before I Die - satirical poem by Ronnie Taheny (c) 2008
  Colin Andrew Firth, CBE (born 10 September 1960) is an English film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In 2011, Firth received an Academy Award for his portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, a performance that also earned him the Golden Globe, BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor, amongst others. The previous year, he received his first Academy Award nomination, for his leading role in A Single Man, a performance that won him a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.
  Firth was born in England. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College Winchester (now the University of Winchester), and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government. Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor. Firth's parents were raised in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed missionary work abroad. Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching.
  
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  Colm Feore
  Colm Feore (born August 22, 1958) is an American-born Canadian stage, film and television actor.
  Feore was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Irish parents who lived in Ireland for several years during his early life. The family subsequently moved to Windsor, Ontario, where Feore grew up.
  After graduating from Ridley College in St. Catharines, Ontario, he attended the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, Quebec and University of Windsor in Ontario.
  Feore honed his acting skills as a member of the Acting Company of the Stratford Festival of Canada, North America’s largest classical repertory theatre. He spent 16 seasons at Stratford where he rose from bit parts to leading roles, including Romeo, Hamlet, Richard III, and Cyrano. He returned in 2006 to star in four productions, including Don Juan in both English and French and as Fagin in Oliver!. More recently, in 2009 he played the main role of Macbeth in the play Macbeth, and the main role of Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac both performed at the Stratford Festival Theatre.
  
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• Dale Dickey
  Dale Dickey (born September 29, 1961) is an American actress best known for her recurring role as Patty on My Name is Earl and for her supporting roles in films such as Domino and Winter's Bone.
  Diana Dale Dickey was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and graduated from Bearden High School in Knoxville. She played several roles in High School productions, notably as Emily in Our Town. She later attended the University of Tennessee.
  On February 26, 2011, She won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female for her performance as Merab in Winter's Bone.
  
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  Daniel Brühl
  Daniel César Martín Brühl González Domingo ( listen (help·info); born 16 June 1978) is a Spanish-born German actor. He is best known as Daniel Brühl.
  Brühl was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. His father was the late German TV director Hanno Brühl and his mother was a Spanish professor. He also has a brother and a sister. Shortly after his birth his family moved to Cologne, Germany, where he grew up and attended the Dreikönigsgymnasium. Brought up in a fully multilingual home, he speaks Spanish, German, Catalan, French and English. In 2006, Brühl separated from his long-time girlfriend, actress Jessica Schwarz, to whom he was engaged. He is an FC Barcelona fan.
  Brühl began acting at a young age and made his first steps in 1995 as street kid Benji in the soap opera Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love). His international breakthrough role came in 2003 as Alex Kerner in the Golden Globe-nominated film Good Bye, Lenin!, which reached an estimated six million cinema-goers worldwide. In 2003, Brühl won the European Film Academy award trophies for Best Actor (Critics/Audience Awards) for the role. Brühl made his English-speaking film debut in the 2004 Ladies in Lavender, starring alongside British acting legends Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. The same year, he won the People's Choice trophy for Best Actor for the film Love in Thoughts while at the same time, he was nominated for Best Actor (critics) for The Edukators. Brühl featured as Lieutenant Horstmayer, a central character in the 2005 film Joyeux Noël, a trilingual World War One film based on the experiences of French, German and Scottish soldiers during the Christmas truce of 1914. The film shows Brühl's linguistic ability as he ably communicates in German, French and English throughout.
  
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  Danny Huston
  Daniel S. "Danny" Huston (born May 14, 1962) is an American actor and director.
  Huston was born in Rome, Italy. He hails from the illustrious Huston acting and filmmaking dynasty. He is the son of legendary director John Huston, half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston and screenwriter Tony Huston, uncle of actor Jack Huston, stepbrother of writer and editor Allegra Huston, and grandson of Academy Award-winning actor Walter Huston. His mother, Zoe Sallis, was an actress and author whose ancestry was Indian and English. Huston was conceived as a result of an affair between Sallis and John Huston.
  His father, John Huston, produced Danny's first feature as a director, Mr. North, an adaptation of Thornton Wilder's last novel, Theophilus North. In 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, he moved in front of the camera and has since acted in over 20 films. He gave his breakthrough acting performance in the independent film Ivans Xtc. The Bernard Rose feature was nominated for several Independent Spirit Awards in 2003, including Best Male Performance for Huston’s portrayal of Hollywood talent agent Ivan Beckman. Huston has worked nonstop as an actor ever since.
  
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  David Lynch
  David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, comic book artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery, and meticulous sound design. The surreal, and in many cases violent, elements to his films have earned them the reputation that they "disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences.
  Born to a middle class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. Deciding to devote himself more fully to this medium, he moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. Then being employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, he proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film, Blue Velvet (1986), which was highly critically acclaimed.
  
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  David Wenham
  David Wenham (born 21 September 1965) is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Carl in Van Helsing and Dilios in 300 and Neil Fletcher in Australia. He is also known in his native Australia for his role as Diver Dan in SeaChange.
  Wenham was born in Marrickville, Sydney, Australia, the son of Kath and Bill Wenham. He has five older sisters; Helen, Anne, Carmel, Kathryn, and Maree; and one older brother, Peter. David was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and attended Christian Brothers' High School, Lewisham. He worked as a bingo caller and an insurance clerk before becoming successful as an actor.
  Wenham started his career as an actor after graduating from Theatre Nepean at the University of Western Sydney in 1987. Wenham's television credits include several telemovies, such as his AFI award winning role in the 1996 telemovie Simone de Beauvoir's Babies; and his role as the outwardly laid back but deeply enigmatic diver Dan Della Bosca in the 1998 and 1999 seasons of the highly successful ABC television series SeaChange. His role as "Diver Dan" has made the actor something of a sex symbol, although he dislikes thinking of himself as such, and he has been voted Australia's "sexiest man alive". A portrait of Wenham by artist Adam Cullen won the Archibald Prize in 2000. Wenham is signed to Storm Model Management in London.
  
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  Denis Menochet
  Denis Menochet (born 1977 in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise) is a French film and television actor. Menochet is perhaps best known to an international audience for his role as Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis for harboring Jews, in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds.
  Elizabeth Weitzman, a film critic for the New York Daily News, praised Menochet's work opposite Christoph Waltz in the opening scene of Inglorious Basterds. Weitzman wrote in August 2009, "The terrific opening, for example, does feature a hailstorm of bullets. What you'll remember best, though, is the haunted silence of actor Denis Menochet, playing a French farmer accused of harboring Jews."
  
  
  
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• Denise Faye
  Denise Faye Greenbaum (born July 16, 1963), professionally known as Denise Faye, is an American actress, dancer and choreographer. Internationally, she is best known for her performance in the 2002 film Chicago, for which she earned Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Faye also had smaller roles in films Mighty Aphrodite, Donnie Brasco, American Pie 2, Nine and Burlesque.
  
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  Dennis Hopper
  Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 - May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). During the next 10 years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films.
  He directed and starred in Easy Rider (1969), winning an award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer. Journalist Ann Hornaday wrote: "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion." Film critic Matthew Hays notes that "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper."
  
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  Derek Jacobi
  Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE ( /ˈdʒækəbi/; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor and film director.
  A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet,Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in Much Ado About Nothing. His stage work also included playing Edward II,Octavius Caesar,Richard III, and Cyrano de Bergerac.
  In addition to being a founder member of the Royal National Theatre and winning several prestigious theatre awards, Jacobi has also enjoyed a successful television career, starring in the critically praised adaptation of Roberts Graves' I, Claudius, for which he won a BAFTA; the titular role in the acclaimed medieval drama series Brother Cadfael, and Stanley Baldwin in The Gathering Storm. Though principally a stage actor, Jacobi has appeared in a number of films, such as Henry V (1989), Dead Again (1991), Gladiator (2000), Gosford Park (2001), The Golden Compass (2007), The King's Speech (2010), My Week with Marilyn (2011), and the forthcoming Hippie Hippie Shake. Like Laurence Olivier, he holds two knighthoods, Danish and British.
  
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  Dev Patel
  Dev Patel (born 23 April 1990) is a British actor. He is best known for playing Jamal Malik in Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008), for which Patel won a number of awards, including a Critics' Choice Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Patel is also known for his role as Anwar Kharral in the British teen drama series Skins.
  Patel was born in Harrow, England, to Hindu Indian parents, both of whom were born in Nairobi, Kenya, where there is a significant Indian community. His parents both emigrated from Kenya separately in their teens, and only met in London. His mother, Anita, is a carer, and his father, Raj, an IT consultant. He was raised in the Hindu faith. Patel grew up in Rayners Lane, Harrow, and attended Longfield Middle School. He had his first acting role as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the school's production of Twelfth Night. Patel was given the Best Actor award for his performance. He later attended Whitmore High School, receiving an A* in GCSE Drama, for his "self-penned portrayal of a child in the Beslan school siege". His drama teacher Niamh Wright has stated: "Dev was a gifted student who quickly impressed me with his innate ability to communicate a wide variety of characters imaginatively and creatively. He was awarded full marks for his GCSE performance to a live audience and the visiting examiner was moved to tears by his honest portrayal". He completed his AS Levels in PE, Biology, History and Drama in 2007, while he was working in Skins. He has been dating his Slumdog Millionaire co-star Freida Pinto since 2009.
  
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  Diane Kruger
  Diane Kruger (born 15 July 1976) is a German actress and former fashion model. She is known for roles such as Helen in Troy, Dr. Abigail Chase in National Treasure and its sequel, Bridget von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds, Anna in Mr. Nobody, and Gina in Unknown.
  She was born as Diane Heidkrüger in Algermissen, Germany, near Hildesheim, the daughter of a computer specialist Hans-Heinrich Heidkrüger, and his wife, Maria-Theresa, a bank employee. She was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic school.
  She was raised in Germany with her younger brother, Stefan. Her mother sent her to student exchange programs when she was a teenager to improve her English. As a child, Kruger wanted to become a ballerina and successfully auditioned for the Royal Ballet School in London. However, after an injury ended her ballet career prematurely, Kruger moved to Paris and turned her energy toward modeling and learning French.
  Kruger soon became interested in acting and took lessons at the Cours Florent. She landed some small appearances in several French films. She made her onscreen debut in 2002, opposite Dennis Hopper and Christopher Lambert in The Piano Player, a TV-movie by Jean-Pierre Roux. Her first major role was the same year when she starred in her then husband's directorial debut Mon Idole.
  
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  Dominic Monaghan
  Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan ( /ˈdɒmɨnɨk ˈmɒnəhæn/; born 8 December 1976) is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Meriadoc Brandybuck in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost.
  Monaghan was born in Berlin, Germany, to British parents: Maureen, a nurse, and Austin Monaghan, a science teacher. Monaghan's family lived in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and Münster, moving about every four years. When he was about 11 years old, his family moved from Germany to Heaton Moor in Stockport, Greater Manchester. Monaghan's first language is English, but he also speaks some German and is well known for his ability to impersonate others and replicate accents^{[citation needed]}. Bernard is his maternal grandfather's name, and Patrick his paternal grandfather's name. He chose Luke as his confirmation name after Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, his favourite film, which was also one of his inspirations for becoming an actor. He attended St Anne's Roman Catholic High School (where his uncle taught and later became head teacher) and Aquinas College, where he studied English literature, drama and geography.
  
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  Dominic West
  Dominic Gerard Fe West (born 15 October 1969) is an English actor best known for his role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series The Wire.
  West made his debut in 1991 in a short called 3 Joes.^{[citation needed]} His other screen appearances include True Blue, Chicago and Mona Lisa Smile. His most notable television role has been Baltimore police detective Jimmy McNulty on the HBO television police drama The Wire. West was praised for the accuracy of his character's accent.
  During his stint on The Wire, West directed the season 5 episode, "Took".
  In film, he portrayed the heavy metal guitarist Kirk Cuddy in the 2001 film Rock Star. In 2006 West made a guest appearance as an actor in a sketch in The Catherine Tate Show, alongside "Frankie Howerd impressionist". In 2007, he played the Spartan politician Theron in 300. West also starred in the 1999 film version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as Lysander.
  West appeared in the role of Oliver Cromwell in the Channel 4 series The Devil's Whore. West played the villain, Jigsaw, in the 2008 film Punisher: War Zone. He also features in "Dr. West", the opening track on Eminem's 2009 album Relapse, as a doctor discharging Eminem from a rehab facility. West played the part over the phone in January 2009 while Eminem was recording it in a Miami studio.
  
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  Don Cheadle
  Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. (pronounced /ˈtʃiːdəl/; born November 29, 1964) is an American film actor and producer. Cheadle rose to prominence in the late 1990s and the early 2000s for his supporting roles in the Steven Soderbergh-directed films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven. In 2004, his lead role as Rwandan hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the genocide drama film Hotel Rwanda earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also campaigns for the end of genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and co-authored a book concerning the issue titled Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond. In 2010, Cheadle was named U.N. Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador. He currently stars on the Showtime sitcom House of Lies.
  Cheadle was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bettye (née North), a teacher, and Donald Frank Cheadle, Sr., a clinical psychologist. He has a sister, Dawn, and a brother, Colin. His family moved from city to city throughout his childhood. Cheadle graduated in 1982 from East High School in Denver, Colorado, and went on to the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a BFA in Acting.
  
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  Don Johnson
  Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson (born December 15, 1949) is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges. More recently, Johnson played Kenny Powers' father on the HBO series, Eastbound and Down. Johnson is a Golden Globe winning actor for his role in Miami Vice, a winner of the APBA Offshore World Cup, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is also a singer, songwriter, producer, and director.
  Johnson was born in Flat Creek, Missouri. His father, Wayne, was a farmer, and his mother, Nell, was a beautician; they were 19 and 17 at the time of his birth, respectively. At age six, he moved from Missouri to Wichita, Kansas. A 1967 graduate of South High School, he was involved in the high school's theatre program. As a senior, he played the lead role of Tony in West Side Story. His biography noted that he had previously appeared in "Burnt Cork and Melody" and "The Hullabaloo." He also attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.
  
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  Drew Barrymore
  Drew Blyth Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered States in 1980. Afterwards, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She quickly became one of Hollywood's most recognized child actresses, going on to establish herself in mainly comic roles.
  Following a turbulent childhood which was marked by drug and alcohol abuse and two stints in rehab, Barrymore wrote the 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. She successfully made the transition from child star to adult actress with a number of films including Poison Ivy, Bad Girls, Boys on the Side, and Everyone Says I Love You. Subsequently, she established herself in romantic comedies such as The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates.
  In 1995, she and business partner Nancy Juvonen formed the production company Flower Films, with its first production the 1999 Barrymore film Never Been Kissed. Flower Films has gone on to produce the Barrymore vehicle films Charlie's Angels, 50 First Dates, and Music and Lyrics, as well as the cult film Donnie Darko. Barrymore's more recent projects include He's Just Not That into You, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Everybody's Fine and Going the Distance. A recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Barrymore appeared on the cover of the 2007 People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful issue.
  
  wn.com/Drew_Barrymore
• Eileen Atkins
  Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE (born 16 June 1934) is an English actress and occasional screenwriter. Born in 1934 she has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. She has been nominated for and received many professional awards and was created a CBE in 1990 and later a DBE in 2001.
  Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London. Her mother, Annie Ellen (née Elkins), was a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and her father, Arthur Thomas Atkins, was a gas meter reader who was previously under-chauffeur to the Portuguese Ambassador. She was the third child in the family and when she was born the family moved to a council home in Tottenham. Her father did not, in fact, know how to drive and was responsible, as under-chauffeur, mainly for cleaning the car. At the time Eileen was born, her mother worked in a factory the whole day and then as a barmaid in the Elephant & Castle at night. When Eileen was three, a Gypsy woman came to their door selling lucky heather and clothes pegs. She saw little Eileen and told her mother that her daughter would be a famous dancer. Her mother promptly enrolled her in a dance class. Although she hated it, she studied dancing from age 3 to 15 or 16. From age 7 to 15, which covered the last four years of the Second World War (1941–45), she danced in working men's club circuits for 15 shillings a pop as "Baby Eileen". During the war, she performed as well at London's Stage Door canteen for American troops and sang songs like "Yankee Doodle." At one time she was attending dance class four or five times a week.
  
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  Eli Roth
  Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award (Best Ensemble) and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award (Best Acting Ensemble). He is part of a group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack, because of their dedication to the genre and their relentless horror films.
  Roth was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Dr. Sheldon Roth, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, and Cora Roth, a painter. His grandparents emigrated from Austria, Russia, and Poland; Roth was raised Jewish.
  Roth began shooting films at the age of eight after watching Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). He made over 50 short films with his brothers Adam and Gabe before graduating at Newton South High School and attending film school (the Tisch School of the Arts) at New York University, from which he graduated in 1994. By the age of 20, and while still a student at NYU, Roth ran the office of producer Frederick Zollo, eventually leaving to devote himself to writing full-time.
  
  wn.com/Eli_Roth
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  Elijah Wood
  Elijah Jordan Wood ( /ɪˈlaɪdʒə ˈdʒɔrdən ˈwʊd/; born January 28, 1981) is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II (1989), then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9, being nominated for several Young Artist Awards. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy and its upcoming prequels The Hobbit films. Since then, he has resisted typecasting by choosing varied roles in critically acclaimed films such as Bobby, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sin City, Green Street and Everything Is Illuminated.
  Wood starred in the film Day Zero (2007) and provided the voice of the main character in the award-winning animated musical films Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two. Wood also voiced the lead as 9 in the Tim Burton-produced action/science fiction film 9. He played an American tourist turned vampire in Paris, je t'aime. In 2005, he started his own record label, Simian Records. He currently appears as Ryan in FX's dark comedy Wilfred, which debuted on June 23, 2011.
  
  wn.com/Elijah_Wood
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  Emily Mortimer
  Emily Kathleen A. Mortimer (born 1 December 1971) is an English actress. She began performing on stage, and has since appeared in several film and television roles, including 30 Rock, Scream 3, Match Point, Lars and the Real Girl, Hugo, Cars 2, and Shutter Island.
  Mortimer was born in Finsbury Park, London, England, a daughter of Sir John Mortimer, QC (a lawyer and writer who created Rumpole of the Bailey) and his second wife, Penelope (née Gollop). She has a younger sister, Rosie; two older half-siblings, Sally Silverman and Jeremy, by her father's first marriage, to author Penelope Fletcher; and a half-brother, Ross Bentley, by her father's liaison with actress Wendy Craig. Her maternal grandfather was a pig farmer.
  Mortimer studied at St Paul's Girls' School in west London (she was in the year below actress Rachel Weisz), where she appeared in several student productions. She then went on to Oxford University, where she read Russian at Lincoln College and performed in several plays. Before becoming an actress, Mortimer wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph, and was also screenwriter for a screen adaptation of Lorna Sage's memoir, Bad Blood.
  
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  Emily Watson
  Emily Watson (born 14 January 1967) is an English actress who gave an acclaimed debut film performance in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves. She has won a number of awards for acting throughout her career, which has encompassed theatre, motion picture and television; most recently a BAFTA award for her role in ITV's Appropriate Adult.
  Watson was born in Islington, London, England. Her father was an architect and her mother was an English teacher at St David's Girls' School, West London. She was brought up as an Anglican. Watson describes her childhood self as a "Nice middle class English girl ... I'd love to say I was a rebellious teenager but I wasn't".
  Watson was educated at St James Independent Schools, in west London, which she has described as a 'progressive' school. She attended the University of Bristol, where she obtained a B.A. (1988, English).^{[citation needed]} Following university, she trained at Drama Studio London,^{[citation needed]} and later received a M.A. (2003, honorary) from Bristol University.^{[citation needed]}
  
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  Frances McDormand
  Frances Louise McDormand (born June 23, 1957) is an American film and stage actress. She has starred in a number of films, including her Academy Award-winning performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo, in 1996. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2011 for her performance in Good People as Margie Walsh, having been nominated for the same category in 1988 for the revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.
  McDormand is a three-time nominee of the Academy Award For Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Mississippi Burning, Almost Famous, and North Country, and has also been nominated for four Golden Globes, three BAFTA Awards, and an Emmy Award. She also starred in the Coen Brothers debut, Blood Simple.
  McDormand was born in Chicago and was adopted by the McDormands, a Canadian couple – Noreen, a registered nurse and receptionist, and Vernon, a Disciples of Christ pastor. She has said that her biological mother may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's church. She has a sister, Dorothy A. McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and chaplain, as well as another sibling, both of whom were adopted by the McDormands, who had no biological children. As her father specialized in restoring congregations, he frequently moved their family, and they lived in several small towns in Illinois, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, before settling in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area town of Monessen, where she graduated from high school in 1976. She attended Bethany College, West Virginia, and earned a B.A. in Theater in 1979.
  
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  Francis Ford Coppola
  Francis Ford Coppola ( /ˈkoʊpələ/ KOH-pə-lə; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors. He epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, that includes Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, Philip Kaufman, and George Lucas who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary film-making.
  He co-wrote the script for Patton (1970), which won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay). His directorial fame escalated with the release of The Godfather (1972), a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from critics and public alike. It won three Academy Awards, including his second, for Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), and was instrumental in cementing his position as a prominent American film director.
  Coppola followed it with a critically successful sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974), which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film was highly praised and won him three Academy Awards—for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. The Conversation, which Coppola directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. He next directed Apocalypse Now (1979); notorious for its overlong and strenuous production, but critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. To this day, Coppola is one of only seven filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards, and is the only filmmaker to win both in the same decade.
  
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  Freida Pinto
  Freida Selena Pinto (born 18 October 1984) is an Indian actress and model best known for her portrayal of Latika in the 2008 Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. After the success of the film she went on to star in the films such as You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Miral—in which she played the title character—and the box-office hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
  Pinto was born into a Mangalorean Catholic family in Mumbai, which she still refers to as Bombay out of habit. Her surname is of Portuguese origin as the result of her ancestors' conversion to Catholicism by missionaries. Her mother, Sylvia, is the principal of St. John's Universal High School (Goregaon), and her father, Frederick, is a senior branch manager at the Bank of Baroda. She has an elder sister, Sharon, who is an associate producer for the NDTV news channel. Pinto dreamed of becoming an actress since she was five years old. When Freida was ten, Sushmita Sen won Miss Universe 1994, which turned out to be a defining point in Freida's life. She studied at Carmel of St. Joseph School in Malad, Mumbai and completed a degree in arts with a major in English Literature, and minors in Psychology and Economics, from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. She had also acted in plays and amateur theatre while attending St. Xavier's. She later joined Elite Model Management and modelled for two and a half years.
  
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  Garret Dillahunt
  Garret Dillahunt (born November 24, 1964) is an American actor. He is married to actress Michelle Hurd. He currently plays the role of Burt Chance on the Fox sitcom Raising Hope.
  Garret L. Dillahunt was born in Castro Valley, California and grew up in Selah, Washington. One of three siblings, he has a brother, Brett. His other brother, Eric, is deceased. He graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in journalism and went on to receive his M.F.A. in acting from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts.
  After spending years on and off Broadway, Dillahunt began pursuing television and film roles. He appeared as a regular in several short lived series on ABC and Showtime, and landed guest spots on TV shows such as The X Files and NYPD Blue among others, before playing two distinctly different characters on the HBO series Deadwood: Jack McCall in 2004 and Francis Wolcott in 2005. He later had a recurring role on USA Network's The 4400.
  Dillahunt portrayed Steve Curtis for three seasons on ER (2005–06). Later roles included Dr. Michael Smith on HBO's John From Cincinnati; Cromartie and John Henry on FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; Roman Nevikov, a Russian gangster, on NBC's Life; and Mason Turner, a paralyzed serial killer on Criminal Minds. He played Simon Escher in the Burn Notice third season finale airing March 4, 2010 on the USA, later reprising the role in the show's fourth season.
  
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  Geoffrey Rush
  Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the foundation President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. He is the 2012 Australian of the Year.
  Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, to Merle (née Kiehne), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His parents divorced when he was five and his mother subsequently took him to live with her parents in suburban Brisbane. Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School. He also has an arts degree from the University of Queensland. While at university, he was talent-spotted by Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) in Brisbane. Rush began his career with QTC in 1971, appearing in 17 productions.
  
  wn.com/Geoffrey_Rush
• Geraldine Somerville
  Geraldine Margaret Agnew-Somerville (born 19 May 1967) is an Irish actress best known for her roles as Detective Sergeant Jane "Panhandle" Penhaligon in Cracker, and Lily Potter in the Harry Potter film series.
  Geraldine Agnew-Somerville was born in County Meath, Ireland, the daughter of Sir Quentin Charles Agnew-Somerville, 2nd Baronet, and Margaret April Irene, Lady Agnew-Somerville (née Drummond), an antiques dealer, but was brought up on the Isle of Man.
  Her mother is a daughter of John Drummond, 15th Baron Strange, and sister of the late Cherry Drummond, 16th Baroness Strange. She has an elder sister, Amelia Rachel (who owns and works in a restaurant with her husband in the Australian rainforest), and a younger brother, James Lockett Charles Agnew-Somerville, who worked in Hong Kong and writes poetry.
  Somerville attended dance classes from the age of six, and at eight was sent to the Arts Educational School, a boarding school in Tring, Hertfordshire. There she was taught ballet. She left at sixteen, but continued her studies in London.
  
  wn.com/Geraldine_Somerville
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  Greg Kinnear
  Gregory "Greg" Kinnear (born June 17, 1963) is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.
  Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of Suzanne, a homemaker, and Edward Kinnear, a career diplomat who worked for the US State Department. He has two brothers, James and Steven. When he was a child, the Kinnear family moved around frequently, from Beirut to Athens, part of a group sometimes referred to as the "Foreign Service Brats". While a student at the American Community Schools in Athens, Greg Kinnear first ventured into the role of talk show host with his radio show "School Daze With Greg Kinnear". Returning to the United States for a college education, he attended the University of Arizona, where he graduated in 1985 with a degree in broadcast journalism. At Arizona, Greg was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.
  Kinnear hosted a short-lived game show, College Mad House, which was spun off from the kids' show, Fun House. Later he would become the creator, co-executive producer, and host of Best of the Worst which aired from 1990 to 1991. In 1991, Kinnear became the first host of Talk Soup, which he did until 1995, when he left the show for the NBC late-night talk show, Later with Greg Kinnear (1994).
  
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  Guy Pearce
  Guy Edward Pearce (born 5 October 1967) is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A. Confidential, Adam Whitely aka Felicia Jollygoodfellow (a drag queen) in the The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Mike Young in the Australian television series Neighbours and King Edward VIII ("David") in The King's Speech. Pearce has won an Emmy Award, and received nominations for Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Saturn Awards.
  Pearce was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire. His mother, Anne Cocking (née Pickering), was a County Durham-born schoolteacher specialising in needlework and home economics, and his father, Stuart Pearce, was a New Zealand-born air force test pilot who died when Pearce was nine. When he was three years old, Pearce moved to Geelong, Australia, where his mother ran a deer farm. He attended the Geelong College, a local private school, and was a member of the GSODA Junior Players. From the age of 15 to 22, he was a competitive amateur bodybuilder, leading to the title of Junior Mr. Victoria. He also partook in fencing. He lived in Box Hill North, Victoria in the late 1980s while working on the Australian drama series Neighbours.
  
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  Harrison Ford
  Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. His career has spanned six decades and includes roles in several Hollywood blockbusters, including Presumed Innocent, The Fugitive, Air Force One, and What Lies Beneath. At one point, four of the top six box-office hits of all time included one of his roles. Five of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry.
  In 1997, Ford was ranked No. 1 in Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. As of July 2008^[update], the United States domestic box office grosses of Ford's films total over US$3.5 billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $6 billion, making Ford the third highest grossing U.S. domestic box-office star. Ford is the husband of actress Calista Flockhart.
  
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  Helen Mirren
  Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; 26 July 1945) is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.
  Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Chiswick, West London. Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913–1980), was of Russian origin, and her mother, Kitty (née Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda Rogers; 1909–1996), was English. Mirren's paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Tsarist Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating an arms deal in Britain, when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution. The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family.
  His son, Helen Mirren's father, changed the family name to the Scottish-sounding Mirren in the 1950s and became known as Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, and later drove a cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".
  
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  Helena Bonham Carter
  Helena Bonham Carter, CBE (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane. She is known for her roles in films such as A Room with a View, Fight Club, and playing the villainess Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series, as well as for frequently collaborating with director and domestic partner Tim Burton in films such as Planet of the Apes, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland, and Dark Shadows.
  A two-time Academy Award nominee for her performances in The Wings of the Dove and The King's Speech, Bonham Carter's acting has been further recognised with six Golden Globe nominations, an International Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to drama, and received the award from the Queen at Buckingham Palace on 22 February 2012.
  
  wn.com/Helena_Bonham_Carter
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  Hugo Weaving
  Hugo Wallace Weaving (born 4 April 1960) is an English-Australian film and stage actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Tick in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, "V" in V for Vendetta, and performances in numerous Australian character dramas.
  Weaving was born at the University Teaching Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, two English parents Anne (née Lennard), a tour guide and former teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. His maternal grandmother was Belgian. A year after his birth, his family returned to England, living in Bedford and Brighton before moving to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, Johannesburg in South Africa, and then returning to England again. While in England, he attended the independent boarding school Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. His family moved back to Australia in 1976, where he attended another private school, Sydney's Knox Grammar School. He later graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981.
  
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  Ian Holm
  Sir Ian Holm, CBE (born 12 September 1931) is an English actor known for his stage work and many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear. He was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire. Other well-known film roles include the android Ash in Alien, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element, and the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the first and third films of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
  
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  Ian McKellen
  Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He has won multiple Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He is known for film roles such as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Magneto in the X-Men films, and as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code.
  McKellen was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and was made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality, in the 2008 New Year Honours.
  McKellen was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England, though he spent most of his early life in Wigan. Born shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the experience had some lasting impact on him. In response to an interview question when an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, he said: "Well, darling, you forget — I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old."
  
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  Irrfan Khan
  Sahabzade Irrfan Ali Khan, previously known as Irrfan Khan and now just Irrfan (Hindi: इरफ़ान ख़ान; born on 7th January 1967 ), is an Indian actor in film, television and theatre. He received recognition for his roles in The Warrior (2001), Maqbool (2003), Haasil (2004), The Namesake (2006), A Mighty Heart (2007), Life in a... Metro (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Billu (2009), New York (2009), New York, I Love You (2009), Paan Singh Tomar (film) (2012), and Vodafone commercials.
  He has won two Filmfare Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. He is also the recipient of 2011 Padma Shri award, the fourth highest civilian award in India. He has also been cast in The Amazing Spider-Man as Dr. Ratha. He has appeared in more than 30 films in the Bollywood.
  Khan was born in Jaipur to a Muslim family. Khan's mother, Sayeeda Begum, was from the Tonk Hakim family, and his father, the late Jagirdar, was from the Khajuriya village near the Tonk district, and ran a tyre business. Khan was studying for his M.A. degree when he earned a scholarship to study at National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984.
  
  wn.com/Irrfan_Khan
• Jacky Ido
  Jacky Ido (born May 14, 1977 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso) is a Burkina Faso-born French film actor. His first role was as Lemalian in the 2005 German film, The White Masai. He is best known to English-language audiences for his role as Marcel, the film projectionist in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds. Ido's brother Cedric Ido who is also an actor has directed him in the short Hasaki Ya Suda. Jacky Ido works and resides in Paris, France and is working on a slam potry album.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Jacky_Ido
• James Wilby
  James Jonathon Wilby (born 20 February 1958) is an English film, television and theatre actor.
  He was born in Rangoon, Burma to a corporate executive father. He was educated at Sedbergh School in Cumbria, and from there went on to study for a degree in Mathematics at Grey College, University of Durham, and then at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
  Wilby's first appearance on screen was in the Oxford Film Company 1982 production Privileged alongside Hugh Grant. He is known to an international audience for roles in Maurice (1987), for which he received Venice Film Festival's Best Actor award with co-star Hugh Grant. Along with Grant, Wilby has always been best known for his regular inclusion in the Merchant/Ivory film 'family' which also boasts Rupert Graves, Helena Bonham-Carter, Emma Thompson, and Anthony Hopkins among its regulars. He then starred in A Handful of Dust (1988), for which he won the Bari Film Festival Best Actor award. Then came A Tale of Two Cities (1989), Howards End (1992), the critically acclaimed Regeneration (1997 film), Ismail Merchant's Cotton Mary (1999), Gosford Park (2001) and Alain Robbe-Grillet's C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle (2006) co-starring Arielle Dombasle which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
  
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  Jamie Lee Curtis
  Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958) is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night, and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many genres, and has won BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. Her 1998 book, Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, made the best-seller list in The New York Times. Curtis has appeared in advertisements, and is a blogger for The Huffington Post online newspaper. She is married to actor, screenwriter, and director Christopher Guest.
  Curtis was born in Santa Monica, California, to actor Tony Curtis and actress Janet Leigh. Her paternal grandparents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants and two of her maternal great-grandparents were Danish. Curtis's parents divorced in 1962, after which her mother married Robert Brandt. Curtis has an older sister, Kelly Curtis, who is also an actress, and several half-siblings (all from her father's remarriages), Alexandra, Allegra, Ben, and Nicholas Curtis (who died in 1994 of a drug overdose). Curtis attended Westlake School in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills High School, and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall. Returning to California in 1976, she attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She considered majoring in social work, but quit after one semester to pursue an acting career.
  
  wn.com/Jamie_Lee_Curtis
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  Javier Bardem
  Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (Spanish pronunciation: [xaˈβjer βarˈðen]; born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. In 2007 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as sociopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los Lunes al sol and Mar adentro.
  As well as the Academy Award, Bardem has been awarded a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, five Goya awards, two European Film Awards, a Prize for Best Actor at Cannes and two Coppa Volpis at Venice for his work. He is the first Spaniard to be nominated for an Oscar (Best Actor, 2000, for Before Night Falls, lost to Russell Crowe for Gladiator), as well as the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award. He received his third Academy Award nomination, and second Best Actor nomination, for the film Biutiful.
  Bardem was born in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands (Spain). His mother, Pilar Bardem, is an actress, and his father, José Carlos Encinas Doussinague, was a businessman who was involved in environmental work; the two separated shortly after his birth. His mother raised him alone. Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers and actors who have been working since the earliest days of Spanish cinema; he is the grandson of actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and the nephew of screenwriter and director Juan Antonio Bardem. Both his older brother and sister, Carlos and Mónica, are actors. Bardem was raised Roman Catholic by his grandmother. He also comes from a very political background, his uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by Franco for his anti-fascist films.
  
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  Jennifer Connelly
  Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America. Connelly continued modeling and acting, starring in films such as the 1986 Labyrinth and the 1991 Career Opportunities. She gained critical acclaim for her work in the 1998 science fiction film Dark City and for her portrayal of Marion Silver in the 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream.
  In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for her supporting role as Alicia Nash in Ron Howard's 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind. Her later credits include the 2003 Marvel superhero film Hulk, the 2005 thriller Dark Water, the 2006 drama Blood Diamond, the 2008 science fiction remake The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You and the 2009 biographical drama Creation.
  Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga fashion advertisements, as well as for Revlon cosmetics. In 2012 she was named the first global face of the Shiseido Company. Magazines including Time, Vanity Fair and Esquire, as well as the Los Angeles Times newspaper have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
  
  wn.com/Jennifer_Connelly
• Jennifer Ehle
  Jennifer Ehle ( /ˈiːliː/; born December 29, 1969) is an American actress of stage and screen. She is known for her BAFTA winning role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 mini-series Pride and Prejudice.
  Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle, Ehle made her stage debut as a toddler in a 1973 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, in which her mother played Blanche Dubois.^{[citation needed]} She spent her childhood between the UK and US, attending 18 different schools including the Interlochen Arts Academy. She was raised largely in Asheville, North Carolina, which was close by her hometown. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.^{[citation needed]}
  In 1992, Peter Hall cast her as Calypso in a television adaptation of Mary Wesley's novel The Camomile Lawn, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages. This story, produced by UK's Channel 4, was a five part miniseries about the lives and loves of a family of cousins from 1939 to the present. The two would later reprise this different age portrayal of a character as Valerie in István Szabó's 1999 movie Sunshine.
  
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  Jennifer Esposito
  Jennifer Esposito (born April 11, 1973) is an American actress, dancer and model, known for her appearances in films such as I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Summer of Sam and Crash, and in television series such as Spin City, The Looney Tunes Show, Samantha Who? and Blue Bloods.
  Esposito, an Italian-American, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Phyllis, an interior decorator, and Robert Esposito, a computer consultant and music producer. She has one older sister. Esposito grew up and attended St. Teresa School in Staten Island, and graduated from Moore Catholic High School in Staten Island.^{[citation needed]}. In 1989, she won the title of homecoming queen at Msgr. Farrell High School.
  Esposito made her first television appearance in Law & Order in 1996, but she is best known as Stacey in the prime time hit Spin City. She also appeared in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer playing Nancy, who is killed when a spear impales her chest. One of her more notable roles was as Ruby in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam in 1999, which was set against the late-1970s backdrop of the Son of Sam murders. She originally had the Mira Sorvino role in Summer of Sam, but had to take a different role due to scheduling conflicts. Esposito's next film was Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000.
  
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  Jennifer Hudson
  Jennifer Kate Hudson (born September 12, 1981) is an American recording artist, actress and spokesperson. She came to prominence in 2004 as one of the finalists on the third season of American Idol, coming in seventh place. She made her film debut in the 2006 film Dreamgirls, which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, an NAACP Image Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
  She won a Grammy Award for her eponymous debut album, Jennifer Hudson, which was released in 2008 on Arista Records and was certified gold by the RIAA for selling over 800,000 copies in the US; sales exceeded 1 million copies worldwide. Additionally, it spawned the hit single Spotlight. Her second album, I Remember Me, was released in March 2011, and reached number two on the Billboard 200, selling 165,000 copies in its first week of release. The album was certified gold by the RIAA, for shipping over 500,000 copies in the US.
  In late 2008, after Hudson's mother, brother and nephew were killed in a shooting, Hudson stepped out of the limelight for three months. Hudson resumed her public appearances in 2009, and has since performed at the Super Bowl XLIII, the Grammy Awards, American Idol, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Hudson has been described as a friend of President Barack Obama, who invited her to appear with him at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills in May 2009. She also performed at the White House at the "Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement" event. Her vocal range is mezzo-soprano. Hudson has sold 1,280,000 albums and 2,237,000 tracks in the United States as of February 2012.
  
  wn.com/Jennifer_Hudson
• Jeremy Northam
  Jeremy Philip Northam (born 1 December 1961) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Ivor Novello in the 2001 film Gosford Park, as Dean Martin in the 2002 television movie Martin and Lewis, and as Thomas More on the Showtime series The Tudors. Most recently, he starred in the now-canceled CBS drama Miami Medical.
  Northam was born in Cambridge, as the youngest of four siblings. His mother, Rachel (née Howard), was a potter and professor of economics, and his father, John Northam, was a professor of literature and theatre, as well as being an Ibsen specialist and teacher (first at Clare College, Cambridge and later at Bristol). Northam was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Bedford College, University of London, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He married Canadian film/television make-up artist Liz Moro in April 2005, though they later divorced.
  Northam performed at the Royal National Theatre – he replaced Daniel Day-Lewis in the role of Hamlet (1989), and won the Olivier Award in 1990 for "most promising newcomer" for his performance in The Voysey Inheritance.
  
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  Jim Carrey
  James Eugene "Jim" Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer. Carrey has received four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning two. Known for his highly energetic, slapstick performances, he has been described as one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood.
  Carrey first gained recognition in 1990 after landing a recurring role in the sketch comedy In Living Color. His first leading roles in major productions came with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994), The Mask (1994), and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). In 1997, he gave a critically acclaimed performance in Liar Liar, which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. He then starred in the critically acclaimed hits The Truman Show (1998) and Man on the Moon (1999), both garnering him two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor.
  In 2000, he gained further recognition for his portrayal of the The Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Three years later, Carrey starred in the major blockbuster film Bruce Almighty (2003). The following year he starred in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he received another Golden Globe nomination in addition to a BAFTA Award nomination. He then starred in popular productions Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), Yes Man (2008), A Christmas Carol (2009), and Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011).
  
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• Joan Allen
  Joan Allen (born August 20, 1956) is an American actress. She worked in theater, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.
  She has received three Academy Award nominations; she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Nixon (1995) and The Crucible (1996), and for Best Actress for The Contender (2000).
  Her other films include Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid (also known as Zeisters) (1986), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), In Country (1989), The Ice Storm (1996), Face/Off (1997), Pleasantville (1998), The Notebook (2004), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), and Death Race (2008).
  Allen, the youngest of four children, was born in Rochelle, Illinois, the daughter of Dorothea Marie (née Wirth), a homemaker, and James Jefferson Allen, a gas station owner. She has an older brother, David, and two older sisters, Mary and Lynn. Allen attended Rochelle Township High School, and was voted most likely to succeed.^{[citation needed]} She first attended Eastern Illinois University, performing in a few plays with John Malkovich, who was also a student, and then Northern Illinois University, where she graduated with a BFA in Theater.
  
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  Joan Cusack
  Joan Mary Cusack (born October 11, 1962) is an American film, stage and television actress.
  Cusack has appeared in films, television and stage productions, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in the movies Working Girl and In & Out, as well as one Golden Globe and one Emmy Award nomination. One of her most notable television roles is as a cast member of the sketch comedy TV show Saturday Night Live in 1985–86.
  Cusack currently recurs on the Showtime hit drama/comedy Shameless, as Sheila Jackson.
  Cusack was the second of five children born in New York City to an Irish American Catholic family. She was raised in Evanston, Illinois. Her mother, Ann Paula "Nancy" (née Carolan), is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. Her late father, Richard Cusack, as well as her siblings Ann, Bill, John, and Susie, have also been actors.
  Cusack is an alumna of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
  Cusack has twice been nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her work in Working Girl and In & Out. She appeared with her brother John in the movies Sixteen Candles, Grandview, U.S.A., Class, High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank, Say Anything..., Cradle Will Rock, Martian Child, and most recently, War, Inc. She also starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom What About Joan? in 2001–02. For many years, Cusack was also the commercial spokeswoman for U.S. Cellular.
  
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  Jodie Foster
  Jodie Foster (born Alicia Christian Foster; November 19, 1962) is an American actress, film director, and producer.
  Foster began acting in commercials at three years of age, and her first significant role came at age 13 in the 1976 film Taxi Driver as the preteen prostitute Iris, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also that year, she starred in the cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989, for playing a rape victim in The Accused. In 1991, she starred in The Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling, a gifted FBI trainee, assisting in a hunt for a serial killer. This performance received international acclaim and her second Academy Award for Best Actress. She received her fourth Academy Award nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994). Other popular films include Bugsy Malone (1976); Freaky Friday (1976); Candleshoe (1977) Maverick (1994); Contact (1997); Panic Room (2002); Flightplan (2005); Inside Man (2006); The Brave One (2007); Nim's Island (2008) and Carnage (2011), for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.
  
  wn.com/Jodie_Foster
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  John Noble
  John Noble (born 20 August 1948) is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.
  He made occasional appearances on the television series All Saints. He is internationally known for his performance as Denethor in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He played Russian Consul Anatoly Markov in the sixth season of the American television series 24. In 2011 he appeared as Real Estate tycoon Leland Monroe in Rockstar's video game L.A. Noire. He is also the voice of Unicron for the television show Transformers: Prime.
  John lives in the US with wife Penny Noble. They have three children: Daniel Noble, Jess Noble and Actress Samantha Noble. In 2011, John's hobbies were reported to be "music and painting".
  
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  Josh Brolin
  Josh James Brolin (pronounced /ˈbroʊlɨn/; born February 12, 1968) is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.
  Brolin was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Jane Cameron Agee, a wildlife activist who was a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, and actor James Brolin. Brolin was raised on a California ranch with little exposure to his father's acting career. His parents divorced when he was 16 and his stepmother is singer/actress Barbra Streisand. He became interested in acting after taking an improv acting class in high school.
  Brolin started his career in TV movies and guest spots on TV shows before getting a more notable role as Brand Walsh in the Richard Donner-directed movie The Goonies (1985). He was considered for the role of Tom Hanson in the series 21 Jump Street; he and Johnny Depp were the finalists for the role, and at that time the two became close and remained friends even after the role was ultimately awarded to Depp. Brolin guest-starred in an episode of the show in its first season.
  
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  Julie Dreyfus
  Julie Dreyfus (born January 24, 1966 in Paris) is a French actress.
  Dreyfus, who's fluent in Japanese and English, is well known in Japan, where she made her TV debut on a French-language lesson program on NHK's educational channel in the late 1980s, and has appeared on the TV show Ryōri no Tetsujin (Iron Chef) as a guest and judge.
  She is best known to Western audiences for her apparences in two of her good friend Quentin Tarantino's films: she played Sofie Fatale in Kill Bill Volume 1 and Francesca Mondino in Inglourious Basterds.
  Julie was born and raised in Paris, the only child of French actress Pascale Audret and producer Francis Dreyfus. She is of Romanian descent on her father's maternal lineage, and Alsatian Jewish on the paternal side. Her grandfather was a descendant of the famous Captain Alfred Dreyfus. She spent her summers in the U.K. She started learning Japanese in 1985 at the Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilization at the University of Paris, after studying interior design and becoming interested in Japanese architecture. She moved to Japan to study at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies for a six-month intensive Japanese course, thinking she would eventually land a job in interior design. After finishing the course, she moved to Tokyo working part time in a design studio while continuing her private Japanese lessons. In 1988, she worked as a French language instructor on the NHK morning television educational program. Centering on a mystery drama, chief producer Motoyoshi Sei hired Dreyfus to increase ratings by changing the program into an episode-format. Eventually, she was cast by Japanese network executives as the 20-something beauty in several TV and film roles, leading her to become a gaijin tarento (foreign talent). She was also a judge on the cult-hit cooking show Ryōri no Tetsujin (Iron Chef).
  
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  Karl Urban
  Karl-Heinz Urban (born 7 June, 1972) is a New Zealand actor.
  He is known for playing Éomer in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the 2009 film Star Trek and Caesar on Xena: Warrior Princess. He played Vaako in The Chronicles of Riddick, the Russian assassin Kirill in The Bourne Supremacy, and Ghost in Pathfinder and won acclaim for his performances in New Zealand films The Price of Milk and Out of the Blue.
  Urban was born in Wellington, New Zealand. His father, a German immigrant, owned a leather goods store, and his mother once worked for Film Facilities in Wellington, through which the young Urban was exposed to classic New Zealand cinema and developed an interest in the film industry. Urban attended St Mark's Church School, where he showed an early love for public performance. His first acting role came at age eight, when he had a single line in one episode of the New Zealand television series 'Pioneer Woman'. Though continuing to take part in school stage productions, he did not act professionally again until after high school.
  
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  Kate Winslet
  Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been nominated twice for an Emmy Award for television acting, winning once for her role as Mildred Pierce in the 2011 mini-series of the same name.
  Brought up in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received her first notable critical praise. She achieved recognition for her subsequent work in a supporting role in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and for her leading role in Titanic (1997), the highest grossing film at the time, and the highest grossing film of Winslet's career.
  Since 2000, Winslet's performances have continued to draw positive comments from film critics, and she has been nominated for various awards for her work in such films as Quills (2000), Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), The Reader (2008) and Revolutionary Road (2008). Her performance in the last of these prompted New York magazine critic David Edelstein to describe her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation". The romantic comedy The Holiday and the animated film Flushed Away (both 2006) are among the biggest commercial successes of her career.
  
  wn.com/Kate_Winslet
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  Kathy Bates
  Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates (born June 28, 1948) is an American actress and film director. After appearing in several minor roles in film and television during the 1970s and the 1980s, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery (1990), for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe. She followed this with major roles in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and Dolores Claiborne (1995), before playing a featured role as Margaret "Molly" Brown in Titanic (1997). During this time, she began her directing career, primarily in television.
  Bates received a Tony Award nomination for her 1983 performance in the Broadway play 'night, Mother. She won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in Primary Colors (1998), for which she also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for About Schmidt (2002). Her television work has resulted in nine Emmy Award nominations. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003, Bates has stated that she has made a full recovery.
  
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  Kelly Macdonald
  Kelly Macdonald (born (1976-02-23)23 February 1976) is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film Trainspotting and mainstream releases such as Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Intermission, No Country for Old Men and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. On television, she is known for her roles in Boardwalk Empire, The Girl in the Café and State of Play.
  Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Her mother was a garment industry sales executive.
  In August 2003, Macdonald married musician Dougie Payne. Their son was born in March 2008.
  Macdonald's career began while working as a barmaid. She saw a leaflet advertising an open casting session for Trainspotting and decided to audition, winning the part of Diane, the underage seductress to Ewan McGregor's Renton. Other roles include Mary O'Neary in Two Family House and an actress playing Peter Pan in Finding Neverland. She also had major roles in Robert Altman's British period piece Gosford Park, where she played an aristocrat's maid, as well as in Intermission (2003), as Deirdre.
  
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  Kenny Loggins
  Kenneth Clark "Kenny" Loggins (born January 7, 1948) is an American singer and songwriter. He is known for soft rock music beginning during the 1970s, and later for writing and performing for movie soundtracks in the 1980s. Originally a part of the duo Loggins and Messina, he became a solo artist and has written songs for other artists.
  Loggins (born in Everett, Washington) is the youngest of three brothers. His mother was Lina (Massie), a stay-at-home mom, and his father, Robert George Loggins, was a salesman. They lived in Detroit and Seattle before settling in Alhambra, California. Loggins attended San Gabriel Mission High School^{[citation needed]}, graduating in 1966. He formed a band called the Second Helping, that released three singles during 1968 and 1969 on Viva Records. Greg Shaw described the efforts as "excellent punky folk-pop records" that were written by Loggins who was likely to be the bandleader and singer as well; Shaw included "Let Me In" on both Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 2 and the Pebbles, Volume 9 CD. Loggins had a short gig playing guitar for the "The New Improved" Electric Prunes in 1969 before writing four songs for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which were included in their Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy album. During his early twenties, he was part of the band Gator Creek with Mike Deasy. An early version of "Danny's Song" (later recorded by Loggins and Messina) was included in a record on Mercury Records.
  
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  Kristin Scott Thomas
  Kristin A. Scott Thomas,OBE (born 24 May 1960) is an English actress who has also acquired French nationality. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient.
  Since the 1980s, she has also worked in French cinema in films such as the thriller Tell No One and Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long. She has lived in France since she was 19, has brought up her three children in Paris, and says she considers herself more French than British. She was made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2005.
  Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was brought up in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying Scott Thomas's father. Her father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, was a pilot for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm who died in a flying accident in 1964. She is the elder sister of actress Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (who was a Black Rod in the House of Lords), and a more distant great-great-niece of Captain Scott, the ill-fated explorer who lost the race to the South Pole.
  
  wn.com/Kristin_Scott_Thomas
• Larenz Tate
  Larenz Tate (born September 8, 1975) is an American film and television actor.
  Tate was born on the west side of Chicago, Illinois, the son of Peggy and Larry Tate. He is the youngest of three siblings (his two brothers, Larron and Lahmard, are also actors) whose family moved to California when he was nine years old. Convinced by their parents to enter a drama program at the Inner City Cultural Center, the trio did not take the lessons seriously until classmate Malcolm-Jamal Warner's ascent to fame after being cast on the sitcom The Cosby Show. Subsequently realizing that they could parlay their efforts into a tangible form of success, the siblings began to receive small roles and in 1985, Tate made his small-screen debut in an episode of The New Twilight Zone series.
  Following appearances in such television series as 21 Jump Street and The Wonder Years, Tate was cast in the television movie The Women of Brewster Place before receiving the recurring role of Steve Urkel's nemesis, Willie Fuffner, in the family comedy series Family Matters (1989). He was also a cast member on the CBS series The Royal Family, starring Redd Foxx and Della Reese, which ended prematurely after Redd Foxx died. In the video game 187 Ride or Die, Tate voices the main character, Buck.
  
  wn.com/Larenz_Tate
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  Linda Hamilton
  Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Sarah Connor in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast, for which she was nominated for two Golden Globes and an Emmy. Hamilton had a recurring role as Mary Elizabeth Bartowski on NBC's Chuck.
  Hamilton was born in Salisbury, Maryland. Her mother was a Mayflower descendant and her father, Carroll Stanford Hamilton, was a physician. Hamilton's father died when she was five, and her mother remarried to a police chief.^{[dead link][dead link]} Hamilton has an identical twin sister (Leslie Hamilton), one older sister and one younger brother. She has said that she was raised in a "very boring, white Anglo-Saxon" family, and "voraciously read books" during her spare time. Hamilton went to Wicomico Junior High (now Wicomico Middle School) and Wicomico High School in Salisbury, with her twin sister, Leslie. She studied for two years at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, before moving on to acting studies in New York City. While attending Washington College, her acting professor told her she had no hope of earning a living as an actress. In New York, she attended acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg.
  
  wn.com/Linda_Hamilton
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  Liv Tyler
  Liv Rundgren Tyler (born July 1, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994 film Silent Fall. She then appeared in supporting roles in Empire Records (1995), Heavy (1996) and That Thing You Do! (1996). Tyler later achieved critical recognition in the leading role in Stealing Beauty (1996). She followed this by starring in supporting roles including Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and Cookie's Fortune (1999).
  Tyler achieved international recognition as a result of her portrayal of Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. She has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy Jersey Girl, the indie film Lonesome Jim (2005), the drama Reign Over Me (2007) and big-budget studio films such as Armageddon (1998), The Strangers (2008) and The Incredible Hulk (2008).
  
  wn.com/Liv_Tyler
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  Lucy Liu
  Lucy Alexis Liu (Chinese: 劉玉玲; pinyin: Liú Yùlíng; born December 2, 1968) is an American actress, singer and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal (1998–2002), and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Payback, Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda. In 2012, Liu joined the cast of the TNT original series Southland.
  Liu was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. In high school, she adopted her middle name "Alexis". She is the youngest of three children born to Cecilia, who worked as a biochemist, and Tom Liu, who was a civil engineer. Both of Liu's parents were immigrants from Taiwan of Chinese descent. Her grandparents were born and raised in China. She has an older brother, John, and an older sister, Jenny. Liu has stated that she grew up in a "diverse" neighborhood. She learned to speak Mandarin Chinese at home and began studying English when she was five years old.
  
  wn.com/Lucy_Liu
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  Ludacris
  Christopher Brian Bridges (born September 11, 1977), better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings. Ludacris has won a Screen Actors Guild, Critic's Choice, MTV, and three Grammy Awards during his career. Along with fellow Atlantans Big Boi and Andre 3000 of OutKast, Ludacris was one of the first and most influential Dirty South artists to achieve mainstream success.
  Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludacris moved to Atlanta, Georgia at age nine, where he began rapping. After a brief stint as a disc jockey, he released his debut album Back for the First Time in 2000, which contained the singles "Southern Hospitality" and "What's Your Fantasy". In 2001, he released Word of Mouf, followed by Chicken-n-Beer in 2003. He took a more serious approach with his next three albums, The Red Light District (2004), Release Therapy (2006), and Theater of the Mind (2008). His latest record, Battle of the Sexes, was released in 2010.
  
  wn.com/Ludacris
• Madhur Mittal
  Madhur Mittal (Hindi: मधुर मित्तल; Urdu: مدھر دوستتل; born 1987) is an Indian actor, best known for his performance as Salim Malik in the film Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2008 and for which he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
  Madhur was born in Agra, a city in North India well known for the Taj Mahal in civil court compound near khandari. Today he lives in a flat at Mira Road. Madhur has attended Abhinav Degree College and as of February 2011 is 24 years old. Currently he is a theatre student at the University of Mumbai.
  In 1997, Madhur won Boogie Woogie a popular reality-based dance show on Indian television. Shortly after, his family moved to Mumbai where he joined Abhinav Vidya Mandir at Bhayander East for his schooling and Madhur forayed into acting and dancing on stage in charity shows, cultural events and film-award ceremonies. He traveled the world performing in over 950 stage shows. As a child actor he worked in well known Hindi films like One Two Ka Four, Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye, and more recently Say Salaam India. He has also acted in several TV shows including Shaka Laka Boom Boom, Kasauti Zindagi Ki, Jalwa, Chamatkar and Dastak.
  
  wn.com/Madhur_Mittal
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  Maggie Smith
  Dame Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English film, stage and television actress. She has had an extensive career both on screen and in live theatre, and is known as one of Britain's pre-eminent actors. She made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 60 years. She has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the Bafta Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards and a Tony Award. Dame Maggie is the only actor ever to win this collective of awards and is one of the most successful and acclaimed actors of the film era.
  Her critically acclaimed films include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). She has also appeared in a number of widely-popular films, including Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series. She currently stars in the critically acclaimed drama Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.
  
  wn.com/Maggie_Smith
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  Martin Wuttke
  Martin Wuttke (born February 8, 1962) is a German actor and director who reached international recognition for his portrayal of Adolf Hitler in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.
  Wuttke began his actor training at the college theater in Bochum and then changed to the Westphalian Drama School in Bochum (Bochum today drama school). He played in numerous German-speaking stages: Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, Berliner Ensemble, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Schiller Theater in Berlin, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Theater of West Berlin, the Thalia Theater of Hamburg, Stuttgart State Theater, Freie Volksbühne Berlin, Schauspielhaus Frankfurt am Main.
  Wuttke lives with actress Margarita Broich with two children.
  
  wn.com/Martin_Wuttke
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  Matt Damon
  Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting (1997) from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck. The pair won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for their work. Damon alone received multiple Best Actor nominations, including an Academy Award for his lead performance in the film.
  Damon has since starred in commercially successful films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), the Ocean's trilogy, and the Bourne series, while also gaining critical acclaim for his performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), and The Departed (2006). He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for portraying the title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Invictus (2009). He is one of the top 40 highest grossing actors of all time. In 2007, Damon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Damon has been actively involved in charitable work, including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, and Water.org.
  
  wn.com/Matt_Damon
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  Matt Dillon
  Matthew Raymond "Matt" Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor and film director. He began acting in the late 1970s, gaining fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s.
  Matthew Raymond Dillon was born in New Rochelle, New York, to second-generation Irish American parents Mary Ellen, a homemaker, and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a packing material manufacturer. He was raised in a close-knit Irish Roman Catholic family as the second of six children. Dillon's paternal grandmother was the sister of comic strip artist Alex Raymond. Dillon has one sister and four brothers, one of whom, Kevin Dillon, is also an actor, and appears on the hit TV series Entourage which has earned him several Emmy nominations in the supporting actor comedy category. Dillon grew up in Mamaroneck, New York, and before dropping out in junior year, he attended Mamaroneck High School.^{[citation needed]}
  In 1978, Jane Bernstein and a friend were helping director Jonathan Kaplan cast the violent teen drama Over the Edge when they found Dillon cutting class at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont. Dillon auditioned for a role and made his debut in the film. The film received a regional, limited theatrical release in May 1979, and grossed only slightly over $200,000. Dillon's performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two films released the following year; the teenage sex comedy Little Darlings, in which Kristy McNichol's character loses her virginity to a boy from the camp across the lake, played by Dillon, and the more serious teen dramedy My Bodyguard, where he played a high-school bully opposite Chris Makepeace. The films, released in March and July 1980, respectively, were box office successes and raised Dillon's profile among teenage audiences.
  
  wn.com/Matt_Dillon
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  Melissa Leo
  Melissa Chessington Leo (born September 14, 1960) is an American actress. After appearing on several television shows and films in the late '80s, her breakthrough role came in 1993 as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street for the show's first five seasons from 1993 – 1997. She was also previously been a regular on the television shows All My Children and The Young Riders. Her breakthrough film role was in the 2003 film, 21 Grams as Marianne Jordan.
  Following several films, Leo received critical acclaim and national attention in the 2008 film, Frozen River earning several nominations and awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Leo earned several awards for her role as Alice Ward in the critically acclaimed 2010 film, The Fighter. For this role Leo won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
  Leo currently appears on the HBO television series Treme as Antoinette "Toni" Bernette.
  Leo was born in Manhattan, New York City. She is the daughter of Peggy (née Chessington), a California-born teacher, and Arnold Leo, an editor at Grove Press, fisherman, and spokesman for the East Hampton Baymen's Association. Leo was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and spent summers at her father's house in Springs, a section of East Hampton, N.Y. She is a former resident of Putney, Vermont and now lives in Stone Ridge, New York. She has a son with actor and former boyfriend John Heard named John Matthew Heard (born 1987) and years later adopted Adam (born 1984).^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Melissa_Leo
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  Michael Fassbender
  Michael Fassbender (born 2 April 1977) is an Irish-German actor. He is perhaps best known for having played Lieutenant Archie Hicox in the war film Inglourious Basterds (2009), Magneto in the superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011), and the android David in the science fiction film Prometheus.
  His other credits include the fantasy action film 300 (2007); the drama film Fish Tank (2009); the romantic drama film Jane Eyre (2011); the historical film A Dangerous Method (2011), directed by David Cronenberg, in which he plays psychologist Carl Jung; as well as the biographical film Hunger (2008) and the drama film Shame (2011), both directed by Steve McQueen. For his role in Shame, he won the Volpi Cup best-actor award at the 68th Venice International Film Festival held in August 2011 along with being nominated for a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA.
  Fassbender was born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany (now Germany). His mother is from Larne, County Antrim in Northern Ireland, and his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. According to Fassbender's "family lore", his mother is the great-great-niece of Michael Collins, an Irish leader during the War of Independence. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Killarney, County Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland, where they ran the West End House, a restaurant where his father worked as a chef. Fassbender was brought up as a Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Fassbender
• Michael Gambon
  Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE (born 19 October 1940) is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlow in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as Professor Albus Dumbledore in the last six Harry Potter films (following the death of actor Richard Harris).
  Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, during World War II. His father, Edward Gambon, was an engineer, and his mother, Mary (née Hoare), was a seamstress. His father decided to seek work in the rebuilding of London, and so the family moved to Mornington Crescent in North London, when Gambon was five. His father had him made a British citizen, a decision that would later allow Gambon to receive an actual, rather than honorary, knighthood and CBE.
  Brought up as a strict Roman Catholic, he attended St Aloysius Boys' School in Somers Town and served at the altar. He then moved to St Aloysius' College in Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London, whose former pupils include Peter Sellers and Joe Cole. He later attended a school in Kent, before leaving with no qualifications at fifteen. He then gained an apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong as a toolmaker. By the time he was 21, he was a fully qualified engineer. He kept the job for a further year, acquiring a fascination and passion for collecting antique guns, clocks, watches, and classic cars.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Gambon
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  Michael Madsen
  Michael Søren Madsen (born September 25, 1957) is an American actor, poet, and photographer. He has appeared in more than 150 films, most of them small independent films, though he has starred in central roles in such films as Reservoir Dogs, Free Willy, Donnie Brasco, and Kill Bill, in addition to a supporting role in Sin City. Madsen is also credited with voice work in several video games, including Grand Theft Auto III, True Crime: Streets of L.A. and DRIV3R. In January 2012, Madsen was a housemate on Celebrity Big Brother (UK).
  Madsen was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Elaine (née Melson), an Emmy-winning poet, television producer, and playwright who often works for PBS, and Calvin Madsen, a firefighter. Madsen's mother left a career in corporate business to pursue a writing career. Madsen's paternal grandparents were Danish and his mother has Irish and distant Native American ancestry. His sister is actress Virginia Madsen, and he also has an older sister, Cheri.
  Madsen's acting career began at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where he served as an apprentice under actor John Malkovich.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Madsen
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  Mike Myers
  Michael John "Mike" Myers (born May 25, 1963) is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage. He was a long-time cast member on the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s and the early 1990s and starred as the title characters in the films Wayne's World, Austin Powers, and the Shrek film series.
  Myers was born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, the son of British-born parents Eric Myers (1922–1991), an insurance man and World War II veteran of the Royal Engineers, and his wife Alice E. (née Hind; born 1926), an office supervisor and veteran of the Royal Air Force. Both of his parents are from Liverpool, England. He has two older brothers, Peter Myers and Paul Myers, an indie rock singer-songwriter, broadcaster and author. Myers is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry, and was raised Protestant. He holds three citizenships, American, British, and Canadian.
  Myers began school at Bishopbriggs Academy then changed to the Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario. He began performing in commercials at age eight, and at ten he made a commercial for British Columbia Hydro Electric, with Gilda Radner playing his mother. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Second City Theatre. He left to tour Britain with comedian Neil Mullarkey.
  
  wn.com/Mike_Myers
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  Mira Sorvino
  Mira Katherine Sorvino (born September 28, 1967) is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite (1995) and is also known for her role as Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
  Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey. Her mother, Lorraine Ruth Davis, is a drama therapist for Alzheimer's disease patients and a former actress, and her father, Paul Sorvino, is a character actor and director. She has two siblings, Michael and Amanda. Sorvino is of Italian descent on her father's side.
  At a young age, Sorvino wrote and acted in backyard plays with her childhood friend Hope Davis, in theater productions at Dwight-Englewood School, and at Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude in East Asian Studies in 1989. She also helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's co-ed a cappella groups in 1985. Her solo piece was Yazoo's "Only You".^{[citation needed]}
  Sorvino spent the next three years in New York City, trying to make a name for herself as an actress.^{[citation needed]} When the 1993 film Amongst Friends entered pre-production, she was hired as third assistant director, then was promoted to casting director, then to assistant producer, and was finally offered a lead role. Positive reviews opened doors for her.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Mira_Sorvino
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  Miranda Otto
  Miranda Otto (born 16 December 1967) is an Australian actress. The daughter of actors Lindsay and Barry Otto and the sister of actress Gracie Otto, she began acting at age eighteen, and has performed in a variety of independent and major studio films.
  Her first major film appearance was in the 1986 film Emma's War, in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II. After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, she gained Hollywood's attention after appearing in supporting roles in The Thin Red Line (1998) and What Lies Beneath (2000). Her breakthrough role came in 2002, when she portrayed Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. More recent work includes a starring role in the 2008 now-cancelled American television series Cashmere Mafia, and Australian films such as In Her Skin and Blessed (2009).
  Otto was born in Brisbane to stage and film actor Barry Otto and former actress Lindsay Otto (who retired from acting upon Miranda Otto's birth). Gracie Otto, Miranda's half-sister, is also an actress. Otto was raised in Newcastle and Brisbane, and briefly resided in Hong Kong following her parents' separation in 1973. She spent weekends and holidays with her father in Sydney and developed an interest in acting through him.
  
  wn.com/Miranda_Otto
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  Mélanie Laurent
  Mélanie Laurent (born 21 February 1983) is a French actress, director, singer and writer. She is best known to international audiences for her role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which she won Best Actress from the Online Film Critics Society and the Austin Film Critics Association.
  Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, the daughter of Annick, a ballerina, and Pierre Laurent, a voiceover actor (who dubs the character Ned Flanders in the French version of The Simpsons). Laurent is Jewish, and has both Ashkenazi and Tunisian Sephardic ancestry. A grandfather survived deportation by the Nazis. Her maternal grandparents were film poster editors. She grew up in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and was immersed from birth in the arts.
  Her career began when Gérard Depardieu, seeing her while she watched her best friend's father working on the set of Asterix and Obelix, asked her if she wanted to be in movies. Laurent replied 'Why not?' and next week his assistant called her. Depardieu gave Laurent a part when she was 16 in The Bridge, a drama he starred in and co-directed with Fréderic Auburtin.
  
  wn.com/Mélanie_Laurent
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  Mýa
  Mýa Marie Harrison (born October 10, 1979), professionally referred to as Mýa, is an American R&B and pop recording artist, entertainer, philanthropist, and occasional actress. A Washington, D.C. native, as a young child, Harrison took ballet lessons from the age of two and added jazz and tap dancing lessons to her schedule two years later. As she entered her teens, Harrison began to shift her focus to music. Gifted and musically-inclined, with the help of her father she put together a demo tape when she was 15 and begin to scout around for a record deal while still attending high school. At the age of 16, she signed a recording contract with Interscope Records.
  Harrison's eponymous debut album with (through) Interscope Records was released in the spring of April 1998. It sold over one million copies in the United States, producing the gold-certified top ten single "It's All About Me" featuring Sisqó. Her second studio album, platinum-plus selling Fear of Flying was released in 2000 and became a worldwide success, with single "Case of the Ex" becoming Mýa's breakthrough hit; topping the Australian Singles Chart for two consecutive weeks.
  
  wn.com/Mýa
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  Naomi Watts
  Naomi Ellen Watts (born 28 September 1968) is a British actress who began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! (1990), Brides of Christ (1991), E Street (1991) and Home and Away (1991). Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone. Her following portrayals included roles in B-class movies, such as the 1996 horror film Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering, as well as roles in television and independent films.
  Watts gained critical acclaim following her work in David Lynch's 2001 psychological thriller Mulholland Drive, starring alongside Justin Theroux and Laura Harring. The next year, she received public recognition for her participation in the box office hit horror film The Ring. In 2004, she received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress as well as for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for her portrayal of Cristina Peck in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2003 drama 21 Grams, alongside Sean Penn. Other film roles include the 2005 remake of King Kong, the 2006 remake of The Painted Veil, the 2007 thriller Eastern Promises, and the 2009 thriller The International. In 2010, Watts portrayed Valerie Plame Wilson, opposite Sean Penn as Joe Wilson, in Fair Game.
  
  wn.com/Naomi_Watts
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  Natalie Portman
  Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג‎; born June 9, 1981), better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005). In 1999, she enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology while still working as an actress. She completed her bachelor's degree in 2003.
  In 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. In 2005, Portman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture for the drama Closer. She won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance, and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). In May 2008, she served as the youngest member of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival jury. Portman's directorial debut, Eve, opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival's shorts competition in 2008. Portman directed a segment of the collective film New York, I Love You.
  
  wn.com/Natalie_Portman
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  Neve Campbell
  Neve Adrianne Campbell ( /ˈnɛv ˈkæmbəl/; born October 3, 1973) is a Canadian actress. Described as 'TV's most believable teenager', she rose to international fame for her teenage roles in the 1990's as Julia Salinger in the television series Party of Five and as Sidney Prescott in the horror film Scream and its sequels.
  She has also starred in films such as The Craft, Wild Things, and later several films that were critically acclaimed but received a limited theatrical release, including Panic (2000) and The Company (2003).
  Campbell was born in Guelph, Ontario. Campbell's mother, Marnie (née Neve), is a yoga instructor and psychologist from Amsterdam. Her father, Gerry Campbell, an immigrant to Canada from the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, taught high school drama classes in Mississauga, Ontario — first at Westwood Secondary School (now Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School), later at Lorne Park Secondary School, and now at Erindale Secondary School. Campbell's maternal grandparents ran a theatre company in the Netherlands and her paternal grandparents were also performers. On her mother's side, Campbell is descended from Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the Netherlands and converted to Catholicism; she has stated, "I am a practicing Catholic, but my lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes".
  
  wn.com/Neve_Campbell
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  Nicole Kidman
  Nicole Mary Kidman, AC (born 20 June 1967) is an Australian actress, singer, film producer, and humanitarian. Kidman began her career in 1983, starring in various Australian film and television productions until her breakthrough in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Following several films over the early 1990s, she came to worldwide recognition for her performances in Days of Thunder (1990), Far and Away (1992), and Batman Forever (1995). Kidman followed this with other successful films in the late 1990s. It was her performance in the musical, Moulin Rouge! (2001) which earned Kidman her second Golden Globe Award and first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Her performance as Virginia Woolf the following year in the drama film The Hours (2002) received critical acclaim and earned Kidman the Academy Award for Best Actress.
  Kidman's other notable films include To Die For (1995), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Cold Mountain (2003), The Interpreter (2005), and Australia (2008). Her performance in 2010's Rabbit Hole (which she also produced) earned Kidman further accolades including a subsequent Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and for UNIFEM since 2006. Kidman's work has earned her a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Golden Globe Awards, one BAFTA, and an Academy Award. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civilian honor, and was also the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry. As a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship in Australia and the United States.
  
  wn.com/Nicole_Kidman
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  Octavia Spencer
  Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Minny, the outspoken maid in the 2011 film, The Help, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, among other accolades including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
  Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she is the sixth of seven children. Her mother worked as a maid. Spencer graduated from Jefferson Davis High School in 1988, spent two years at Auburn Montgomery studying drama (1988–89), and received a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from Auburn University.
  At 16, she worked as an intern on the set of The Long Walk Home, a film starring Whoopi Goldberg.
  Spencer made her film debut as a nurse in Joel Schumacher's A Time to Kill based on the book by John Grisham. She was originally hired to work on casting, but asked Schumacher if she could audition for a small part. Other film credits include: Never Been Kissed, Big Momma's House, Bad Santa, Spider-Man, Coach Carter, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and Pretty Ugly People. She has made a number of guest appearances on a myriad of hit series including: Raising the Bar, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Big Bang Theory, Wizards of Waverly Place, NYPD Blue, Grounded for Life, ER, Titus, Becker and Dharma & Greg. However, she is best known for her starring roles as Serenity Johnson on Comedy Central's Halfway Home, and Constance Grady, the amorous INS caseworker on Ugly Betty.
  
  wn.com/Octavia_Spencer
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  Orlando Bloom
  Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom (born 13 January 1977) is an English actor. He had his break-through roles in 2001 as the elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings and in 2003 as blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. He subsequently established himself as a lead in Hollywood films, including Elizabethtown and Kingdom of Heaven. He appeared in the ensemble films New York, I Love You, Sympathy for Delicious, and Main Street. Bloom made his professional stage debut in West End's In Celebration at the Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane, which ended its run on 15 September 2007. On 12 October 2009, Bloom was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
  Orlando Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent, England, and has one sister, Samantha Bloom, who was born in 1975.
  His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine (née Copeland), was born in the British section of Kolkata, India, the daughter of Betty Constance Josephine Walker and Francis John Copeland, who was a physician and surgeon. Through her, Bloom is a cousin of photographer Sebastian Copeland. Bloom's maternal grandmother's family lived in Tasmania, Australia, Japan, and India, and were of English descent, some of them having originally come from Kent. During his childhood, Bloom was told that his father was his mother's husband, Jewish South African-born anti-Apartheid novelist Harry Saul Bloom; however, when he was thirteen (nine years after Harry's death), Bloom's mother revealed to him that his biological father was actually Colin Stone, his mother's partner and family friend. Stone, the principal of the Concorde International language school, was made Orlando Bloom's legal guardian after Harry Bloom's death. Bloom is named after the 16th century composer Orlando Gibbons.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Orlando_Bloom
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  Paul Dano
  Paul Franklin Dano (born June 19, 1984) is an American actor and producer. He has appeared in films such as L.I.E. (2001), Too Young to Be a Dad (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Gigantic (2008).
  Dano was born in New York City, the son of Gladys (née Pipp) and Paul Dano. He spent the first few years of his childhood in New York City and initially attended the Browning School, while his father worked as a businessman in New York.
  While he was still a child, Dano's family moved from New York to New Canaan, Connecticut, finally settling in Wilton, Connecticut, where Dano continued his education at Wilton High School, graduating in 2002 to further attend Eugene Lang College in New York, NY.
  As a child he was involved in community theatre, and while performing in New Canaan his parents were encouraged to take him to New York City. At age 10, he was quickly scouted for roles in plays on Broadway, making his debut at age 12 in a revival of Inherit the Wind along with George C. Scott and Charles Durning. At age 17, Dano acted in his first major film role as Howie in L.I.E.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Dano
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  Paul Giamatti
  Brawl Edward Valentine Giamatti (/dʒiəˈmɑːti/; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor. An acclaimed character actor, Giamatti began his career as a supporting actor in several films produced during the 1990s including Private Parts, The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, The Negotiator, and Man on the Moon before earning lead roles in several projects in the 2000s including American Splendor, Sideways, Cinderella Man, The Illusionist, John Adams, Cold Souls, Barney's Version, and Win Win.
  Giamatti, the youngest of three children, was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, was a Yale University professor who later became president of the university and commissioner of Major League Baseball. His mother, Toni Marilyn (née Smith), was a homemaker and English teacher who taught at Hopkins School and had also previously acted. Giamatti is of Italian, Irish, and English descent. Giamatti's paternal grandmother was from a family with deep roots in New England, and his paternal grandfather was the son of Italian immigrants from Telese. His brother, Marcus, is also an actor, and his sister, Elena, is a jewelry designer. Giamatti was educated at The Foote School and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in 1985. He attended Yale University, where he was elected to the Skull and Bones secret society. Giamatti was active in the undergraduate theater scene, working alongside actors Ron Livingston and Edward Norton, who were also Yale students. He graduated from Yale in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in English. He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama where he studied with Earle R. Gister. He performed in numerous theatrical productions (including Broadway) before appearing in some small television and film roles in the early 1990s.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Giamatti
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  Penélope Cruz
  Penélope Cruz Sánchez (Spanish pronunciation: [peˈnelope kruθ ˈsantʃeθ]) (born April 28, 1974) is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón (1992), to critical acclaim. Her subsequent roles in the 1990s and 2000s included Open Your Eyes (1997), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000) and Woman on Top (2000). Cruz achieved recognition for her lead roles in Vanilla Sky and Blow. Both films were released in 2001 and were commercially successful worldwide.
  In the 2000s she has appeared in films from a wide range of genres, including the comedy Waking Up in Reno (2002), the thriller Gothika (2003), the Christmas movie Noel (2004), the action adventure Sahara (2005), the animated G-Force and the musical drama Nine. Her most notable films to date are Volver (2006), for which she earned Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), for which she received an Academy Award. She was the first Spanish actress in history to receive an Academy Award and the first Spanish actress to receive a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  
  wn.com/Penélope_Cruz
• Princess Irulan
  Princess Irulan (pronounced /ˈɪrəlɑːn/) is a fictional character and member of House Corrino in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. She first appears in 1965's Dune, and is later featured in Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune (1976). The character's birth and early childhood are touched upon in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy (1999–2001) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and she is a principal character in the Herbert/Anderson series Heroes of Dune. Irulan has also appeared in all film and television adaptations of Herbert's Dune works.
  As established in Dune, Irulan is the eldest daughter of the 81st Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and Anirul, a Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank. Irulan has four younger sisters named Chalice, Wensicia, Josifa and Rugi, and no brothers.
  The non-canon Dune Encyclopedia (1984) by Willis E. McNelly invents an extensive, alternate biography for Irulan.
  In Dune, Irulan is described through Paul Atreides' eyes:
  Paul's attention came at last to a tall blonde woman, green-eyed, a face of patrician beauty, classic in its hauteur, untouched by tears, completely undefeated. Without being told it, Paul knew her — Princess Royal, Bene Gesserit-trained, a face that time vision had shown him in many aspects: Irulan. There's my key, he thought.
  
  wn.com/Princess_Irulan
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  Queen Latifah
  Dana Elaine Owens (born March 18, 1970), better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy Award nomination and an Academy Award nomination.
  Latifah was born, and primarily raised, in East Orange, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Rita (née Bray), a teacher at Irvington High School (her daughter's alma mater), and Lancelot Owens, Sr., a police officer, her parents divorced when Latifah was ten. Latifah was raised in the Baptist church and attended Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey. Her stage name, Latifah (لطيفة laţīfa), meaning "delicate" and "very kind" in Arabic, she found in an Islamic book of names when she was eight. Always a tall girl, the 5'10" Latifah was a power forward on her high school basketball team. She performed the number "Home" from the musical The Wiz in a high school play. She is of African American and Native American ancestry.
  
  wn.com/Queen_Latifah
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  Ray Liotta
  Raymond Allen "Ray" Liotta (born December 18, 1954) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and his role as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams. He has won an Emmy Award and been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. He is also known for starring as the protagonist, Tommy Vercetti in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
  He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was adopted at the age of six months by Mary Liotta, an appointed township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto parts store owner, personnel director, and the president of a local Democratic club. Both of his parents unsuccessfully ran for local office. Liotta had believed his biological parents were of Scottish and Italian descent, but eventually reunited with his biological mother and discovered that she is not of Italian descent. In 1973, Liotta graduated from Union High School in Union, New Jersey, and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1992. Liotta studied acting at the University of Miami, where he performed at the university's Jerry Herman Ring Theatre.
  
  wn.com/Ray_Liotta
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  Renée Zellweger
  Renée Kathleen Zellweger (born April 25, 1969) is an American actress and producer. Zellweger first gained widespread attention for her role in the film Jerry Maguire (1996), and subsequently received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her roles as Bridget Jones in the comedy Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) (which she reprised in its sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)), and as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago (2002). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Cold Mountain (2003).
  She has won an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and a BAFTA Award, was named Hasty Pudding's Woman of the Year in 2009, and established herself as one of the highest-paid Hollywood actresses as of 2007.
  Zellweger was born in Katy, Texas. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is from Au in the canton of St. Gallen,Switzerland, and is a mechanical and electrical engineer who worked in the oil refining business. Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (née Andreassen), is Norwegian; of part Sámi and Kven (Finnish) descent, Kjellfrid grew up in Kirkenes and Ekkerøy, and is a nurse and midwife who moved to the United States to work as a governess for a Norwegian family in Texas. Zellweger has described herself as being raised in a family of "lazy Catholics and Episcopalians".
  
  wn.com/Renée_Zellweger
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  Richard Gere
  Richard Tiffany Gere ( /ˈɡɪər/ GEER; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. He went on to star in several hit films including An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, and Chicago, for which he won a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the Best Cast.
  Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gere is a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims Francis Eaton, John Billington, George Soule, Richard Warren, Degory Priest, William Brewster, and Francis Cooke. His paternal great-grandfather had changed the spelling of the surname from "Geer". Gere's mother, Doris Ann (née Tiffany, born 1924), was a homemaker, and his father, Homer George Gere (born 1922), was an insurance agent for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and had originally intended to become a minister. Gere is their eldest son and second child. In 1967, he graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, playing the trumpet. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in philosophy, but did not graduate, leaving after two years.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Gere
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  Robert Altman
  Robert Bernard Altman (February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.
  His films MASH (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), and Nashville (1975) have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
  Altman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Helen (née Matthews), a Mayflower descendant from Nebraska, and Bernard Clement Altman, a wealthy insurance salesman and amateur gambler, who came from an upper-class family. Altman's ancestry was German, English and Irish; his paternal grandfather, Frank Altman, Sr., anglicized the spelling of the family name from "Altmann" to "Altman". Altman had a Catholic upbringing, but he did not continue to practice as a Catholic as an adult, although he has been referred to as "a sort of Catholic" and a Catholic director. He was educated at Jesuit schools, including Rockhurst High School, in Kansas City. He graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri in 1943.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Altman
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  Rod Taylor
  Rodney Sturt "Rod" Taylor (born 11 January 1930) is an Australian actor of film and television. He has appeared in over 50 films, and is well known for his roles in the science fiction film The Time Machine (1960), and in the Alfred Hitchcock horror movie The Birds (1963).
  Taylor was Born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and the former Mona Thompson, a writer of more than a hundred short stories and children's books. His middle name comes from his great-great grand uncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a British explorer of the Australian Outback in the 19th century.
  Taylor attended Parramatta High School and later studied at the East Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College. For a time he worked as a commercial artist, but decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production in Australia.
  Taylor acquired extensive radio and stage experience in Australia where his radio work included a period on Blue Hills and a role as Tarzan. Earlier in his career he had to support himself by working at Sydney's Mark Foys department store designing and painting window and other displays during the day. In 1951 he took part in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt's voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt's offsider, George Macleay. A short documentary, Inland with Sturt (1951), was based on it. Taylor also appeared in a number of theatre productions for Australia's Mercury Theatre.
  
  wn.com/Rod_Taylor
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  Roger Ebert
  Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
  Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008, but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show. Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".
  
  wn.com/Roger_Ebert
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  Rubina Ali
  Rubina Ali (born January 21, 1999), also known as Rubina Qureshi, is an Indian child actress who played the child version of Latika in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award. Following the film's success, she was cast in the Bollywood film Kal Kisne Dekha (2009).
  Rubina's casting in Slumdog Millionaire proved controversial with the producers admitting they debated whether to use real slum children in the film fearing it would distort their lives too much. Director Danny Boyle justified the casting saying: "These people have so much prejudice against them, why should we be prejudiced against them as well?"
  Critics have claimed Rubina and her co-star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail had been underpaid for their part in the film. This has been disputed by the film's producer, who says the actors had been paid the equivalent of a monthly salary payment for the production company's senior staff in Britain. A trust fund has been set up for the children which will be released to them when they turn eighteen, provided they continue in education until this time.
  
  wn.com/Rubina_Ali
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  Ryan Phillippe
  Matthew Ryan Phillippe ( /ˈfɪlɨpiː/; born September 10, 1974), better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54. In the 2000s, he appeared in several films, including 2001's Academy Award Best Picture nominee Gosford Park, 2005's Academy Award-winning ensemble film Crash, and the 2006 war drama Flags of Our Fathers. In 2007 he starred in Breach, a movie based on the true story of FBI operative Eric O'Neill, while in 2008 he headlined Kimberly Peirce's Iraq war film Stop-Loss. In 2010, he starred as Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer Greg Marinovich in The Bang-Bang Club.
  Phillippe was born in New Castle, Delaware. His mother, Susan (née Thomas), ran a day care center in the family's house, and his father, Richard Phillippe, worked for DuPont. Phillippe is of part French descent. He has three sisters. He attended New Castle Baptist Academy, where he played basketball and soccer, as well as earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do; he was also the Yearbook Editor in his senior year.
  
  wn.com/Ryan_Phillippe
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  Sandra Bullock
  Sandra Annette Bullock ( /ˈbʊlək/; born July 26, 1964) is an American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. In the new millennium she appeared in such films as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House, and Crash, the third of which received critical acclaim. In 2007, she was ranked as the 14th richest female celebrity with an estimated fortune of US$85 million. In 2009, Bullock starred in two of the more financially successful films of her career, The Proposal and The Blind Side. Bullock was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side. She is listed in the 2012 edition of the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress, with $56 million.
  Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Her father, John W. Bullock (born 1925), was a United States Army employee and part-time voice coach from Birmingham, Alabama, and her mother, Helga D. Meyer (1942–2000), was a German opera singer and voice teacher. Bullock's maternal grandfather was a rocket scientist from Nuremberg, Germany. John Bullock, then in charge of the Army's Military Postal Service in Europe, was stationed in Nuremberg when he met his wife. They married in Germany, soon moving to Arlington, where John Bullock worked with the Army Materiel Command, before becoming a contractor for The Pentagon.
  
  wn.com/Sandra_Bullock
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  Sandra Oh
  Sandra Oh (born July 20, 1971) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for the role of Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. She has also played notable roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways, and had a supporting role on the HBO original series Arli$$. Other films she has appeared in include The Night Listener, Blindness and Rabbit Hole.
  Oh was born in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, to middle-class Korean immigrant parents Joon-Soo (John) and Young-Nam, who had come to Canada in the early 1960s. Her father is a businessman and her mother a biochemist. Oh has a brother, Ray, and a sister, Grace. She grew up living on Camwood Crescent in Nepean, where she began acting and ballet at an early age. At the age of 10, she played The Wizard of Woe in a class musical, The Canada Goose.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Sandra_Oh
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  Sean Astin
  Sean Astin (born February 25, 1971) is an American film actor, director, voice artist, and producer best known for his film roles as Mikey Walsh in The Goonies, the title character of Rudy, and Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In television, he appeared as Lynn McGill in the fifth season of 24. Most recently, he provided the voice for the title character in Disney's Special Agent Oso. Astin also served as campaign manager for his friend, Democratic entertainment industry businessman Dan Adler in California's 36th congressional district special election, 2011.
  Astin was born Sean Patrick Duke in Santa Monica, California, the son of actress Patty Duke. At the time, it was reported that Desi Arnaz, Jr., was his biological father. In 1994, Astin discovered his father was Michael Tell, a music promoter and writer, and publisher of the newspaper The Las Vegas Israelite.
  Tell's marriage to Patty Duke was annulled shortly before her marriage in 1972 to actor John Astin, who adopted Sean. In 1973, Duke gave birth to Astin's half-brother Mackenzie Astin, who also became an actor. Although Patty Duke and John Astin divorced in 1985, Sean Astin has written that he has always considered John his "real" father.
  
  wn.com/Sean_Astin
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  Sean Bean
  Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean (born 17 April 1959) is an English actor of stage and screen. Bean is known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe. He is also known for his film work playing such roles as Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye, Jason Locke in Essex Boys, Odysseus in Troy, Ian Howe in National Treasure and Andy McNab in Bravo Two Zero. Bean has also acted in a number of television productions and character roles such as playing Robert Aske in Henry VIII and Eddard Stark in HBO's Game of Thrones. He has also performed voice work for computer games, including Martin Septim in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
  Bean was born Shaun Mark Bean in the Handsworth district of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, the son of Rita (née Tuckwood) and Brian Bean. Bean's father owned a fabrication shop, which he had set up with a colleague. The business employed 50 people, including Bean's mother, who worked as a secretary. He has a younger sister named Lorraine. Despite becoming relatively wealthy (his father owned a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow), the family never moved away from the council estate, because they preferred to remain close to friends and family.
  
  wn.com/Sean_Bean
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  Shailene Woodley
  Shailene Diann Woodley (born November 15, 1991) is an American actress. Woodley is known for portraying Amy Juergens in the ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager and for co-starring alongside George Clooney in the critically acclaimed 2011 film The Descendants. For her performance in The Descendants she won an Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe.
  Woodley was born in Simi Valley, California. Her mother, Lori (née Victor), is a middle school counselor, and her father, Lonnie Woodley, is a school principal. She has a younger brother, Tanner. When she was 15 and a freshman, her parents divorced and she was also diagnosed with scoliosis. She was put in a chest-to-hips plastic brace to straighten her spine.
  
  wn.com/Shailene_Woodley
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  Shohreh Aghdashloo
  Shohreh Aghdashloo ( listen (help·info) Persian: شهره آغداشلو‎, IPA: [ʃohˈɾe ɒɢdɒːʃˈluː]; born May 11, 1952) is an Iranian American actress.
  After establishing a theatre and film career in Iran, Aghdashloo moved to England during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and subsequently became a citizen of the United States. After several years playing supporting roles in television and film, her performance in House of Sand and Fog (2003) brought her several film critics' awards and a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has continued to play supporting and character roles in film and television and won an Emmy Award for her work in the television drama House of Saddam (2008).
  Aghdashloo was born in Tehran, Iran as Shohreh Pari Vaziri-Tabar ("Aghdashloo" is the family name of her former husband, Iranian painter Aydin Aghdashloo), to a wealthy Muslim family. Aghdashloo started acting at the age of 18. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she was offered her first film role in Gozāresh (The Report) directed by director Abbas Kiarostami, which won the Critics Award at the Moscow Film Festival. Her next film was Shatranje Bad (loosely translated: Chess With the Wind), directed by Mohammad Reza Aslani which screened at several film festivals. Both films were banned in her home country, but in 1978, Aghdashloo won acclaim for her performance in Sooteh Delan (Broken Hearts), directed by the late Iranian filmmaker Ali Hatami which established her as one of Iran's leading actresses.
  
  wn.com/Shohreh_Aghdashloo
• Sophie Thompson
  Sophie Thompson (born 20 January 1962) is an English actress, best known for playing evil Stella Crawford in EastEnders.
  The second daughter born in 1962, to actress Phyllida Law and actor Eric Thompson, Sophie is the younger sister of twice Academy Award-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson.
  Sophie Thompson has worked in film, television, theatre and radio, and has narrated a number of audiobooks. She made her debut in 1978, at the age of 16, starring in A Traveller in Time, before going on to study at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.^{[citation needed]}
  Big-screen roles include Four Weddings and a Funeral, "Eat, Pray, Love", Emma, Dancing at Lughnasa, Gosford Park, Fat Slags, Relative Values and Morris: A Life with Bells On. Thompson appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2010, as Mafalda Hopkirk and Hermione Granger disguised as Hopkirk.
  Thompson starred alongside popular British comedians Alan Davies, in Jonathan Creek, and Lee Evans in So What Now? She has also appeared in Persuasion, Midsomer Murders, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Harlot's Progress and Magnolia. She played Miss Bartlett in Andrew Davies' 2007 adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View and also appeared in the last episode of series 4 of Doc Martin.
  
  wn.com/Sophie_Thompson
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  Stephen Fry
  Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.
  After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.
  He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.
  As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.
  
  wn.com/Stephen_Fry
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  Steve Carell
  Steven John "Steve" Carell ( /kəˈrɛl/; born August 16, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office. He has also starred in lead roles in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, and Crazy, Stupid, Love.; and voiced characters in the animated films Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!, and Despicable Me. Carell was nominated as "America's funniest man" in Life magazine, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for playing the lead role of Michael Scott for The Office in 2006.
  Carell, the youngest of four brothers, was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, and was raised in nearby Acton by his parents, Harriet T. (née Koch), a psychiatric nurse, and Edwin A. Carell, an electrical engineer. His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, worked with Allen B. DuMont to create cathode ray tubes. Carell's paternal grandfather was Italian; his father was born with the surname "Caroselli", later shortening it to "Carell". Carell was raised Roman Catholic, and was educated at The Fenn School and Middlesex School. Carell also played ice hockey as a teenager for his high school.^{[citation needed]} He played the fife, performing with other members of his family, and later joined a reenacting group portraying the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. Carell attributed his interest in history to this, in which he earned his degree from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984. While at Denison, Carell was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, a student-run improvisational comedy troupe.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Carell
• Susan Misner
  Susan Misner (born February 8, 1971) is an American dancer, television and film actress.
  Misner portrayed the doomed Grace Davidson on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live from 12 March 1999 to 17 November 1999. In 2002, Misner appeared in the film Chicago, performing the renowned "Cell Block Tango" as Liz with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Denise Faye, Deidre Goodwin, Ekaterina Chtchelkanova and Mýa Harrison.
  Misner has guest-starred on many TV series, including three of the series in the Law & Order franchise — Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001/2005), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2002) and Law & Order (2006) — as well as both CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2002) and CSI: Miami (2004). She had dancing role in the 2002 film Chicago. Misner appeared as Theresa on Rescue Me in 2006 and 2007, and later as Gretchen Martin in the 2007 miniseries The Bronx Is Burning. She appeared in two episodes of the hit CBS procedural Without a Trace during the 2004-2005 television season. She portrayed Alison Humphrey in several 2007 episodes of The CW series Gossip Girl and Sergeant Burnett in New Amsterdam (2008). In 2010, she played the girlfriend of therapist Paul Weston in the series In Treatment. Currently she has the role of "Jessica" in Person of Interest.
  
  wn.com/Susan_Misner
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  Sylvester Groth
  Sylvester Groth (born 31 March 1958) is a German film actor and tenor.
  He is best known to English-language audiences for appearing in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, in which he portrayed Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
  Groth portrayed Goebbels in the 2007 German film Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler, directed by Dani Levy. His first major film role was in 1993's Stalingrad.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Sylvester_Groth
• Tanay Chheda
  Tanay Hemant Chheda (Marathi: तनय हेमंत छेडा; born 27 June 1996) is an Indian child actor. He is best known for his performances in the critically acclaimed films Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth) (2007) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008), with the latter earning him the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and a nomination for Best Ensemble at the Black Reel Awards of 2008. His most recent performance was in My Name Is Khan (2010).
  Tanay was born in Mumbai, India. He currently lives in Mumbai, his birthplace. He used to study in Campion School, but changed to Dhirubhai Ambani International School; both in Mumbai.
  He was first seen in the movie, Don, in 2006. He also has the critically acclaimed Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth) in 2007 to his name and the award-sweeping Slumdog Millionaire in 2008. In Don, he played the role of Deepu, the son of Jasjit (played by Arjun Rampal) . In Taare Zameen Par, he played the role of a handicapped child who is an extremely helpful and supportive friend to the protagonist Ishaan (played by Darsheel Safary). In Slumdog Millionaire, Chheda played the role of Jamal Malik, in adolescence, for which he has won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and received a nomination for Best Ensemble at the Black Reel Awards of 2008. He has most recently portrayed the young Rizwan Khan, an autistic child, in Shahrukh Khan's film, My Name Is Khan. He was nominated for the best child actor in Star Screen Awards for 'My Name Is Khan'. He will now be seen in a German film Hexe Lilli- Journey to Mandolan which is scheduled for release on Feb 13, 2011.
  
  wn.com/Tanay_Chheda
• Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar
  Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar (Marathi: तन्वी गणेश लोणकर) (born 5 March 1995) is an Indian actress best known for her 2008 role as the teenage version of 'Latika', a character in the Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. As a member of the cast of that film, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar is a recipient of the 15th Screen Actors Guild Award for 'Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture'.
  Lonkar lives in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India with her parents, Ganesh and Sharmila, and younger sister Janhavi. She speaks Marathi, Hindi, English fluently. She lives in Goregaon, a far-flung suburb of Mumbai, and studies in Vibgyor High, Mumbai. Her mother Sharmila works as a technician in Hinduja Hospital while her father Ganesh works with the Union Bank of India.
  Lonkar was chosen for the role as the teenage Latika when her uncle, an acquaintance of Slumdog Millionaire co-director Loveleen Tandan, encouraged her to go for the audition; unfortunately, the scene for which she was auditioning was cut out of the film.
  
  wn.com/Tanvi_Ganesh_Lonkar
• Taye Diggs
  Scott Leo "Taye" Diggs (born January 2, 1971) is an American theatre, film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Broadway musical Rent, the motion picture How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and the television series Private Practice. His nickname, Taye, comes from the playful pronunciation of Scotty as "Scottay".
  Diggs was born in Newark, New Jersey but grew up in Rochester, New York, the son of Marcia (née Berry), a teacher and actress, and Jeffries Diggs. He attended Allendale Columbia School in Rochester and later transferred to School of the Arts. He starred in the first production of "It All Adds Up", an original musical by the piano teacher and musician John Gabriele and math teacher Jack Donovan. He is the oldest of five children; he has two brothers, Gabriel and Michael, and two sisters, Shalom and Christian. Diggs received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in musical theater from Syracuse University. He performed many times at the popular Lakes Region Summer Theatre in Meredith, New Hampshire. Diggs's Broadway debut was in the ensemble cast of the 1994 Tony Award-winning revival of the musical Carousel. In 1995, he also performed as a dancer in Sebastian's Caribbean Carnival at Tokyo Disneyland.
  
  wn.com/Taye_Diggs
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  Terrence Howard
  Terrence Dashon Howard (born March 11, 1969) is an American actor and singer. Having his first major role in the 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus, Howard broke into the mainstream with a succession of television and film roles between 2004 and 2006. His roles in movies includes Winnie, Ray, Lackawanna Blues, Crash, Four Brothers, Hustle & Flow, Get Rich or Die Tryin', Idlewild, August Rush and The Brave One. Howard co-starred in Iron Man and reprised the role in the video game adaption.
  His debut album, Shine Through It, was released in September 2008.
  Howard was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Cleveland, Ohio , the son of Anita Williams (née Hawkins) and Tyrone Howard. His maternal great-grandmother, Minnie Gentry, was a stage actress, as were his mother and uncles. Both of his parents were biracial, of African American and European American descent; he experienced racism throughout his childhood.^{[citation needed]} His father was involved in what has been termed the Santa Line Slaying, serving 11 months in prison on manslaughter charges after stabbing another man. At the age of 16, Howard emancipated himself from his parents and was put on welfare; at 18, he moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. He wanted to be a science teacher, though he had a low GPA in high school and was admitted to the Pratt Institute in New York only after convincing them to give him a special entrance exam. Howard did not complete his education, as he had joined his brother on an audition for The Cosby Show and was cast in the role. Though he did not obtain a degree, Howard claims to be an engineer. Howard had a principal role in a short-lived CBS sitcom, Tall Hopes.
  
  wn.com/Terrence_Howard
• Tess Harper
  Tess Harper (born August 15, 1950) is an American actress.
  Born Tessie Jean Washam on August 15, 1950 in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas. Her parents' names are Ed and Rosemary Washam. She grew up around lots of quilts and quilt makers. On her own time, she liked to sit on the porch-swing and read. She graduated from high school in 1968.
  Tess Harper began acting in theater production and appearances in theme parks, dinner theatres and children's theatre. She was performing theater in Texas when she attended a casting call for a minor female role in the film Tender Mercies. Director Bruce Beresford was impressed with Harper and cast her instead in the lead female role of Rosa Lee, the young widow and mother who marries country singer Mac Sledge. Beresford said the previous actress who auditioned for the role brought to it a sophistication and worldliness inappropriate for the part, whereas Harper brought a kind of rural quality without coming across as simple or foolish. Beresford said of Harper, "She walked into the room and even before she spoke, I thought, 'That's the girl to play the lead.'"
  
  wn.com/Tess_Harper
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  Thandie Newton
  Thandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton (born 6 November 1972) is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash, Run, Fatboy, Run and W.
  Newton was born in London, the daughter of Nyasha, a Zimbabwean health-care worker and Nick Newton, a laboratory technician and artist. Her birthplace has been incorrectly reported to be Zambia in some biographies, but she has confirmed in interviews that she was born in London, during a two-week trip by her parents. The name "Thandiwe" means "beloved" in Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa or Swazi, and "Thandie" is pronounced /ˈtændi/ TAN-dee in English. According to Newton, her mother is a Shona princess. Regarding her childhood, Newton remarked at a TED conference: "From about the age of 5, I was aware that I didn't fit. I was the black, atheist kid in the all-white, Catholic school run by nuns. I was an anomaly." Raised in London and Penzance, Cornwall, she studied dance at the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts and at sixteen, while recovering from a back injury, she successfully auditioned for her first film role. She then went on to study social anthropology at Downing College, Cambridge, from 1992 to 1995, where she achieved a 2:1.
  
  wn.com/Thandie_Newton
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  Thomas Haden Church
  Thomas Haden Church (born June 17, 1960) is an American actor. After co-starring in the 1990s sitcom Wings, Church became well known for his film roles, including his Academy Award-nominated performance in Sideways and his role as the Sandman in Spider-Man 3.
  Church, the fourth of six children, was born Thomas Richard McMillen in Yolo, California, to an Army officer/health care worker father and a telephone company sales rep mother. He was raised under his stepfather's surname, "Quesada", and later changed his surname to "Haden Church" (both names are in his family tree). He was raised in Laredo, Texas, and graduated from Harlingen High School, Harlingen, Texas, in 1979, going on to attend the University of North Texas.
  Church started in the entertainment business as a radio personality and doing voice over work. A part in an independent film convinced him to move to California to pursue an acting career. He played the part of slow-witted airport mechanic Lowell Mather for six seasons (1990–1995) on the NBC sitcom Wings. He worked in television for two more seasons with a lead role on Ned and Stacey opposite Debra Messing. He has had supporting roles in films such as Tombstone, George of the Jungle, and The Specials. Church often plays villains or comic relief in films, most evident by turns in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight and Over the Hedge.
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Haden_Church
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  Til Schweiger
  Tilman Valentin "Til" Schweiger (German pronunciation: [ˈtɪlman ˈvaləntiːn ˈʃvaɪɡɐ]; born 19 December 1963) is a German actor, director, and producer. He is one of Germany’s most successful filmmakers. Since 1968, when the FFA started counting, no other German actor has drawn more people to the cinemas. He runs his own production company, Barefoot Films, in Berlin.
  Schweiger was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. He married American model Dana Carlson on June 19, 1995. The couple has four children: Valentin Florian (b. 1995), Luna Marie (b. 1997), Lilli Camille (b. 1998), and Emma Tiger (b. October 2002). They separated in 2005, but have not divorced.
  
  wn.com/Til_Schweiger
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  Timothy Spall
  Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE (born 27 February 1957) is an English character actor and occasional presenter.
  Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, South London. His mother, Sylvia R. (née Leonard), was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and RADA, where he was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal as the most promising actor in his year. His brother, Matthew, is studio director of the computer games company Morpheme. Another brother, Richard, is the landlord tenant of the Astolat public house in Guildford.
  Spall initially made his mark in theatre performing in productions for Birmingham Rep and, later, The Royal Shakespeare Company including The Merry Wives of Windsor, Three Sisters, Nicholas Nickleby and The Knight of the Burning Pestle.
  Following a film debut in Quadrophenia and wider TV exposure playing the gormless Radish Barry Taylor in all five series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Kevin in Outside Edge and as Aubrey the appalling chef in Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet, Spall has since appeared in films such as Crusoe, Secrets & Lies, Shooting the Past, Topsy-Turvy, Vanilla Sky, Rock Star, The Last Samurai, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and The King's Speech. He gained international recognition as Peter Pettigrew ("Wormtail") in the Harry Potter film series. In 1991 he guest-starred in the series 5 Red Dwarf episode Back to Reality. In 1993, Spall was in Rab C. Nesbitt.
  
  wn.com/Timothy_Spall
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  Tom Hollander
  Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander (born 25 August 1967) is a British actor who has appeared in films Enigma, Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean, In the Loop, Valkyrie and Hanna.
  Tom Hollander was born in Bristol and raised in Oxford, the son of teachers. His parents are English, though his father is descended from Czech Jews who converted to Catholicism; Hollander was chief chorister at school. He attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School. As a youngster, he was a member of the National Youth Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre (then known as the Children's Music Theatre). In 1981, at fourteen years of age, he was awarded the lead role in a BBC dramatization of Leon Garfield's John Diamond. He read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was actively involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and president of the Marlowe Society. Friend and fellow student Sam Mendes directed him in several plays while they were at Cambridge, including a critically acclaimed production of Cyrano de Bergerac (which also featured future Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg). After finishing university and failing to secure a place at a drama school, he found work in theatre nevertheless.
  
  wn.com/Tom_Hollander
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  Tommy Lee Jones
  Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive.
  His notable film roles include federal marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals, Agent K in Men in Black and its sequels, Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men, the villain "Two-Face" in Batman Forever, terrorist William Strannix in Under Siege, former Texas Ranger Woodrow F. Call in Lonesome Dove, a Texas Ranger in Man of the House and rancher Pete Perkins in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and Colonel Chester Phillips in Captain America: The First Avenger. Jones has also portrayed real-life figures such as businessman Howard Hughes, executed murderer Gary Gilmore, Oliver Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter and baseball great Ty Cobb.
  Jones was born in San Saba, Texas. His mother, Lucille Marie (née Scott), was a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, and his father, Clyde C. Jones, was an oil field worker. The two were married and divorced twice. Jones has stated that his grandmother was of Cherokee ancestry. He was a resident of Midland, Texas, and attended Robert E. Lee High School.
  
  wn.com/Tommy_Lee_Jones
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  Toni Collette
  Antonia "Toni" Collette (born 1 November 1972) is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish.
  Collette's acting career began in the early 1990s with comedic roles in films such as Spotswood (1992) and Muriel's Wedding (1994), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. Following her performances in Emma (1996) and The Boys (1998), Collette achieved international recognition as a result of her Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense (1999). She has appeared in thrillers such as Shaft (2000) and Changing Lanes (2002) and independent comedy films like About a Boy (2002), Connie and Carla (2004), In Her Shoes (2005) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
  In 2009, she began playing the lead role in the television series United States of Tara, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2010.
  
  wn.com/Toni_Collette
• Treat Williams
  Richard Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951) is a Screen Actors Guild Award–nominated American actor and children's book author who has appeared on film, stage and television. From 2002 to 2006, he was the star of the television series Everwood.
  Williams was born in Rowayton, Connecticut, the son of Marian (née Andrew), an antiques dealer, and Richard Norman Williams, a corporate executive. His maternal great-great-grandfather was Senator William Henry Barnum of Connecticut, and a distant relative was Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Williams graduated from the Kent School in Connecticut and Franklin and Marshall College. During his adolescence, Treat was often affectionately referred to by nicknames such as "Sweet Treat" and "Big Meat Treat." These later resurfaced when Williams was featured in the Feb 1980 edition of Playgirl.
  Williams made his film debut in the 1976 thriller film Deadly Hero. He came to world attention when he starred in the Miloš Forman film Hair (1979) which was based on the Broadway musical Hair. He has gone on to appear in over 75 films and several television series, including, most notably, 1941 (1979), Once Upon A Time In America (1984), Dead Heat (1988), Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) and Deep Rising (1998).
  
  wn.com/Treat_Williams
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  Téa Leoni
  Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni ( /ˈteɪ.ə pɑːntəleɪˈoʊniː/; born February 25, 1966), better known by her stage name Téa Leoni, is an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Spanglish, Bad Boys, Ghost Town and Tower Heist.
  Leoni was born in New York City. Her mother, Emily Ann (née Patterson), was a dietician and nutritionist, and her father, Anthony Pantaleoni, was a corporate lawyer of the firm Fulbright & Jaworski. Leoni's paternal grandfather was of Italian and English descent; he was a nephew of Italian economist and politician Maffeo Pantaleoni. Leoni's paternal grandmother, Polish-American Helenka Adamowska Pantaleoni, a relative of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, was a film and stage actress who was a daughter of musicians Józef Adamowski and Antonina Szumowska-Adamowska; with Józef's brother Timothee Adamowski, they were the Adamowski Trio. Leoni's mother is a native of Texas, and was the niece of actor Hank Patterson.
  
  wn.com/Téa_Leoni
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  Uma Thurman
  Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress and model. She has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action movies. She received an Academy Award nomination for the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction (1994) and she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Hysterical Blindness (2002).
  Thurman was born in Boston to Nena von Schlebrügge and Robert Thurman, and grew up mostly in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she went to Amherst Regional Middle School, and then moved to Woodstock, New York. Her father gave his children a Buddhist upbringing, and she is named after an Dbuma Chenpo (in Tibetan, the "db" is silent; from Mahamadhyamaka in Sanskrit, meaning "Great Middle Way"). Regarding religion, she now calls herself agnostic. She has three brothers, Ganden (b. 1968), Dechen (b. 1973), and Mipam (b. 1978), and a half-sister named Taya (b. 1960), from her father's previous marriage. She and her siblings spent time in Almora, Uttarakhand, India, during childhood, and the Dalai Lama sometimes visited their home. She is described as having been an awkward and introverted girl who was teased for her tall frame, angular bone structure, enormous feet and unusual name (sometimes using the name “Uma Karen” instead of her birth name). When she was 10 years old, a friend's mother suggested a nose job. As a child, she suffered bouts of body dysmorphic disorder, which she discussed in an interview with Talk magazine in 2001. She attended Amherst Public Schools. In the 8th grade she discovered her love for acting. Talent scouts noticed her performance as Abigail in a production of The Crucible, and offered her the chance to act professionally. Thurman attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite preparatory school in Massachusetts, before dropping out to pursue a career in acting.
  
  wn.com/Uma_Thurman
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  Viggo Mortensen
  Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is an American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner (1991), Carlito's Way (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Daylight (1996), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), G.I. Jane (1997), A Perfect Murder (1998), and A Walk on the Moon (1999).
  Mortensen made his major breakthrough in 2001 with his role as Aragorn in the epic film trilogy The Lord of the Rings. In 2005, Mortensen won critical acclaim for David Cronenberg's crime thriller A History of Violence. Two years later, another Cronenberg film Eastern Promises (2007) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Other well-received films in recent years have included Appaloosa (2008) and the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road.
  Aside from acting, his other artistic pursuits include fine arts, photography, poetry, and music. In 2002, he founded the Perceval Press to publish the works of little-known artists and authors. Mortensen is politically active. He campaigned for Dennis Kucinich in the 2008 United States presidential election, and later endorsed Barack Obama for President.
  
  wn.com/Viggo_Mortensen
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  Virginia Madsen
  Virginia G. Madsen (born September 11, 1961) is an American actress and documentary film producer. She came to fame during the 1980s, having appeared in several films aimed at a teenage audience. Two decades later, she had an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated role in the 2004 film Sideways.
  Madsen was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Elaine (née Melson), an Emmy-winning poet, producer and playwright who often works for PBS, and Calvin Madsen, a fireman. Madsen's mother left a career in corporate business to pursue a writing career. Madsen's brother is actor Michael Madsen. Her paternal grandparents were Danish and her mother has Irish and distant Native American ancestry. Madsen is a graduate of New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.
  Her first effort as an actor was as her brother’s assistant in magic shows the two would concoct for their family. She later attended the Ted Liss Acting Studio in Chicago and Harand Camp Adult Theater Seminar in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Of her experience with Liss, she said: "I had wanted to join his class since I was 12. It was well worth the wait because I don't think I could have got that sort of training anywhere else especially in the United States...I always wanted to make a real career out of acting."
  
  wn.com/Virginia_Madsen
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
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  William Fichtner
  William Edward Fichtner (November 27, 1956) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Sheriff Tom Underlay on Invasion, as Alexander Mahone on Prison Break, as William Sharp in Armageddon, and as Ken Rosenberg in the video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
  Fichtner was born at Mitchel Air Force Base in East Meadow, New York, and was raised in Cheektowaga, New York, the son of Patricia A. (née Steitz) and William E. Fichtner. He is of German descent.
  Fichtner graduated from Maryvale High School (Cheektowaga, New York) in 1974. After graduating from Farmingdale State College in 1976 with an associate degree in criminal justice, he attended SUNY Brockport and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in criminal justice in 1978. Fichtner decided to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Fichtner credits his Farmingdale State College admissions counselor, Don Harvey, with his decision to study acting. Harvey, who became a lifelong friend, took Fichtner to his first Broadway show. On 18 May 2008, Fichtner was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Farmingdale State College.
  
  wn.com/William_Fichtner
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  William Petersen
  William Louis Petersen (born February 21, 1953) is an American actor and producer, best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom on the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and as Will Graham in the film Manhunter.
  Petersen was born in Evanston, Illinois, the youngest of six children of June (née Hoene; 1909–2006) and Arthur Edward Petersen, Sr. (1907–2004), who worked in the furniture business. He is of Danish and German descent. He has two brothers, Arthur, Jr. and Robert, plus three sisters: Anne, Mary Kay, and Elizabeth. He graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, in 1972. He was accepted to Idaho State University on a football scholarship. While at Idaho State, Petersen took an acting course which changed the direction of his life. He left school along with his wife, Joanne, in 1974 and followed a drama professor to the Basque country where he studied as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen was interested in Basque culture and he studied the Basque language, Euskara, and gave his daughter the Basque name Maite Nerea (meaning My Beloved); she was born in Arrasate - Mondragón 1975. Petersen returned to Idaho intent on being an actor. Not wanting to work a non-acting job in Idaho, he returned to the Chicago area, living with relatives. He became active in the theater and earned his Actors' Equity card. He performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, of which he has been an ensemble member since 2008, and was a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble which also included other prominent Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine.
  
  wn.com/William_Petersen
• Wonder Woman
  Wonder Woman is a fictional character, a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941). The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986.
  Wonder Woman is a warrior Princess of the Amazons (based on the Amazons of Greek mythology) and was created by Marston, an American, as a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men." Known in her homeland as Diana of Themyscira, her powers include superhuman strength, flight (even though the original Wonder Woman did not have this ability), super-speed, super-stamina, and super-agility. She is highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat and in the art of tactical warfare. She also possesses animal-like cunning skills and a natural rapport with animals, which has been presented as an actual ability to communicate with the animal kingdom. She uses her Lasso of Truth, which forces those bound by it to tell the truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets, a tiara which serves as a projectile, and, in some stories, an invisible airplane.
  
  wn.com/Wonder_Woman
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  Woody Harrelson
  Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor.
  Harrelson's breakout role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd. Some notable film characters include basketball hustler Billy Hoyle in White Men Can't Jump, bowler Roy Munson in Kingpin, serial killer Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers, magazine publisher Larry Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt, country singer Dusty in A Prairie Home Companion, bounty hunter Carson Wells in No Country for Old Men, zombie killer Tallahassee in Zombieland, blind piano player/meat salesman Ezra Turner in Seven Pounds, conspiracy nut Charlie Frost in 2012, a delusional man who believes that he is a superhero named Defendor in Defendor and Cpt. Tony Stone in The Messenger. For The People vs. Larry Flynt and The Messenger, Harrelson earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. He also appeared as Haymitch in the film The Hunger Games, which was released on March 23, 2012.
  
  wn.com/Woody_Harrelson
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  Zhang Ziyi
  Zhang Ziyi (born 9 February 1979), sometimes credited as Ziyi Zhang, is a Chinese film actress. Chinese media have called her one of the Four Young Dan Actresses (四小花旦) in China's film industry, along with Zhao Wei, Xu Jinglei and Zhou Xun.
  Her first major role was in The Road Home (1999). She achieved fame in the West after leading roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Rush Hour 2 (2001), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005). She has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
  Zhang was born and raised in Beijing to Zhang Yuanxiao, an accountant and later economist, and Li Zhousheng, a kindergarten teacher. She is very close to her older brother, Zhang Zinan (Chinese: 章子男; pinyin: Zhāng Zǐnán; born 1973). Zhang began studying dance when she was 8 years old; subsequently, she joined the Beijing Dance Academy by her parents' suggestion at the age of 11. While at this boarding school, she noticed how mean the other girls were to each other while competing for status amongst the teachers. Zhang disliked the attitudes of her peers and teachers so much that, on one occasion, she ran away from the school. At the age of 15, Zhang won the national youth dance championship and began appearing in television commercials in Hong Kong.
  
  wn.com/Zhang_Ziyi
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  Zoe Saldana
  Zoe Saldana ( /sælˈdænə/ sal-DAN-ə; born June 19, 1978), sometimes stylized Zoë Saldaña, is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role in the 2000 film Center Stage and later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, and a starring role as Neytiri in James Cameron's Avatar. She also had a lead role in the action film Colombiana and the 2002 film Crossroads.
  Saldana was born Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario or Zoe Yadira Saldana Nazario in Passaic, New Jersey. Her father, Aridio Saldaña, was Dominican, and her mother, Asalia Nazario, is a Dominican of half Dominican and half Puerto Rican descent. Her first languages are Spanish and English. She spent the majority of her early childhood growing up in Queens, New York. After her father died in a car accident when she was only nine years old, Saldaña moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother. There, Saldana discovered her love of dance and soon enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy; she studied ballet, jazz, and modern Latin dance. The family returned to Queens after her sophomore year in high school.
  
  wn.com/Zoe_Saldana

Linda (2012)

Genres

• Comedy
• Drama
• Short

Taglines:

Quotes: