Ben Affleck

Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt (born August 15, 1972), better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor and filmmaker. He has won two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.

Affleck began his career as a child actor, starring in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi (1984, 1988). He later appeared in Dazed and Confused (1993) and various Kevin Smith films including Chasing Amy (1997) and Dogma (1999). Affleck gained fame when he and childhood friend Matt Damon won the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997). He then starred in high-profile films including Armageddon (1998), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Changing Lanes (2002) and The Sum of All Fears (2002). After a career downturn, during which he appeared in Daredevil and the much-derided Gigli (both 2003), Affleck received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Hollywoodland (2006). In 2014, he starred in the psychological thriller Gone Girl. Affleck will portray Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad (both 2016).

Matt Damon

Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon (/ˈdeɪmən/; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor and filmmaker. Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Damon began his acting career by appearing in high school theater productions and he made his professional acting debut in the film Mystic Pizza (1988). He came to prominence in 1997 when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting, which won them the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received further praise for his roles as the eponymous character in Saving Private Ryan (1998), the antihero in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), a fallen angel in Dogma, and received critical acclaim for performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005) and The Good Shepherd, as well as his role as a villain in the neo-noir crime drama The Departed (2006).

Damon is also known for his starring roles as Jason Bourne in the Bourne film series (2002–present).For his supporting role as rugby player Francois Pienaar in Invictus (2009) and his leading role as an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian (2015), he has received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor, respectively. Damon's leading role in The Martian won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. He has also received BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG nominations for Behind the Candelabra (2013) and three Emmy nominations for producing Project Greenlight

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter, producer, and playwright. His works include the Broadway plays A Few Good Men and The Farnsworth Invention; the television series Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom; and the films A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs.

Sorkin's trademark rapid-fire dialogue and extended monologues are complemented, in television, by frequent collaborator Thomas Schlamme's characteristic directing technique called the "walk and talk". These sequences consist of single tracking shots of long duration involving multiple characters engaging in conversation as they move through the set; characters enter and exit the conversation as the shot continues without any cuts.

Early years

Sorkin was born in Manhattan, New York City, to a Jewish family, and was raised in the NY suburb of Scarsdale. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father a copyright lawyer who had fought in WWII and put himself through college on the G.I. Bill; both his older sister and brother went on to become lawyers. His paternal grandfather was one of the founders of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). Sorkin took an early interest in acting. Before he reached his teenage years, his parents were taking him to the theatre to see shows such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and That Championship Season.

Sofia Coppola

Sofia Carmina Coppola (/ˈkoʊpələ/ KOH-pə-lə; born May 14, 1971) is an American screenwriter, director, producer and actress. In 2003, she received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the comedy-drama Lost in Translation, and became the third woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. In 2010, with the drama Somewhere, she became the first American woman (and fourth American filmmaker) to win the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. Her father is director, producer and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola.

Early life

Sofia Coppola was born in New York City, New York, the youngest child and only daughter of set decorator/artist Eleanor Coppola (née Neil) and director Francis Ford Coppola. Her father is of Italian descent. At fifteen, she interned with Chanel. Coppola is a 1989 graduate of St. Helena High School. She later attended Mills College and the California Institute of the Arts. After dropping out of college, Coppola started a clothing line called Milkfed, which is now sold exclusively in Japan.

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Jerome Tarantino (/ˌtærənˈtiːnoʊ/; born March 27, 1963) is an American filmmaker and actor. His films are characterized by non-linear storylines, satirical subject matter, an aestheticization of violence, utilization of ensemble casts, references to pop culture, their soundtracks, and features of neo-noir film.

Tarantino grew up as a devoted film fan and worked at Video Archives, a video rental store, while training to act. His career began in the late 1980s, when he wrote and directed My Best Friend's Birthday, the screenplay of which formed the basis for True Romance. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with the release of Reservoir Dogs in 1992; regarded as a classic and cult hit, it was called the "Greatest Independent Film of All Time" by Empire. Its popularity was boosted by his second film, Pulp Fiction (1994), a black comedy crime film that was a major success both among critics and audiences. Judged the greatest film from 1983–2008 by Entertainment Weekly, many critics and scholars have named it one of the most significant works of modern cinema. For his next effort, Tarantino paid homage to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s with Jackie Brown (1997), an adaptation of the novel Rum Punch.