The Best Actress 2012
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Sarah Paulson was born on December 17, 1974 in Tampa, Florida, to Catharine Gordon (Dolcater) and Douglas Lyle Paulson II. She spent most of her early years in New York and Maine, before settling in Manhattan to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the High School for Performing Arts. Although she made her Broadway debut in "The Sisters Rosensweig" and performed in the off-Broadway "Talking Pictures", she debuted on the small screen in late 1994 in a guest shot on NBC's Law & Order (1990), then, in the following spring, landed her first TV-movie role in CBS' Friends at Last (1995) and finally became a TV series regular by fall 1995.
Best known for her amazing performance in CBS' supernatural drama American Gothic (1995) as the benevolent spiritual guide to her young brother, she was also a regular on the WB series Jack & Jill (1999) as "Elisa Cronkite", the former girlfriend of David "Jill" Jillefsky (Ivan Sergei) as well as the main character in the TV series Leap of Faith (2002), "Faith Wardwell", and as "Audrey" in the TV movie Metropolis (2000). She was also part of the cast of Shaughnessy (1996), The Long Way Home (1998) (as "Leanne Bossert") and Path to War (2002) as Luci Baines Johnson, as well as making notable appearances in Touched by an Angel (1994) playing "Zoe" in Manhunt (2001), 20 October 2001, and Cracker: Mind Over Murder (1997) playing "Nina" in True Romance: Part 1 (1997), 18 September 1997.
Sarah has now played in movies with such stars as Mel Gibson in the romantic comedy What Women Want (2000) (as "Annie", Gibson's secretary), Diane Keaton in the romantic drama The Other Sister (1999) (as "Heather Tate", Keaton's lesbian eldest daughter), Jamie Foxx in Held Up (1999) (as "Mary", a developmentally disabled young woman with an unfaithful boyfriend) and David Hyde Pierce in the romantic comedy Down with Love (2003) (as "Vicky Hiller", Pierce's crush). She also had two major roles in the comedy Bug (2002) and the drama, Levitation (1997), where she starred as a pregnant teenager who searches for her biological mother, with the help of a guardian angel.1532 points- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jessica Michelle Chastain was born in Sacramento, California, and was raised in a middle-class household in a Northern California suburb. Her mother, Jerri Chastain, is a vegan chef whose family is originally from Kansas, and her stepfather is a fireman. She discovered dance at the age of nine and was in a dance troupe by age thirteen. She began performing in Shakespearean productions all over the Bay area.
An actor in a production of "Romeo & Juliet" encouraged her to audition for Juilliard as a drama major. She became a member of "Crew 32" with the help of a scholarship from one of the school's famous alumni, Robin Williams.
In her last year at Juilliard, she was offered a holding deal with TV writer/producer John Wells and she eventually worked in three of his TV shows. Jessica continues to do theatre, having played in "The Cherry Orchard", "Rodney's Wife", "Salome" and "Othello". She spends her time between New York and Los Angeles, working in theater, film and TV.
In 2011, she had a prolific year in film. She was nominated for and won a number of awards, including a 2012 Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for The Help (2011).1512 points- Actress
- Producer
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As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Karen (Koch), who manages a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who works in construction. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine, and has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold read, agents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agency, Jennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next day, that agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Again, the agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have it, she did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).
Shortly thereafter, her career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007), and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).
Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010), which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereafter, she secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this time, Lawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies ever, with over $407 million at the US box office, and instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), with Lawrence reprising her role.
In 2012, the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, among other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.
She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), as Roselyn Rosenfield, and teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedy, Joy (2015), for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively).1493 points- Actress
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- Cinematographer
Anne Consigny was born on 25 May 1963 in Alençon, Orne, France. She is an actress and director, known for Elle (2016), At Eternity's Gate (2018) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).1489 points- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from Burlington, New Jersey, has German, Irish, Welsh, German-Jewish, and English ancestry.
Moore spent the early years of her life in over two dozen locations around the world with her parents, during her father's military career. She finally found her place at Boston University, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in acting from the School of the Performing Arts. After graduation (in 1983), She took the stage name "Julianne Moore" because there was another actress named "Julie Anne Smith". Julianne moved to New York and worked extensively in theater, including appearances off-Broadway in two Caryl Churchill plays, Serious Money and Ice Cream With Hot Fudge and as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theatre. But despite her formal training, Julianne fell into the attractive actress' trap of the mid-1980's: TV soaps and miniseries. She appeared briefly in the daytime serial The Edge of Night (1956) and from 1985 to 1988 she played two half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina on the soap As the World Turns (1956). This performance later led to an Outstanding Ingénue Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Her subsequent appearances were in mostly forgettable TV-movies, such as Money, Power, Murder. (1989), The Last to Go (1991) and Cast a Deadly Spell (1991).
She made her entrance into the big screen with 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), where she played the victim of a mummy. Two years later, Julianne appeared in feature films with supporting parts in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the comedy The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992). She kept winning better and more powerful roles as time went on, including a small but memorable role as a doctor who spots Kimble Harrison Ford and attempts to thwart his escape in The Fugitive (1993). (A role that made such an impression on Steven Spielberg that he cast her in the Jurassic Park (1993) sequel without an audition in 1997). In one of Moore's most distinguished performances, she recapitulated her "beguiling Yelena" from Andre Gregory's workshop version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Director Todd Haynes gave Julianne her first opportunity to take on a lead role in Safe (1995). Her portrayal of Carol White, an affluent L.A. housewife who develops an inexplicable allergic reaction to her environment, won critical praise as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Later that year she found her way into romantic comedy, co-starring as Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in Nine Months (1995). Following films included Assassins (1995), where she played an electronics security expert targeted for death (next to Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas) and Surviving Picasso (1996), where she played Dora Maar, one of the numerous lovers of Picasso (portrayed by her hero, Anthony Hopkins). A year later, after co-starring in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), opposite Jeff Goldblum, a young and unknown director, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Julianne to appear in his movie, Boogie Nights (1997). Despite her misgivings, she finally was won over by the script and her decision to play the role of Amber Waves, a loving porn star who acts as a mother figure to a ragtag crew, proved to be a wise one, since she received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Julianne started 1998 by playing an erotic artist in The Big Lebowski (1998), continued with a small role in the social comedy Chicago Cab (1997) and ended with a subtle performance in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1960). 1999 had Moore as busy as an actress can be.
As the century closed, Julianne starred in a number of high-profile projects, beginning with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) , in which she was cast as the mentally challenged but adorable sister of a decidedly unhinged Glenn Close. A portrayal of the scheming Mrs. Cheveley followed in Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband (1999) with a number of critics asserting that Moore was the best part of the movie. She then enjoyed another collaboration with director Anderson in Magnolia (1999) and continued with an outstanding performance in The End of the Affair (1999), for which she garnered another Oscar nomination. She ended 1999 with another great performance, that of a grieving mother in A Map of the World (1999), opposite Sigourney Weaver.1482 points- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she made her acting debut as a child with a role in one of her father's plays. She studied drama at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique in Orléans. After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in TV series such as Highlander (1992) and Extrême limite (1994), but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s. While still a teenager, Cotillard made her cinema debut at the age of 18 in the film L'histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse (1994), and had small but noticeable roles in films such as Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996) and Coline Serreau's comedy The Green Planet (1996).
In 1996, she had her first lead role in the TV film Chloé (1996), playing the title role - a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution. Cotillard co-starred opposite Anna Karina, the muse of the Nouvelle Vague.
In 1997, she won her first film award at the Festival Rencontres Cinématographiques d'Istres in France, for her performance as the young imprisoned Nathalie in the short film Affaire classée (1997). Her first prominent screen role was Lilly Bertineau in Gérard Pirès's box-office hit Taxi (1998), a role which she reprised in two sequels: Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003), this role earned her first César award nomination (France's equivalent to the Oscar) for Most Promising Actress in 1999.
In 1999, Cotillard starred as Julie Bonzon in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (1998). For her performance in the film, she won the Best Actress award at the Autrans Film Festival in France. In 2001, Marion starred in Pretty Things (2001) as the twin sisters Marie and Lucie, and was nominated for her second César award for Most Promising Actress.
Cotillard's breakthrough in France came in 2003, when she starred in Yann Samuell's dark romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare (2003), in which she played Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants who lives a love-hate relationship with her childhood friend. The film was a box-office hit in France, became a cult film abroad and led Cotillard to bigger projects.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), in which she played Joséphine, the wife of William Bloom (played by Billy Crudup). A few years later, Marion starred in Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006) playing Fanny Chenal, a French café owner who falls in love with Russell Crowe's character. In 2004, she won the Chopard Thophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, Cotillard won the César award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance of Tina Lombardi in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004).
In 2007, Cotillard received international recognition for her iconic portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007). Director Olivier Dahan cast Cotillard to play the legendary French singer because to him, her eyes were like those of "Piaf". The fact that she can sing also helped Cotillard land the role of "Piaf", although most of the singing in the film is that of Piaf's. The role won Cotillard the Academy Award for Best Actress along with a César, a Lumière Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe. That made her only the second actress to win an acting Oscar performing in a language other than English next to Sophia Loren (Two Women (1960)). Only two male performers (Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part II (1974)) have won an Oscar for solely non-English parts. Trevor Nunn called her portrayal of "Piaf" "one of the greatest performances on film ever". At the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film premiered, Cotillard was given a 15-minute standing ovation. When she won the César, Alain Delon presented the award and announced the winner as "La Môme Marion" (The Kid Marion), he also praised her at the stage saying: "Marion, I give you this César. I think this César is for a great great actress, and I know what I'm talking about".
Cotillard has worked much more frequently in English-language movies following her Academy Award recognition. In 2009, she acted opposite Johnny Depp in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009), and later that year played Luisa Contini in Rob Marshall's musical Nine (2009) and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Time magazine ranked her as the fifth best performance by a female in 2009. The following year, she took on the main antagonist role, Mal, in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and in 2011 she had memorable parts in Midnight in Paris (2011) and Contagion (2011) and reteamed with Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
In 2011 and 2012 respectively, Cotillard appeared on the top of Le Figaro's list of the highest paid actors in France, it was the first time in nine years that a female topped the list. Cotillard was also the highest paid foreign actress in Hollywood.
In 2012, Cotillard received wide-spread critical acclaim for her role as the legless orca trainer Stéphanie in Rust and Bone (2012). The film was a box office hit in France and received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. Cotillard won the Globe de Cristal (France's equivalent to the Golden Globe), the Étoile d'Or award and was nominated for the Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA, Critics' Choice and César Awards for her performance in the film. Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in "Rust and Bone", the two actresses competed for the Academy Awards for Best Actress in 2008, Cate was nominated for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Marion for her performance in La Vie En Rose (2007) and Cotillard won the Oscar.
She had her first leading role in an American movie in 2013, in James Gray's The Immigrant (2013), in which she played Ewa Cybulska, a Polish immigrant who wants to experience the American dream. Cotillard received wide-spread acclaim for her performance in the film at the 66th Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered, and also won several critics awards. In 2014, Cotillard played Sandra in the Belgian film Two Days, One Night (2014) by the Dardenne brothers. Her performance was unanimously praised at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, earned several critics awards, Cotillard won her first European Award for Best Actress and also received her second Oscar nomination and her sixth César award nomination.
In 2015, she played Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender in Justin Kurzel's Macbeth (2015) and voiced two animated movies: The Little Prince (2015) in which she voiced The Rose, and April and the Extraordinary World (2015), in which she voiced the lead role, Avril. Her 2016 included Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon (2016), Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (2016), Justin Kurzel's Assassin's Creed (2016), in which she worked again with her Macbeth co-star Michael Fassbender; and Robert Zemeckis's Allied (2016), with Brad Pitt.1476 points- Actress
- Writer
Agata Kulesza is a Polish actress who works in theater and cinema. She graduated with distinction from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw. She has been part of the artistic team at the Ateneum Theater in Warsaw since 2011. Kulesza's role in Rose (2011) earned her the Best Actress award from the Polish Film Awards. She gained international recognition for her role in the movie Ida (2013), for which she received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress and her second Polish Film Awards for Best Actress.1426 points- Actress
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- Additional Crew
Julia Kijowska was born on 16 March 1981 in Warsaw, Poland. She is an actress and writer, known for Via Carpatia (2018), Loving (2012) and Fisheye (2020).1426 points- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Alexandra Rapaport was born on 26 December 1971 in Bromma, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. She is an actress and producer, known for Gåsmamman (2015), The Hunt (2012) and Heder (2019). She is married to Joakim Eliasson. They have two children.863 points- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Kerry Washington is an African-American actress, television show producer and film director who is known for her roles in Scandal, Ray, the Tim Story Fantastic Four film series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Confirmation, Django Unchained, Little Fires Everywhere, Cars 3 and The Last King of Scotland. She had two children from Nnamdi Asomugha.845 points- An only child, Emmanuelle was born Paulette Germaine Riva in Cheniménil, but eventually grew up in Remiremont. Her mother, Jeanne Fernande Nourdin, was a seamstress. Her father, René Alfred "Alfredo" Riva, was a sign writer. Her paternal grandfather was Italian. She dreamed of becoming an actress since she was six, so that the entire world would take notice of her. This ambition was, however, to be met with firm opposition from her own family. Emmanuelle's father, a strict disciplinarian to whom the word "actress" was basically a synonym for "prostitute", disapproved of her way of thinking, since it clashed with the simple values he wished to pass on to her. Emmanuelle felt great affection towards her parents, but, at the same time, was under the impression that they couldn't really understand what she wanted. A bit of a tomboy and a rebel in her schooldays, she showed little interest in studying, but always directed her passion towards acting, appearing in every year-end play. In her early 20's, Emmanuelle was to find out the true meaning of nervous depression. Having completed the seamstress apprenticeship she had started at age 15, she eventually resigned herself to take up this profession, also discouraged by the thought that, in a city like Remiremont, the only possible alternative was to become a hairdresser. The sense of boredom that was weighing her down actually got so devouring that sewing sort of became the only form of escape from the horror of her everyday reality. But luckily, things were soon to change for the better. The day Emmanuelle discovered the announcement of a contest at the Dramatic Arts Centre of Rue Blanche was the day she found the courage to stand up to her parents and state that she would have traveled to Paris to become an actress. Having finally understood the depth of her sadness, her family couldn't oppose her wishes any longer, so, on the 13th May of 1953, she arrived in Paris.
At the Rue Blanche contest, Emmanuelle auditioned in front of one of the leading actors and directors of the Comédie-Française, the great Jean Meyer. She acted one scene from "On ne badine pas avec l'Amour" by Alfred de Musset. Meyer and the other acting teachers in the jury were just mesmerized by her performance and immediately realized that they had found the next big thing. It goes without saying that Emmanuelle was awarded a scholarship and Meyer himself decided to take her as his own pupil. At 26, Riva was too old to enter the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts, but she soon got her big break anyway, since French stage pillar René Dupuy cast her in a production of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man". Her next theatrical credits were "Mrs.Warren's Profession" (Shaw), "L'espoir" (Henri Bernstein), "Le dialogue des Carmélites" (Georges Bernanos), Britannicus (Jean Racine), "Il seduttore" (Diego Fabbri). Emmanuelle's small screen debut was in a 1957 episode of the history program Énigmes de l'histoire (1956), "Le Chevalier d'Éon". In the program, she played the Queen of England opposite Marcelle Ranson-Hervé as the cross-dressing knight in the service of the French crown. 1958, on the other hand, was the year that saw her first film appearance, an uncredited role in the Jean Gabin movie The Possessors (1958). The following year would, however, mark a turning point in her career. Emmanuelle was starring in the Dominique Rolin play "L'Epouvantail" at the "théatre de L'Oeuvre" in Paris when one night she found a visitor in her dressing room. His name was Alain Resnais and he was a young director responsible for a few shorts and documentaries (including the Holocaust-themed masterpiece Night and Fog (1956)). He was apparently looking for the female lead of his first feature film, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), based on a script by the great author, Marguerite Duras. Having seen a picture of Riva in a playbill of the production she was starring in, Resnais had immediately urged to see her. Without promising her anything, the director just asked Emmanuelle if he could take a few photos of her, so that he would have later shown them to Duras for a response. In addition to this, he also invited her at his place where he filmed her reciting some lines from "Arms and the Man". When he brought Duras the material, the author set her eyes on Emmanuelle's melancholic, enigmatic expression and immediately realized that they had found the one they were looking for. "Hiroshima Mon Amour" turned out to be one of the most acclaimed and representative movies of the French New Wave and launched both Resnais and Riva's careers in full orbit. Being somehow familiar with a sense of captivity, Emmanuelle gave an incredibly personal and involving performance as the unnamed heroine of the movie, and it was one that came straight from her heart. Playing an actress from Nevers who develops a love affection towards a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) while filming an anti-war movie in Hiroshima, Emmanuelle helped modernizing acting and female figures in film through an intimate, almost minimalistic woman portrayal that was quite unlike anything else that had been seen on the silver screen to that moment. Speaking her character's thoughts through a great deal of voice-over that could give the viewer constant access to her mind (making for an unusual amount of psychological introspection) , she was able to masterfully translate every last one of these feelings to subtle facial expressions whose richness and eloquence made her face the mirror of the compex soul she was baring before the camera. Combining this heartfelt approach with a refined diction that could perfectly deliver Duras' deep, existentialist lines of dialogue, she gave the world a new type of heroine who, while set apart by a distinctive intellectual charm, remained very humanly relatable. This ground-breaking acting was greatly praised by the critics of the time who were most open to innovation, including some that later became masters of revolutionary cinema themselves. Jean-Luc Godard stated: "Let's take the character played by Emmanuelle Riva. If you ran into her on the street, or saw her every day, I think she would only be of interest to a very limited number of people. But in the film she interests everyone. For me, she's the kind of girl who works at the "Editions du Seuil" or for "L'Express", a kind of 1959 George Sand. A priori, she doesn't interest me, because I prefer the kind of girl you see in [Renato] Castellani's film. This said, Resnais has directed Emmanuelle Riva in such a prodigious way that now I want to read books from "Le Seuil" or "L'Express"." This was Éric Rohmer's take on Riva's 'Elle': " She isn't a classical heroine, at least not one that a certain classical cinema has habituated us to see, from David Griffith to 'Nicholas Ray'." Jacques Doniol-Valcroze summed her up this way: "She is unique. It's the first time that we've seen on the screen an adult woman with an interiority and a capacity for reasoning pushed to such a degree. Emmanuelle Riva is a modern adult woman because she is not an adult woman. She is, on the contrary, very childlike, guided by her impulses alone and not by her ideas." And Jean Domarchi commented that "In a sense, Hiroshima is a documentary on Emmanuelle Riva." The phenomenal intelligence and dramatic intensity of Emmanuelle's performance made "Elle" one of the most indelible characters in film history: however, while Duras' screenplay received an Oscar nomination, her star-making turn was sadly overlooked by the Academy. At least she won the "Étoile de Cristal" (the top film award in France between 1955 and 1975, given by the "Académie française" and later replaced by the César) for Best Actress for her work in the movie.
One year later, Emmanuelle was known as a major talent and, consequently, plenty of directors from different nationalities were knocking at her door. She followed her Hiroshima success with two acclaimed turns in Le huitième jour (1960) and Recours en grâce (1960). In addition to playing these leading roles for French cinema, a scene-stealing Riva was also seen as Simone Signoret's feisty friend in Antonio Pietrangeli's excellent Adua e le compagne (1960) and gave the standout performance in Gillo Pontecorvo's superb Kapo (1960) as a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp. Enter 1961: another year, another career highlight. Emmanuelle was cast opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in Jean-Pierre Melville's ground-breaking (and shocking for its time) Léon Morin, Priest (1961). In the movie, Riva's Barny, an atheist widow, and Belmondo's Morin, a young and seductive priest, develop a deep, theological relationship with strong sexual implications. Melville cast Emmanuelle thinking that she possessed the kind of intellectual eroticism the character needed and decided to demean her appearance as much as possible by having her dressed in the plainest clothes, so that Barny's major appeal would have been the cultural vivacity shining through her beautiful facial features. Riva and Belmondo's performances turned out to be outstanding and the film, against all odds, ended up being a big success. Riva next appeared in Climats (1962), the first (and only) feature film of TV writer and director Stellio Lorenzi, the man behind celebrated history programs such as La caméra explore le temps (1957) and its immediate predecessor, "Énigmes de L'Histoire", where Emmanuelle had done her screen debut. Adapting André Maurois' novel, Lorenzi hired Emmanuelle seeing her great interpretative sensitivity as being close to the nature of the character she would have played in the movie, also starring Jean-Pierre Marielle and Marina Vlady. In the story, Marielle is torn between sacred and profane love, leaving Vlady's vain and frivolous Odile for Riva's kind and good-hearted Isabelle. The same year, Emmanuelle scored another huge personal triumph as the title heroine of Georges Franju's Therese (1962). Her performance as François Mauriac's ill-fated 20th century Emma Bovary was a true masterpiece of psychological introspection: she perfectly captured all the key traits of the character at once, making her vulnerability coexist with her spirit of rebellion and her desire for freedom go along with a strong sense of self-destruction. Emmanuelle's work in the movie won her enormous raves and a sacred, unanimous Volpi Cup at Venice Film Festival. For the rest of the 60's (her golden period), Emmanuelle kept playing leading roles in French and Italian movies alike and also kept expanding her work to the TV medium. She found excellent, showcasing roles both in Thomas the Impostor (1965) (where she was directed by Franju for the second and last time) and in the lovely comedy The Hours of Love (1963) where she enjoyed a very unusual kind of wedding to Ugo Tognazzi. The third segment of Io uccido, tu uccidi (1965) paired her for the first time with Jean-Louis Trintignant. In this story of "Amour Fou", Riva plays a woman willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save Trintignant's character, a man undeserving of her affection. Some TV work the actress did in this decade deserves to be noted as well. She reprised the role of Thérèse Desqueyroux in La fin de la nuit (1966), a dark and crepuscular adaptation of the Mauriac novel of the same name. This sequel follows Thérèse as she relocates to Paris where she has nothing to do but waiting for death to come. The TV play La forêt noire (1968), a fictionalized retelling of the relationship between Brahms and the Schumanns, featured another remarkable Riva performance, and so did Caterina (1963), which saw her taking on the role of Caterina Cornaro.
Going into the 70's and 80's, it wasn't easy for Emmanuelle to keep replicating the impact of her early performances and, while she always played leading roles in her native France, the majority of her movies didn't have a great international resonance. Misguided productions like Fernando Arrabal's I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (1973) proved totally unworthy of her talent. Like her contemporaries Delphine Seyrig, Bernadette Lafont, Bulle Ogier and Edith Scob, she liked to pick alternative, anti-mainstream projects, stating that she had no interest in doing things that had already been done before. In this period, she declined countless roles because she found them too traditional and, as a direct consequence of this, most directors stopped making her any more offers. Between 1982 and 1983 she was served with another couple of meaty parts to sink her teeth into. The first was in Marco Bellocchio's The Eyes, the Mouth (1982) (an underrated sequel of sorts to Fists in the Pocket (1965)) as the mother of Lou Castel, here taking on the role of Giovanni, the actor who had supposedly played Alessandro in the classic movie. The second was in Philippe Garrel's poignant Liberté, la nuit (1984) where she was paired with the director's father, the glorious actor, Maurice Garrel. In the subsequent years, Emmanuelle always found work in respectable productions, with the great director occasionally calling her for a project of superior quality (like Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors: Blue (1993)) but the great roles seemed to be way behind her by now. In 2008, she had a nice cameo in A Man and His Dog (2008), a French remake of Umberto D. (1952) which reunited her with her "Léon Morin, prêtre" co-star, Jean-Paul Belmondo. Riva briefly appears in the movie as a gentle lady who meets Belmondo's character -not coincidentally- in a church. She was soon to enjoy, however, an incredible and unforeseen career renaissance.
In 2010, Emmanuelle was cast in Michael Haneke's latest movie, Amour (2012). The script managed as well to get Jean-Louis Trintignant out of retirement and frequent Haneke collaborator Isabelle Huppert also got on board for the ride. Haneke had written the script with precisely Trintignant in mind, but hadn't already thought of a specific actress to play the leading female role. The director had greatly admired Emmanuelle's performance in "Hiroshima Mon Amour", but wasn't much familiar with her subsequent work. Still, a recent photo of hers lead him to think that she would have been believable as Trintignant's wife and decided to audition her along with a few other actresses her age. It soon became obvious that she was the best choice in the world. The Austrian director's most recent masterpiece follows Georges (Trintignant) and Anne (Riva), a long time married couple whose life changes drastically when she suffers a stroke. An incredibly deep reflection about the two most important components of life, love and death, Haneke's heartbreaking movie took Cannes film festival by storm, making obvious from the day it was screened that no other film had the slightest possibility to win the Golden Palm. A fundamental part of "Amour"'s success were of course the immense central performances of its two leads. Jury president Nanni Moretti would have liked to give "Amour" the main festival prize along with top acting honors for its two veteran stars, but unfortunately a festival rule forbids to give any other major award to the Golden Palm winner. Moretti was displeased by this, but he still managed to find a way to recognize Trintignant and Riva's work. Although the Best Actor Award went to Mads Mikkelsen for The Hunt (2012) and the Best Actress Award was given to Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur for Beyond the Hills (2012), the Golden Palm which the director was awarded was given alongside a special mention to the film's leads for their indispensable work. All three were invited on the stage to make an acceptance speech: it was one of the highest honors a thespian could ever dream of. Although Haneke remains the only official recipient of the Palm, Riva and Trintignant were, in spirit, the big acting winners of the 65th edition of the prestigious film festival. But the love for "Amour" wasn't to end here. After it amazed the audience at Toronto film festival, it became clear that the film would have done this over and over while getting screened all around the globe. Further accolades for the movie came at the end of November, when it scored an impressive four wins at the European Film Awards (Picture, Director, Actor and Actress). In the following weeks, Emmanuelle also racked up a good share of critic awards in America, including wins from major groups such as the National Society of Film Critics. On Oscar nominations day, Emmanuelle's performance was recognized along with the movie, its director and its screenplay. Having traveled to New York to attend the 2013 National Board of Review awards (where Amour had been named "Best Foreign Language Film"), Emmanuelle was still there when, bright and early, her room neighbors' jubilation cheers told her that she had been nominated. In great humbleness, she stated that she didn't expect it because 'there's plenty of talented people everywhere'. Shortly after, she also added a BAFTA to her mantle. After her triumph, Culture and communication Minister Aurélie Filippetti complimented Emmanuelle on her charisma and on the quality of her performance and stated that she would have defended France's colors at the upcoming Oscars. Emmanuelle's next appointment was with an overdue first César. After receiving a well-deserved standing ovation, she made a very beautiful and moving speech, quoting Von Kleist and paying homage to Maurice Garrel. A couple of days later she attended the Oscars and eventually failed to win the award, but this couldn't change the fact that she had made history already. Having always been in possession of one of cinema's most expressive faces, being equally effective with her physical language and having displayed unsurpassable courage and honesty in portraying the deterioration of Anne's body and soul, Emmanuelle gave a performance that went beyond every linguistic barrier and strongly touched and affected everyone who saw it. Her stunning work is for the ages.
Having hit such a high note near the end of her film career, it seems only natural that Emmanuelle did the same thing on the Parisian stage shortly after, scoring a new triumph in Didier Bezace's production of Marguerite Duras' play "Savannah Bay", which marked her theatrical return after a 13 years absence. Acting a text of the celebrated author who had penned the movie which had simultaneously given her immediate fame and screen immortality was the most inspired way to bring her exceptional career to full circle. Duras had written the part (originally performed by Madeleine Renaud) on the condition that only an actress no longer in the spring of youth would have played it: disregarding this wish would have been a mistake, but it must be added that no other actress in the same age range and associated with the author could have been an equally perfect choice. Wearing that slightly absent look loaded with a mixture of vulnerability and melancholy that only she can do so effectively, the actress reached- for the few, privileged ones who witnessed this new achievement- some basically unmatchable levels of heartbreak, repeating several times the words 'mon amour' to such an involving and powerful effect no one else could have produced. The actress stated that she would have probably refused to ever return to the stage hadn't she been offered this part. And her choice was, once again, a winning one. Emmanuelle kept working regularly for the next two years-- shooting films and doing poetry recitals all around Europe-- until she died on the 27 January 2017 after a secret battle with cancer. As profoundly devastating as the news of this artistic and human loss were, the world had to salute with utmost admiration a woman who, true to her formidable spirit, always lived a life that was determined by the choices she wanted.
Now, considering that she won her first audience by acting one scene from "On ne badine pas avec l'Amour" in front of her future mentor, got her international consecration by playing the leading role in "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and rose from her ashes with her superlative work in "Amour", one can conclude that the word Amour is most definitely a good luck charm to Emmanuelle Riva.836 points - Actress
- Music Department
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Isabelle Huppert was born March 16, 1953, in Paris, France, but spent her childhood in Ville d'Avray. Encouraged by her mother Annick Huppert (who was a teacher of English), she followed the Conservatory of Versailles and won an acting prize for her work in Alfred de Musset's "Un caprice". She then studied at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique and followed an illustrious theatrical career, which includes Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country", Euripides' "Medea" (title role) etc. She made her movie debut in Le Prussien (1971) and soon became one of the top actresses of her generation, giving fine performances in important films, like Claude Goretta's The Lacemaker (1977), as a simple-minded girl who falls in love with - and is betrayed by - a student, Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man for Himself (1980), as a prostitute, and Maurice Pialat's Loulou (1980), as an upper-class woman who is physically attracted by a young vagabond. She made an inconsequential US debut in Otto Preminger's Rosebud (1975) before playing a brothel madam in Michael Cimino's disastrous Heaven's Gate (1980), but she fared better in Curtis Hanson's The Bedroom Window (1987) (as an adulteress who witnesses an attack). Huppert has an extremely productive collaboration with Claude Chabrol, who cast her in several movies, including Violette (1978), in which she played a woman who murders her parents, and Story of Women (1988), in which she gave an excellent performance as a shameless abortionist, the last woman to be executed in France. More recent good films include Patricia Mazuy's Saint-Cyr (2000) and Michael Haneke's controversial The Piano Teacher (2001), as a sexually repressed piano teacher.836 points- Actress
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Veerle Baetens studied Musical Theatre at the "Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts" in Brussels. After this she had roles in theatre and then started her TV career for VTM.
In 2005 she won the "John Kraaijkamp Musical Award" for her role in the theatre version of Pippi Longstocking. And in 2008 she won awards for her performance of "Sara" (the Flemish version of the TV show Ugly Betty). After this TV show ended she starred in the movie Loft. Then another big role came as Hannah Maes in the TV show "Code 37" where she played the tough police chief. This show lasted for 3 seasons.
In 2012 she started her own band together with friend Sandrine called "Dallas" and the album "Take it All" came out in 2012. Another album that Veerle was part of was the movie soundtrack of "The Broken Circle Breakdown" where she played the role of Elise, a woman who loses her daughter.
She and her boyfriend Geert have a daughter (2008) and live in Belgium.816 points- Producer
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Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Betty Witherspoon, a registered nurse & John Draper Witherspoon, a military surgeon. Reese spent the first 4 years of her life in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, where her father served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserves. Shortly after, the family moved back to the USA & settled in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reese was introduced to the entertainment industry at a very early age. At age 7, she began modeling. This led to appearances on several local television commercials. At age 11, she placed first in a Ten-State Talent Fair.
In 1990, she landed her first major acting role in Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon (1991). Her role as a 14-year old tomboy earned her rave reviews. Roles in bigger films such as Jack the Bear (1993) and A Far Off Place (1993) followed shortly after.
Following high school graduation in 1994 from Harpeth Hall, a Nashville all girls school, Reese decided to put her acting career on hold and attend Stanford University where she would major in English literature. However, her collegiate plans were shortly dashed when she accepted roles to star in two major motion pictures: Fear (1996), alongside Mark Wahlberg, and Freeway (1996) with Kiefer Sutherland. Although neither film was a huge box-office success, they did help to establish Reese as a rising starlet in Hollywood and open the door for bigger and better film roles. Those bigger roles came in movies such as Pleasantville (1998), Election (1999) and Cruel Intentions (1999).
Her breakthrough role came as Elle Woods in the 2001 comedy, Legally Blonde (2001). The movie was huge box-office smash and established Reese as one of the top female draws in Hollywood. The next year, she scored a follow-up hit with Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which went on to gross over $100 million dollars at the box office. In 2006, she took home the best actress Oscar for her role as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line (2005). On the late 2000s and early 2010s, Reese continued to star in more romantic comedies, such as Four Christmases (2008) and How Do You Know (2010). In December 2010, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the year 2014, she produced both Gone Girl (2014) and Wild (2014), for which she got nominated for best actress Oscar again for her role as Cheryl Strayed.800 points- Jennifer Anne Ehle is an American actress, the daughter of English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice. For her work on Broadway, she won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Real Thing, and the 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Coast of Utopia.799 points
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Naomi Ellen Watts was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, England to Myfanwy Edwards "Miv" (Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume/set designer, and Peter Watts (Peter Anthony Watts), Pink Floyd's road manager. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh. Her father died when she was seven and she followed her mother and brother around England until she was 14 and they finally settled in Australia, homeland of her maternal grandmother. When they arrived, she coaxed her mother to let her take acting classes. After bit parts in commercials, she landed her first role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi met her best friend Nicole Kidman when they both auditioned for a bikini commercial and shared a taxi ride home. In 1991, Naomi starred with Kidman in the sleeper hit Flirting (1991), directed by John Duigan. Naomi continued her career by starring in the Australian Brides of Christ (1991) co-starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Brenda Fricker.
In 1993, she worked with John Duigan again in Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and director George Miller in Gross Misconduct (1993). Tank Girl (1995), in 1995, an adaptation of the comic book was a cult hit, starred Naomi as "Jet Girl", but it didn't do at the box-office or do much for her career. Watts continued to take insignificant parts in movies including the much forgotten film Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996). It wasn't until David Lynch cast her in the critically acclaimed film Mulholland Drive (2001) that she began to become noticed. Her part as an aspiring actress showed her strong acting ability and wide range and earned her much respect, as much as to say by some that she was overlooked for a Oscar nomination that year. Stardom finally came to Naomi in the surprise hit The Ring (2002), which grossed over $100,000,000 at the box-office and starred Watts as an investigative reporter hunting down the truth behind several mysterious deaths seemingly caused by a video tape. While the movie did not fare well with the critics, it launched her into the spotlight. In 2003, she starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003) which earned her - what some say is a much overdue Oscar nomination and brought others to call her one of the best in her generation of actors. The same year, she was nominated for 21 Grams (2003), Naomi was chosen to play "Ann Darrow" in director Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) which took her to New Zealand for a five month shoot. Watts completed her first comedy in I Heart Huckabees (2004) for director David O. Russell, playing a superficial spokes model - a break from her usual intense and dramatic roles she is known for.
In 2005, she reprized her role as the protective-mother-reporter "Rachel Keller" in The Ring Two (2005). The movie, released in March, opened to $35,000,000 at the box office in the first weekend and established her as a box-office draw. Also in 2005, it was decided that her independent movie Ellie Parker (2001) would be re-released in late 2005 after its success at resurfacing at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, which Naomi also produced, features her in the title role and is a bit biographical, but yet exaggerated take of the life of a struggling actress as she comes to Hollywood and encounters nightmares of the profession (it also features Watts' own beat-up Honda which she travels around in). In 2006, she starred with Edward Norton in The Painted Veil (2006). In July of 2007, Naomi gave birth to a boy, Alexander Pete (Sasha Schreiber) in Los Angeles with Liev Schreiber. Since then her career choices have gathered even more critical acclaim with starring roles roles in German director Michael Haneke's American remake of his thriller Funny Games (2007), David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007), and the action-thriller, The International (2009), released in February 2009. In mid-2008, Watts announced she was expecting her second child with Schreiber and gave birth to second son Samuel Kai Schreiber, in New York on December 13.793 points- Actress
- Director
Marta Etura was born on 28 October 1978 in Donostia-San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa, País Vasco, Spain. She is an actress and director, known for Offering to the Storm (2020), The Legacy of the Bones (2019) and The Invisible Guardian (2017).793 points- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin was born in Santa Monica, California, to Oona Chaplin (née O'Neill) and legendary entertainer Charles Chaplin (A.K.A. Charlie Chaplin). She is a granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill and a great-granddaughter of stage actor James O'Neill. She attended the Royal Ballet Academy in London. She was discovered by David Lean when she was dancing in Paris, which led to her role in Doctor Zhivago (1965). She has two children, Shane and Oona Chaplin.793 points- Actress
- Music Department
Tabu is an Indian actress. She has mainly acted in Hindi films, though she has also starred in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and Bengali-language films, as well as one American film. She has won the National Film Award for Best Actress twice, and holds the record for the most wins of Filmfare's Critics Award for Best Female Performer, with four. With few exceptions, she is best known for acting in artistic, low-budget films that go on to garner more critical appreciation than substantial box-office figures. Her appearances in commercially successful films were few, and her parts in these films were small, such as Border (1997), Saajan Chale Sasural (1996), Biwi No. 1 (1999) and Hum Saath-Saath Hain (1999). Her most notable performances include Maachis (1996), Virasat (1997), Hu Tu Tu (1999), Astitva (2000), Chandni Bar (2001), Maqbool (2003) and Cheeni Kum (2007). Her leading role in Mira Nair's American film The Namesake (2006) also drew major praise.
Regarded as one of the most talented Indian actresses of her generation, Tabu is known to be selective about her film roles. She was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, in 2011 by the Government of India for her contributions towards the arts.792 points- Actress
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Maribel Verdú was born on October 2, 1970 in Madrid, Spain as María Isabel Verdú Rollán. She is an actress, known for Snow White (2012), Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and And Your Mother Too (2001). She is the older sister of twins Marina and Carlota and she has been married to Pedro Larrañaga since September 1999.785 points- Actress
- Art Director
- Editor
Ángela Molina was born on 5 October 1955 in Madrid, Spain. She is an actress and art director, known for Live Flesh (1997), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and Broken Embraces (2009). She has been married to Leo Blakstad since 1995. They have two children. She was previously married to Hervé Timarche.785 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Davis, second of three children, was born in Englewood, New Jersey, the daughter of Joan, a librarian (at one time, for the elementary section of Elisabeth Morrow School), and William Davis, an engineer. Davis has described her mother as a "great storyteller" who would take Davis and her siblings to museums or to "something cultural" every Sunday after church. Davis was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey and graduated in 1982 from Tenafly High School. She was a childhood friend of Mira Sorvino, with whom she wrote and acted in backyard plays. She is married to actor Jon Patrick Walker. They have two daughters, Georgia (born August 31, 2002) and Mae (born December 30, 2004).782 points- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Paula Patton was born in Los Angeles, California, to Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American and her mother, who is caucasian, has German, English, and Dutch ancestry. Her family lived across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing up and she was a fan of films from her earliest years. Her mother, who also appreciated good films, was a schoolteacher, and her father was a lawyer. Paula claims that as a girl she would escape by "pretending to be someone else" so it was not a surprise that she acted in high school plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her favorite role was that of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". However, she went on to study film at the University of Southern California in a summer program, and won a 3-month assignment making documentaries for PBS. This led to her working as a production assistant for TV documentaries, and also for Howie Mandel's talk show. She progressed to actually producing documentary segments for Medical Diaries (2000) airing on Discovery Health Channel. Paula now professes that she liked what she was doing, but her dream remained the same as when she was small so she took acting lessons and shifted gears to become a performer. She was almost immediately successful and, within three years, had played parts in major features, Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and the female lead in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.782 points- Actress
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Andrea Louise Riseborough is an English actress and producer. She made her film debut with a small part in Venus (2006), and has since appeared in more prominent roles in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Never Let Me Go, Brighton Rock, Made in Dagenham (all 2010), W.E. (2011), Shadow Dancer, Disconnect (both 2012), Welcome to the Punch, Oblivion (both 2013), Birdman (2014), Nocturnal Animals (2016), Battle of the Sexes, The Death of Stalin (both 2017), Mandy, Nancy (both 2018), The Grudge and Possessor (both 2020).782 points- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Anne Parillaud was born in Paris, France on May 6, 1960 and even though all her travels took her to many lands, is still a Paris resident. Anne studied ballet in school, and her first appearance was in the film Un amour de sable (1977) where she played "La jeune fille avec un petit chat" ("The girl with a kitten"). However, her first real role was as "Estelle" in L'hôtel de la plage (1978) and, even though she had only appeared in this film during summer vacation, by then she had caught the show business bug. Anne was in eight other films, and then she gave her breakout performance in her signature role as "Nikita" in the wildly popular La Femme Nikita (1990), which spun off the American remake Point of No Return (1993) starring Bridget Fonda, and the USA Network television series La Femme Nikita (1997) starring Peta Wilson. Anne had taken judo lessons for three months to prepare for this part. Anne said that when acting, she can abandon herself; indeed the character Nikita is nothing like her. Anne hates guns and even said of Nikita: "For a while, she was in me like a demon".
When it comes to which films and directors to work with, Anne has her one rule: it must touch her heart. Obviously director Luc Besson touched her heart, they had a daughter together, but the couple separated shortly after La Femme Nikita (1990); (in 1997, Besson was briefly married to Milla Jovovich, but they divorced). Anne traveled to America to do several films, including Innocent Blood (1992), in which she plays a French vampire. She said of her character "Marie", that she wasn't born a vampire, didn't decide to be one; in that sense, the movie is a parable about dealing with the problem of being different in society. And difference equates to loneliness. Anne is still busy appearing in movies. Offscreen, Anne enjoys simple pleasures such as dancing, and talking with friends. And she is always led by her heart, Anne says she is someone who lives by impulse first. Her many fans would say it seems she has made a lot of right choices.781 points- Marine Vacth was born on April 9, 1991 in Paris. She grew up in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Alfort with a younger brother. She had difficult childhood growing up with a violent father, a lorry driver - his company is named after his daughter Marine, and a mother, an accountant at Malaysia Airlines, "who pacified nothing". The enduring passion of Marine's youth was judo, which she did for seven years until the age of 17, reaching brown belt. When she was 15, she was spotted by a model agent while she was shopping with her mother in H&M department store. She found modeling as an escape from troublesome family. She was educated at the Lycée Eugène Delacroix in Maisons-Alforts. Despite being good at her studies, she felt cramped and ended school without having waited for the certificate and has gone to Paris. The beautiful brunette quickly went on to be photographed by the likes of Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Juergen Teller or Paolo Roversi. In 2011, she succeeded Kate Moss as the face of YSL's Parisienne perfume and became a face of many prestigious fashion houses as Chloé, Louis Vuitton, or Ralph Lauren. The director Cédric Klapisch noticed the mysterious beauty of Marine and gave her the role of Tessa in My Piece of the Pie (2011) in 2011. Despite a critical failure, Marine immediately caught eye of Alexandre Arcady and gained a small role in his film What the Day Owes the Night (2012) and Joan Chemla's short The Man with the Golden Brain (2012). She also auditioned for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) and was part of the final four candidates. Unfortunately, she didn't get the role. Around this time, French director François Ozon was looking for a lead actress to cast in his new movie Young & Beautiful (2013). After seeing Marine on the cover of Libération Next, he decided she's the right girl to portrait Isabelle, adolescent girl who leads a secret life as a call girl. In 2013, the movie was presented in Cannes and received a critical success. This experience definitively convinced Marine to pursue acting as a profession. The breakthrough role of Isabelle led Marine to roles in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Families (2015), The Confession (2016), directed by Nicolas Boukhrief (2016) and recently she worked again with director François Ozon in erotic thriller Double Lover (2017). This movie took Marine to Cannes in 2017 for the second time. In January 2018 is released Marine's newest movie If You Saw His Heart (2017) by Joan Chemla, co-starring with Gael García Bernal. On the private side, Marine is very discreet. She doesn't use any social media and doesn't like giving interviews and if so, she chooses her words very carefully. She is living with a photographer Paul Schmidt, with whom she has a son Henri, born on the March 15, 2014. She also owns a cat named Alphonse. Marine describes herself as pragmatic and introvert, yet she likes to take risks as an actress. Marine is an ambassador of the Parisian fashion house Chanel and recently featured in their Cruise 2017/18 campaign. Marine is one of the best young French actresses with a huge career ahead of her.781 points
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- Producer
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Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She earned a BA in theater from Bethany College in 1979 and an MFA from Yale University in 1982. Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple (1984), in which she worked with filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Coen and his brother, Ethan Coen, in their films.
McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy, and in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award six times - Supporting in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), and Lead in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020), winning the Oscar for the latter three. She also won a Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of "Nomadland." Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, she dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the quintessential Minnesota Scandinavian, in Fargo (1996).
McDormand and Coen adopted a son, Pedro McDormand Coen, who was born in Paraguay, in 1994. They live in New York.778 points- Actress
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The iconoclastic gifts of the highly striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton have been appreciated by art house crowds and international audiences alike. After her stunning Oscar-winning turn as a high-powered corporate attorney in the George Clooney starring and critically-lauded legal thriller Michael Clayton (2007), however, her androgynous looks and often bizarre appeal have been embraced by more mainstream crowds as well.
She was born Katherine Mathilda Swinton into a patrician Scottish military family on November 5, 1960, in London, England. Her mother, Judith Balfour, Lady Swinton (née Killen), was Australian, and her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton, an army officer, was English-born. Her ancestry is Scottish, Northern Irish, and English, including a long tapestry of prominent Scottish ancestors. Educated at an English and a Scottish boarding school, Tilda subsequently studied Social and Political Science at Cambridge University and graduated in 1983 with a degree in English Literature.
During her tenure as a student, she performed countless stage productions and proceeded to work for a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company where she appeared in such productions as "Measure for Measure." The rebel insider her, however, was strong and she left the company after a year as her approach and interests began to shift dramatically. With a pungent taste for the unique and seldom tried, Tilda found some gender-bending stage roles come her way. She portrayed Mozart in Pushkin's "Mozart and Salieri", and as a working class woman impersonating her dead husband during World War II, in Manfred Karge's "Man to Man," a role she later committed to film (Man to Man (1992)).
In 1985, the tall, slender performer with alabaster skin and carrot-topped hair began a professional association with gay experimental director Derek Jarman. She continued to live and work with the groundbreaking writer/director/cinematographer for the next nine years, involving herself in seven of his often notorious films. This quirky, highly fascinating alliance would produce such stark and radical turns as the Berlin International Film Festival winners Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1987), The Garden (1990) and Edward II (1991) (playing Isabella, in which she won "Best Actress" at the Venice Film Festival) and Wittgenstein (1993), as well as the films Soursweet (1988) (a movie with no spoken dialogue) and the Stockholm Film Festival Award winner Blue (1993).
Jarman succumbed to complications from AIDS in 1994. His untimely demise left a devastating void in Tilda's life for quite some time. Her most notable performance of her Jarman period, however, came from a non-Jarman film. For the vivid title role in Orlando (1992), her nobleman character lives for 400 years while changing sex from man to woman. The film, which Swinton spent years helping writer/director Sally Potter develop and finance, continues to this day to have a worldwide devoted fan following.
Over the years, Tilda has preferred art to celebrity, opening herself to experimental projects with new and untried directors and mediums, delving into the worlds of installation art and cutting-edge fashion. Consistently off-centered roles in Female Perversions (1996), Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), Teknolust (2002), Young Adam (2003), Broken Flowers (2005) and Béla Tarr's The Man from London (2007) have added to her mystique. Back in 1995, she delved into a performance art piece in the Serpentine Gallery, London, where she was put on display to the public for a week, asleep (or apparently so), in a glass case.
Following the birth of her twins in 1997, Tilda would leave lean for a time towards Hollywood mainstream filming. The thriller The Deep End (2001), earned her a number of critic's awards and her first Golden Globe nomination. Other visible U.S. pictures included The Beach (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio, fantasy epic Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves, her Oscar-decorated performance in Michael Clayton (2007) and, of course, her iconic White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
Into the millennium, Tilda continued to amaze starring in the crime drama Julia (2008) and in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). She learned Italian and Russian for Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love (2009), starred in the psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer (2013), and earned fine notice in Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem (2013). She also starred in the dark romantic fantasy drama Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) directed by Jim Jarmusch, had a small role in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), starred in Judd Apatow's comedy Trainwreck (2015), and played a rock star in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015).
Showing no signs of slowing up, Tilda continues to make creative, visual impressions in such films as the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016) where she reunited with Clooney and had a dual role playing twin journalists, and as the wise Asian teacher of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in the Marvel Comics action film Doctor Strange (2016), while repeating the part of The Ancient One in Avengers: Endgame (2019). She gave another eccentric, unhinged performance in the action adventure message movie Okja (2017), played Betsy Trotwood in a contemporary telling of The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) and teamed up again with writer/director Jim Jarmusch in the thoroughly offbeat fantasy horror comedy The Dead Don't Die (2019).778 points- British actress Naomie Harris was born in London, England, the only child of television scriptwriter Lisselle Kayla. Her father is from Trinidad and her mother is from Jamaica. They separated before she was born, and Harris was raised by her mother and has no relationship with her father. She showed an interest in acting from an early age and attended the prestigious Anna Scher Theatre School. From here, Harris won roles in various projects, such as Simon and the Witch (1987) and The Tomorrow People (1992). She went on to study social and political sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, an experience Harris did not enjoy.
After graduating from the University, Harris trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Acting success soon followed and her breakthrough film role came in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002). Other notable projects include Miami Vice (2006) and Small Island (2009) (for which she was named best female actor by the Royal Television Society). Harris also won fans for her role as voodoo witch Tia Dalma in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), and further international attention came her way when she played field agent Eve Moneypenny in the James Bond film Skyfall (2012).
Naomie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the drama Moonlight (2016), which won the Best Picture Oscar that year.
Naomie Harris was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2017 New Years Honours for her services to drama.778 points - Actress
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Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance (1981) in which she appeared with her husband, Michael Williams, and Best Supporting Actress in A Handful of Dust (1988) and A Room with a View (1985). She received an ACE award for her performance in the television series Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill (1985). She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005.778 points- Actress
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Suzanne Clément was born on 12 May 1969 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is an actress and director, known for Mommy (2014), Laurence Anyways (2012) and I Killed My Mother (2009).773 points- Actress
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Nathalie Baye was born on 6 July 1948 in Mainneville, Eure, France. She is an actress and writer, known for Catch Me If You Can (2002), Laurence Anyways (2012) and Venus Beauty Institute (1999).773 points- Actress
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Eva Mendes is an American actress, model and businesswoman. She began acting in the late 1990s. After a series of roles in B movies such as Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) and Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), she made a career-changing appearance in Training Day (2001). Since then, Mendes has co-starred in films such as All About the Benjamins (2002), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Ghost Rider (2007), We Own the Night (2007), Stuck on You (2003), Hitch (2005), opposite Will Smith. and The Other Guys (2010). She has appeared in several music videos for artists like Will Smith. Mendes has been a model and ambassador for Cocio chocolate milk, Magnum ice cream, Calvin Klein, Cartier, Thierry Mugler perfume, Reebok, Campari apéritif, Pantene shampoo, Morgan, and Peek & Cloppenburg. She designs a fashion collection for New York & Company and is also the creative director of CIRCA Beauty, a makeup line sold at Walgreens.
Eva de la Caridad Méndez was born in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents Eva Pérez Suárez and Juan Carlos Méndez, and was raised by her mother in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake after her parents' divorce. Mendes grew up a Roman Catholic and at one time even considered becoming a Catholic nun. Her mother worked at Mann's Chinese Theatre and later for an aerospace company, and her father ran a meat distribution business. Mendes had one older brother, Juan Carlos Méndez, Jr. (1963-2016), who died from throat cancer. She has an older sister, Janet, and a younger paternal half-brother, Carlos Alberto "Carlo" Méndez. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale, and later studied marketing at California State University, Northridge, but left college to pursue acting under coach Ivana Chubbuck. Mendes began her acting career after a talent manager saw her photo in a friend's portfolio. Her first film appearance was in the direct-to-video Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998). Mendes was disappointed in her performance and she hired an acting coach. She then appeared in the films A Night at the Roxbury, My Brother the Pig, Urban Legends: Final Cut, and Exit Wounds. Mendes' breakthrough role came when she appeared in Antoine Fuqua's crime thriller Training Day (2001), playing the girlfriend of Denzel Washington's character. This then led to roles in All About the Benjamins (2002), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) (which earned her a nomination at the Teen Choice Awards), Out of Time (2003), and Stuck on You (2003).
She was the female lead in the 2005 film Hitch, making her one of the first minority actors to play the lead in a hit romantic comedy. Mendes subsequently starred in The Wendell Baker Story (2005) with Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell, with Luke Wilson directing, as well as Guilty Hearts (2002), Trust the Man (2005), Ghost Rider (2007), We Own the Night (2007), Live! (2007), and Cleaner (2007). In 2008, she was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her performance in the all-female comedy film The Women. Mendes then appeared in The Spirit, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The Other Guys (2010), Last Night (2010), Fast Five (2011), and a spoof short film for Funny or Die. In 2012, Mendes visited Sierra Leone and was featured in the PBS documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. In 2012, she starred in the crime drama film The Place Beyond the Pines, with Entertainment Weekly describing her performance as "quietly heartbreaking". The following year, she appeared in the HBO comedy film Clear History (2013). Mendes appeared in the Pet Shop Boys' music video for "Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)" in 1996, Aerosmith's music video for "Hole in My Soul" in 1997, and Will Smith's music video for "Miami" in 1998.
She also appeared in the music video for The Strokes' "The End Has No End" in 2004, and appeared nude in a print advertisement for Calvin Klein's Secret Obsession perfume, an ad which was banned in the United States. In December 2007, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) used a nude photo of Mendes for their anti-fur campaign. She also modeled in a Morgan campaign. Mendes was a spokesmodel for the 2008 Campari calendar. In July 2008, she was announced as the international face of Australia's 30 Days of Fashion & Beauty event. She made guest appearances in that country at the month-long festival in September. Mendes has been a spokesperson for Calvin Klein, Magnum, and the chocolate milk brand Cocio. She also promoted Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance, Reebok shoes, and Pantene shampoo. In 2011, Mendes appeared in a Peek & Cloppenburg clothing catalog. Mendes has a line of bed linens and dinnerware that is sold at Macy's. In 2010, Mendes sang on "Pimps Don't Cry," a song featured in The Other Guys, and performed a duet with CeeLo Green on "Pimps Don't Cry." In 2011, she recorded a version of "The Windmills of Your Mind."
Along with acting, Eva is employed by Revlon Cosmetics as an international spokeswoman. She joins such elite actresses and models as Julianne Moore, Halle Berry and Cindy Crawford, who appear in Revlon's television and print ads. She is also a passionate supporter and active participant in Revlon's fight against breast cancer. Eva's goals are to improve her acting skills by working with such contemporary directors as Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze, Pedro Almodóvar, Robert Rodriguez, Carl Franklin, John Singleton, and Antoine Fuqua and learning from such renowned directors as Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.
She was the creative director of the makeup brand CIRCA Beauty, which launched exclusively at Walgreens in 2015.
Eva has two children with her partner Ryan Gosling.768 points- Actress
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Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series Get Real (1999). She gained widespread recognition for her roles in The Princess Diaries (2001) and its 2004 sequel as a young girl who discovers she is a member of royalty, opposite Julie Andrews and Heather Matarazzo.
She also had a notable role in Nicholas Nickleby (2002) opposite Charlie Hunnam and Jamie Bell, and a starring role in Ella Enchanted (2004). A former top-ranking soprano in New York, Hathaway was reportedly a front-runner for the role of "Christine" in the 2004 The Phantom of the Opera (2004). However, due to scheduling conflicts with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she couldn't take the role, which was later given to newcomer Emmy Rossum.
Hathaway soon started to move away from family-friendly films. Following The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she appeared topless in the films Havoc (2005) opposite Josh Peck and Brokeback Mountain (2005) opposite Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Her desire to break out of her "Princess Diaries" image parallels that of her one-time co-star, Julie Andrews, who went topless in the film S.O.B. (1981) in order to break away from the image she created from her 1960s musicals. In interviews, Hathaway said that doing family-friendly films didn't mean she was similar to their characters or mean she objected to appearing nude in other films.768 points- Actress
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Helen Hunt began studying acting at the age of eight with her father, respected director and acting coach Gordon Hunt. A year later she made her professional debut and afterwards worked steadily in films, theatre and television.765 points- Actress
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Nina Hoss was born on 7 July 1975 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Phoenix (2014), Tár (2022) and A Most Wanted Man (2014). She has been married to Alex Silva since 2015.762 points- Actress
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Katharina Schüttler started acting for film and television when she was 11 years old. Her breakthrough in Germany was the International Emmy Award winning Mini-Series "Generation War" ("Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter") in which she portrayed singer Greta del Torres. She appeared in many films for cinema and television, such as Golden Globe winning production "Carlos" by Olivier Assayas, the youngest version of Hans Fallada's "Alone in Berlin" acting alongside Emma Thompson and Swedish Production "Simon and the Oaks" by Lisa Ohlin. She was in German Indie-hits "Oh Boy", "Zeit der Kannibalen" and recently portrayed Fräulein Rottenmeier in the remake of "Heidi" by Alain Gsponer. In "13 Minutes" ("Elser") by Oliver Hirschbiegel ("Der Untergang"), which premiered in the Berlinale Film Festival (out of competition), she performed Hitler assassin Georg Elser's lover Elsa and recently worked with German director Dani Levy in "Die Welt der Wunderlichs".She is best known to English-language audiences for her lead performances in the Channel 4 drama Mini-Series "The Promise" by Peter Kosminsky, alongside Claire Foy and "Run", by Jonathan Pearson, starring Olivia Colman and Katie Leung. In 2009 she received the Bavarian Film Award, the "Guenter Strack Nachwuchspreis" in 2006 and Best Actress at the Munich Film Festival in 2002. For her performance in "Generation War", which won the International Emmy Award, she received the German Television Award as well as the Bavarian TV Award with her co-actors Tom Schilling, Miriam Stein, Ludwig Trepte and Volker Bruch in 2013. In 2014 she was given the Günter-Rohrbach-Filmpreis for her performance in "Zeit der Kannibalen" together with Devid Striesow and Sebastian Blomberg. Besides her film works she is one of the leading young theatre actresses in Germany. In 2006 she received the German Theatre Award "Der Faust" as Best Actress and was voted "Actress of the Year" by the German Theatre Critics. She was the youngest actress ever to receive this honour. In 2010 she was awarded with the renowned "Ulrich Wildgruber Prize" for outstanding artistic performances.
In 2009 she won the "Bavarian Film Prize" as Best Young Actress for her performance in the terrorist-drama "The Day Will Come" ("Es kommt der Tag").
Besides her film works she is one of the leading young theatre actresses in Germany. Her works include "Hedda Gabler", "Penthesilea", "Blasted", "Joan of Arc", "Lolita" and many more.
She was awarded with the renowned "Ulrich Wildgruber Prize 2010".761 points- Actress
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A strikingly beautiful German lead actress, Barbara Sukowa broke into TV and films as the protégée of famed director Rainer Werner Fassbinder with his masterpiece mini-series Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and the moody film drama Lola (1981) in the title role. In the latter, Barbara won critical kudos portraying a cynical, manipulative singer/hooker who sets her sights on an unsuspecting town politician played by Armin Mueller-Stahl. Following Fassbinder's sudden death in 1982, Barbara was gloriously displayed in a couple of stark, brilliant, politically-motivated films by director Margarethe von Trotta. In Marianne & Juliane (1981), Barbara won both the Venice Film Festival and German Film awards and as _Rosa Luxemburg (1986)_ , she copped the Cannes Film Festival award. A number of international productions, notably Lars von Trier's Europa (1991), brought Barbara to the attention of Hollywood. Although not well known here by name, this fascinating figure has added her exotic allure to a number of American films including The Sicilian (1987), M. Butterfly (1993), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Cradle Will Rock (1999) and the just-completed Romance & Cigarettes (2005), which was written and directed by John Turturro. Barbara started up a second career as a concert vocalist in recent years, performing works by such classical composers as Arnold Schönberg, among others.759 points- Actress
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Janet McTeer was born on August 5, 1961 in Newcastle, England, UK to parents Jean and Allan McTeer. She was raised in York from the age of 6. She attended Queen Anne Grammar School for Girls, where there was not much opportunity for drama. She became interested in acting at age 16, when she saw "She Stoops to Conquer" at the York Theater. She worked as a waitress at the same theater, where she once served a coffee to Gary Oldman. He suggested that she apply to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where he had just finished studying. She successfully gained a place at RADA. After graduation, she began her career acting on stage by joining the Royal Exchange Theatre.
Her on-screen film debut came in Half Moon Street (1986), an erotic thriller based on a novel by Paul Theroux. In 2000, she received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Tumbleweeds (1999). She was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.759 points- After school, Jentsch turned to acting. She attended the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Jentsch then began her acting career in the theater. In 2001 she joined the ensemble of the Munich Kammerspiele, where she masterfully interpreted Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello", Sophocles' "Antigone" and other classic stage roles. After she had already received the Max Reinhardt Prize in 2000 for her participation in the Berlin production of "The Persians", Jentsch was named the best young actress by the magazine "Theater aktuell" in 2002 for her acting achievements on stage.
In the meantime, Jentsch had already made her cinema debut in Judith Kennel's successful film "Angry Kisses" in 2000. In addition to her theater work, she was also featured in several television productions such as an episode of "Praxis Bülowbogen" (2000), in the film "And the Bride knew of nothing" (2002) and in the "Tatort" episode "Bitteres Brot" ( 2003). The actress continued to shine in the cinema in "Julietta" (2001) by Christoph Stark and in Sven Taddicken's "My Brother, the Vampire" (2001). She then appeared in the internationally acclaimed Hitler film "Downfall" (2004) under the direction of Oliver Hirschbiegel. Jentsch then played the leading role in Hans Weingartner's "The Fat Years Are Over" (2004), for which she won the Bavarian Film Prize for Best Young Actress.
This was followed by another leading role in "Schneeland" (2004) by Hans Wilhelm Geißendörfer. Under the direction of Marc Rothemund, Jentsch continued to play the leading role in the semi-documentary drama "Sophie Scholl - The Last Days" (2005), which was shown for the first time at the 55th Berlinale in February 2005 as one of the three German competition entries. For her performance in this film, Jentsch was awarded the "Silver Bear" as best actress. At the 55th German Film Awards in July 2005, Jentsch received the award for Best Leading Role. A little later, "Sophie Scholl" was nominated for an Oscar as a German contribution.759 points - Actress
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María Belén Rueda García-Porrero (born March 16, 1965) is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano (2003); as Julia in The Sea Inside (2004), for which she won a Goya Award; and as Laura in The Orphanage (2007), for which she received another Goya Award nomination. Most recently she played the lead role in the movie Julia's Eyes (2010).
Rueda was born in Madrid. Her father was a civil engineer and her mother was a ballet instructor. She is the second of three children; her siblings are named María Jesús (Chus) and Alfonso. She and her family moved to San Juan, Alicante when she was a child. When Rueda was 18 years old she moved to Madrid to study architecture, but she left the university when she met an Italian man whom she later married.
Rueda returned to Madrid and worked as a salesperson and a model until she became a TV presenter. After that she worked as an actress on television, including the show Los Serrano (2003), and eventually acted in films. She won a Goya Award in 2004 for her role as Julia in The Sea Inside (2004). She received another Goya nomination for her role in the 2007 film, The Orphanage (2007). Rueda played the lead role of the Spanish thriller Julia's Eyes (2010), which was produced by Guillermo del Toro. She also starred in Oriol Paulo's thriller The Body (2012).758 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jacqueline Ruth Weaver is an Australian theatre, film and television actress. She is known internationally for her performances in Animal Kingdom (2010) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012), both of which earned her nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Weaver emerged in the 1970s as a symbol of the Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as Stork (1971), Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974). Weaver's other films include Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Magic in the Moonlight (2014), The Disaster Artist (2017), Bird Box (2018), and Poms (2019).
In 2019-20, Weaver had main roles in Bloom and Perpetual Grace, LTD, and in 2021 she had a recurring role in Season 4 of Yellowstone.
In 2005, she released her autobiography, Much Love, Jac.748 points- Actress
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Lovely, Julia (O'Hara) Stiles, of Irish, English and German heritage, was born on March 28, 1981 in New York City, the outgoing daughter and eldest of three children of a Greenwich Village artist mother, Judith Newcomb Stiles, and an elementary school teacher father, John O'Hara.
Encouraged to take modern dance lessons, she was introduced to Shakespeare and theater at an early age. When she was 11, she made her stage debut as a child actress with the experimental off-Broadway La MaMa Theatre. Her passion grew and by the next year was performing professionally and working in commercials. A bright, precocious student, she was seriously considered for the child vampire role of Claudia in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) but lost out in the end to Kirsten Dunst. She continued training at New York's Professional Children's School and, at 15, made her cinematic bow with I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) with Claire Danes.
Julia was next featured as the daughter of Harrison Ford in The Devil's Own (1997), with her breakout role occurring on TV with the hard-hitting mini-movie Before Women Had Wings (1997), which was produced by Oprah Winfrey and dealt with child abuse. Her wish to play Shakespeare was granted threefold with her participation in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), which was based on the Bard's "The Taming of The Shrew" and earned her the Chicago Film Critics Award as volatile teen Kat; an updated version of Hamlet (2000) which paired her Ophelia with Ethan Hawke; and another updated version of "Othello" entitled O (2001), which involved her high school character of Desi (Desdemona) in a mixed romantic relationship with African-American Mekhi Phifer. The violent-edged film, made in 1998, was not released until three years later due to the Colorado shootings at Columbine High School.
In addition, Julia later portrayed Viola off-Broadway in a Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of "Twelfth Night" in 2002. She temporarily interrupted her career after deciding to enroll at Columbia University in 2000, where she earned a degree in English. Stiles has also returned to the stage, appearing in David Mamet's "Oleanna" in London, a role she would reprise on Broadway in 2009, opposite Bill Pullman and directed by Doug Hughes.
Moving into mainstream roles by the millennium, Julia took on a role that would carry her through the decade, co-starring with Matt Damon in popular Bourne series: The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). During the time between Bourne films, she appeared in ensemble dramas, appearing opposite Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile (2003), won offbeat notice in the title role of Carolina (2003) with Shirley MacLaine and Randy Quaid. She also returned to her indie film roots, with films such as Between Us (2012) and the comedy farce, It's a Disaster (2012).
In 2010, Julia switched gears and headed to series television, joining the cast of Dexter (2006) for the show's fifth season as Lumen Pierce, a performance that earned her Emmy and Golden Globe support nominations. In 2012, she followed this up with leads in two other TV series, the social drama Blue (2012) and the dramatic thriller Riviera (2017).
Married to camera assistant Preston Cook and with one son, Julia's more recent filming has included prominent roles in The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015), Misconduct (2016), Jason Bourne (2016), Trouble (2017), Hustlers (2019) and The God Committee (2021).
e recent work includes748 points- Actress
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Elizabeth Banks was born Elizabeth Mitchell in Pittsfield, a small city in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts near the New York border, on February 10, 1974. She is the daughter of Anne Marie (Wallace), who worked in a bank, and Mark Phineas Mitchell, a factory worker. Elizabeth describes herself as having been seen as a "goody two-shoes" in her youth who was nominated for the local Harvest Queen.
Banks left home to attend college at the University of Pennsylvania--from which she graduated Magna cum Laude--and went on to attend the Advanced Training Program at the prestigious American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, graduating in 1996. She then moved to New York and worked in the theater, and began getting small roles in films and on television. Seeking more screen work, she moved to Los Angeles and was soon cast in supporting roles. She also had to change her last name, to Banks, in order to avoid confusion with actress Elizabeth Mitchell.
Her breakthrough role was as Betty Brant, the secretary of the cantankerous newspaper tycoon in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002). She followed up this performance with small roles in other movies: Swept Away (2002), Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002), Seabiscuit (2003) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). In 2003 she won the Exciting New Face Award at the Young Hollywood Awards. The winsome, beautiful Banks projected an exceptionally charming screen presence that drew comparisons to Audrey Hepburn, and Hollywood eventually began to take notice, Banks being cast in the lead in such films as Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) and in Oliver Stone's biopic of George W. Bush, W. (2008), as Laura Bush.
In television, Banks was a recurring guest star on Scrubs (2001) as Dr. Kim Briggs, the love interest of Zach Braff's J.D. In 2010 she was cast as Alec Baldwin's love interest in season four of 30 Rock (2006). Originally scheduled to appear in only four episodes, she was brought back as a recurring character for two more seasons, and earned Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for two consecutive years. Elizabeth has also appeared in such films as Our Idiot Brother (2011), Man on a Ledge (2012), What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012), People Like Us (2012), and Pitch Perfect (2012). She also won the coveted role as Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games (2012) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013).
After an eleven-year courtship, Banks married Max Handelman, a sports writer and producer, in 2003. They have two sons, Felix, who was born in March 2011, and Magnus, born in Nov. 2012, both by gestational surrogacy.745 points- Actress
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Emmanuelle Devos was born on 10 May 1964 in Puteaux, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France. She is an actress and writer, known for Kings & Queen (2004), Read My Lips (2001) and Just a Sigh (2013).743 points- Actress
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- Executive
Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as smaller amounts of Danish, Swiss-German, and Norwegian, ancestry.
Adams sang in the school choir at Douglas County High School and was an apprentice dancer at a local dance company, with the ambition of becoming a ballerina. However, she worked as a greeter at The Gap and as a Hooters hostess to support herself before finding work as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse in such productions as "Brigadoon" and "A Chorus Line". It was there that she was spotted by a Minneapolis dinner-theater director who asked her to move to Chanhassen, Minnesota for more regional dinner theatre work.
Nursing a pulled muscle that kept her from dancing, she was free to audition for a part in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), which was filming nearby in Minnesota. During the filming, Kirstie Alley encouraged her to move to Los Angeles, where she soon won a part in the Fox television version of the film, Cruel Intentions (1999), in the part played in the film by Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Kathryn Merteuil". Although three episodes were filmed, the troubled series never aired. Instead, parts of the episodes were cobbled together and released as the direct-to-video Cruel Intentions 2 (2000). After more failed television spots, she landed a major role in Catch Me If You Can (2002), playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. But this did not provide the break-through she might have hoped for, with no work being offered for about a year. She eventually returned to television, and joined the short-lived series, Dr. Vegas (2004).
Her role in the low-budget independent film Junebug (2005) (which was shot in 21 days) got her real attention, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as well as other awards. The following year, her ability to look like a wide-eyed Disney animated heroine helped her to be chosen from about 300 actresses auditioning for the role of "Giselle" in the animated/live-action feature film, Enchanted (2007), which would prove to be her major break-through role. Her vivacious yet innocent portrayal allowed her to use her singing and dancing talents. Her performance garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Adams next appeared in the major production, Charlie Wilson's War (2007), and went on to act in the independent film, Sunshine Cleaning (2008), which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Her role as "Sister James" in Doubt (2008) brought her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and a British Academy Film award. She appeared as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and as a post-9/11 hot line counselor, aspiring writer, amateur cook and blogger in Julie & Julia (2009). In the early 2010s, she starred with Jason Segel in The Muppets (2011), with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012), and alongside Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake in Trouble with the Curve (2012). She played reporter Lois Lane in Man of Steel (2013) and con artist Sydney Prosser in American Hustle (2013), before portraying real-life artist Margaret Keane in Tim Burton's biopic Big Eyes (2014).
In 2016, she reprised her role as Lane in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and headlined Denis Villeneuve's science fiction drama Arrival (2016) and Tom Ford's dark thriller Nocturnal Animals (2016). In 2018, she received another Oscar nomination, her sixth, for starring as Lynne Cheney in the biographical drama Vice (2018), opposite Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.742 points- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Lena Endre was born on 8 July 1955 in Härnösand, Västernorrlands län, Sweden. She is an actress and writer, known for Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), The Master (2012) and The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009). She was previously married to Richard Hobert, Thomas Hanzon, Vjeko Benzon and Malte Ekblom.742 points- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Anna Kendrick was born in Portland, Maine, to Janice (Cooke), an accountant, and William Kendrick, a teacher. She has an older brother, Michael Cooke Kendrick, who has also acted. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent.
For her role as "Dinah" in "High Society" on Broadway, Anna Kendrick was nominated for a Tony Award (second youngest ever), a Drama Desk Award, and a Fany Award (best actress featured in a musical). Her spectacular performance landed her the Drama League and Theatre World Award.
She was a lead performer with Cabaret's Kit Kat Club at "Carnegie Hall Live" in My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies (1999) (TV). She also had the privilege of working with director Scott Ellis and choreographer Susan Stroman at the New York City Opera House with Jeremy Irons amongst many more celebrity status actors, playing the role of "Fredrika" in "A Little Night Music".
Anna work-shopped "Jane Eyre" & "The Little Princess" for Broadway and starred in the feature film Camp (2003) with director Todd Graff.739 points- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and Occultum Luciferus. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).739 points- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Alicia Vikander is a Swedish actress, dancer and producer. She was born and raised in Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden, to Maria Fahl, an actress of stage and screen, and Svante Vikander, a psychiatrist. Through her mother, she is one quarter Finnish, and had a maternal great aunt who moved from Finland to Sweden to escape World War 2. Alicia began acting as a child in minor stage productions at The Göteborg Opera, and trained as a ballet dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm, and the School of American Ballet in New York. She began her professional acting career by appearing in Swedish short films and television series, and first gained recognition in Northern Europe for her role as Josefin Björn-Tegebrandt in the TV drama Second Avenue (2007). Vikander made her feature film debut in Pure (2009), for which she won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress. She attracted widespread recognition in 2012 for portraying Princess Ekaterina "Kitty" Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya in Joe Wright's film adaptation of Anna Karenina (2012), and Queen Caroline Mathilde in the acclaimed Danish film A Royal Affair (2012), receiving a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination for her breakthrough. She went on to star in the 2013 Swedish drama film Hotel (2013)and appeared in the Julian Assange biopic The Fifth Estate (2013) that same year. In 2014 and 2015, Vikander achieved global recognition and acclaim for her roles as activist Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth (2014), an AI in Ex Machina (2014), for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress, and painter Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl (2015), for which she received the Academy Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.738 points- Actress
- Director
- Music Department
Trine Dyrholm was born on 15 April 1972 in Odense, Denmark. She is an actress and director, known for Queen of Hearts (2019), Love Is All You Need (2012) and In a Better World (2010).738 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born on 12 November 1978 in Bucharest, Romania, Alexandra Maria Lara fled to Germany with her parents when she was four and half years old. After graduating at the French High School, she studied acting at the Theaterwerkstatt Charlottenburg from 1997 and 2000, but had already played leading characters in several TV shows and movies such as Die Bubi Scholz Story (1998). Due to her critically acclaimed performance in The Tunnel (2001), she has appeared in several successful national and international projects, most notably the Oscar nominated Downfall (2004).737 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Émilie Dequenne was born on 29 August 1981 in Beloeil, Wallonia, Belgium. She is an actress, known for Rosetta (1999), Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) and Our Children (2012). She has been married to Michel Ferracci since 11 October 2014.736 points- Actress
- Producer
- Casting Department
Catherine Keener is an American actress, Oscar-nominated for her roles in the independent films Being John Malkovich (1999) and Capote (2005). Acclaimed in her community for her quirky roles in independent film and mainstream such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Keener got her start as a casting director in New York City.
Catherine Ann Keener was born in Miami, Florida, and was raised in Hialeah, FL. She is the daughter of Evelyn (Jamiel) and James Keener, who owned an auto shop. She is of Lebanese (mother) and English, Scottish, and German (father) descent. Keener attended Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She began taking acting classes when she was unable to sign up for a photography class. After graduating, Keener managed a McDonalds in New York City before becoming an assistant casting director and soon relocating to Los Angeles.
Not long after, Keener told her superior of her aspirations for acting and she landed a one-worded role as a waitress in About Last Night (1986). Two years later, she landed a role in a film called Survival Quest (1988), where she met her future husband, Dermot Mulroney. After struggling for years in the industry, Keener landed a role in an independent film, opposite the unknown Brad Pitt, in Johnny Suede (1991). Her ascent in independent film began as she starred in Living in Oblivion (1995) and Walking and Talking (1996) before her mainstream break with Being John Malkovich (1999) in 1999, which earned Keener her first Oscar nomination. Since then, Catherine Keener has starred in several critically acclaimed films.730 points- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
British actress Imogen Poots was born in Hammersmith, London, England, the daughter of English-born Fiona (Goodall), a journalist, and Trevor Poots, a Northern Ireland-born television producer. She was educated at Bute House Preparatory School for Girls, Queen's Gate School for Girls and Latymer Upper School, all in London. When she was a teenager she began attending the Youngblood Theatre Company, and developed a love of acting.
Poots' initial screen debut was a (2004) role in British medical drama Casualty (1986). She made her big screen debut as Young Valerie in V for Vendetta (2005), then went on to appear in various projects, including 28 Weeks Later (2007), Me and Orson Welles (2008), Centurion (2010), Bouquet of Barbed Wire (2010), Fright Night (2011), A Late Quartet (2012), Greetings from Tim Buckley (2012), and The Look of Love (2013).730 points- Actress
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Composer
Golshifteh started her acting career in theater at the age of 6 and has always kept a strong link with theater, but it was at the age of 14 that she acted in her first film The Pear Tree (1998), for which she won the prize for the Best Actress from the international section of the Fajr film festival, immediately making her one of the stars of Iranian cinema. Since then she has played in more than 15 films, many of which have been screened or awarded at international festivals. Amongst her latest films are Bahman Ghobadi's Half Moon (2006) (winner of the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián film festival 2006), Dariush Mehrjui's controversial The Music Man (2007), still banned in Iran, and the late Rasool Mollagholi Poor's M like Mother (2006), which after a huge success in Iran was chosen to represent Iran for the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards in 2008. After playing in Body of Lies (2008) by Ridley Scott, Golshifteh became the first Iranian star to act in a major Hollywood production. Subsequently she was banned from her country. Her last film in Iran About Elly (2009) won a Silver Bear in Berlin and the Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca (2009). Golshifteh graduated from music school, she sings and plays the piano amongst other instruments. She is also fluent in French and English and lives in Paris now.729 points- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, Richard Field. Sally attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California.
Her acting career began in 1965, when she landed the role of Frances Elizabeth 'Gidget' Lawrence in Gidget (1965); it was canceled after only one season because of bad ratings. She went on to star in The Flying Nun (1967), which ran for three seasons. She also appeared in her first film in 1967, The Way West (1967) opposite Kirk Douglas. In the next few years she appeared in numerous TV movies and TV shows such as Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971), Marriage: Year One (1971), The Girl with Something Extra (1973), and Sybil (1976). In 1977 she starred alongside then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds in the box office hit Smokey and the Bandit (1977), which led to a less successful sequel in 1980. In 1979 she starred in the popular film Norma Rae (1979) and she received her first Oscar for that role.
In the years that followed she starred in films such as Absence of Malice (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Places in the Heart (1984) (she received her second Oscar for her role), Murphy's Romance (1985), Punchline (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989). In 1993 she starred alongside Robin Williams and Pierce Brosnan in the popular comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). A year after, she played the role of Tom Hanks character's mother (even though she's only ten years older than he is in real life) in Forrest Gump (1994). The film was a huge commercial success and won six Academy awards.
Since then she has appeared in TV movies and miniseries such as A Woman of Independent Means (1995), Merry Christmas, George Bailey (1997), From the Earth to the Moon (1998) and David Copperfield (2000). In 2000 she appeared in the film Where the Heart Is (2000) with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd, and in 2003 she starred alongside Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003). She also appeared in 12 episodes of ER (1994) from 2000 to 2006. From 2006 to 2011, she played the role of matriarch Nora Walker in the hit television show Brothers & Sisters (2006), which earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Getting back into film, she earned her third Oscar nomination for Lincoln (2012) and played Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its blockbuster sequel.
Sally has been married twice, first to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1973. They had two sons together, Peter Craig and Eli Craig. Her second marriage was to film producer Alan Greisman from 1984 to 1994. They had one son together, Samuel Greisman. Between marriages, from 1976 to 1980, she was in a relationship with Burt Reynolds.729 points- Actress
- Make-Up Department
Juliane Köhler was born on 6 August 1965 in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. She is an actress, known for Downfall (2004), Aimee & Jaguar (1999) and Nowhere in Africa (2001). She has been married to Michael Rösch since 1996. They have two children.726 points- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Liv Ullmann's father was a Norwegian engineer who used to work abroad, so as a child she lived in Tokyo, Canada, New York and Oslo. In the mid-1950s she made her stage debut and in 1957 made her film debut. She really became successful, however, when she began to work for Swedish director Ingmar Bergman in such films as Persona (1966), The Passion of Anna (1969) and Face to Face (1976). She also had a successful film career away from Bergman (The Abdication (1974), Dangerous Moves (1984).726 points- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Vicky Krieps is a Luxembourgish actress, known for the films Phantom Thread (2017) and Old (2021).
She also had minor roles in Hanna (2011), A Most Wanted Man (2014) and Colonia (2015). Her film debut was House of Boys (2009).
Krieps is the granddaughter of Luxembourgish politician and war-time member of the Luxembourgish Resistance, Robert Krieps.726 points- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Gemma Christina Arterton was born in Gravesend, Kent, England, where she was raised. She is the daughter of Sally-Anne (Heap), a cleaner, and Barry J. Arterton, a welder. Her mother's cousin is singer-songwriter Eric Goulden.
Her parents divorced when she was age five, and Gemma subsequently lived with her younger sister and her mother. Her parents encouraged their children to explore their creative abilities. Gemma's sister, Hannah, liked to sing, whereas Gemma chose acting. During her teenage years, she was part of the Masquerade and Miskin theater companies, appearing in productions of The Massacre of Civitella and Guiding Star. In 2004, she won an award for Best Supporting Actress, which helped her to win a grant to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Whilst studying at RADA, she landed her first professional role in Capturing Mary (2007), directed by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Maggie Smith. Gemma graduated from RADA in 2007 and won her first film role in St. Trinian's (2007). Her breakthrough role came in 2008, when she appeared in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008). In 2009, she was the winner of Empire's Best Newcomer Award.725 points- Actress
- Producer
- Director
On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, Vanessa Redgrave.
Vanessa was born in Greenwich, London, to Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, both thespians. Three quarters of a century after her birth (despite numerous ups and down) this rather forward expectation has definitely been lived up to with an acclaimed actress that has won (among many others) an Academy Award, two Emmys, two Golden Globes, two Cannes Best Actress awards, a Tony, a Screen Actors Guild award, a Laurence Olivier theatre award and a BAFTA fellowship.
Growing up with such celebrated theatrical parents, great expectations were put on both herself, her brother Corin Redgrave and sister Lynn Redgrave at an early age. Shooting up early and finally reaching a height just short of 6 foot, Redgrave initially had plans to dance and perform ballet as a profession. However she settled on acting and entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and four years later made her West End debut. In the decade of the 1960s she developed and progressed to become one of the most noted young stars of the English stage and then film. Performances on the London stage included the classics: 'A Touch of Sun', 'Coriolanus', 'A Midsummer's Night Dream', 'All's Well that Ends Well', 'As You Like It', 'The Lady from the Sea', 'The Seagull' and many others. By the mid 1960s, she had booked various film roles and matured into a striking beauty with a slim, tall frame and attractive face. In 1966 she made her big screen debut as the beautiful ex-wife of a madman in an Oscar nominated performance in the oddball comedy Morgan! (1966), as well as the enigmatic woman in a public park in desperate need of a photographer's negatives in the iconic Blow-Up (1966) and briefly appeared in an unspoken part of Anne Boleyn in the Best Picture winner of the year A Man for All Seasons (1966).
She managed to originate the title role in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" the same year on the London stage (which was then adapted for the big screen a few years later, but Maggie Smith was cast instead and managed to win an Oscar for her performance). Her follow up work saw her play the lead in the box office hit adaptation Camelot (1967), a film popular with audiences but dismissed by critics, and her second Academy Award nominated performance as Isadora Duncan in the critically praised Isadora (1968).
Her rise in popularity on film also coincided with her public political involvement, she was one of the lead faces in protesting against the Vietnam war and lead a famous march on the US embassy, was arrested during a Ban-the-Bomb demonstration, publicly supported Yasar Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and fought for various other human rights and particularly left wing causes. Despite her admirably independent qualities, most of her political beliefs weren't largely supported by the public. In 1971 after 3 films back to back, Redgrave suffered a miscarriage (it would have been her fourth, after Natasha Richardson, Joely Richardson and Carlo Gabriel Nero) and a break up with her then partner and father of her son, Franco Nero. This was around the same time her equally political brother Corin introduced her to the Workers Revolutionary Party, a group who aimed to destroy capitalism and abolish the monarchy. Her film career began to suffer and take the back seat as she became more involved with the party, twice unsuccessfully attempting to run as a party member for parliament, only obtaining a very small percentage of votes.
In terms of her film career at the time, she was given probably the smallest part in the huge ensemble who-dunnit hit, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and given another thankless small part as Lola Deveraux in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976).
After a celebrated Broadway debut, she created further controversy in 1977 with her involvement in two films, firstly in Julia (1977) where she acted opposite Jane Fonda as a woman fighting Nazi oppression and narrated and featured in the documentary The Palestinian (1977) where she famously danced holding a Kalashnikov rifle. She publicly stated her condemnation of what she termed "Zionist hudlums", which outraged Jewish groups and as a result a screening of her documentary was bombed and Redgrave was personally threatened by the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Julia (1977) happened to be a huge critical success and Redgrave herself was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but Jewish support groups demanded her nomination to be dropped and at the event of the Academy Awards burned effigies of Redgrave and protested and picketed. Redgrave was forced to enter the event via a rear entrance to avoid harm and when she won the award she famously remarked on the frenzy causes as "Zionist hoodlums" which caused the audience to audibly gasp and boo. The speech reached newspapers the next morning and her reputation was further damaged.
It came as a surprise when CBS hired her for the part of real life Nazi camp survivor Fania Fenelon in Playing for Time (1980), despite more controversy and protesting (Fenelon herself didn't even want Redgrave to portray her) she won an Emmy for the part and the film was one of the highest rating programs of the year. Her follow up film work to her Oscar had been mostly low key but successful, performances in films such as Yanks (1979), Agatha (1979), The Bostonians (1984), Wetherby (1985) and Prick Up Your Ears (1987) further cemented her reputation as a fine actress and she received various accolades and nominations.
However mainly in the 1980s, she focused on TV films and high budget mini-series as well as theatre in both London and New York. She made headlines in 1984 when she sued the Boston Symphony Orchestra for $5 million for wrongful cancellation of her contract because of her politics (she also stated her salary was significantly reduced in Agatha (1979) for the same reason). She became more mainstream in the 1990s where she appeared in a string of high profile films but the parts often underused Redgrave's abilities or they were small cameos/5-minute parts. Highlights included Howards End (1992), Little Odessa (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Cradle Will Rock (1999), as well as her leading lady parts in A Month by the Lake (1995) and Mrs Dalloway (1997).
In 2003 she finally won the coveted Tony award for her performance in 'The Long Day's Journey Into Night' and followed up with another two Tony nominated performances on Broadway, her one woman show 'The Year of Magical Thinking' in 2007 and 'Driving Miss Daisy' in 2010 which not only was extended due to high demand, but was also transferred to the West End for an additional three months in 2011.
Vanessa continues to lend her name to causes and has been notable for donating huge amounts of her own money for her various beliefs. She has publicly opposed the war in Iraq, campaigned for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, supported the rights of gays and lesbians as well as AIDs research and many other issues. She released her autobiography in 1993 and a few years later she was elected to serve as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She also famously declined the invitation to be made a Dame for her services as an actress. Many have wondered the possible heights her career could have reached if it wasn't for her outspoken views, but being a celebrity and the artificial lifestyle usually attached doesn't seem to interest Redgrave in the slightest.
Vanessa has worked with all three of her children professionally on numerous occasions (her eldest daughter, Natasha Richardson tragically died at the age of 45 due to a skiing accident) and in her mid 70s she still works regularly on television, film and theatre, delivering time and time again great performances.725 points- Actress
- Director
- Writer
The acclaimed Cornish actress Dame Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, to Deborah (Hurlbatt) and Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas. Her father was a pilot for the British Royal Navy and died in a flying accident in 1964. Her stepfather, Lt. Cdr Simon Idiens, was also a pilot, and died six years later under similar circumstances. Her childhood home was Dorset, England. She left at the age of 19 to work as an au pair in Paris. She was married to French doctor François Oliviennes, with whom she had three children; Hannah, Joseph, and George.724 points- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Emmanuelle Seigner is the daughter of a well known photographer and her mother is a journalist. She was born in Paris, France on June 22, 1966. Her grandfather was Louis Seigner, chairman of the Comédie Française and who also appeared in several movies. Emmanuelle was raised at a convent school . At age fourteen she became a model. Her mysterious beauty made her an international cover-model. Jean-Luc Godard gave her a part in his crime movie Detective (1985), starring Johnny Hallyday and Nathalie Baye. In 1986 Emmanuelle played the part of Zanon a young girl in the movie Cours privé (1986) (by Pierre Granier-Deferre). She met Roman Polanski and married him. He gave her a part in the thriller Frantic (1988) with Harrison Ford. Four years later Polanski gave her the leading part in the movie Bitter Moon (1992).724 points- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Yolande Moreau was born on 27 February 1953 in Brussels, Belgium. She is an actress and director, known for When the Sea Rises (2004), Amélie (2001) and Seraphine (2008).724 points- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Aylin Tezel is a German actress known for her role in the thriller 7500 (2019) alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt and for playing the main role in Unbroken (2021) a neooriginal miniseries about a young cop who has her baby stolen out of her belly and is determined to solve her own case.
Aylin Tezel had her breakthrough with main roles in Almanya: Welcome to Germany (2011) (Berlinale Competition) and Breaking Horizons (2012) for which she received the Best Actress Award at Torino Film Festival. She is further known for having played series lead regular role Nora Dalay in Germany's most popular police drama Tatort (1970) and for her regular role in the 3rd season of the Canadian CBC Spy-Series X Company (2015) where she played Jewish Polish resistance fighter Zosia, alongside Warren Brown. She was seen as lead role Heidi in Marco Kreuzpaintner's romantic comedy Coming In (2014) and has also filmed the lead role of Sabine in Robert Manson's Indie film Lost in the Living (2015). Recently she played the lead Mascha in Pola Beck's forthcoming feature Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt (2022).
Besides Acting Aylin Tezel directed the short documentary Trust me it works about British choreographer Royston Maldoom as well as the short film Tanz mit ihr (2013) which premiered at Cork Film Festival and aired on German- French TV Channel ARTE. She also wrote and directed the short film Phoenix (2020) starring Killian Scott, Brid Brennan and Leonie Benesch. She is preparing her directorial debut, the English language feature film Falling Into Place that will be produced by Weydemann Bros who recently earned themselves a lot of recognition with Nora Fingscheidt's film System Crasher (2019) which won awards at the Berlinale, the European Film Awards and was the German submission to the Oscars.721 points- Claudia Michelsen was born on 4 February 1969 in Dresden, German Democratic Republic. She is an actress, known for The Tower (2012), Mack the Knife - Brecht's Threepenny Film (2018) and 12 heißt: Ich liebe dich (2007).718 points
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Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut with the critically acclaimed comedy-drama film Lady Bird (2017), which she also wrote, and has also had starring roles in the films Damsels in Distress (2011), Jackie (2016), and 20th Century Women (2016).
Greta Celeste Gerwig was born in Sacramento, California, to Christine Gerwig (née Sauer), a nurse, and Gordon Gerwig, a financial consultant and computer programmer. She has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Gerwig was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, but also attended an all-girls Catholic school. She has described herself as "an intense child". With an early interest in dance, she intended to get a degree in musical theatre in New York. She graduated from Barnard College in NY, where she studied English and philosophy, instead. Originally intending to become a playwright, after meeting young film director Joe Swanberg, she became the star of a series of intellectual low budget movies made by first-time filmmakers, a trend dubbed "mumblecore".
Gerwig was cast in a minor role in Swanberg's LOL (2006) in 2006, while still studying at Barnard. She then appeared in many of Swanberg's films, and personally co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced one entitled Nights and Weekends (2008). She has worked with good quality directors such as Ti West (The House of the Devil (2009)), Whit Stillman (Damsels in Distress (2011)), or Woody Allen (To Rome with Love (2012)) but success and (international) recognition did not come until Frances Ha (2012), directed by Noah Baumbach, a film she also co-wrote. Both tall and immature, awkward and graceful, blundering and candid, annoying and engaging, Greta has won all hearts in the title role of Frances Ha(liday).
In 2017, she wrote and directed the highly acclaimed, semi-autobiographical teen movie Lady Bird (2017), set in 2002-2003, and starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Timothée Chalamet.
In 2011, Gerwig received an award for Acting from the Athena Film Festival for her artistry as one of Hollywood's definitive screen actresses of her generation.718 points- Actress
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Genevieve Bujold spent her first twelve school years in Montreal's oppressive Hochelaga Convent, where opportunities for self-expression were limited to making welcoming speeches for visiting clerics. As a child she felt "as if I were in a long dark tunnel trying to convince myself that if I could ever get out there was light ahead." Caught reading a forbidden novel, she was handed her ticket out of the convent and she then enrolled in Montreal's free Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique. There she was trained in classical French drama and shortly before graduation was offered a part in a professional production of Beaumarchais' "The Barber of Seville." In 1965 while on a theatrical tour of Paris with another Montreal company, Rideau Vert, Bujold was recommended to director Alain Resnais (by his mother) who cast her opposite Yves Montand in The War Is Over (1966). She then made two other French films in quick succession, the Philippe de Broca cult classic King of Hearts (1966) and Louis Malle's The Thief of Paris (1967). She was also very active during this time in Canadian television where she met and married director Paul Almond in 1967. They had one child and divorced in 1974. Two remarkable appearances - first as the titular Saint Joan (1967) on television, then as Anne Boleyn in her Hollywood debut Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), co-starring Richard Burton - introduced Bujold to American audiences and yielded Emmy and Oscar nominations respectively. Immediately after "Anne," while under contract with Universal, she opted out of a planned Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) ("it would be the same producer, the same director, the same costumes, the same me") prompting the studio to sue her for $750,000. Rather than pay, she went to Greece to film The Trojan Women (1971) with Katharine Hepburn. Her virtuoso performance as the mad seer Cassandra led critic Pauline Kael to prophesy "prodigies ahead" but to assuage Universal, Bujold eventually returned to Hollywood to make Earthquake (1974), co-starring Charlton Heston, which was a box office hit. A host of other films of varying quality followed, most notably Obsession (1976), Coma (1978), The Last Flight of Noah's Ark (1980), and Tightrope (1984), but she managed nevertheless to transcend the material and deliver performances with her trademark combination of ferocious intensity and childlike vulnerability. In the 1980s she found her way to director Alan Rudolph's nether world and joined his film family for three movies including the memorable Choose Me (1984). Highlights of recent work are her brave performance in the David Cronenberg film Dead Ringers (1988) and a lovely turn in the autumnal romance Les noces de papier (1990).716 points- Actress
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Born on January 12th 1984 in Tehran. Her father is a former national team football player, Hamid Alidoosti. She started her career as an actress visiting Amin Tarokh's acting school in 2000. Soon she was chosen for her first role in I'm Taraneh, 15 (2002) (I'm Taraneh, 15), which has so far remained her main success. Her first steps in acting brought her the silver Leopard on the 55th Locarno film festival, and the Cristal Simorgh on Iranian's biggest film festival, Fajr. Being extremely selective her next appearance was 3 years later, Beautiful City (2004) (Beautiful city) by Asghar Farhadi. Fireworks Wednesday (2006) (Fireworks Wednesday) and About Elly (2009) (About Elly) are her next movies with Asghar Farhadi. She has also played in Canaan (2008) by 'Mani Haghighi' which is going to be released in October 2008. Doubt (2009) (by Varuzh Karim-Masihi) is her latest movie which is being shot now in Tehran. She has also appeared in two theater plays, both written and directed by Mohammad Rahmanian.713 points- Actress
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Mia is an Australian actress, born and raised in the country's capital, Canberra. She is the daughter of photographers Marzena Wasikowska and John Reid. Her mother is Polish and her father is an Australian of British ancestry. She has an older sister, Jess, and a younger brother, Kai. At age eight, her family moved to Poland for a year.
At age nine, Mia took ballet classes with dreams of becoming a professional ballerina. However, an injury prevented this from happening and she quit at age fourteen. Mia turned to acting, having been excited by European and Australian cinema. She was attending Canberra High School, but left to pursue her career as an actor.
She had just turned 15 when she landed the role of Lilya in Suburban Mayhem (2006). Her breakthrough role came when she was cast as Alice in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010).713 points- Actress
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One of Europe's most celebrated actresses, Carice van Houten is perhaps best known as 'Melisandre' in the iconic TV show Game of Thrones, a performance for which she has been recognized with an Emmy Award nomination in 2019. Other projects include Paul Verhoeven's award-winning Black Book and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie opposite Tom Cruise and as Melisandre on Game of Thrones. Recent projects include Instinct and Temple, a TV show for Sky opposite Mark Strong, which has been picked up for a second season.
Her Dutch-language feature Love Life, gained her further critical acclaim and broke box office records in her native Holland. Her next film Happy Housewive won her a record breaking 5th Golden Calf at The Netherlands Film Festival and was voted 'Best Dutch Actress of All Time' by the Dutch audience. Other awards include Best Actress for Black Butterflies at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Best Performance award for Instinct at the Les Arcs Film Festival 2019.
Her credits include Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders and Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, the Jesse Owens biopic, Race, with Jason Sudekis and Jeremy Irons and voiced a character in The Simpsons. She can also be seen in Brian de Palma's Domino and in Brimstone, opposite Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce and Kit Harrington, and The Glass Room, with Claes Bang. She played a leading role in Halina Reijn's directorial feature debut Instinct, opposite Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin), which won the Variety Piazza Grande Award in Locarno Film Festival 2019. Instinct is the first outing for the Carice and Halina's production banner, Man Up.
Up next is the new Dutch series Red Light, in which she not only plays the lead role but she is also creative producer of the show, together with Halina and their production company Man Up The show is expected to air in Autumn 2020.712 points- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. In 1976 she went to Pittsburgh to pursue a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1980, she went to New York City, where she met playwright Beth Henley in a stalled elevator. Hunter went on to get roles in a number of Henley's southern Gothic plays, including Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest. In 1982 the actress went to Los Angeles. She landed her first starring role in the movies in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987), a part that is said to have been written with her in mind. She gained stardom in 1987 when she played the driven TV news producer Jane Craig in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987). In 1993 she earned an Academy Award and worldwide acclaim with her performance as a mute bride to a New Zealand planter in The Piano (1993).712 points- Actress
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Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she heeded her true calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. The resulting contract landed her several roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos, which in turn paved the way for a career on the big screen. Cruz made her movie debut in El laberinto griego (1993) (The Greek Labyrinth), then appeared briefly in the Timothy Dalton thriller Framed (1992). Her third film was the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), in which she played one of four sisters vying for the love of a handsome army deserter. The film also garnered several Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Her resume continued to grow by three or four films each year, and soon Cruz was a leading lady of Spanish cinema. Live Flesh (1997) (Live Flesh) offered her the chance to work with renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (who would later be her ticket to international fame), and the same year she was the lead actress in the thriller/drama/mystery/sci-fi film Open Your Eyes (1997), a huge hit in Spain that earned eight Goyas (though none for Cruz). Her luck finally changed in 1998, when the movie-industry comedy The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) won her a Best Actress Goya. Cruz made a few more forays into English-language film, but her first big international hit was Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999), in which she played an unchaste but well-meaning nun. As the film was showered with awards and accolades, Cruz suddenly found herself in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Her next big project was Woman on Top (2000), an American comedy about a chef with bewitching culinary skills and a severe case of motion sickness. While in the US, she also signed up to star opposite Johnny Depp in the drug-trafficking drama Blow (2001) and opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000). Cruz says she's wary of being typecast as a beautiful young damsel, but it's hard to imagine disguising her wide-eyed charms and generous nature. Fortunately, with Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) (a remake of Open Your Eyes (1997)) and a John Madden collaboration looming in her future, Damsel Penelope isn't likely to disappear just yet.710 points- Actress
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Jane Birkin was born on 14 December 1946 in London, England, UK. She was an actress and director, known for Evil Under the Sun (1982), Blow-Up (1966) and Death on the Nile (1978). She was married to John Barry. She died on 16 July 2023 in Paris, France.710 points- Actress
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Abbie Cornish, also known by her rap name Dusk, is an Australian actress and rapper. Following her lead performance in 2004's Somersault, Cornish is best-known for her film roles as the titular heroin addict in the drama Candy (2006), courtier Bess Throckmorton in the historical drama Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Fanny Brawne in the John Keats biopic Bright Star (2009), "Sweet Pea" in the action film Sucker Punch (2011), Lindy in the science fiction thriller Limitless (2011) and for her work with writer/director Martin McDonagh in Seven Psychopaths (2012) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).
Cornish was born in Lochinvar, New South Wales, Australia, as the second of five children of Shelley and Barry Cornish. Her sister, Isabelle Cornish, is also an actress. She grew up on a 70-hectare (170-acre) farm before moving to Newcastle, New South Wales. As a teenager, Cornish was fascinated by independent and foreign films. In 2006 she became an ambassador for Australian animal rights group Voiceless, the animal-protection institute, and was part of a national advertising campaign in 2012. Cornish began model-ling at age 13 after reaching the finals of a Dolly Magazine competition. In 1999, Cornish was awarded the Australian Film Institute Young Actor's Award for her role in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television show Wildside and was offered her first role in a feature film, The Monkey's Mask.
In 2004, Cornish appeared in the award-winning short film Everything Goes with Hugo Weaving. She received the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress at the FCCA and IF Awards and Best Breakthrough Performance at the 2005 Miami International Film Festival for her role in Somersault. Cornish received critical acclaim for her role in Candy, opposite Heath Ledger. She has also starred in A Good Year, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss. In April 2010, Cornish was cast in Limitless, the film adaptation of the novel The Dark Fields, directed by Neil Burger and also starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro.
Cornish narrated Zack Snyder's film Sucker Punch, in which she played one of the protagonists, at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International. Cornish played the role of Wally in Madonna's film W.E., about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. She replaced Emily Blunt in the independent film The Girl. It premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2012. She starred alongside Woody Harrelson and Colin Farrell in Seven Psychopaths, released in 2012. Cornish co-starred in the 2014 RoboCop reboot. She played Clara Murphy, the wife of protagonist Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman). In 2015, she played Agent Katherine Cowles in Solace, a mystery thriller film directed by Afonso Poyart with central performances by Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. In 2016, she filmed The Girl Who Invented Kissing with Luke Wilson.
Cornish is a rapper, singer and songwriter. She has been rapping under the name Dusk since 2000 and was part of an Australian hip hop group from the age of 18 to 22. In 2015, Cornish supported American rapper Nas on his Australian tour. The same year she released two new tracks on SoundCloud: "Evolve" featuring Jane Tyrrell and "Way Back Home" which was produced by Suffa from Hilltop Hoods.709 points- Helena Mattsson was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, with her two sisters. In her early teens she was discovered by one of the biggest modeling agencies in Sweden. After graduating from her Performing Arts High School in Stockholm, Helena traveled to London and New York to continue to study acting. Her big break came at the age of 19 when she left London for Los Angeles and was cast as the lead in the Warner Bros. comedy Sweden, Ohio (2004).
Mattsson recently had recurring roles on ABC's Desperate Housewives (2004) and CW's Nikita (2010). In 2012 she was cast as Alexis Blume in 666 Park Avenue (2012) for ABC.
Her feature film credits include: Seven Psychopaths (2012) with Colin Farrell, Guns, Girls and Gambling (2012) with Gary Oldman, Surrogates (2009) with Bruce Willis and Iron Man 2 (2010) with Robert Downey Jr..709 points - Actress
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Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series Get Real (1999). She gained widespread recognition for her roles in The Princess Diaries (2001) and its 2004 sequel as a young girl who discovers she is a member of royalty, opposite Julie Andrews and Heather Matarazzo.
She also had a notable role in Nicholas Nickleby (2002) opposite Charlie Hunnam and Jamie Bell, and a starring role in Ella Enchanted (2004). A former top-ranking soprano in New York, Hathaway was reportedly a front-runner for the role of "Christine" in the 2004 The Phantom of the Opera (2004). However, due to scheduling conflicts with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she couldn't take the role, which was later given to newcomer Emmy Rossum.
Hathaway soon started to move away from family-friendly films. Following The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), she appeared topless in the films Havoc (2005) opposite Josh Peck and Brokeback Mountain (2005) opposite Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Her desire to break out of her "Princess Diaries" image parallels that of her one-time co-star, Julie Andrews, who went topless in the film S.O.B. (1981) in order to break away from the image she created from her 1960s musicals. In interviews, Hathaway said that doing family-friendly films didn't mean she was similar to their characters or mean she objected to appearing nude in other films.709 points- Actress
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Amanda Seyfried was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Ann (Sander), an occupational therapist, and Jack Seyfried, a pharmacist. She is of German, and some English and Scottish, ancestry. She began modeling when she was eleven, and acted in high school productions as well as taking singing lessons.
More soap work followed as she completed her schooling and had already secured a place at Fordham University when she was offered a role in the Tina Fey-penned teen comedy Mean Girls (2004). She deferred her university education to complete the film. More television work followed, raising her profile across America, while her appearances in Mamma Mia! (2008) and Red Riding Hood (2011) helped establish her international fame.709 points- Actress
- Director
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Helena Bonham Carter is an actress of great versatility, one of the UK's finest and most successful.
Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London, England, the youngest of three children of Elena (née Propper de Callejón), a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant banker. Through her father, she is the great-granddaughter of former Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, and her blue-blooded family tree also contains Barons and Baronesses, diplomats, and a director, Bonham Carter's great-uncle Anthony Asquith, who made Pygmalion (1938) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), among others. Cousin Crispin Bonham-Carter is also an actor. Her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was a Spanish diplomat who was awarded the honorific Righteous Among the Nations, by Israel, for helping save Jews during World War II (Eduardo's own father was a Czech Jew). Helena's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family from France, Austria, and Germany, and later converted to her husband's Catholic faith.
Bonham Carter experienced family dramas during her childhood, including her father's stroke - which left him wheelchair-bound. She attended South Hampstead High School and Westminster School in London, and subsequently devoted herself to an acting career. That trajectory actually began in 1979 when, at age thirteen, she entered a national poetry writing competition and used her second place winnings to place her photo in the casting directory "Spotlight." She soon had her first agent and her first acting job, in a commercial, at age sixteen. She then landed a role in the made-for-TV movie A Pattern of Roses (1983), which subsequently led to her casting in the Merchant Ivory films A Room with a View (1985), director James Ivory's tasteful adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, and Lady Jane (1986), giving a strong performance as the uncrowned Queen of England. She had roles in three other productions under the Merchant-Ivory banner (director Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala): an uncredited appearance in Maurice (1987), and large roles in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and Howards End (1992).
Often referred to as the "corset queen" or "English rose" because of her early work, Bonham Carter continued to surprise audiences with magnificent performances in a variety of roles from her more traditional corset-clad character in The Wings of the Dove (1997) and Shakespearian damsels to the dark and neurotic anti-heroines of Fight Club (1999). Her acclaimed performance in The Wings of the Dove (1997) earned her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress nomination, and a SAG Awards Best Actress nomination. It also won her a Best Actress Award from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Boston Society Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Texas Society of Film Critics, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association.
In the late 1990s, Bonham Carter embarked on the next phase of her career, moving from capable actress to compelling star. Audiences and critics had long been enchanted by her delicate beauty, evocative of another time and place. Her late '90s and early and mid 2000s roles included Mick Jackson's Live from Baghdad (2002), alongside Michael Keaton, receiving a nomination for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe; Paul Greengrass' The Theory of Flight (1998), in which she played a victim of motor neurone disease; Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night (1996), in which she played Olivia; opposite Woody Allen in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995); Mort Ransen's Margaret's Museum (1995); Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein (1994); and Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990).
Other notable credits include her appearance with Steve Martin in Novocaine (2001), Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, in which she played an ape, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Heart of Me (2002), opposite Paul Bettany, and Big Fish (2003), her second effort with Tim Burton, in which she appeared as a witch.
In between her films, Helena has managed a few television appearances, which include her portrayal of Jacqui Jackson in Magnificent 7 (2005), the tale of a mother struggling to raise seven children - three daughters and four autistic boys; as Anne Boleyn in the two-parter biopic of Henry VIII starring Ray Winstone; and as Morgan Le Fey, alongside Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, in Merlin. Earlier television appearances include Michael Mann's Miami Vice (1984) as Don Johnson's junkie fiancée, and as a stripper who wins Rik Mayall's heart in Dancing Queen (1993). Helena has also appeared on stage, in productions of Trelawney of the Wells, The Barber of Seville, House of Bernarda Alba, The Chalk Garden, and Woman in White.
Bonham Carter was nominated for a Golden Globe for the fifth time for her role in partner Tim Burton's film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), for which Burton and co-star Johnny Depp were also nominated. For the role, she was awarded Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards 2008. Other 2000s work includes playing Mrs Bucket in Tim Burton's massive hit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), providing the voices for the aristocratic Lady Campanula Tottington in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and for the eponymous dead heroine in Tim Burton's spooky Corpse Bride (2005), and co-starring in Conversations with Other Women (2005) opposite Aaron Eckhart.
After their meeting while filming Planet of the Apes (2001), Bonham Carter and Tim Burton made seven films together. They lived in adjoining residences in London, shared a connecting hallway, and have two children: Billy Ray Burton, born in 2003, and Nell Burton, who was born in 2007. Ironically, a mutual love of Sweeney Todd was part of the initial attraction for the pair. Bonham Carter has said in numerous interviews that her audition process for the role of Mrs. Lovett was the most grueling of her career and that, ultimately, it was Sondheim who she had to convince that she was right for the role.709 points- Actress
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Sabine Azéma was born on 20 September 1949 in Paris, France. She is an actress and director, known for Mélo (1986), A Sunday in the Country (1984) and Private Fears in Public Places (2006).708 points- Actress
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Anny Duperey was born on 28 June 1947 in Rouen, France. She is an actress and director, known for Pardon Mon Affaire (1976), Le démon dans l'île (1983) and Une famille formidable (1992).708 points- Actress
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Céline Sallette was born on 25 April 1980 in Bordeaux, France. She is an actress and director, known for House of Tolerance (2011), Hereafter (2010) and Rust and Bone (2012).708 points- Actress
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- Soundtrack
French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also descends from the Schlumberger family). Her parents are both of mixed French and Alsatian German descent, with more distant Venezuelan (Spanish, Basque) roots on her father's side.
Léa began her acting career in French cinema, appearing in films such as The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008). She first came to attention after she received her first César Award nomination for her performance in The Beautiful Person (2008), and won the Trophée Chopard, an award given to promising actors at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, she has appeared in major Hollywood films including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (2010), Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). In French cinema, she was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for a second time for her role in Belle Épine (2010) and was nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for the film Farewell, My Queen (2012).
In 2013, Seydoux came to widespread attention when Seydoux and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche, were awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for their involvement in the critically acclaimed film Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)). As a special prize for their roles, Along with Jane Campion, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are the only women to have ever won a Palme d'Or.
That same year, she also received the Lumières Award for Best Actress for the film Grand Central and, in 2014, she was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award and starred in the films Beauty and the Beast, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Saint Laurent. In 2015 she played Madeleine Swann in the 24th James Bond film Spectre.706 points- Actress
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Gillian Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rosemary Alyce (Lane), a computer analyst, and Homer Edward Anderson III, who owned a film post-production company. Gillian started her career as a member of an amateur actor group while at high school. In 1987, her love of the theatre took her to the National Theatre of Great Britain Summer Acting Programme held at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. For several weeks she studied under such NT greats as Peter Chelsom, Bardy Thomas, and Michael Joyce. Afterwards, Anderson returned to the Goodman Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois where she finished her education. Her big break came with The X-Files (1993) as Dana Scully. There, she met her future husband (Clyde Klotz), marrying on January 1st 1994. One month later, Gillian was pregnant. Her daughter, Piper Anderson-Klotz, was born on the 25th September 1994. Her film career started with the movie The Turning (1992) in 1997 and, the following year, she starred in Playing by Heart (1998) with Sean Connery, Ellen Burstyn, Angelina Jolie and Dennis Quaid.706 points- Actress
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Growing up as the daughter of the teacher Wolfgang Meffert and his wife Marianne née Kleber, she attended school in Großenhain from 1961 to 1973. She completed her Abitur at the extended high school. After training as a nurse, she began studying textile engineering at the TU Dresden in 1976. From 1978 to 1981 she attended the Ernst Busch Drama School in Berlin and came to Chemnitz, then Karl Marx City. There she made her acting debut with the Goethe play "Faust II". Under Heiner Müller she played in the Shakespeare drama "Macbeth" at the Berlin Volksbühne in 1982. Roles in Berlin followed, including in the "Threepenny Opera" and in "Now Only Brecht". Corinna Harfouch became a celebrated film actress in the GDR and rose to stardom on German television and on the screen after the fall of communism. During the GDR era she starred in films such as "The House by the River", "Fallada - Last Chapter" (1987), "The Little Public Prosecutor" (1987), "The Actress" (1988), "The Big Mouth" and " Meeting in Travers" (1989).
After reunification, she thrilled television audiences in the TV series "Our teacher Dr. Specht", in the TV film "5 Hours of Fear - Taking Hostages in Kindergarten" and in crime films such as "Tatort" and "Kommissar Beck". Further film roles followed for Corinna Harfouch. In 1993 she impressed in her first leading role in Joseph Vilsmaier's "Charlie & Louise" and then in "The Promise". She appeared in front of the camera for many other successful productions. She played alongside Helmut Berger alongside Jürgen Vogel in "Come Back, Sexy Sadie" (1995), in "Damn, He Loves Me", with Katharina and Anna Thalbach in "Dangerous Girlfriend" (1996) and together with Til Schweiger and Jan Josef Liefers in "Knockin'' On Heavens Door" (1997). "To err is male" (1996), "Solo for Clarinet" (1998), "The Great Bagarozy" (1999), "Fandango - Members Only" (2000) and "Now or Never - Time is Money" (2000) were other film hits in which Corinna Harfouch was seen. She also received a lot of attention in 1996 when she appeared in "Eva, Hitler's Lover".
She also appeared on the stage of the Berliner Volkstheater in "The Woman from the Sea" and "Des Teufels General". Corinna Harfouch starred alongside Katja Riemann in the children's film "Bibi Blocksberg", which was released in German cinemas in 2002. The sequel "Bibi Blocksberg and the Secret of the Blue Owls" was published in 2004. Corinna Harfouch has received several awards for her achievements. She received the Critics' Prize for Best Actress twice - in 1989 for "The Actress" and in 1990 for "Meeting in Travers." In 1995 she was awarded the "Bavarian Film Prize" for "Irren ist Mann" and in 1997 she was honored with the "Golden Lion" and the "Bavarian Film Prize" for "The Outbreak" and "Dangerous Girlfriend". One of her most spectacular roles is her portrayal of Magda Goebbels in the Oliver Hirschbiegel drama "Downfall". The film with Bruno Ganz in the role of Adolf Hitler is about the last days in the Führerbunker.
In November 2005, "Through this night I don't see a single star" was released in cinemas. Corinna Harfouch plays Bozena Nemcová (1820 - 1862), the most famous Czech writer to date, who led a life far removed from all conventions. Harfouch was named "Best German Actress" at the 2007 "Golden Camera" award ceremony.
Corinna Harfouch is the mother of a son from her marriage to Michael Gwisdeck.705 points