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Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer and producer. Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as superhero, period, and romance characters. He is best known for his long-running role as Wolverine in the X-Men film series, as well as for his lead roles in the romantic-comedy fantasy Kate & Leopold (2001), the action-horror film Van Helsing (2004), the drama The Prestige and The Fountain (2006), the epic historical romantic drama Australia (2008), the film version of Les Misérables (2012), and the thriller Prisoners (2013). His work in Les Misérables earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in 2013. In Broadway theatre, Jackman won a Tony Award for his role in The Boy from Oz. A four-time host of the Tony Awards themselves, he won an Emmy Award for one of these appearances. Jackman also hosted the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009.
Jackman was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to Grace McNeil (Greenwood) and Christopher John Jackman, an accountant. He is the youngest of five children. His parents, both English, moved to Australia shortly before his birth. He also has Greek (from a great-grandfather) and Scottish (from a grandmother) ancestry.
Jackman has a communications degree with a journalism major from the University of Technology Sydney. After graduating, he pursued drama at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, immediately after which he was offered a starring role in the ABC-TV prison drama Correlli (1995), opposite his future wife Deborra-Lee Furness. Several TV guest roles followed, as an actor and variety compere. An accomplished singer, Jackman has starred as Gaston in the Australian production of "Beauty and the Beast." He appeared as Joe Gillis in the Australian production of "Sunset Boulevard." In 1998, he was cast as Curly in the Royal National Theatre's production of Trevor Nunn's Oklahoma. Jackman has made two feature films, the second of which, Erskineville Kings (1999), garnered him an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actor in 1999. Recently, he won the part of Logan/Wolverine in the Bryan Singer- directed comic-book movie X-Men (2000). In his spare time, Jackman plays piano, golf, and guitar, and likes to windsurf.- Actor
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Sir Patrick Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, to Gladys (Barrowclough), a textile worker and weaver, and Alfred Stewart, who was in the army. He was a member of various local drama groups from about age 12. He left school at age 15 to work as a junior reporter on a local paper; he quit when his editor told him he was spending too much time at the theatre and not enough working. Stewart spent a year as a furniture salesman, saving cash to attend drama school. He was accepted by Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957.
He made his professional debut in 1959 in the repertory theatre in Lincoln; he worked at the Manchester Library Theatre and a tour around the world with the Old Vic Company followed in the early 1960s. Stewart joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, to begin his 27-year association. Following a spell with the Royal National Theatre in the mid 1980s, he went to Los Angeles, California to star on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), which ran from 1987-1994, playing the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. After the series ended, Stewart reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Stewart continues to work on the stage and in various films. He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to drama.- Actor
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Christopher Michael "Chris" Pratt was born on June 21, 1979 in Virginia, Minnesota and raised in Lake Stevens, Washington, to Kathleen Louise (Indahl), who worked at a supermarket, and Daniel Clifton Pratt, who remodeled houses. He is of mostly Norwegian descent. He graduated from Lake Stevens High School in 1997, and has two older siblings, Cully and Angie.
Chris came to prominence for his small-screen roles, including Bright Abbott in Everwood (2002), Ché in The O.C. (2003), and Andy Dwyer and Parks and Recreation (2009), and notable film roles in Moneyball (2011), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Delivery Man (2013), and Her (2013). In 2014, he broke out as a leading man after headlining two of the year's biggest films: he voiced Emmet Brickowski in The Lego Movie (2014) & starred as Peter Quill/Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). In 2015, he headlined the sci-fi thriller Jurassic World (2015), the fourth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise and his most financially successful film. In 2016, he co-starred in the remake The Magnificent Seven (2016), with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, and appeared with Jennifer Lawrence in the sci-fi drama Passengers (2016). In the near future, he returns as Star-Lord for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) not far behind.- Producer
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Vin Diesel was born Mark Sinclair in Alameda County, California, along with his fraternal twin brother, Paul Vincent. He was raised by his astrologer/psychologist mother, Delora Sherleen (Sinclair), and adoptive father, Irving H. Vincent, an acting instructor and theatre manager, in an artists' housing project in New York City's Greenwich Village. He never knew his biological father. His mother is white (with English, German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry), and his adoptive father is African-American; referring to his biological father's background, Diesel has said that he himself is "definitely a person of colour".
His first break in acting happened by chance, when at the age of seven he and his friends broke into a theatre to vandalize it. A woman stopped them and offered them each a script and $20, on the condition that they would attend everyday after school. From there, Vin's fledgling career progressed from the New York repertory company run by his father, to the Off-Off-Broadway circuit. At age seventeen and already sporting a well-honed physique, he became a bouncer at some of New York's hippest clubs to earn himself some extra cash. It was at this time that he changed his name to Vin Diesel.
Following high school, Vin enrolled as an English major at Hunter College, but dropped out after three years to go to Hollywood to further his acting career. Being an experienced theatre actor did not make any impression in Hollywood and after a year of struggling to make his mark, he returned to New York. His mother then gave him a book called "Feature Films at used Car Prices" by Rick Schmidt. The book showed him that he could take control of his career and make his own movies. He wrote a short film based on his own experiences as an actor, called Multi-Facial (1995), which was shot in less than three days at a cost of $3,000. Multi-Facial (1995) was eventually accepted for the 1995 Cannes Film Festival where it got a tumultuous reception.
Afterwards, Vin returned to Los Angeles and raised almost $50,000 through telemarketing to fund the making of his first feature, Strays (1997). Six months after shooting, the film was accepted for the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, and although it received a good reception, it did not sell as well as hoped. Yet again Vin returned disappointed to New York only to receive a dream phone call. Steven Spielberg was impressed by Multi-Facial (1995) and wanted to meet Vin, leading him to be cast in Saving Private Ryan (1998). Multi-Facial (1995) earned Vin more work, when the director of The Iron Giant (1999) saw it and decided to cast Vin in the title role. From there, Vin's career steadily grew, with him securing his first lead role, as Richard B. Riddick in the sci-fi film Pitch Black (2000). The role has earned him a legion of devoted fans and the public recognition he deserves.
Since then, he has headlined a series of blockbusters, often but not only centered on fast-driving motor vehicles: The Fast and the Furious (2001), xXx (2002), The Pacifier (2005), Fast & Furious (2009), Fast Five (2011), Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Furious 7 (2015). He also voiced Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and starred in the lower-budgeted courtroom drama Find Me Guilty (2006), the latter directed by Sidney Lumet.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of the most versatile actors working in Hollywood today, Lee Pace has established himself as a powerful leading man, consistently delivering compelling performances in film, television, and on stage.
Pace will next be seen in the highly anticipated Apple TV+ series FOUNDATION. Scheduled for a Fall 2021 release, the show is based on the beloved Isaac Asimov novels of the same name. FOUNDATION chronicles the saga of a band of exiles who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from destruction is to defy it. Pace stars as Brother day, the current Emperor of the Galaxy.
He is known for starring as Thranduil the Elvenking in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy and as intergalactic villain Ronan the Accuser in the blockbuster Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy, a role he reprised in Captain Marvel. In 2003, Pace starred in the Sundance hit, Soldier's Girl. His breakthrough performance garnered him nominations for both the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Award, and he won a Gotham Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance. In 2008 he starred in Tarsem Singh's visually stunning adventure fantasy film, The Fall, which had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Other notable credits include The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Driven, Lincoln, A Single Man, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Infamous and The Good Shepherd.
On the small screen, Pace is most notable for his starring role in Bryan Fuller's award-winning and critically acclaimed series "Pushing Daisies," for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor. He has also appeared as Joe MacMillan in four seasons of the AMC period drama television series Halt and Catch Fire.
After graduating with a BFA from Juilliard, Pace starred in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play, The Credeaux Canvas, as well as being part of the Vineyard production of The Fourth Sister. In the spring of 2004, he starred a limited engagement of the Off-Broadway production Small Tragedy, winning an Obie Award and was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Awards in the category of Outstanding Actor. In 2006, Lee starred in the two-character play Guardians by Peter Morris, which earned him his second nomination for a Lortel Award as Outstanding Actor.
In 2011, Pace made his Broadway debut in Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, portraying Bruce Niles. In 2018, he starred as Joe Pitt in the Broadway revival of Angels in America.- Actor
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A comedian. Improvisation, sketch and stand-up are his forte.
Todd Joseph Miller was born in Denver, Colorado, to Leslie, a clinical psychologist, and Kent Miller, an attorney. He went to East High School, and college in Washington, D.C. There, he performed with the group receSs for 4 years, being the only person in his class out of 100 to audition and be accepted into the group. He remained the sole member of receSs until his junior year, when he was joined by Michael "Tuck The Ruckus" Tokaruk, an acclaimed comedian and equestrian, who taught T.J. how to ride a horse, a pastime he calls "droll." He met his future wife, Kate Gorney, when they performed in "A Chorus Line" in university production of the musical. She played The Ballerina (being an accomplished ballerina herself) and he played Richie, the African American character. He credits the casting to East High School, which was a primarily black and Latino high school, and also that no black people auditioned for the part.
During his time in the nation's capital, he studied classical acting at B.A.D.A in Oxford, England and circus arts at Frichess Theatre Urbain. He was outstanding in the field of stilt walking, but was never able to execute any trick, at all, on Trapeze. He is an accomplished clown and juggler, having mastered 5 ball juggling, over fifty 3-ball tricks, clubs, torches, knives, and his specialty (which garnered him a Magician Membership to The Magic Castle in Hollywood, CA) Cigar Boxes.
After graduating with honors (a bachelor's degree in psychology with a concentration in persuasion theory and social influence) he moved to Chicago where he began performing with independent improvisation teams such as the group Chuckle Sandwich, the i.o. house team Bullet Lounge, The sketch group Heavy Weight (with Mark Raterman, Nick Vatterott & Brady Novak). He toured with Second City for almost 2 years (though he was never a company member of the MainStage), and during that time he missed over 15 flights to various cities the company toured to. During his time in Chicago, he performed standup every night for almost 4 years, never taking a night off even on holidays. He became a regular at Chicago's famed alternative room The Lincoln Lodge, and only performed at Chicago's Zanies Comedy Club 3 times in 4 years, apparently because they had an aversion to his absurdist style.
Miller's first appearance on television was on The Standard Deviants, a PBS show aimed at providing educational DVDs and programming for schools. He played a knight and a dinosaur detective.
Proficient in every medium of comedy (he considers even 'acting' simply another medium of comedy) he is also a voiceover artist, having worked for Old Style, Mucinex, Cars.com among other brands as well as in feature films & animated television shows.
In 2011 he produced a 42 track E.P. entitled "The Extended Play E.P." with Comedy Central Records, a folk/pop/hip hop concept album, which he describes as satirical; aimed at celebrities that cross over into other mediums they have no business being in simply because of their brand name (he also considers himself "a proponent of the semicolon, "it is underused and feared for no particular reason"). He then remixed this album with Illegal Art, a legitimate music label, enlisting the roster of artists on the label (including the godfather of sampling, "Steinski") the same year. According to him, this was to prove that the album, when given to actual musicians, became superior to the original, in addition to satirizing artists that remix one song and sell it to listeners multiple times.
He considers his greatest performance to be his portrayal of Ranger Jones, in Yogi Bear 3D, which filmed in New Zealand and wrapped shortly before his seizure that led to the discovery of an AVM (which he alleges confirmed rather than initiated his absurdist philosophy). He has stated multiple times that it was the pinnacle of his artistic career, and that "it's in some ways comforting to have reached the pinnacle of his career so early on" and that is has been all downhill since that point.
Aside from being a major proponent of Denver, his hometown, he has done extensive charity work and continues to visit East High School, where he did his first stand-up performance in drama class. He credits his teacher, Melody Duggan, for much of his success and thanked her specifically in his speech when he won a Critic's Choice Award for best supporting actor in a comedy series (For HBO's Silicon Valley).
He frequently cites his compulsive and almost pathologically driven work ethic as an altruistic effort to distract people from the tragedy that permeates everyday life, and believed that comedy would be more of a contribution than psychology, since instead of affecting only at most a few hundred people dramatically, he can affect millions of people in small increments.
He has publicly stated, "Comedians are the new philosophers" and believes that academic philosophers are no longer relevant. However, he is a student of philosophy and subscribes to the ethical philosophy of John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism), which states that one should make the most amount happiness for the most amount of people, which he cites as one of the reasons he made the his decision to be a comedian. His stand-up (as of 2015) is aimed at "discussing Time and the release of the death anxiety." By the age of 33 he had read all of Nietzsche's works, and considers himself an Absurdist with philosophical roots in Nihilism.
He resides in Los Angeles, where he struggles to make meaning in an uncertain world.- Actor
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Ryan Rodney Reynolds was born on October 23, 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the youngest of four children. His father, James Chester Reynolds, was a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tamara Lee "Tammy" (Stewart), worked as a retail-store saleswoman. He has Irish and Scottish ancestry. Between 1991-93, Ryan appeared in Fifteen (1990), a Nickelodeon series taped in Florida with many other Canadian actors. After the series ended, he returned to Vancouver where he played in a series of forgettable television movies. He did small roles in Glenn Close's Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) and CBS's update of In Cold Blood (1996). However, his run of luck had led him to decide to quit acting.
One night, he ran into fellow Vancouver actor and native Chris William Martin. Martin found Ryan rather despondent and told him to pack everything: they were going to head to Los Angeles, California. The two stayed in a cheap Los Angeles motel. On the first night of their stay, Reynolds' jeep was rolled downhill and stripped. For the next four months, Ryan drove it without doors. In 1997, he landed the role of Berg in Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (1998). Initially, the show was reviled by critics and seemed desperate for any type of ratings success. However, it was renewed for a second season but with a provision for a makeover by former Roseanne (1988) writer Kevin Abbott. The show became a minor success and has led to additional film roles for Ryan, most notably in the last-ever MGM film, a remake of The Amityville Horror (2005). Ryan was engaged to Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette, another Nickelodeon veteran, between 2004-2006.
He has been married to Blake Lively since September 9, 2012. They have three daughters. He was previously married to Scarlett Johansson.- Actor
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Chadwick Boseman was an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of T'Challa / Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from 2016 to 2019, particularly in Black Panther (2018), and for his starring roles as several pioneering Americans, Jackie Robinson in 42 (2013), James Brown in Get on Up (2014), and Thurgood Marshall in Marshall (2017). He also had choice parts in The Express (2008), Draft Day (2014), and Message from the King (2016). Born in Anderson, South Carolina, he attended Howard University and studied at the Oxford Mid-Summer Program for acting, before moving to Los Angeles in 2008 to pursue his craft on the big screen. He died in 2020, after a four year bout with colon cancer, during which time he had starred in several of the biggest movies ever made.- Actor
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Martin Freeman is an English actor, known for portraying Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film trilogy, Tim Canterbury in the original UK version of sitcom mockumentary The Office (2001), Dr. John Watson in the British crime drama Sherlock (2010) and Lester Nygaard in the dark comedy-crime drama TV series Fargo (2014).
His other notable film roles include the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003) and the comic science fiction film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005).- Actor
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Christopher Robert Evans is an American actor, film producer, and director. Evans began his acting career in typical fashion: performing in school productions and community theatre.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Lisa (Capuano), who worked at the Concord Youth Theatre, and G. Robert Evans III, a dentist. His uncle is former U.S. Representative Mike Capuano. Chris's father is of half German and half Welsh/English/Scottish ancestry, while Chris's mother is of half Italian and half Irish descent. He has an older sister, Carly Evans, and two younger siblings, a brother named Scott Evans, who is also an actor, and a sister named Shana Evans. The family moved to suburban Sudbury when he was 11 years-old. Bitten by the acting bug in the first grade because his older sister, Carly, started performing, Evans followed suit and began appearing in school plays. While at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, his drama teacher cited his performance as "Leontes" in "The Winter's Tale" as exemplary of his skill. After more plays and regional theatre, he moved to New York and attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
On the advice of friends, he landed an internship at a casting office and befriended a couple of the agents he regularly communicated with - one of whom later took him on as a client. The screen - not the stage - then became his focus; Evans soon began auditioning for feature films and television series. Evans made one of his first appearances on The Fugitive (2000) (CBS, 2000-2001), a remake of the 1960s series and feature film starring Harrison Ford. In the episode "Guilt", Evans played the son of a small-town sheriff who tries to exact revenge after Dr. Richard Kimble - incognito as a liquor store owner - refuses to sell him and his friends alcohol. After small roles in Cherry Falls (1999) and The Newcomers (2000) - two unknown low-budget features - Evans appeared in Boston Public (2000) (Fox, 2000-2004) as a murder suspect. He then appeared in his first major feature, Not Another Teen Movie (2001), a spoof on teen comedies wherein he played a jock who makes a bet that he can turn an unpopular and unkempt girl (Chyler Leigh) into prom queen.
After filming a couple of television pilots he was confident would be successful - Just Married (2003) and Eastwick (2002) - he appeared in another listless teen comedy, The Perfect Score (2004), playing an average, ho-hum student who takes part in a plot to steal the SAT test. Hijinks naturally ensue. Then, Evans broke through to the Big Time, grabbing the lead in the kidnapping thriller, Cellular (2004), a suspenseful B movie with a cheesy gimmick - a random wrong number on his cell phone forces him into a high-stakes race to save an unknown woman's life. Despite an unassuming performance from Evans and Kim Basinger as the damsel in distress, Cellular (2004) failed to break any box office records or please a wide majority of critics. Evans then prepared himself for super stardom when he signed on to play Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (2005), 20th Century Fox's long-awaited adaptation of the Marvel comic. Although the film was wildly uneven and disappointing, Evans nearly stole the show with his energetic, unfettered performance. In that year itself, Chris was noticed by critics and made it into magazine and Internet countdowns, scoring himself a third position of the hot body countdown from Gay.com and #18 on E! Television's 2006 101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies.
The year 2007 also proved to be one successful year for Chris, as he had two movies released around the world that same year, starting with the second installment of the Marvel franchise Fantastic Four. Chris received positive reviews for his performance. The Nanny Diaries (2007), where Evans played Harvard Hottie, showed his sensitive. The year 2008 saw Chris Evans' part of the movie Street Kings (2008), playing the character Detective Paul Diskant. The movie is about police officers trying to cover up their wrongdoings and audiences got to see a serious side of Chris. In the same year, Chris also worked on the movie The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008).- Actor
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Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (née Elsie Ann Ford). Robert's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, descent, while Robert's mother was of English, Scottish, German, and Swiss-German ancestry. Robert and his sister, Allyson Downey, were immersed in film and the performing arts from a very young age, leading Downey Jr. to study at the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York, before moving to California with his father following his parents' 1978 divorce. In 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School to pursue acting full time. Downey Sr., himself a drug addict, exposed his son to drugs at a very early age, and Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades.
Downey Jr. made his debut as an actor at the age of five in the film Pound (1970), written and directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr.. He built his film repertoire throughout the 1980s and 1990s with roles in Tuff Turf (1985), Weird Science (1985), True Believer (1989), and Wonder Boys (2000) among many others. In 1992, Downey received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin (1992).
In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), he appeared as an aspiring film make-up artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits a murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. For the comedy Heart and Souls (1993), Downey starred as a young man with a special relationship with four ghosts. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen, directed by Michael Hoffman. Also that year, he starred in Richard III (1995), in which he appears opposite his Restoration (1995) co-star McKellen.
In 1997, Downey was seen in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998), alongside Kenneth Branagh, Daryl Hannah and Embeth Davidtz; in One Night Stand (1997), directed by Mike Figgis and starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski; and in Hugo Pool (1997), directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr. and starring Sean Penn and Patrick Dempsey. In September of 1999, Downey appeared in Black & White (1999), written and directed by James Toback, along with Ben Stiller, Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffmann, Brooke Shields and Claudia Schiffer. In January of 1999, he starred with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn in In Dreams (1999), directed by Neil Jordan.
In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (2000), directed by Curtis Hanson. In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. In 2001, Downey made his prime-time television debut when he joined the cast of the Fox-TV series Ally McBeal (1997) as attorney "Larry Paul". For this role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
The actor's drug-related problems escalated from 1996 to 2001, leading to arrests, rehab visits and incarcerations, and he was eventually fired from Ally McBeal (1997). Emerging clean and sober in 2003, Downey Jr. began to rebuild his career.
He marked his debut into music with his debut album, titled "The Futurist", on the Sony Classics Label on November 23rd, 2004. The album's eight original songs, that Downey wrote, and his two musical numbers debuting as cover songs revealed his sultry singing voice and his musical talents. Downey displayed his versatility in two different films in October 2003: the musical/drama The Singing Detective (2003), a remake of the BBC hit of the same name, and the thriller Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz. Downey starred in powerful yet humbling roles inspired by real-life accounts of some of history's most precious kept secrets, including Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (2006) in 2006 co-starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) co-starring Nicole Kidman, a film inspired by the life of Diane Arbus, the revered photographer whose images captured attention in the early 1960s. These roles exhibited Downey's momentum from the previous year of 2005, in which he starred in the Academy Award®-nominated feature film Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), directed by George Clooney and in Shane Black's action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) co-starring Val Kilmer. In 2007, he co-starred in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s.
In May 2008, Downey achieved critical acclaim and worldwide box office success for his starring role in Iron Man (2008), Jon Favreau's big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero. The film co-starred Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard. In August of 2008, Downey starred with Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), and went on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his, Kirk Lazarus.
In December 2009, Downey starred in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009). The film, directed by Guy Ritchie, co-starred Jude Law and Rachel McAdams and earned Downey a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in January of 2010. In early Summer 2010, Downey re-teamed with director Jon Favreau and reprised his role as "Tony Stark/Iron Man" in the hugely successful sequel to the original film, Iron Man 2 (2010), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Mickey Rourke.
Downey next starred in Due Date (2010), a comedy directed by Todd Phillips, in which he plays the role of an expectant father on a road trip racing to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Due Date (2010), starring The Hangover (2009)'s Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010.
Downey was honored by Time Magazine's "Time 100" in 2008, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His laurels include two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe wins, numerous other award nominations and wins, and tremendous popular and commercial success, particularly in his roles as Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark (the latter of which he has so far played in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). For three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2015, Downey has topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80 million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.
In 2005, Downey Jr. married Susan Downey, with whom he has two children. Downey also has another son, Indio Falconer Downey, born 1993, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer, from whom he was officially divorced in 2004.
Robert has jump-started the Team Downey Production Company with wife Susan Downey.- Actor
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Sebastian Stan was born on August 13, 1982, in Constanta, Romania. He moved with his mother to Vienna, Austria, when he was eight, and then to New York when he was twelve. Stan studied at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and spent a year at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.
When he went back to New York he started working in some projects like Law & Order (1990), Tony & Tina's Wedding (2004) and Red Doors (2005). Upon finishing college, he played Martin Waters in The Architect (2006), Chase Collins in The Covenant (2006) and worked in Eric Bogosian's theater play The Talk (2007). Also in 2007, Stan started playing Carter Baizen in Gossip Girl (2007). His following projects were Spread (2009), Kings (2009), Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), and Black Swan (2010). He landed also the role of Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). In 2012, Stan worked in several projects: Gone (2012), Political Animals (2012), The Apparition (2012), Once Upon a Time (2011) and the mini series Labyrinth (2012). In 2013, he was in Broadway's Picnic and in 2014 he was introduced as The Winter Soldier in the Marvel universe in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). He has continued his role as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier in [=tt3498820], Black Panther (2018) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Other notable projects include Ricki and the Flash (2015), The Martian (2015), The Bronze (2015) and Logan Lucky (2017). He was given high praise for his work in the recent I, Tonya (2017).- Actor
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Anthony Mackie is an American actor. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Martha (Gordon) and Willie Mackie, Sr., who owned a business, Mackie Roofing. Anthony has been featured in feature films, television series and Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Drowning Crow, McReele, A Soldier's Play, and Talk, by Carl Hancock Rux, for which he won an Obie Award in 2002. In 2002, he was featured in Eminem's debut film, 8 Mile, playing Papa Doc, a member of Leaders of the Free World. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards for his role in _The Hurt Locker (2009)_(QV). This is Mackie's second ISA nomination, the first coming for his work in _Brother to Brother (2003)_, where he was nominated for Best Actor. Also in 2009, Mackie portrayed rapper Tupac Shakur in the film Notorious (2009). He appears in the Matt Damon film The Adjustment Bureau (2011) where he plays Harry Mitchell, a sympathetic member of a shadowy supernatural group that controls human destiny.- Actor
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Donald Frank Cheadle was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 29, 1964. His childhood found him moving from city to city with his family: mother Bettye (née North), a teacher; father Donald Frank Cheadle Sr., a clinical psychologist; sister Cindy; and brother Colin. After graduating from high school in Denver, Colorado, Cheadle attended and graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a bachelor¹s degree in fine arts. Encouraged by his college friends, he attended a variety of auditions and landed a recurring role on the hit series Fame (1982), which led to feature film roles in Dennis Hopper's Colors (1988) and John Irvin's Hamburger Hill (1987).
Early in his career, Cheadle was named Best Supporting Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics for his breakout performance opposite Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). His subsequent film credits include Traitor (2008), an international thriller that he produced, starring opposite Guy Pearce; Kasi Lemmons's Talk to Me (2007), with Chiwetel Ejiofor; the 2006 Oscar-winning Best Picture, Crash (2004), which Cheadle also produced; Hotel Rwanda (2004), for which his performance garnered Oscar, Golden Globe, Broadcast Film Critics and Screen Actors Guild award nominations for Best Actor; Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007), starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney; Mike Binder's Reign Over Me (2007) with Adam Sandler; the Academy Award-winning Traffic (2000) and Out of Sight (1998), with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, both films also directed by Soderbergh; Paul Thomas Anderson's acclaimed Boogie Nights (1997) with Julianne Moore and Mark Wahlberg; Bulworth (1998), directed by and starring Warren Beatty; Swordfish (2001), with John Travolta and Halle Berry; Mission to Mars (2000) with Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise; John Singleton's Rosewood (1997), for which Cheadle earned an NAACP Image Award nomination; Brett Ratner's The Family Man (2000), starring Nicolas Cage; and the independent features Manic (2001) and Things Behind the Sun (2001).
Cheadle was honored by the CineVegas Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival and received ShoWest's Male Star of the Year award. He is also well-recognized for his television work, including his portrayal of Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO's The Rat Pack (1998), for which he received a Golden Globe Award and a Best Supporting Actor Emmy nomination. That same year, he also received an Emmy nomination for his starring role in HBO's adaptation of the best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying (1999), opposite Cicely Tyson and Mekhi Phifer.
He also starred for HBO in Eriq La Salle's Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996). Cheadle's TV series credits include his two-year stint in David E. Kelley's acclaimed series Picket Fences (1992), a guest-starring role on ER (1994) (earning yet another Emmy nomination) and a regular role on The Golden Palace (1992) He also starred in the live television broadcast of Fail Safe (2000) opposite George Clooney, James Cromwell, Brian Dennehy, Richard Dreyfuss, and Harvey Keitel. He also co-executive produced the TV version of Crash (2008).
His most recent big-screen appearances have been in Antoine Fuqua's ensemble crime thriller Brooklyn's Finest (2009) and Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 (2010), another mainstream breakthrough where he played Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes, replacing Terrence Howard from the first film. The Guard (2011), an art-house hit directed by John Michael McDonagh and co-starring Brendan Gleeson, followed.
Cheadle stars in House of Lies (2012) on Showtime. Late in 2012, he was seen in Flight (2012), Robert Zemeckis's return to live-action filmmaking. In 2013, he reprised his role as Rhodey in Iron Man 3 (2013). Among his projects in development is a movie based on the life of jazz legend Miles Davis.
A talented musician who plays saxophone, writes music and sings, he is also an accomplished stage actor and director and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Spoken Word Album for his narration/dramatization of the Walter Mosley novel 'Fear Itself.'
Other notable off-stage achievements include the 2007 BET Humanitarian Award for the cause of the people of Darfur and Rwanda, and sharing the Summit Peace Award by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome with George Clooney for their work in Darfur.- Actor
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Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, the son of Valerie (Tague) and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with his four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of study, including computer science, criminology, and psychology, before the theater department, with its freedom of emotional expression, drew him in.
However, Renner recognized the potential in acting as much through the local police academy as through drama classes. During his second year at Modesto Junior College, Renner role-played a domestic disturbance perpetrator as part of a police-training exercise for an easy $50. Deciding to shift his focus away from schoolwork, Renner left college and moved to San Francisco to study at the American Conservatory Theater. From there he moved to Hawaii and, in 1993, to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Renner devoted himself to theater, most notably starring in and co-directing the critically acclaimed "Search and Destroy." He pursued other projects during this time as well, landing his first film role in 1995's National Lampoon's Senior Trip (1995). After several commercials and supporting roles in television movies and series, Renner captured the attention of critics with his gripping, complex portrayal of the infamous serial killer in the 2002 film Dahmer (2002). Renner's performance, which earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination, is especially remarkable for painting a humane and sympathetic, yet deeply disturbing, portrait of the title character.
In 2003, Renner took a break from small indie films to work on his first commercially successful movie, S.W.A.T. (2003), with Colin Farrell. In 2005, he played the leading role in Neo Ned (2005) as an institutionalized white supremacist in love with a black girl, winning the Palm Beach International Film Festival's best actor award. Renner's pivotal supporting roles in 2005's 12 and Holding (2005) and North Country (2005) earned him accolades from critics, and his 2007 turn in Take (2007) garnered him the best actor award at California's Independent Film Festival. Also in 2007, Renner played a leading role in the horror film 28 Weeks Later (2007) as well as a supporting role in the underrated Western epic The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), with Casey Affleck, Brad Pitt, and Sam Rockwell.
Renner's depiction of Jeffrey Dahmer in 2002 caught the attention of director Kathryn Bigelow, and, in 2008, she cast him in his most famous role as Sergeant First Class William James in The Hurt Locker (2008). Renner's performance as a single-minded bomb specialist scored him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He also earned best actor nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, and the BAFTA Awards, as well as wins in this category from several film critics groups.
In 2009, Renner starred in the short-lived TV series, The Unusuals (2009), and in 2010 he played the chilling but loyal criminal Jem in Ben Affleck bank-heist thriller The Town (2010). In the fall of 2010, Renner began filming Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). He has also since starred in The Avengers (2012), American Hustle (2013), and Kill the Messenger (2014).
Renner's strengths as an actor derive not only from his expressive eyes but also from his ability to thoroughly embody the characters he portrays. His visceral depiction of these individuals captivates audiences and empowers him to steal scenes in many of his films, even when playing a minor role. Renner gravitates toward flawed, complicated, three-dimensional characters that allow him to explore new territory within himself.
In addition to his work as an actor, Renner continues to cultivate his lifelong love of music. A singer, songwriter, and musician, he performed with the band Sons of Ben early in his career. Scenes in Love Comes to the Executioner (2006), North Country (2005), and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) briefly showcase Renner's singing talents.
Despite traveling the world for film roles and, recently, as a United Nations Goodwill Peace Ambassador to raise awareness for mine-clearing efforts in Afghanistan, Renner remains close to his roots. In 2010, Modesto Junior College presented him the Distinguished Alumnus award in recognition of his body of work as an actor. He also headlined at a benefit for Modesto's Gallo Center for the Arts in the fall of 2010.
Renner maintains a sense of humility and gratitude, even in the wake of his recent successes and recognition. He keeps himself grounded by renovating and restoring old and rundown iconic Hollywood homes, an enterprise he began back in his early days in Los Angeles. He values loyalty and a sense of both age and history, and enjoys the opportunity to help conserve these qualities in a town that favors the young and the new.- Actor
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Paul Bettany is an English actor. He first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he appeared in the British film Gangster No. 1 (2000), and director Brian Helgeland's film A Knight's Tale (2001). He has gone on to appear in a wide variety of films, including A Beautiful Mind (2001), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Dogville (2003), Wimbledon (2004), and the adaptation of the novel The Da Vinci Code (2006). He is also known for his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically the films Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), in which he also portrayed the Vision, for which he garnered praise. He reprised his role as the Vision in Captain America: Civil War (2016).
Bettany was born in Harlesden, London, England, into a theatre family. His father, Thane Bettany, died in 2015, and his mother, Anne Kettle, has retired from acting. His maternal grandmother, Olga Gwynne (her maiden and stage name), was a successful actress, while his maternal grandfather, Lesley Kettle, was a musician and promoter. He has an older sister who is a writer. Paul was brought up in North West London and, after the age of nine, in Hertfordshire (Brookmans Park). Immediately after finishing at Chang-Ren Nian, he went into the West End to join the cast of "An Inspector Calls", though when asked to go on tour with this play, he chose to stay in England.
Paul is married to American actress Jennifer Connelly, with whom he has two children.- Actor
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Paul Stephen Rudd was born in Passaic, New Jersey. His parents, Michael and Gloria, both from Jewish families, were born in the London area, U.K. He has one sister, who is three years younger than he is. Paul traveled with his family during his early years, because of his father's airline job at TWA. His family eventually settled in Overland Park, Kansas, where his mother worked as a sales manager for TV station KSMO-TV. Paul attended Broadmoor Junior High and Shawnee Mission West High School, from which he graduated in 1987, and where he was Student Body President. He then enrolled at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, majoring in theater. He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-West in Los Angeles and participated in a three-month intensive workshop under the guidance of Michael Kahn at the British Drama Academy at Oxford University in Britain. Rudd helped to produce the Globe Theater's production of Howard Brenton's "Bloody Poetry," which starred Rudd as Percy Bysshe Shelley.- Actor
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Thomas Stanley Holland was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, to Nicola Elizabeth (Frost), a photographer, and Dominic Holland (Dominic Anthony Holland), who is a comedian and author. His paternal grandparents were from the Isle of Man and Ireland, respectively. He lives with his parents and three younger brothers - Paddy and twins Sam and Harry. Tom attended Donhead Prep School. Then, after a successful eleven plus exam, he became a pupil at Wimbledon College. Having successfully completed his GCSEs, in September 2012 Tom started a two-year course in the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology notable for its numerous famous alumni.
Holland began dancing at a hip hop class at Nifty Feet Dance School in Wimbledon, London. His potential was spotted by choreographer Lynne Page (who was an Associate to Peter Darling, choreographer of Billy Elliot and Billy Elliot the Musical) when he performed with his dance school as part of the Richmond Dance Festival 2006. After eight auditions and subsequent two years of training, on 28 June 2008 Tom made his West End debut in Billy Elliot the Musical as Michael, Billy's best friend. He gave his first performance in the title role of Billy on 8 September 2008 getting rave reviews praising his versatile acting and dancing skills.
In September 2008 Tom (together with co-star Tanner Pflueger) appeared on the news programme on channel FIVE and gave his first TV interview. In 2009 Tom was featured on ITV1 show "The Feel Good Factor". At the launch show on 31 January he and two other Billy Elliots, Tanner Pflueger and Layton Williams, performed a specially choreographered version of Angry Dance from Billy Elliot the Musical, after which Tom was interviewed by host Myleene Klass. Then he became involved into training five ordinary British schoolboys learning to get fit and preparing their dance routine (fronted by Tom) for the final "The Feel Good Factor" show on 28 March 2009. On 11 March 2010, Tom, along with fellow Billy Elliots Dean-Charles Chapman and Fox Jackson-Keen appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV1.
On 8 March 2010, to mark the fifth anniversary of Billy Elliot the Musical, four current Billy Elliots, including Tom Holland, were invited to 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It was Tom Holland who was chosen to be a lead at the special fifth anniversary show on 31 March 2010. Elton John, Billy Elliot the Musical composer, who was at the audience, called Tom's performance "astonishing" and said that he was "blown away" by it. Holland had been appearing on a regular basis as Billy in Billy Elliot the Musical rotating with three other performers till 29 May 2010 when he finished his run in the musical.
In two months after leaving Billy Elliot the Musical, Holland successfully auditioned for a starring role in the film The Impossible (directed by Juan Antonio Bayona) alongside Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. The Impossible was based on a true story that took place during the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2012, and was released in Europe in October 2012, and in North America in December 2012.
Tom has received universal praise for his performance, in particular: "What a debut, too, from Tom Holland as the eldest of their three lads" (The Telegraph); "Tom Holland, making one of the finest feature debuts in years" (HeyUGuys); "the excellent Tom Holland" (The Guardian); "The child performers are uncanny and there is an especially terrific performance from Tom Holland as the resourceful, levelheaded Lucas terrified but tenacious in the face of an unspeakable ordeal" (Screen Daily); "Young Holland in particular is astonishingly good as the terrified but courageous Lucas." (The Hollywood Reporter); "However, the real acting standout in The Impossible is the performance of Tom Holland as the eldest son Lucas. His portrayal is genuine, and at no moment does it feel melodramatic and forced. The majority of his scenes are separate from the lead actors and for the most part it feels like The Impossible is Holland's film" (Entertainment Maven); "Mr. Holland, meanwhile, matures before our eyes, navigating the passage from adolescent self-absorption to profound and terrible responsibility. He is a terrific young actor" (New York Times).
Tom has given a number of interviews about his role in The Impossible. In particular, he talked on video to Vanity Fair Senior West Coast editor Krista Smith and with IAMROGUE's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick. He has also given interviews to The Hollywood Reporter, to the MovieWeb, to Today Show on NBC and to other outlets. Tom's director and co-stars have also talked about him. Juan Antonio Bayona: "He had this extraordinary ability to get into the emotion and portray it in a very, very easy way. The best I'd ever seen in a kid." Ewan McGregor: "It was wonderful watching Tom who had never worked in front of a camera before, to see him really get it and grow as a film actor as he went along. He's really talented and polite to everyone. It's very easy for children to lose perspective but he's absolutely on the right road and a brilliant actor." Naomi Watts: "He has an incredible emotional instrument and an unbelievable sense of himself... Tom Holland and I had a couple of moments where we came together and I could just tell how wonderful he was and what a beautiful instrument he had. It was just easy to work with him, that was one of the greatest highlights for me: discovering a friendship with Tom off-screen and this beautiful relationship between mother and son on-screen. The intimacy that develops through the course of the film between Lucas and Maria, I just loved that relationship. I mean, Tom is a beyond gifted actor. He's just a raw, open talent that is just so easy to work with. And Tom, he's inspiring, he kind of lifts everyone's game around him because he can do nothing but tell the truth. He was great."
In his turn, Tom Holland has returned favours to Naomi Watts when he was asked to present Desert Palm Achievement Award to her at Palm Springs International Film Festival. According to HitFix: "One recurring theme of the night was how the introductions were often better than actual winner's speeches... The best intro, however, had to go to 16-year-old Tom Holland who intro'd his "Impossible" co-star Watts. Holland admitted of all of Watts' great performances his dad had only let him see "King Kong" and while they spent six weeks shooting in a water tank he didn't know it was "difficult" because he actually "loved it"... Most important, this was Holland's first film role and he sweetly noted, "From the moment I met you, you took my hand and you never let go." Cue the "awwww" from the audience." The presentation is available on video.
In 2011, Holland was cast in British version of the animation film Arrietty, produced by Japan's cult Studio Ghibli. He has provided voice over for the principal character Sho. In 2012 Tom Holland played the starring role of Isaac in the film "How I lived Now", (directed by Kevin Macdonald) alongside Saoirse Ronan. The film was released in 2013.
On 17 October 2012, Holland became a recipient of Hollywood Spotlight Award for his role in The Impossible. "We are very excited that we will be able to recognize acting talents that are on the road to discovery and stardom," said Carlos de Abreu, founder and executive director of the Hollywood Film Awards in a statement. On 6 December 2012 it was announced that Holland became a winner of the National Board of Review award in the "Breakthrough Actor" category. In the end of December 2012, Holland was voted a winner for the year's Best Youth Performance in Nevada Critics Awards.
In December 2012, Holland received a number of nominations for his role in The Impossible: for the 18th annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards, in the "Best Young Acror/Acress" category; for Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2012 in the "Most Promising Performer" category; for the 27th Goya Awards in the "Best New Actor" category; for the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards 2012 in the "Best Youth Performance" category; for the London Film Critics Circle Awards 2012 in the "Young British Performer of the Year" category.
Kristopher Tapley, Editor-at-Large of HitFix, reported on 27 August 2012 that Summit Entertainment, the company responsible for distribution of The Impossible in USA, would be campaigning Holland rather than McGregor as the lead, and strongly argued that Tom Holland deserved to be nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actor category. The fact of long-listing for an Academy Award was confirmed in the article in the Hollywood Reporter: "And though McGregor stars as his father in the film, Holland has been submitted as the lead actor for awards consideration. Regardless if he receives any nominations, his performance as the strong-willed and determined eldest son is garnering critical acclaim."
As one of the most promising young actors, Holland was featured in Screen International's "UK Stars of Tomorrow - 2012" and in Variety's "Youth Impact Report 2012". Holland has been signed up by William Morris Endeavor (WME) global talent agency and is represented by Curtis Brown literary and talent agency.
In 2015, Tom was cast as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Sony and Marvel's films. He has played the role in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and Avengers: Infinity War (2018).- Actor
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Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born and raised in London, England. His parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch), are both actors. He is a grandson of submarine commander Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, and a great-grandson of diplomat Henry Arnold Cumberbatch CMG. Cumberbatch attended Brambletye School and Harrow School. Whilst at Harrow, he had an arts scholarship and painted large oil canvases. It's also where he began acting. After he finished school, he took a year off to volunteer as an English teacher in a Tibetan monastery in Darjeeling, India. On his return, he studied drama at Manchester University. He continued his training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art graduating with an M.A. in Classical Acting. By the time he had completed his studies, he already had an agent.
Cumberbatch has worked in theatre, television, film and radio. His breakthrough on the big screen came in 2004 when he portrayed Stephen Hawking in the television movie Hawking (2004). In 2010, he became a household name as Sherlock Holmes on the British television series Sherlock (2010). In 2011, he appeared in two Oscar-nominated films - War Horse (2011) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). He followed this with acclaimed roles in the science fiction film Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), the Oscar-winning drama 12 Years a Slave (2013), The Fifth Estate (2013) and August: Osage County (2013). In 2014, he portrayed Alan Turing in The Imitation Game (2014) which earned him a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, British Academy of Film and Television Arts and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Cumberbatch was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2015 Birthday Honours for his services to the performing arts and to charity.
Cumberbatch's engagement to theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter, whom he has known for 17 years, was announced in the "Forthcoming Marriages" section of The Times newspaper on November 5, 2014. On February 14, 2015, the couple married at the 12th century Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on the Isle of Wight followed by a reception at Mottistone Manor. They have three sons, Christopher Carlton (born 2015), Hal Auden (born 2017), and Finn (born 2019).- Actor
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Benedict Wong is a British actor. He is known for his roles as Kublai Khan in Netflix's Marco Polo (2014-2016), Bruce Ng in The Martian (2015), and Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Doctor Strange (2016). Wong was born on 3 July 1971 in Eccles, Greater Manchester, the son of Hong Kong immigrant parents who had traveled through Ireland before settling in England. He was brought up in Eccles, and attended Salford City College (then called De La Salle Sixth Form College) in the surrounding area of Salford. He then took a two-year performing arts course at Salford City College.- Actor
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Mads Mikkelsen's great successes parallel those achieved by the Danish film industry since the mid-1990s. He was born in Østerbro, Copenhagen, to Bente Christiansen, a nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a banker.
Starting out as a low-life pusher/junkie in the 1996 success Pusher (1996), he slowly grew to become one of Denmark's biggest movie actors. The success in his home country includes Flickering Lights (2000), En kort en lang (2001) and the Emmy-winning police series Unit One (2000).
His success has taken him abroad where he has played alongside Gérard Depardieu in I Am Dina (2002) as well as in the Spanish comedy Torremolinos 73 (2003) and the American blockbuster King Arthur (2004).
He played the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the critically acclaimed NBC series Hannibal (2013), from 2013 to 2015, with great success.- Actor
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Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery Lois (Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer and lay preacher. He is of Scottish, Northern Irish, and English descent. During his early childhood, his parents moved with Ian and his older sister, Jean, to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theatre, which was encouraged by his parents. They would take him to plays, those by William Shakespeare, in particular. The amateur school productions fostered Ian's growing passion for theatre.
When Ian was of age to begin attending school, he made sure to get roles in all of the productions. At Bolton School in particular, he developed his skills early on. Indeed, his first role in a Shakespearian play was at Bolton, as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night". Ian soon began attending Stratford-upon-Avon theatre festivals, where he saw the greats perform: Laurence Olivier, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Paul Robeson. He continued his education in English Drama, but soon it fell by the wayside as he concentrated more and more on performing. He eventually obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1961, and began his career in earnest.
McKellen began working in theatre over the next few years. Very few people knew of Ian's homosexuality; he saw no reason to go public, nor had he told his family. They did not seem interested in the subject and so he saw no reason to bring it up. In 1988, Ian publicly came out of the closet on the BBC Radio 4 program, while discussing Margaret Thatcher's "Section 28" legislation, which made the promotion of homosexuality as a family relationship by local authorities an offense. It was reason enough for McKellen to take a stand. He has been active in the gay rights movement ever since.
Ian resides in Limehouse, where he has also lived with his former long-time partner Sean Mathias. The two men have also worked together on the film Bent (1997) as well as in exquisite stage productions. To this day, McKellen works mostly in theatre, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. However, he has managed to make several quite successful forays into film. He has appeared in several productions of Shakespeare's works including his well received Richard III (1995), and in a variety of other movies. However, it has only been recently that his star has finally begun to shine in the eyes of North American audiences. Roles in various films, Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Apt Pupil (1998) and Gods and Monsters (1998), riveted audiences. The latter, in particular, created a sensation in Hollywood, and McKellen's role garnered him several of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod. McKellen, as he continues to work extensively on stage, he always keeps in 'solidifying' his 'role' as Laurence Olivier's worthy 'successor' in the best sense too, such as King Lear (2008) / King Lear (2008) directed by Trevor Nunn and in a range of other staggering performances full of generously euphoric delight that have included "Peter Pan" and Noël Coward's "Present Laughter", as well as Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" (National Theatre Live: No Man's Land (2016)), both in acclaimed productions brilliantly directed by Sean Mathias.
McKellen found mainstream success with his performance as Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels. His largest mark on the big screen may be as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, which he reprised in "The Hobbit" trilogy. He also reprised the role of 'King Lear' with new artistic perspectives in National Theatre Live: King Lear (2018) offering an invaluable mesmerizing experience as a natural force of stage - and screen - of infinite generosity through his unsurpassable interpretation of the titanically vulnerable king.- Actor
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Alan Cumming was born on January 27, 1965, in Aberfeldy, Scotland, to Mary (Darling), an insurance company secretary, and Alex Cumming. His family lived nearby in Dunkeld, where his father was a forester for Atholl Estate. The family (including his brother, Tom) moved to Fassfern near Fort William, before moving to the east coast of Scotland in 1969, where Alan's father took up the position of Head Forester of Panmure Estate; it was there that Alan grew up. He went to Monikie Primary School and Carnoustie High School, where he began appearing in plays, and soon after that began working with with the Carnoustie Theatre Club and Carnoustie Musical Society.
In 1981, he left high school with 8 'O' Grades and 4 Highers, but because he was too young to enter any university or drama school he worked for just over a year as a sub-editor at D.C. Thomson Publishers in Dundee. There he worked on the launch of a new magazine, "Tops", and was also the "Young Alan" who answered readers' letters. In September 1982 he began a three-year course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He graduated in 1985 with a B.A. (Dramatic Studies) and awards for verse speaking and direction. He also had formed a cabaret double act with fellow student Forbes Masson called Victor and Barry, which went on to become hugely successful with tours (including two Perrier Pick of the Fringe seasons in London and a month-long engagement at the Sydney Opera House as part of an Australian tour), records ("Hear Victor and Barry and Faint", "Are We Too Loud?") and many TV appearances throughout the UK. Before graduating Alan made his professional theater and film debuts in "Macbeth" at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow and in Gillies MacKinnon's "Passing Glory". After graduating, Alan worked extensively in Scottish theater and television, including a stint on the soap opera Take the High Road (1980) before moving to London when "Conquest of the South Pole", a play by German playwright Manfred Karge, transferred from the Traverse Theatre in, Edinburgh to the the Royal Court in London, earning him his first Olivier award nomination for Most Promising Newcomer of 1988. Alan performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and then the Royal National Theatre, where he starred in "Accidental Death of an Anarchist", which he also adapted with director Tim Supple. The production was nominated for Best revival at the 1991 Olivier awards and Alan won for Comedy Performance of the Year.
His film career began with Ian Sellar's Prague (1992), in which he starred with Sandrine Bonnaire and Bruno Ganz. The film premiered at the 1992 Cannes film festival and went on to win him Best Actor award at the Atlantic Film Festival and a Scottish BAFTA Best Actor nomination. In the same year he made two films for the BBC - The Last Romantics (1992) and Bernard and the Genie (1991), the latter winning him the Top Television Newcomer award at 1992 British Comedy Awards. In the 1992 Olivier awards he was also nominated for Comedy Performance of the Year for "La Bete". In 1993 he played Hamlet for the English Touring Theare to great critical acclaim ("An actor knocking on the door of greatness" - Daily Mail; ranked first and second--with his performance in "Cabaret"--in the Daily Telegraph's performances of the year) and then immediately went on to play the Emcee in Sam Mendes' revival of "Cabaret" at the same venue (London's Donmar Warehouse). He received a 1994 Olivier award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for "Cabaret", and for Hamlet he received the 1994 TMA Best Actor award and a Shakespeare Globe award nomination.
In 1994, he made his first Hollywood film, Circle of Friends (1995), and his performance as the oleaginous Sean Walsh along with those in two films released in quick succession (Emma (1996) and GoldenEye (1995)) brought him to the attention of American producers, and he appeared in several Hollywood films, such as Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) and Buddy (1997). He returned to the UK in 1997 to work with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls before returning stateside in 1998 to reprise his role in "Cabaret" on Broadway. The show and his portrayal were a sensation, and he received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics' Circle, Theatre World, FANY, New York Press and New York Public Advocate's awards for his performance. Since then he has alternated between theater and films, and also between smaller independent films and more mainstream fare. His theater work includes 2001's "Design for Living" on Broadway and the hugely successful off-Broadway "Elle" by Jean Genet, which he adapted and played the lead in 2002. His films include Julie Taymor's Titus (1999), Urbania (2000), the "Spy Kids" trilogy, Josie and the Pussycats (2001), X2 (2003), Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Son of the Mask (2005) and the Showtime movie musical Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (2005).
He wrote, directed, produced and acted in The Anniversary Party (2001) with Jennifer Jason Leigh, which premiered at the Cannes Film festival in 2002 and went on to win a National Board of Review award and two Independent Spirit award nominations. More recently he has produced the documentary Show People (2004) and the films Sweet Land (2005) and Full Grown Men (2006) (and appears in both) and acted in Gray Matters (2006) opposite Heather Graham and Bam Bam and Celeste (2005), opposite Margaret Cho. In 2006, he returned to Broadway as Macheath in "The Threepenny Opera". He has also found the time to write a novel, "Tommy's Tale", in 2002.- Actor
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Rugged features and a natural charm have worked for Josh Brolin, the son of actor James Brolin. He has played roles as a policeman, a hunter, and the President of the United States.
Brolin was born February 12, 1968 in Santa Monica, California, to Jane Cameron (Agee), a Texas-born wildlife activist, and James Brolin. Josh was not interested at first in the lifestyle of the entertainment business, in light of his parents' divorce, and both of them being actors. However, during junior year in high school, he took an acting class to see what it was like. He played Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and became hooked. His first major screen role was as the older brother in the film The Goonies (1985), based on a story by Steven Spielberg. He then immediately moved on to work on television, taking roles on such series as Pilot (1987) and The Young Riders (1989). "Private Eye" was a chance for Brolin to play a detective. "The Young Riders" was set just before the Civil War, and was co-directed by Brolin's father, James Brolin.
After The Young Riders (1989), Brolin moved back to the big screen, with mediocre success. He played a supporting role in The Road Killers (1994), but the film was not a success. He followed up with the crime film Gang in Blue (1996), the romantic film Bed of Roses (1996), the thriller film Nightwatch (1997), and appeared with his father in My Brother's War (1997). However, nothing truly stuck out, especially not the box office flop The Mod Squad (1999). The 2000s initially brought no significant change in Brolin's career. He appeared in the independent film Slow Burn (2000), the sci-if thriller Hollow Man (2000) and starred on the television series Mister Sterling (2003). In 2004, he married actress Diane Lane but later divorced in 2013.
It was not until 2007 that Brolin received much acclaim for his films. He took a supporting role in the Quentin Tarantino-written Grindhouse (2007) which was a two-part film accounting two horror stories. He also played two policemen that year: corrupt officer Nick Trupo in the crime epic American Gangster (2007), and an honest police chief in the emotional drama In the Valley of Elah (2007) which starred Tommy Lee Jones and was directed by Paul Haggis. However, it was his involvement in No Country for Old Men (2007) that truly pushed him into the limelight. The film, directed by the Coen brothers, was about a man (Brolin) who finds a satchel containing two million dollars in cash. He is pursued by an unstoppable assassin (Javier Bardem, who won an Oscar for his work) and his friend, a local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). The film won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Brolin found high-profile work the next year, being cast as Supervisor Dan White in the film Milk (2008). His performance as the weak and bitter politician earned him an Oscar nomination, and Brolin received more praise for his fascinating portrayal of George W. Bush in the Oliver Stone film W. (2008). Despite the mediocre success of W. (2008), he was recognized as the best part of the film, and Milk (2008) was another triumph, critically and commercially.
Brolin then acted in the smaller comedy Women in Trouble (2009) before landing a number of large roles in 2010. The first of these was the film based on the comic book figure Jonah Hex (2010). The film was a box office flop and critically panned, but Brolin also forged a second collaboration with legendary director Oliver Stone for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010). Brolin played a large role alongside such young stars as Carey Mulligan and Shia LaBeouf, and older thespians such as Michael Douglas, Eli Wallach, and Frank Langella. Brolin's character was Bretton James, a top banker in the film, and also the film's chief antagonist. Brolin also appeared in Woody Allen's London-based film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) and a second collaboration with the Coen Brothers, which was a remake of True Grit (1969).
Despite his earlier mediocre success and fame, Brolin has maintained a choosiness in his films and, recently, these choices have paid off profoundly. Hopefully, he continues this streak of good fortune that his talents have finally given him.- Actor
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Christopher "Chris" Hemsworth was born on August 11, 1983 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to Leonie Hemsworth (née van Os), an English teacher & Craig Hemsworth, a social-services counselor. His brothers are actors, Liam Hemsworth & Luke Hemsworth; he is of Dutch (from his immigrant maternal grandfather), Irish, English, Scottish, and German ancestry. His uncle, by marriage, was Rod Ansell, the bushman who inspired the comedy film Crocodile Dundee (1986).
Chris saw quite a bit of the country in his youth, after his family moved to the Northern Territory before finally settling on Phillip Island, to the south of Melbourne. In 2004, he unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Robbie Hunter in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (1988) but was recalled for the role of Kim Hyde which he played until 2007. In 2006, he entered the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars (2004) and his popularity in the soap enabled him to hang on until show 7 (Episode #5.7 (2006)) when he became the fifth contestant to be eliminated.
His first Hollywood appearance was in the science fiction blockbuster Star Trek (2009), but it was his titular role in the superhero blockbuster Thor (2011) which propelled him to prominence worldwide. He reprised the character in the superhero blockbusters The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Chris's American representative, management company ROAR, also manages actress Elsa Pataky, and it was through them that the two met, marrying in 2010. The couple have a daughter and twin sons. He was appointed Member of the Order of Australia at the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours for his services to the performing arts and to charitable organisations.- Actor
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Thomas William Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to English-born Diana Patricia (Servaes) and Scottish-born James Norman Hiddleston. His mother is a former stage manager, and his father, a scientist, was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. He started off at the preparatory school, The Dragon School in Oxford, and by the time he was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. He continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first in Classics. He continued to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 2005.
Whilst at University of Cambridge, he was seen by the Hamilton Hodell agency in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" and was signed. Following this, he was cast in his first television role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (2001). Hiddleston won his first film role as Oakley in Joanna Hogg's award-winning first feature, Unrelated (2007). His breakthrough role came when he portrayed the nemesis Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feature film Thor (2011). He reprised the character in The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Avengers: Infinity War (2018).
He has also appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011), The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011), and the romantic vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). On television, he appeared on the BBC series The Hollow Crown (2012), in the adaptations of Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and "Henry V". In theatre, he has been in the productions of "Cymbeline" (2007) and "Ivanov" (2008). In December 2013, he starred as the title character in the Donmar Warehouse production of "Coriolanus" which played until February 2014. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play for his role in "Cymbeline" while also being nominated for the same award the same year for his role as Cassio in "Othello".- Actor
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An only child, Idrissa Akuna Elba was born and raised in London, England. His father, Winston, is from Sierra Leone and worked at Ford Dagenham; his mother, Eve, is from Ghana and had a clerical duty. Idris attended school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting, before he dropped out. He gained a place in the National Youth Music Theatre - thanks to a £1,500 Prince's Trust grant. To support himself between acting roles, he worked in jobs such as tyre-fitting, cold call advertising sales, and working night shifts at Ford Dagenham. He worked in nightclubs under the nickname DJ Big Driis at age 19, but began auditioning for television roles in his early-twenties.
His first acting roles were on the soap opera Family Affairs (1997), the television serial Ultraviolet (1998), and the medical drama Dangerfield (1995). His best known roles are as drug baron Russell "Stringer" Bell on the HBO series The Wire (2002), as DCI John Luther on the BBC One series Luther (2010), and as Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He later starred in the films Daddy's Little Girls (2007), Prom Night (2008), RocknRolla (2008), The Unborn (2009) and Obsessed (2009). He also appeared in the films American Gangster (2007), Takers (2010), Thor (2011), Prometheus (2012), Pacific Rim (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Beasts of No Nation (2015) and Star Trek Beyond (2016). He voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia (2016), Shere Khan in The Jungle Book (2016), and Fluke in Finding Dory (2016).
Idris Elba was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2016 New Years Honours for his services to drama.- Actor
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Award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo was born on November 22, 1967, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, of humble means to father Frank Lawrence Ruffalo, a construction painter and Marie Rose (Hebert), a stylist and hairdresser; his father's ancestry is Italian and his mother is of half French-Canadian and half Italian descent. Mark moved with his family to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he lived out most of his teenage years. Following high school, Mark moved with his family to San Diego and soon migrated north, eventually settling in Los Angeles.
Mark first took classes at the Stella Adler Conservatory and subsequently co-founded the Orpheus Theatre Company, an Equity-Waiver establishment, where he worked in nearly every capacity. From acting, writing, directing and producing to running the lights and building sets while building his resume.
Moving into film and TV, Mark's inauspicious movie debut was the drifter role of Christian in the horror opus Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance (1994) and returned to the film series in the role of Joey with Mirror Mirror 3: The Voyeur (1995). He continued on through the 1990's rather indistinctly with more secondary roles in the horror film The Dentist (1996) starring madman Corbin Bernsen; an amusing perf in the obscure dramedy The Last Big Thing (1996); a third billed role in the Jerry Stiller/Anne Meara bickering senior comedy A Fish in the Bathtub (1998); and the war drama Ceremony... The Ritual of Love (1976) directed by Ang Lee.
Bartending for nearly nearly a decade to make ends meet and discouraged enough to give it up, a chance meeting and resulting collaboration with playwright/screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan approaching the millennium changed everything. Ruffalo won NY success in Lonergan's 1996 off-Broadway play "This Is Our Youth," a story about troubled young adults. This led to his male lead in Lonergan's Oscar-winning film drama You Can Count on Me (2000), playing the ne'er-do-well brother of Laura Linney. The performance drew rave reviews and invited comparisons to an early Marlon Brando.
Ruffalo never looked back. Notable roles in The Last Castle (2001), XX/XY (2002), and Windtalkers (2002) followed, although in 2002 Ruffalo was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a type of brain tumor. Though the tumor was benign, the resulting surgery led to a period of partial facial paralysis, from which he fully recovered. In 2003, Ruffalo scored leading roles alongside two popular female stars, playing a police detective opposite Meg Ryan in In the Cut (2003) and the love interest of Gwyneth Paltrow in the comedy View from the Top (2003).
Though both films were high-profile box office disappointments, Ruffalo went on to four notable (if highly disparate) films in 2004 -- We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), 13 Going on 30 (2004), and Collateral (2004) -- which solidified his ability to be both a popular leading man and an acclaimed ensemble player in either comedy or drama.
After 2004, Ruffalo was consistently at work, with leads in popular Hollywood films and independent productions that continued to solidify him as one of film's most consistently strong actors: Just Like Heaven (2005), All the King's Men (2006), Zodiac (2007), Reservation Road (2007), and The Brothers Bloom (2008). He also made his Broadway debut as Moe Axelrod in the play "Awake and Sing!"
In 2010 Ruffalo achieved something of a breakthrough, by directing the indie film Sympathy for Delicious (2010), which won him the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and co-starring as the sperm-donor father to lesbian couple Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right (2010). His role in the idiosyncratic domestic comedy/drama earned him Academy Award, Independent Spirit Award, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to earn two more Best Supporting Actor nominations as an Olympic-winning wrestling champion in Foxcatcher (2014) and as a journalist working to uncover the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Spotlight (2015). In 2017, the actor returned to Broadway in Arthur Miller's "The Price."
High-profile roles in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010) and Longeran's long-delayed film Margaret (2011) followed before Ruffalo's appearance as Dr. Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk, in Joss Whedon's movie blockbuster The Avengers (2012). Garnering highly positive reviews for a role in which actors Eric Bana and Edward Norton could not find success in previous films made Ruffalo a box office action star in addition to a critically-acclaimed actor. He returned to the Banner/Hulk role frequently in such Marvel movies as Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019) and Avengers: Endgame (2019),
Reunited with former co-star Gwyneth Paltrow in the sex-addiction comedy-drama Thanks for Sharing (2012), he went on to earn a Golden Globe nomination for playing a bipolar Dad in Infinitely Polar Bear (2014). Ruffalo also took on the lead in Ryan Murphy's adaptation of Larry Kramer's AIDS-drama play The Normal Heart (2014) and earned a SAG Award and Emmy Nomination. He later took home the Emmy playing twin brothers, one a paranoid schizophrenic, in I Know This Much Is True (2020).
Ruffalo has been married to actress Sunrise Coigney since 2000; the couple has three children, two sons and a daughter.- Actor
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Widely considered as one of the greatest stage and screen actors of his generation both in his native Scotland and internationally, David Tennant was born David John McDonald in West Lothian, Scotland, to Essdale Helen (McLeod) and Sandy McDonald, who was a Presbyterian minister. He is of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent. When he was about 3 or 4 years old, he decided to become an actor, inspired by his love of Doctor Who (1963).
He was brought up in Bathgate, West Lothian and Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland and was a huge fan of the band The Proclaimers. He attended Paisley Grammar school and while there he wrote about how he wanted to become a professional actor and play the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963).
He made his first television appearance (which was also his first professional acting job) when he was 16, after his father sent some photos of him to a casting director at Scottish television. He also attended a youth theatre group at weekends run by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now renamed the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). When he was 16 he auditioned for and won a place at the academy; the youngest student to ever do so, and started as a full time drama student when he was 17.
He worked regularly in theatre and TV after leaving drama school, and his first big break came in 1994 when he was cast in a lead role in the Scottish drama Takin' Over the Asylum (1994). He then moved to London where his career thrived. Among other significant factors of his prolific artistic course, he spent several years as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and became famous from his lead roles in TV dramas Blackpool (2004) and Casanova (2005).
In 2005, his childhood wish came true. David was cast to play the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who (2005) alongside Billie Piper, after Christopher Eccleston decided to leave. Playing the Doctor made him a household name and a sex symbol, being voted "Sexiest Man in the Universe" by readers of The Pink Paper and 16th Sexiest Man in the World by a Cosmopolitan survey. Since leaving the series in 2010 his career has continued to rise, with lead roles in films, TV series and theatre.- Actor
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Jensen Ross Ackles, better known as simply Jensen Ackles, was born on March 1, 1978, in Dallas, Texas, to Donna Joan (Shaffer) and actor Alan Ackles. He has English, German, and Scottish ancestry. Jensen grew up in Richardson, Texas, together with his older brother, Joshua, and a younger sister, Mackenzie. Jensen graduated from Dartmouth Elementary School in 1990, he graduated from Apollo Junior High School in 1993, and LV Berkner High School in 1996.
Jensen is a sports junkie. He loves football, lacrosse, baseball and basketball. He even played on the baseball and lacrosse teams in high school. The 6' 1" actor first started modeling when he was just 2 years old. When he turned 4, he started appearing in TV commercials for Nabisco, RadioShack and Wal-Mart. He caught the acting bug because he was mostly influenced by his father, who was an actor in Dallas. He used to watch his father study scripts, and that taught him a few things about the industry. During his later years in high school, he started taking theater classes, where he claimed he was the only "jock" in that department. When he was just a sophomore, a friend of Jensen had asked him to attend a local acting seminar. Two guys, Craig Wargo, and an agent, 'Michael Einfeld', were interested in Jensen's talent and wanted him to go to Los Angeles with them.
Jensen had to say no to the offer and admitted at one point, he thought they would forget about him but, eventually, when he went to Los Angeles, he still managed to get help from them. Prior to that, Jensen actually planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and become a physical therapist, before he decided to move to Los Angeles to give acting a try. In 1996, he managed to secure guest roles on several TV shows, which included Wishbone (1995), Mr. Rhodes (1996) and Sweet Valley High (1994). Jensen's big break came when he was cast in the NBC soap opera, Days of Our Lives (1965), as Eric Brady in 1997. He won a Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer in 1998, and was nominated three times in 1998, 1999, and 2000 for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Days of Our Lives (1965). After spending about three years on a soap set, he left Days of Our Lives (1965) and went on to appear in the mini-series Blonde (2001), which was about the life of Marilyn Monroe, playing Eddie G. He also auditioned for the role of Clark Kent on Smallville (2001), but lost the part to Tom Welling, instead.
Not giving up hope, he went for a few auditions and managed to secure a guest role on the popular James Cameron TV series, Dark Angel (2000), as serial killer Ben/X5-493, the brother of main character Max/X5-452, who was played by Jessica Alba. His character died in the episode, but Jensen eventually returned to the show as a regular in the second season as Ben's clone, Alec/X5-494 and continued on until the show's cancellation in 2002. In 2003, he joined the cast of Dawson's Creek (1998), playing the role of C.J., Jen Lindley's lover. He also filmed episodes of the TV series, Still Life (2003), playing the role of Max Morgan, not knowing that the series was actually dropped. He also had a small role in the short film, The Plight of Clownana (2004), playing the role of Jensen. That same year, he was offered the part of Eliza Dushku's love interest on the second season of Tru Calling (2003). Jensen, however, turned down the role which was later offered to another actor, Eric Christian Olsen. He was subsequently cast on Smallville (2001), as Assistant football coach Jason Teague, the new love interest of Lana Lang. In 2005, Jensen managed to earn a lead role in the movie, Devour (2005), playing the role of Jake Gray. Jensen also earned the opportunity to work his father, actor Alan Ackles, who happened to play his character's father, Paul Kilton. The movie, however, received mixed reviews from the public.
That same year, Jensen joined the cast of the CW series, Supernatural (2005), where he plays the role of Dean Winchester. Dean and his brother Sam, who is played by Jared Padalecki, are brothers who drive throughout the United States hunting paranormal predators, sometimes with their father, John Winchester, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It was reported that the creator of the show, Eric Kripke, mentioned that the show will last for a maximum of five seasons. In 2006, Jensen took on a role in the Independently filmed comedy/drama movie, Ten Inch Hero (2007), which explores the theme of honesty and the flaw of judging by appearances. In 2007 the film began a limited run at number of film festivals including the Newport Beach Film Festival, Phoenix Film Festival and the Santa Cruz Film Festival but never made it into major mainstream theatrical release. In the Spring of 2008 Ten Inch Hero was released onto DVD exclusively through Blockbuster. Jensen however, received high praise for his work as Priestly, who one of the movie's more quirky characters.
From June 5-10 in 2007 Jensen had his professional stage debut as Lt. Daniel Kaffee in "A Few Good Men" at Casa Manana Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas, working along side Lou Diamond Phillips. This proved to be another successful acting venture for Jensen, as critics were impressed with his work in this role. During his free time, Jensen enjoys golfing, horseback riding, scuba diving and photography. He is also a big fan of country music. His favorite musician is Garth Brooks. He even sang back-up vocals on good friend Steve Carlson's albums "Spot in the Corner" and "Rollin' On." In the summer of 2008 Jensen traveled to Kittaning, PA to film the horror/thriller movie, My Bloody Valentine (2009), which was filmed in the cutting edge Real D technology, Jensen played the lead role of Tom Hanniger and starred alongside Jaime King and Kerr Smith.
Jensen splits his time between Vancouver, British Columbia where he films Supernatural (2005) and his home in Austin, Texas.- Actor
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Jared Padalecki was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Sherri (Kammer), a teacher of English, and Gerald Padalecki, a tax accountant. He is of Polish (father) and German, English, Scottish, and French (mother) descent. Jared started to take acting lessons when he was 12. Then, he won the "Claim to Fame" Contest in 1999 and got to appear on the Teen Choice awards. Jared lived in San Antonio, Texas and attended James Madison High School. He was named a candidate for the year 2000 Presidential Scholars Program. After graduating in the year 2000, he moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career. He played "Dean Forester" on Gilmore Girls (2000) on the WB starting in 2000 and ending in 2005. From 2005 to 2020, he portrayed "Sam Winchester" on the CW's Supernatural (2005). He also has several feature film credits.- Actor
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One of the British theatre's most famous faces, Daniel Craig, who waited tables as a struggling teenage actor with the National Youth Theatre, has gone on to star as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on March 2, 1968, at 41 Liverpool Road, Chester, Cheshire, England. His father, Timothy John Wroughton Craig, was a merchant seaman turned steel erector, and then became landlord of the "Ring O'Bells" pub in Frodsham, Cheshire. His mother, Carol Olivia (Williams), was an art teacher. Craig has English, as well as Irish, Scottish and Welsh, ancestry. His parents split up in 1972, and young Daniel was raised with his older sister, Lea, in Liverpool, then in Hoylake, Wirral, in the home of his mother. His interest in acting was encouraged by visits to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre arranged by his mother. From the age of six, Craig started acting in school plays, making his debut in the Frodsham Primary School production of "Oliver!", and his mother was the driving force behind his artistic aspirations. The first Bond movie he ever saw at the cinema was Roger Moore's Live and Let Die (1973); young Daniel Craig saw it with his father, so it took a special place in his heart. He was also a good athlete and was a rugby player at Hoylake Rugby Club.
At age 14, Craig played roles in "Oliver", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella" at Hilbre High School in West Kirby, Wirral. He left Hilbre High School at age 16 to audition at the National Youth Theatre's (NYT) troupe on their tour in Manchester in 1984. He was accepted and moved down to London. There, his mother and father watched his stage debut as Agamemnon in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida". As a struggling actor with the NYT, he was toiling in restaurant kitchens and as a waiter. Craig performed with NYT on tours to Valencia, Spain, and to Moscow, Russia, under the leadership of director Edward Wilson. He failed at repeated auditions at the Guildhall, but eventually his persistence paid off, and in 1988, he entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican. There, he studied alongside Ewan McGregor and Alistair McGowan, then later Damian Lewis and Joseph Fiennes, among others. He graduated in 1991, after a three-year course under the tutelage of Colin McCormack, the actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1992-1994, he was married to Scottish actress Fiona Loudon, their daughter, named Ella Craig (born 1992).
Craig made his film debut in The Power of One (1992). His film career continued on television, notably the BBC2 serial Our Friends in the North (1996). He shot to international fame after playing supporting roles in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Road to Perdition (2002). He was nominated for his performances in the leading role in Layer Cake (2004), and received other awards and nominations. Craig was named as the sixth actor to portray James Bond, in October 2005, weeks after he finished his work in Munich (2005), where he co-starred with Eric Bana under the directorship of Steven Spielberg. Craig's reserved demeanor and his avoidance of the showbiz-party-red-carpet milieu makes him a cool 007. He is the first blond actor to play Bond, and also the first to be born after the start of the film series, and also the first to be born after the death of author Ian Fleming in 1964. Four of the past Bond actors: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan have indicated that Craig is a good choice as Bond.
He was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) by Queen Elizabeth II at the 2022 Queen's New Years Honours for his services to Film and Theatre.- Actor
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Kit Harington was born Christopher Catesby Harington in Acton, London, to Deborah Jane (Catesby), a former playwright, and David Richard Harington, a businessman. His mother named him after 16th-century British playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe, whose first name was shortened to Kit, a name Harington prefers. Harington's uncle is Sir Nicholas John Harington, the 14th Baronet Harington, and his paternal great-grandfather was Sir Richard Harington, the 12th Baronet Harington. Through his paternal grandmother, Lavender Cecilia Denny, Kit's eight times great-grandfather was King Charles II of England. Also through his father, Harington descends from politician Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, the bacon merchant T. A. Denny, clergyman Baptist Wriothesley Noel, merchant and politician Peter Baillie, peer William Legge, 4th Earl of Dartmouth, and MP Sir William Molesworth, 6th Baronet.
Harington was a pupil at the Southfield Primary School from 1992 to 1998. When he was 11, his family moved to Worcestershire, and he studied at the Chantry High School in Martley until 2003. He became interested in acting after watching a production of Waiting for Godot when he was 14, and he performed in several school productions. He attended Worcester Sixth Form College, where he studied Drama and Theatre Studies, between 2003 and 2005. When he was 17, he was inspired to study acting in a drama school after watching a performance by Ben Whishaw playing Hamlet in 2004. He moved back to London when he was eighteen and a year later attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, from which he graduated in 2008.- Actor
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Peter Dinklage is an American actor. Since his breakout role in The Station Agent (2003), he has appeared in numerous films and theatre plays. Since 2011, Dinklage has portrayed Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) . For this he won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2011.
Peter Hayden Dinklage was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Diane (Hayden), an elementary school teacher, and John Carl Dinklage, an insurance salesman. He is of German, Irish, and English descent. In 1991, he received a degree in drama from Bennington College and began his career. His exquisite theatre work that expresses brilliantly the unique range of his acting qualities, includes remarkable performances full of profoundness, charisma, intelligence, sensation and insights in plays such as "The Killing Act", "Imperfect Love", Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" as well as the title roles in William Shakespeare's "Richard III" and in Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya".
Peter Dinklage received acclaim for his first film, Living in Oblivion (1995), where he played an actor frustrated with the limited and caricatured roles offered to actors who have dwarfism. In 2003, he starred in The Station Agent (2003), written and directed by Tom McCarthy. The movie received critical praise as well as Peter Dinklage's work including nominations such as for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the "Screen Actors Guild" and Best Male Lead at the "Film Independent Spirit Awards". One of his next roles has been the one of Miles Finch, an acclaimed children's book author, in Elf (2003). Find Me Guilty (2006), the original English Death at a Funeral (2007), its American remake Death at a Funeral (2010), Penelope (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) are also included in his brilliant work concerning feature films.
His fine work in television also includes shows such as Entourage (2004), Life as We Know It (2004), Threshold (2005) and Nip/Tuck (2003). In 2011, the primary role of Tyrion Lannister, a man of sharp wit and bright spirit, in Game of Thrones (2011), was incarnated with unique greatness in Dinklage's unparalleled performance. The series is an adaptation of author George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and his work has received widespread praise, also highlighted by his receiving of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards (2011), The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards (2015), The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards (2018) and The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards (2019) as well as of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at [error].
Dinklage, among others, has also voiced Captain Gutt in Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) and The Mighty Eagle in The Angry Birds Movie (2016), starred in the comedy horror film Knights of Badassdom (2013) while his tour-de-force interpretations as a multifarious "chameleon" of substantial mastery and artistic generosity also include film and TV gems such as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Three Christs (2017) and I Think We're Alone Now (2018).- Actor
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John was born as John Bradley West in 1988. Brought up in Wythenshawe, South Manchester, he attended St Paul's High School and Loreto College, Hulme before going on to Manchester Metropolitan University from where he graduated in 2010 with a B.A. degree in acting. It was via his college website that he obtained his first big television role in the epic fantasy series 'Game of Thrones (2011)' though he has since moved nearer home to appear in 'Shameless (2004)'. He is also an accomplished drummer and has experience in stand up comedy.- Jack Gleeson was born on 20 May 1992 in Cork, Ireland. He is an actor, known for Game of Thrones (2011), Batman Begins (2005) and A Shine of Rainbows (2009). He has been married to Roisin O'Mahony since 27 August 2022.
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Britain's Rupert Graves made his professional stage debut in 1983 in The Killing of Mr. Toad and went on to co-star with Harvey Fierstein in the London production of Torch Song Trilogy. By the mid-80s he was a presence in quality films and TV, including Merchant Ivory films Room With A View where he played Freddy Honeychurch and Maurice where he played Alec Scudder.
Rupert has appeared in dozens of films and TV shows including Emma (2020), Riviera S3 (2020), Swimming With Men (2018), The Family (2016), however most recently Rupert is best known for playing DI Greg Lestrade in BBC's Sherlock.
Rupert has over 20 stage credits to his name, including The Elephant Man and Closer on Broadway, and he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in 1998 for his performance in Hurlyburly.- Actor
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Mark Gatiss is an accomplished author, actor and playwright. Originally from Sedgefield, County Durham, he graduated from Bretton Hall Drama College with a BA (honors) in Theatre Arts.
He was one-quarter of the award-winning comedy team The League of Gentlemen (1999), and became heavily involved in the post-television Doctor Who (1963) scene, having written a variety of novels and audio plays, together with a string of short supernatural/science-fiction films (most of which he appeared in). He also co-wrote three sketches for BBC2's "Doctor Who Night" in November 1999.
When Doctor Who (2005) was re-imagined by Russell T. Davies and returned to television, Gatiss became part of the writing team. He had another major success as the co-creator of Sherlock (2010) for the BBC with Steven Moffat and also stars in the series as Mycroft Holmes. He has co-written plays for the Edinburgh Festival and appeared in a number of theatre and radio shows.- Actor
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Andrew Scott is an Irish actor who started his career at a very young age. He made his first appearance on television in an advertisement for a brand of porridge at the age of 6.
He was born into an Irish family where his father, Jim, worked in a recruitment agency and his mother, Nora, taught art. He has an older sister, Sarah, and a younger sister, Hannah.
He received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in an Affiliated Theater for the play A Girl in a Car with a Man at Jerwood Theater Upstairs and the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor for the film Dead Bodies.
He is known for his portrayal of Paul McCartney in the 2010 BBC drama Lennon Naked and for his portrayal of villain Jim Moriarty in the modern adaptation Sherlock, also produced in 2010 by the BBC and for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2012.
In November 2013, he revealed his homosexuality during an interview for the British daily The Independent, while indicating that he did not play it in the interpretation of his roles: "Fortunately, nowadays, people don't perceive homosexuality as a defect. But it's also not a quality, like kindness. Or a talent, like knowing how to play the banjo. It's simply a fact. Of course, that's part of what I'm sending back, but I don't want to play with it. I'm not advertising it; I think it's important when you're an actor. But there's a difference between privacy and secrecy, and I'm not a secretive person. All I really want to do is continue doing my job, which is pretending to be a bunch of different people. It's as simple as that. »
In 2014, he took on the role of a priest in Ken Loach's film: Jimmy's Hall.
In 2015, he appeared in the new James Bond: 007 Spectre, as Max Denbigh aka "C", a member of the British government whose goal is to shut down the Double-0 spy branch.
In 2017, he returned to the role of Hamlet in the theater, under the direction of Robert Icke, for nearly 150 performances. The piece lasts almost 4 hours. His performance was unanimously praised by critics.
In 2019, he played "the priest" in the second season of the multi-award winning British series: Fleabag. A role which will notably earn him a nomination for the Golden Globes in 2020, as best supporting role in a TV series. Fans of the series will nickname "the hot priest", this Catholic priest with whom Fleabag will fall in love. He will reprise the role of the priest in 2020, in a "special" episode of the Irish series Normal people.
The same year, he reunited with Sam Mendes, with whom he had already collaborated several times in the past, in the film 1917.
Then he participated in an episode of the successful British series: Black Mirror for episode 2 of season 5 entitled Smithereens.
In 2020, Andrew Scott landed the lead role in the series Tom Ripley, adapted from the novels by Patricia Highsmith. The same year, the actor read the poem Everything is Going to be All Right by Irish poet Derek Mahon, in a video posted on Instagram by actress Emilia Clarke. This reading is dedicated to Irish men with cancer.
Andrew Scott will be part of the jury for the 2021 GQ Grooming Awards, a ceremony created by GQ magazine and which celebrates men's cosmetic products.
Andrew Scott is filming in November 2020 alongside Ruth Wilson in the television adaptation for HBO of the play Oslo by J.T. Rogers. With Steven Spielberg as executive producer.
In March 2021, Andrew Scott will begin filming Lena Dunham's new film: Catherine, Called Birdy, the adaptation of the book of the same name, alongside Billie Piper.- Jonathan Aris is the son of the late British character actor Ben Aris but, despite having a thespian as a father, acting was not his first choice. He studied painting at Camberwell School of Art and read Russian and Italian at Cambridge University before training as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Like his father, Jonathan has chiefly been seen in character roles, notably on television as the private secretary to the (female) Prime Minister in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006). He also does a great number of voice-overs for television commercials and narration for documentaries. He has made numerous stage appearances and was in the original London cast of "Fame - the Musical".
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Stellan Skarsgård was born in Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden, to Gudrun (Larsson) and Jan Skarsgård. He became a star in his teens through the title role in the TV-series Bombi Bitt och jag (1968). Between the years 1972-88 he was employed at The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, where he participated in "Vita rum" (1988), August Strindberg's "Ett drömspel" (1986) and "Mäster Olof" (1988). Simultaneously Skarsgård did outstanding film roles, notably in The Simple-Minded Murderer (1982) by Hans Alfredson and with Fred Ward in Noon Wine (1985). The fantastic performance gave him both a well-earned Guldbagge and Silver Berlin Bear. He portrayed the Skagen-painter Sören Kröyer in Hip hip hurra! (1987) and the Swedish ambassador Raoul Wallenberg in God afton, herr Wallenberg (1990), both directed by Kjell Grede. Codename Coq Rouge (1989) and The Democratic Terrorist (1992) he played Jan Guillou's Swedish superagent Carl Hamilton. He also had the leading part in the Oscar nominated The Ox (1991) directed by the world-famous cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Skarsgård did his first (but small) role in an big American film with The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). The role of Captain Tupolev in The Hunt for Red October (1990) was at supposed to be biggest part in a Hollywood-film, but unfortunately it was cut down. His breakthrough instead came with Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996) opposite newcomer Emily Watson. After that Skarsgård got several supporting roles in American films, such as in My Son the Fanatic (1997), Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997) and Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997).- Actor
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Andrew was born on 29 October 1979 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK to dad Alan and mum Susan. He has a sister, Sarah-Jane, who is also an actor. He studied at Leeds Performing Arts School and started out in musical theatre. He is now a veteran TV actor and has been in a catalogue of all that is best in British television.- Actor
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Halfway through a PhD in physics at Cambridge University, Ben met Alexander Armstrong (who was also studying there) in 1992. Instead of finishing his PhD, Ben chose to scrap science for comedy and started playing at the Comedy Club Footlights, Cambridge. After four years of touring pubs and underground comedy clubs, the pair appeared on 'Saturday Night' as (now one of their most well-known sketches) Euro-Rock duo 'Strijka.' The year 1996 saw the pair nominated for the Perrier Award and were given their first commissioned series, Armstrong and Miller (1997). Broadcast first on the Paramount Channel, which was then followed by three further series shown on Channel Four (1997, 1999 & 2001). Ben and Alexander took "The Armstrong and Miller Show" on tour in November 2001 and did a 17-day back-to-back stint. The success of "Armstrong and Miller" (1997)_ gave Ben a springboard to work on other projects. _Passion Killers (1999)_ and The Blind Date (2000) are just two of the television films that enabled Ben to go more mainstream and show that he is capable of straight acting as well as his cheeky-chappy side shown in Armstrong and Miller (1997). Ben is not shy of the big screen either. August 2001 saw the release of Steve Coogan's: The Parole Officer (2001), in which Ben played small-time criminal Colin; in 1999, he starred alongside Ray Winstone and Robert Carlyle in the comedy drama_ There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (2000)_. Most people may not recognize Ben as the voice of ITV's Digital Monkey that stars alongside fellow comedian Johnny Vegas in the infamous adverts, which has led to a wad of merchandise and a string of 15-minute programs yet to be shown. March 2002 saw Ben as a snotty hotel concierge in Jez Butterworth's film Birthday Girl (2001). With further future projects lined up for 2002 (including a six-part series called The Book Group (2002), to be shown later on), only time will tell if the 35-year-old will remain underground or leap out into the mainstream audience.
Since 2003, Ben has continued his successful solo and comedy career. He played Rowan Atkinson's sidekick Bough in the 2003's blockbuster Johnny English (2003). He went to Canada to film The Prince and Me (2004). Mainstream audiences started to take notice in 2005, when The Worst Week of My Life (2004) aired in BBC1. It was so successful that a second series was commissioned for the following year. In 2006, the BBC wanted a pilot comedy show from Ben and Alexander - they hadn't made a show together since Armstrong and Miller (1997) (4th series) which aired in 2001. This pilot led to The Armstrong and Miller Show (2007) not only coming back to television but to a more mainstream audience - being shown on BBC1 on Friday nights in 2007. After 14 years on the comedy circuit, the pair were finally rewarded with a BAFTA for best comedy program in 2010. Four series later, the duo decided to tour the UK again and played 62 shows up and down the country between September and November 2010.
Summer of 2011: He released his directorial debut film Huge (2010).
Winter of 2011 saw Ben in the Caribbean for the BBC's Death in Paradise (2011).
His first book, "It's Not Rocket Science," is being released in summer 2012.
Ben was in the theater production of "The Ladykillers" in the West End.- Actor
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Tyler was born in Santa Monica, California, and lives in the Los Angeles area with his two dogs. He is the son of Cyndi Garcia (1959-2014) and actor/writer John Posey. He is of Mexican (mother) and British Isles (father) descent. Tyler developed an early interest in the arts, and began his acting career performing on stage with his actor/writer dad, at the age of six. They later worked in television and film together. He is also a singer/songwriter. He has two siblings, an older brother, Derek, and a younger brother, Jesse Posey, also an actor.- Actor
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Dylan O'Brien was born in New York City, to Lisa Rhodes, a former actress who also ran an acting school, and Patrick B. O'Brien, a camera operator. His father is of Irish descent and his mother is of English, Spanish, and Italian ancestry. Dylan grew up in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey, before moving with his family to Hermosa Beach, California when he was 12 years old. Before getting bit by the acting bug, Dylan planned to attend film school and become a cinematographer, just like his father. But once he landed the role of Scott's (Tyler Posey) goofy sidekick Stiles on Teen Wolf (2011), he decided to put off school (he was initially under consideration for the role of Scott, but he was more interested in playing Stiles).
Dylan has developed an extensive YouTube following for a series of comic online shorts which he directed, produced and starred in. He made his film debut as one of the stars of the entirely improvised independent feature film High Road (2011), directed by Upright Citizens Brigade. O'Brien's first lead role in a film was playing Dave in the comedy The First Time (2012), opposite Britt Robertson and directed by Jonathan Kasdan. He subsequently had a supporting role, playing tech expert Stuart, in the Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson comedy The Internship (2013), and headlined the fantasy adventure film The Maze Runner (2014), also starring Will Poulter and Kaya Scodelario, as well as its sequel, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and the final movie, The Death Cure (2018). He landed the role of Stu in the first episode of Weird City (2019) and also got the role of Sam Taylor in the first episode of Amazing stories (2020). He made five other movies in the meantime, Love and Monsters, Flashback, Maximum Truth, Not Okay and The outfit. He also did one short film: All too well, produced by Taylor Swift and stared in the third episode of the third season in The Other Two.- Actor
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Born in Florida, blonde and handsome actor, after graduating from Bolles High School in Jacksonville, Florida, Ashby took a degree in psychology and business administration at Fort Lewis College in Durango in Colorado, and then moved to New York where he studied acting at Neighborhood Playhouse. After worked in small roles, in 1994 he appears in Wyatt Earp opposite Kevin Costner. However, the role that made him famous is that of Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat martial arts film, based on the popular video game starring opposite Christopher Lambert. To prepare for this role, the actor trained for two months practicing martial arts. Then in 1997 he starred in the action film entitled Blast directed by Albert Pyun starring opposite Rutger Hauer, playing Jack Bryant and a former champion of Tae Kwon Do who is forced to use all his martial arts skills to fight the crazy plan of ruthless terrorists who want to blow the Olympic swimming pool in Atlanta where the Olympic Games are underway (a clear reference to the Olympic Games of 1996 in Atlanta where there was really an attack). In 1998 then took part in 35 episodes of the show Melrose Place where he plays the role of the handsome doctor Bret Cooper. In 2004 he starred in Wild Things 2 and meanwhile took part in 55 episodes of the soap opera Young and the Restless, where he played the cynical murderer Cameron Kirsten. In 2007 took part in the film Resident Evil: Extinction opposite Milla Jovovich. In 2008 he starred in Impact Point and co-starred with Steven Seagal in the action film Against the Dark. In 2009, he starred in action Anaconda - Trail of Blood. From 2011 to 2017 he played the role of Sheriff Stilinski in the TV series Teen Wolf.- Actor
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Tyler Lee Hoechlin is an American actor. Initially earning recognition for starring as Michael Sullivan Jr. in the 2002 film Road to Perdition, Hoechlin went on to star as Martin Brewer on 7th Heaven between 2003 and 2007. In television, he is also known for portraying Derek Hale on Teen Wolf and Superman in the Arrowverse series Supergirl and Superman & Lois.- Actor
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Kenny Doughty was born on 27 March 1975 in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Vera (2011), Snowpiercer (2013) and Stella (2012). He has been married to Ashley Jensen since August 2023. He was previously married to Caroline Carver.- Actor
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David Leon was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and was a talented footballer. When he left school age eighteen he successfully auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and turned down a place at Drama school in order to take a role in Oliver Stone's 'Alexander', though he established himself with British television audiences in the Bafta nominated drama 'Cutting It' and starred as Billy the Kid in a BBC film about the Wild West legend. He played the lead character in renowned photographer Rankin's debut feature 'The Lives of the Saints' written by Toni Grisoni and appeared in Guy Ritchies Empire award-winning Rock'n'Rolla, in which he plays Scottish junkie Malcolm a part initially written for Brad Pitt. He is regarded as one of the UK's brightest up and coming talents.- Actor
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John Nettles has been a familiar face on British and International television screens for over 30 years.
From his early beginnings in the UK hit comedy The Liver Birds (1969), he became a household name overnight playing the Jersey detective Jim Bergerac. The series, Bergerac (1981), was a huge hit in Britain and was exported to many countries across the world including France, Spain, and Greece, gaining him thousands of fans.
His newfound fame as Bergerac gave him almost film-star-like fame and fortune, not to mention thousands of female admirers!
Despite Bergerac (1981) being mothballed in the early 1990s, the series still has a considerable fan base and lingering popularity abroad, especially in Jersey, where images of John Nettles are still used for advertising tourist attractions and other services on the island.
Nettles' polished Shakesperean performances have won him critical acclaim and many consider him to rival fellow British stalwarts of theatre such as Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen.
Oddly enough, however, he has never really ventured onto the big screen and has seemed happy to stick to stage and television throughout his successful career.
Most recently he has enjoyed continued success playing the straightforward DCI Tom Barnaby in ITV's Midsomer Murders (1997). He is on record as wanting to create a TV detective without any of the usual tics, and consequently Tom Barnaby is a happy family man who just happens to live in the most murderous part of an otherwise stereotypical idyllic English countryside.- Actor
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Jason Hughes was born in 1971 in Porthcawl, South Wales, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Midsomer Murders (1997), This Life (1996) and Killing Me Softly (2002). He has been married to Natasha Dahlberg since September 2005. They have three children.- Actor
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Neil Dudgeon was born on 2 January 1961 in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Son of Rambow (2007), Midsomer Murders (1997) and Messiah: The Harrowing (2005). He is married to Mary Peate.- Gwilym Lee was born on 24 November 1983 in Bristol, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), The Great (2020) and Fresh Meat (2011).
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One of stage, screen and TV's finest transatlantic talents, slight, gravel-voiced, pasty-looking John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Shirebrook, a coal mining village, in Derbyshire, England. The youngest child of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Reverend Arnould Herbert Hurt, an Anglican clergyman and mathematician, his quiet shyness betrayed an early passion for acting. First enrolled at the Grimsby Art School and St. Martin's School of Art, his focus invariably turned from painting to acting.
Accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1960, John made his stage debut in "Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger" followed by "The Dwarfs." Elsewhere, he continued to build upon his 60's theatrical career with theatre roles in "Chips with Everything" at the Vaudeville, the title role in "Hamp" at the Edinburgh Festival, "Inadmissible Evidence" at Wyndham's and "Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs" at the Garrick. His movie debut occurred that same year with a supporting role in the "angry young man" British drama Young and Willing (1962), followed by small roles in Appuntamento in Riviera (1962), A Man for All Seasons (1966) and The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967).
A somber, freckled, ravaged-looking gent, Hurt found his more compelling early work in offbeat theatrical characterizations with notable roles such as Malcolm in "Macbeth" (1967), Octavius in "Man and Superman" (1969), Peter in "Ride a Cock Horse" (1972), Mike in '"The Caretaker" (1972) and Ben in "The Dumb Waiter" (1973). At the same time he gained more prominence in a spray of film and support roles such as a junior officer in Before Winter Comes (1968), the title highwayman in Sinful Davey (1969), a morose little brother in In Search of Gregory (1969), a dim, murderous truck driver in 10 Rillington Place (1971), a skirt-chasing, penguin-studying biologist in Cry of the Penguins (1971), the unappetizing son of a baron in The Pied Piper (1972) and a repeat of his title stage role as Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974).
Hurt shot to international stardom, however, on TV where he was allowed to display his true, fearless range. He reaped widespread acclaim for his embodiment of the tormented gay writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp in the landmark television play The Naked Civil Servant (1975), adapted from Crisp's autobiography. Hurt's bold, unabashed approach on the flamboyant and controversial gent who dared to be different was rewarded with the BAFTA (British TV Award). This triumph led to the equally fascinating success as the cruel and crazed Roman emperor Caligula in the epic television masterpiece I, Claudius (1976), followed by another compelling interpretation as murderous student Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1979).
A resurgence occurred on film as a result. Among other unsurpassed portraits on his unique pallet, the chameleon in him displayed a polar side as the gentle, pathetically disfigured title role in The Elephant Man (1980), and as a tortured Turkish prison inmate who befriends Brad Davis in the intense drama Midnight Express (1978) earning Oscar nominations for both. Mainstream box-office films were offered as well as art films. He made the most of his role as a crew member whose body becomes host to an unearthly predator in Alien (1979). With this new rush of fame came a few misguided ventures as well that were generally unworthy of his talent. Such brilliant work as his steeple chase jockey in Champions (1984) or kidnapper in The Hit (1984) was occasionally offset by such drivel as the comedy misfire Partners (1982) with Ryan O'Neal in which Hurt looked enervated and embarrassed. For the most part, the craggy-faced actor continued to draw extraordinary notices. Tops on the list includes his prurient governmental gadfly who triggers the Christine Keeler political sex scandal in the aptly-titled Scandal (1989); the cultivated gay writer aroused and obsessed with struggling "pretty-boy" actor Jason Priestley in Love and Death on Long Island (1997); and the Catholic priest embroiled in the Rwanda atrocities in Shooting Dogs (2005).
Latter parts of memorable interpretations included Dr. Iannis in Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), the recurring role of the benign wand-maker Mr. Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), the tyrannical dictator Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta (2005) and the voice of The Dragon in Merlin (2008). Among Hurt's final film appearances were as a terminally ill screenwriter in That Good Night (2017) and a lesser role in the mystery thriller Damascus Cover (2017). Hurt's voice was also tapped into animated features and documentaries, often serving as narrator. He also returned to the theatre performing in such shows as "The Seagull", "A Month in the Country" (1994), "Afterplay" (2002) and "Krapp's Last Tape", the latter for which he received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award.
A recovered alcoholic who married four times, Hurt was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen in 2004, and Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in 2015. That same year (2015) he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In July of 2016, he was forced to bow out of the father role of Billy Rice in a then-upcoming London stage production of "The Entertainer" opposite Kenneth Branagh due to ill health that he described as an "intestinal ailment". Hurt died several months later at his home in Cromer, Norfolk, England on January 15, 2017, three days after his 77th birthday.- Colin Morgan is a Northern Irish film, television, theater and radio actor who attended Integrated College Dungannon, winning the 'Denis Rooney Associates Cup' for best overall student in the third year, before gaining a National Diploma in Performing Arts from the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education in 2004. He went on to study at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, where he graduated from in 2007. In November 2010, the Belfast Metropolitan College honored Morgan with an Award of Distinction for his contribution to the Arts. Colin Morgan is best known for playing the title character in the BBC fantasy series Merlin (2008-12), the lead in BBC miniseries The Living and the Dead (2016) as the gentleman farmer Nathan Appleby, the central character of the story; Morgan has appeared in main roles in The Catherine Tate Show (2007), Doctor Who (2008), Quirke (2014), The Fall (2014-2016), and Humans (2015-2016). He is also known for his stage role as Ariel in The Tempest.
Morgan made his professional stage debut in the West End as the titular character Vernon God Little in an adaptation of the dark comedy mounted at the Young Vic in 2007. That same year, he went on to play the role of Esteban, an aspiring teenage writer, in the Old Vic stage adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother opposite Dame Diana Rigg, Lesley Manville, and Mark Gatiss. For both of these roles, Morgan was nominated for the 2007 London Newcomer of the Year in the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Awards. He went on to appear in Thomas Babe's A Prayer for My Daughter in 2008, Pedro Miguel Rozo's Our Private Life in 2011, Step in Time at The Old Vic 24 Hour Musicals Celebrity Gala in 2012. He played the fey spirit Ariel opposite Roger Allam's Prospero in the 2013 Globe Theater production of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was later broadcast to cinemas as part of Globe On Screen in May 2014, with a subsequent DVD release in July 2014. For this role, Morgan sought to imbue his portrayal of Ariel with both ethereal stillness and acrobatic precision. From 2013 to 2014, Morgan appeared as Skinny Luke in Jez Butterworth's dark comedy Mojo at the Harold Pinter Theater. The ensemble cast included Brendan Coyle, Ben Whishaw, Rupert Grint and Daniel Mays. Mojo received favorable reviews and the London production was extended for two weeks, finishing on 8 February 2014. On 19 April 2015, Morgan appeared at the Old Vic Theater alongside music and stage legends for an exclusive and highly anticipated one-night theater event called A Gala in Honor of Kevin Spacey.
In July 2008, Screen International named Morgan as a "Star of Tomorrow," alongside actors like Carey Mulligan where he was "hailed as the most exciting drama-school graduate since Ben Whishaw. For his performance in Merlin, Morgan received the 2008 Outstanding Newcomer award from Variety Club Showbiz Awards, and was nominated for Outstanding Actor (Drama) in the Monte Carlo TV Festival Awards in 2009, 2010, and 2011, the Best Actor award in Virgin Media TV Awards in 2012, and the prestigious Best Actor in Drama Performance: Male award in National Television Awards in 2013. In the same year, Morgan won Broadway World West End Awards' Best Featured Actor in a New Production of a Play for his performance as Ariel in The Tempest.
Morgan's film roles include Parked (2010), Island (2011), Testament of Youth (2015), Legend (2015), The Laughing King (2016), and The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016). He also starred as the lead character Paul Ashton in Waiting for You (2016), a British coming-of-age feature set in France and England, and will play the role of Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas in the Oscar Wilde biopic The Happy Prince (2017) written and directed by Rupert Everett . Next, he will be portraying the central role of the Irish revolutionary mastermind Seán Mac Diarmada in the Easter Rising centenary commemoration film The Rising (2017). - British-American actor, Bradley James, won his first role on the BBC pilot Dis/Connected. Show creators were so impressed with his work that they would go on to cast him as the young King Arthur in the hit show Merlin (2008) which aired on BBC & NBC. Of the eventual cast, James was the only cast member who the creators originally had in mind for the role to land the part. Merlin (2008) would go on to have huge global success and air in over 180 countries giving James a worldwide following.
James would fit in a role on the first season of CW show iZombie. His portrayal proved incredibly popular with fans, who voiced massive disappointment when he left the show. Show creator Rob Thomas later admitted that they had cast someone 'too good' for the role, citing a William Goldman story in which a young Susan Surandan is killed off midway through the 'Robert Redford' film 'The Great Waldo Pepper'_ leading to the audience never forgiving them. James however had already signed on for his next role so couldn't have continued on the series anyway.
It was in the A&E Omen-based series Damien (2016) that James would really shine in the title role. Producers had been struggling to find their leading man but said that the decision was made the second they saw Bradley. Show creator Glen Mazzara stated that Damien (2016) was the hardest role he ever created, given the complex nature of his journey and the history that came with the role, yet James brought the character to life in a way that nobody expected. "Hollywood legend has it that you never name a show after your lead character because very often those actors end up becoming difficult as time goes on. Bradley is not that guy. He is one of the kindest, most talented, hard-working actors I've ever had the pleasure of working with."
Although born in Devon, England, he moved to his father's homeland America at an early age. He would later return to England in his teenage years shortly before beginning his classical training at the Drama Centre London, stating that he had 'three of the most enjoyable years of his life' there. He became the next in line of the Drama Centre leading man conveyor belt that trained the likes of Colin Firth, Michael Fassbender, and Tom Hardy. It is said that he was signed by his agent when still in his first year at the school after showing her to her seat. He has suggested that 'there was a little more too it than that.'
He is a keen sportsman and it is said that he could have been a professional football player had he not chosen the acting route although he has played that down. He has had chance to show off his skills though by playing in many charity football and cricket matches.
Underworld co-star Theo James has hinted in interviews that Bradley is set to become the new lead of the Underworld film franchise following his own departure in the latest installment Underworld: Blood Wars (2016).
In 2017 James was cast as Giuliano de' Medici in Medici: The Magnificent (2018) alongside Daniel Sharman as Lorenzo de' Medici. In 2018 James was cast in the lead roll of American War hero Felix Sparks in the The Liberator (2020) Netflix's four-part World War II drama series based on the book by Alex Kershaw. This is the first project produced in Trioscope, a new enhanced hybrid technology that combines state-of-the-art CGI with live-action performance. - Actor
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James Norton was born in 1985 to two teachers and has a younger sister who is a doctor. Growing up in North Yorkshire he espoused acting at a very early age - playing Joseph in his primary school nativity play aged five - and, after leaving Ampleforth College he did work experience at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Rather than go straight to acting school he read theology at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and then travelled to Nepal, where he became interested in Buddhism. On return he enrolled at RADA in London, graduating in 2010 and, just before graduating bagging a (very) small part as Carey Mulligan's boyfriend in the final scene of 'An Education'. In 2011 he appeared on the London stage in revivals of 'Journey's End' and 'The Lion in Winter' with Joanna Lumley and Robert Lindsay. At the tail end of 2013 he was in the faux-Austen mystery 'Death Comes To Pemberley' on television but 2014 has been the year when he became known to a wider audience via the period films 'Mr Turner' and 'Belle' as the heroine's first love interest and most particularly violent serial 'Happy Valley' as a murderous kidnapper and rapist and, by contrast in the post-war set whodunit series 'Grantchester' as a tipsy young vicar with a penchant for solving cases.- Actor
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Robson Golightly Green was born on 18 December 1964 in Hexham, Northumberland, England, to Robson and Ann Green. He has two sisters, Dawn and Joanna; a wife, Vanya Seager; and a son (born in 2000). He began his TV/film career on Casualty (1986) as hospital porter Jimmy Powell. He then appeared in Soldier Soldier (1991) as Fusilier Dave Tucker. He and Soldier Soldier (1991) co-star Jerome Flynn's record "Unchained Melody/White Cliffs of Dover" sold more than 1.9 million copies in the UK; the duo won Top Album & Top Single at the 1996 Music Week Awards in England. They formed Clapp Trapp Productions & starred in "Ain't Misbehavin." Green and his business partner, Sandra Jobling, formed Coastal Productions. His nephew Daymon Britton is also an actor. Green's intro to US audiences came in the Masterpiece (1971) presentation of Reckless (1997). He is a fan of Newcastle United Football team, long-distance running, & Italian & Thai foods.- Actor
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From the age of one, Kevin Whately lived at Humshaugh near Chollerford in Northumberland. At school he appeared in school plays and when he asked his teacher about acting he was told ' You'll never make a proper living', so he joined a Newcastle accountants. Eventually he moved to London where he attended a drama school, but needing money he spent early mornings busking at Oxford Street tube station and evenings taking tickets at The Old Vic Theatre. Later he moved to Perth in Scotland, where he spent a season in rep. In 1980 he met his wife when they were performing in a production of 'A Nightingale in Berkley Square'. He then moved into television. He is Vice President of the People's Theatre in Newcastle and has an Honorary Doctorate from Newcastle University.- Actor
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RADA-trained Laurence Fox is the third son of the actor James Fox and his wife Mary. He is a British actor who has appeared in several important films, plays, and television programs.
He is also active in politics, founding a new political party named "Reclaim" in 2020 and he presents an opinion show on GB News.- Actor
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He was the working class boy from Manchester whose intensity and natural honesty made him British television's most bankable actor. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His first starring role on TV was as Sgt John Mann in Redcap (1964). His first great success, though, was as Detective Inspector Regan in The Sweeney (1975). Violent and uncompromising, the series changed the portrayal of police work on British television and was one of the defining dramas of the 1970s.
For Inspector Morse (1987), Thaw was yet again cast as a policeman, but this time a more cultured character than Regan. The leisurely-paced series, set in beautiful Oxfordshire, was Thaw's most popular and long-running project. It established him as British television's most bankable actor, and during the 1990s he had many other starring vehicles. He was also a favourite of film director Richard Attenborough, who cast him in Cry Freedom (1987) and Chaplin (1992).
John Thaw was a quiet, private man. His marriage to actress Sheila Hancock was generally regarded as one of the strongest in showbusiness. When he died at the age of 60, the BBC website was inundated with tributes from the viewing public. His "Inspector Morse" co-star Kevin Whately simply described him as the country's finest screen actor.- Actor
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Peter Michael Falk was born on September 16, 1927, in New York City, New York. At the age of 3, his right eye was surgically removed due to cancer. He graduated from Ossining High School, where he was president of his class. His early career choices involved becoming a certified public accountant, and he worked as an efficiency expert for the Budget Bureau of the state of Connecticut before becoming an actor. On choosing to change careers, he studied the acting art with Eva Le Gallienne and Sanford Meisner. His most famous role is that of the detective Columbo (1971); however, this was not his first foray into acting the role of a detective. During a high school play, he stood in for such a role when the original student actor fell sick. He has been married twice, and is the father of two children:Catherine, a private detective in real life, and Jackie. He was diagnosed with dementia in 2008, which was most likely brought on by Alzheimer's disease, from which he died on June 23, 2011.- Writer
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Steven Moffat was born on 18 November 1961 in Paisley, Scotland, UK. He is a writer and producer, known for Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (2010) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011). He has been married to Sue Vertue since 1999. They have two children. He was previously married to Maggie.- Actor
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Having grown up in Houston, and its northern suburb of Spring, he made his first stage appearance in a school play at the age of 6. Parsons then went on to study theater at the University of Houston. From there he won a place on a two-year Masters course in classical theater at the University of San Diego/The Old Globe Theater, graduating in 2001.
He moved to New York, working in Off-Broadway productions, appearing in TV commercials and in one episode of Ed (2000) before landing a recurring role in Judging Amy (1999) in 2004.
He was propelled to international fame and acclaim three years later when he starred as Sheldon in the award-winning sitcom, The Big Bang Theory (2007).- Actor
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Jim Beaver is an American character actor, best known for his leading roles on the TV series Deadwood (2004) and Supernatural (2005). Born in Laramie, Wyoming a minister's son, he was raised in and around Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. Following high school and a year of college, he joined the Marines and served as a radioman with the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. He attended Oklahoma Christian College (now Oklahoma Christian University), Edmond, OK, where he first became interested in acting as a career. After one year, he transferred to Central State University (now the University of Central Oklahoma), Edmond, OK, and while a student made his professional debut in a production of "Rain" at the Oklahoma Theatre Center in 1972. He obtained a degree in theatre and returned to the Dallas area where he worked for five seasons with the Dallas Shakespeare Festival. He had written several plays in college and afterward (as well as a biography of actor John Garfield), and in 1979 he was commissioned for the first of three plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. He also began to make appearances in bit roles in films and television shows shot in the Dallas area, including Semi-Tough (1977) and Dallas (1978). Moving to New York in 1979, he worked in stock and in dinner theatre tours, and also maintained a side career as a critic, columnist, and feature writer for Films in Review, the magazine of the National Board of Review. An assignment for an article on TV Superman George Reeves led him to Los Angeles. During his research there, his play "Verdigris" was produced to solid reviews at Theatre West in Hollywood, and he was signed as a writer by Sam Adams, partner in the prestigious Triad Artists agency. He began a successful period as a television writer, penning episodes for shows such as Vietnam War Story (1987), Tour of Duty (1987), and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985), and was nominated for a CableAce Award for an episode of the latter. He had continued to act on stage and in small film and TV roles, and in 1988 he landed a substantial supporting role as Bruce Willis's best friend, an alcoholic Vietnam veteran, in Norman Jewison's production In Country (1989). He gave up television writing and concentrated on acting. Slowly his roles grew larger (and more varied). He was Mark Harmon's chain-smoking detective partner Earl Gaddis on Reasonable Doubts (1991) and Edward Asner's dim-witted mechanic assistant Leland on Thunder Alley (1994). He was frequently cast in Westerns (Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Bad Girls (1994), among many others) or as detectives, sheriffs, or police officers (Sister Act (1992), Sliver (1993), Joy Ride (2001)). After two seasons on 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996) as French Stewart's sullen bar-owner boss Happy Doug, Beaver landed his most prominent and critically acclaimed role, that of Ellsworth, the gruff but decent and beloved prospector in the landmark Western series Deadwood (2004). Nominated along with other cast members for a 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award, he found his career in high gear following that series. From it he moved to the popular father-figure role of demon hunter Bobby Singer on Supernatural (2005), a part that brought him a worldwide fan base and a secondary career making personal appearances. He was married to and had a daughter with Cecily Adams, the actress-casting director daughter of Get Smart (1965)'s Don Adams. Following her death from lung cancer in 2004, he wrote a best-selling memoir, "Life's That Way." He has continued to write plays and, between acting jobs, to work on the George Reeves project, now planned as a book. He served as biographical consultant on Reeves for the semi-biopic Hollywoodland (2006).- Actor
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Misha Collins is an actor, director, producer, writer, and activist dedicated to inspiring cultural and civic engagement through works that "game-ify" philanthropy, inspire creativity, and promote social good.
For 12 years, Collins co-starred in Supernatural (2005), the longest running American science fiction television show in history. In addition to Supernatural (2005), his work is featured in film and television programs including Girl, Interrupted (1999), ER (1994), 24 (2001), and more. He co-produced the award-winning documentary feature Loot (2008) and created TSA America: Yeah, But Is It Ticking? (2014), TSA America: Suspicious Bulges (2014) and TSA America: Just Relax (2013), a series of shorts providing a biting satirical look at American governmental security practices, as well as the web series Cooking Fast & Fresh. In 2021, he starred in - and co-executive produced - Aaron Mahnke's #1 fiction podcast, Bridgewater (2021).
Misha Collins was born Misha Dmitri Tippens Krushnic in Boston, Massachusetts, to Rebecca Tippens and Richard Edward Krushnic. He is of Hungarian-Russian Jewish, German, English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Before turning to acting, his diverse background included work as a carpenter and woodworker, a White House internship during the Clinton Administration, and work at National Public Radio headquarters. Collins is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where he earned a B.A. with honors in Social Theory.
A vocal activist for progressive causes, Collins engages with his over 11 million aggregate social media followers to help amplify social issues, generate political activism, and motivate social good.
Collins is also the creator of GISH, the Guinness World Record-holding global scavenger hunt which uses creativity to "game-ify" goodwill and generate social change. GISH is played in over 100 countries, with tens of thousands of annual participants. Among other successes, in the past seven years GISH participants have collaborated to save endangered rain forests, support Syrian refugees, and assist at-risk youth in Africa.
As a founder of the 100% volunteer-run non-profit Random Acts, Collins has inspired supporters to collaboratively engage in acts of social good such as building a school in Nicaragua and a children's center in Haiti, as well as facilitating thousands of random acts of kindness worldwide.
Misha and his wife Victoria co-authored the best-selling cookbook "The Adventurous Eater's Club" (Harper Collins). Collins is a published poet whose works can be found in literary journals including "The Columbia Poetry Review" and "The California Quarterly". He is the author of the New York Times Best selling poetry book, "Some Things I Still Can't Tell You" (Andrews McMeel), which hit shelves October 2021.
Misha is founder and one of three artists who comprise The Art Department, an artist's collaborative which creates large-scale public art installations in unexpected places. The Art Department has been heralded for their work in Southern California by "Time Out-LA", "The LA Weekly", "LA Times" and ABC National News.
Collins has been featured on the covers of magazines including "Entertainment Weekly" and "TV Guide". He has two children, West and Maison. Misha is a certified lifeguard, EMT and motorcyclist. In his spare time, Misha can be found baking, woodworking, meditating, and making fun of corrupt politicians.- Actor
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Mark Andreas Sheppard was born on May 30, 1964 in London, England. He is an actor director and producer, known for Supernatural (2005), Battlestar Galactica (2004), Firefly (2002), Leverage (2008), Doctor Who (2005) In the Name of the Father (1993) and many others. He has been married to Sarah Louise Fudge since November 9, 2015.- Actor
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Mark Pellegrino was born on April 9, 1965 in Los Angeles, California, USA as Mark Ross Pellegrino. He is an actor and producer, known for The Big Lebowski (1998), National Treasure (2004) and The Number 23 (2007). He has been married to Tracy Pellegrino since October 30, 2008. They have two children.- Actor
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Osric Chau was born in Vancouver, Canada, to a father from Hong Kong and a mother from Malaysia. He had spent years training martial arts with aspirations to work in stunts when he landed his first leading role alongside the late David Carradine in Kung Fu Killer (2008) that was shot in Hengdian, China.
The following year Osric played Nima, the Tibetan monk, in Roland Emmerich's 2012 (2009), working with veteran actors John Cusack and Thandiwe Newton, that grossed over $760 million worldwide. That success brought Osric back to China where he worked on the Chinese Remake of What Women Want (2012) alongside Andy Lau and Gong Li and The Man with the Iron Fists (2012) with Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu and director, writer, actor and rap musician RZA.
In 2011 Osric landed another leading role in Paramount's Fun Size (2012) with Victoria Justice, Thomas Mann and Jane Levy. The Halloween comedy also includes Chelsea Handler, Josh Pence and Johnny Knoxville.
In 2012 Osric started work on Supernatural (2005) as genius high school student pulled into the role of prophet, Kevin Tran, a character he played on the show over 16 episodes in seasons 7-9 and 11. This work got him noticed and his acting roles have become more prolific since his appearance in the series.
In the process Osric has more than found a passion for acting and filmmaking. He still enjoys stunts, and has enormous appreciation of the skill and sacrifices involved but he'll settle with doing as many of his own stunts as a production will allow..- Actor
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Rob Benedict is an actor best known for his roles in TV and films including "Felicity", "Supernatural" and the movie Waiting...
Born and raised in Columbia, Missouri, Benedict received a degree in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. After graduating, his passion for theater lead him to performing in regional theaters across the country, including the critically acclaimed South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa, California. In addition he developed a one-man show based on the life of James Dean which he performed in Chicago and Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles he began performing in improv and sketch comedy shows. Soon he ventured into the world of stand-up comedy and hosted a monthly show called "Die Laughing" in which he performed with the likes of Tig Navaro, Paul F. Tompkins and Zach Galifiankis.
After a handful of guest star roles in tv, he was cast as "Richard Coad" in the critically acclaimed series "Felicity", which ran for 4 years on the WB. Since then, Rob has acted in more than 70 episodes of television and film over his 20 plus year career.
In CBS's Threshold Benedict played physicist Lucas Pegg, member of a secret government team investigating the first contact with an extraterrestrial species. In seasons 4, 5, 10, 11, 14 and 15 of Supernatural he plays a writer, Chuck Shurley, previously thought to be a prophet of the lord but later revealed to be God. On Alias Benedict was Sydney Bristow's short-term CIA partner, Brodien. Additional early television series credits include Birds of Prey and Come to Papa, with guest appearances on NCIS, CSI, Monk, Medium, Chicago Hope, NYPD Blue, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Snoops, Burn Notice, and Beverly Hills, 90210.
More recent television credits include a recurring roles in Bosch, NCIS: New Orleans, Masters of Sex, Fox's Touch, Franklin & Bash, and the digital series Susanna with Anna Paquin. He also appeared as the irreverent power agent Jeremy Berger in the Starz Original comedy series Head Case. Other recent guest star appearances are NCIS: Hawaii, On The Verge, Documentary: Now!, NCIS: Los Angeles, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Shameless, Psych and Law and Order: Los Angeles.
His feature film credits include A Little Help, with Jenna Fischer, State of Play with Russell Crowe. In 2005 he starred as Calvin in the cult comedy Waiting... with Ryan Reynolds, and later revised the role in the sequel Still Waiting. Other films include Kicking & Screaming, with Will Ferrell, Group Sex, Say Goodnight with Aaron Paul, Two Days, with Paul Rudd, The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, starring Rosario Dawson, and Not Another Teen Movie.
In 2011, he co-wrote and starred in the independent short film Lifetripper, which made its debut at the LA Short Film Festival. He also co-wrote and played Miles Davis-Davidson in the Unauthorized Hangover 2 Documentary, which was featured on the DVD of The Hangover Part II. In 2013 he wrote, produced and starred in the 30 minute short film The Sidekick, which starred Jordan Peele, Lizzy Caplan, Ike Barinholtz, Ron Livingston and Jason Ritter.
In 2017 he wrote, produced and starred in the 10 episode series Kings of Con with friend and fellow actor Richard Speight Jr.[1] The series first aired on Comic-ConHQ and later, CW seed. The comedy series is set behind the scenes at fan conventions, based loosely on their real life experiences at said conventions.
In 2019 he had a starring role in the independent feature 30 Miles From Nowhere, with Carrie Preston, and in 2021 he starred in the Justine Bateman film Violet with Olivia Munn.
When not acting, Benedict can be seen and heard as the front man of the LA based rock band Louden Swain, whose 8th record, "Foolish", will be released in Spring of 2022.- Actor
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American actor Richard Speight, Jr. was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He later graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California. In addition to acting in TV and film, Speight also directs. Those credits include commercials for major brands like Pepsi & Buffalo Wild Wings, numerous episodes of the hit CW series "Supernatural," "Lucifer" for Netflix, and all 10 episodes of "Kings of Con" for Lionsgate, a comedy series he co-created and starred in with fellow "Supernatural" alumnus Rob Benedict.
He received a Hugo Award nomination for his directing debut on "Supernatural" (episode 1108 - "Just My Imagination"). His fifth "Supernatural" directing effort (ep 1320 - "Unfinished Business") also features Speight himself acting in two different roles. In one scene, those two characters fight each other, which means that in a rare television moment, it was Speight vs. Speight directed by Speight.- Actor
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James Patrick Stuart was born on 16 June 1968 in Encino, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Gettysburg (1993), General Hospital (1963) and Gods and Generals (2003). He has been married to Jocelyn Jane Stilwell since 9 September 2000. They have two children.- Actor
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Shaun Evans was born on 6 March 1980 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Cashback (2006), Endeavour (2012) and Being Julia (2004).- Actor
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Born October 26, 1953 in Bow, London, England as Roger William Allam, he is a British stage, television, film, and radio actor, best known for originating the role of Javert in the musical "Les Misérables", for playing Douglas Richardson in the radio series "Cabin Pressure" and for his roles as Lewis Prothero in V for Vendetta (2005), as Peter Mannion in The Thick of It (2005), and as Fred Thursday in Endeavour (2012). His father was a rector at the St Mary Woolnoth church in London. Allam attended Christ's Hospital and Manchester University and debuted in theatre in 1976 the play "Vinegar Tom". In 1985 he played Javert in the first English production of what became the hit musical "Les Misérables" and appeared on the album featuring a selection of songs from the original London production of the show. In 2002 Allam won his first Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role as Captain Terri Denis in "Privates on Parade". From 2007 to 2012 he appeared as Peter Mannion MP in the political satire series The Thick of It (2005). In 2011 he won another Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance as Falstaff in "Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2". Since 2012 he's been playing Fred Thursday on Endeavour (2012), a prequel to the popular show Inspector Morse (1987). Despite focusing mostly on theatre roles, he regularly appears in television, movies (most famously in V for Vendetta (2005)) and radio (including the popular comedy series "Cabin Pressure", in which he starred alongside John Finnemore, Stephanie Cole, and Benedict Cumberbatch). He is married to actress Rebecca Saire. They have two sons, William (who is also an actor) and Thomas.- Actor
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Talented British actor Hugh Dancy is one of the UK's most noted young talents.
Hugh Michael Horace Dancy was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, to Sarah Ann (Birley), who works in academic publishing, and Jonathan Peter Dancy, a philosophy professor and writer. He has a brother, Jack (b. 1977), and a sister, Kate (b. 1980). He was raised in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
He got started with roles in the series Trial & Retribution (1997), Dangerfield (1995), Kavanagh QC (1995) and Granada's popular series Cold Feet (1997), and his theater appearances include Sam Mendes' David Copperfield (2000) and BBC's Madame Bovary (2000) and Daniel Deronda (2002). He also portrayed "D'Artagnan" in the series Young Blades (2001).
Dancy's appearance in Ridley Scott's war drama, Black Hawk Down (2001), as "Medic Kurt Schmid" was followed with starring roles in Tempo (2003) with Melanie Griffith and Rachael Leigh Cook and The Sleeping Dictionary (2003). He played "Prince Charmont" opposite Anne Hathaway in Ella Enchanted (2004) and "Sir Galahad" in King Arthur (2004).
He has since become well known for his roles as the "Earl of Essex" in the HBO mini-series Elizabeth I (2005) and "Will Graham" in the critically acclaimed NBC series Hannibal (2013).
Dancy married American actress Claire Danes in 2009. The couple have two children, Cyrus (b. 2012) and Rowan (b. 2018).- Writer
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Ricky Dene Gervais was born in a suburb of Reading, Berkshire, to Eva Sophia (House) and Lawrence Raymond Gervais, who was a hod carrier and labourer. His father was born in Ontario, Canada, of French-Canadian descent, and his mother was English. He was educated at Ashmead Comprehensive School and went on to study at University College, London, where he gained a degree in Philosophy.
After university, Gervais attempted to pursue a pop career with Seona Dancing, a duo he formed with a fellow student. Similar to many groups in the early 1980s, they were a synth-pop act with a somewhat pretentious name and exhibiting a strong musical influence by David Bowie. Gervais adopted a vocal style that has often been compared to Bowie; comedian Paul Merton would later joke that Bowie nicked their music. Seona Dancing were briefly signed to a recording contract and released two singles, "More to Lose" and "Bitter Heart". The latter was slightly reminiscent of Queen's "Body Language" from a year earlier, featuring a similar synthesizer riff. The act failed to breach the UK top 75 and earn a place in the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles, but clips have survived and they have been frequently used to tease Gervais in interviews. Despite his own lack of success, Gervais stayed within the music industry for a while and even spent time as the manager of Suede.
Gervais had to wait a long time before achieving the fame he had hoped would come with a pop career. In the 1990s he formed a writing partnership with Stephen Merchant. In 2000, he landed his own comedy chat show on Channel 4, Meet Ricky Gervais (2000), which attracted legendary guests such as Jimmy Savile, Michael Winner, Paul Daniels, Peter Purves, Stefanie Powers, Jim Bowen and Midge Ure. The series only ran for six episodes but a year later greater stardom came for Gervais with the debut of BBC comedy The Office (2001). Although it was not initially received to great acclaim or viewing figures, it is now often cited as one of the greatest comedy series of all time and has been credited with reinventing the sitcom. Gervais starred as the obnoxious and embarrassing office manager David Brent, who has since been voted in various polls one of the greatest comic characters. It also prompted an American remake, The Office (2005). Gervais had further success with another sitcom, Extras (2005), which attracted a series of celebrity guests, including Ben Stiller, Samuel L. Jackson and his musical idol David Bowie. It served as a satire on the entertainment industry and leading stars were happy to play along by performing exaggerated versions of themselves.
Gervais has become one of the most popular and omnipresent comedy performers of the 21st century, hosting the Golden Globe awards, lending his talent to films, becoming a voice artist and appearing on numerous talk shows. He has become one of the best known British comedy figures in America. He is also regularly the subject of controversy due to his dark comedy. Some critics have called him insensitive and outrageous. Gervais has responded by saying "offense is the collateral damage of free speech", he has said that he doesn't aim for a mass audience, he's just pleased he's managed to get one, and he has compared his style of comedy and the audience he has acquired with being Iggy Pop in preference to being Phil Collins.- Mackenzie Crook, one of British comedy's best-known faces, who collected Star Wars figurines as a child, is now immortalized in plastic as a six-inch-high pirate action figure. He was born Paul Mackenzie Crook on September 29, 1971, in Maidstone, Kent, England, UK. His father worked for British Airways. His mother was a hospital manager. He went to grammar school in Dartford, and did his first plays there. In the summers, he spent time with his uncle in Zimbabwe.
Young Mackenzie Crook expressed his creativity through painting and even copied a pre-Raphaelite's painting on to the back of his biker's jacket. He also joined a local youth theater. At the age of 18, he failed to secure a place at art college and turned to writing comedy sketches. Crook ended up working at Pizza Hut, and at hospitals. However, the principal of the youth theater believed in his potential and became his manager, guiding Crook to a career as a stand-up comedian. In 1996, he made his film debut in The Man Who Fell in Love with a Traffic Cone! (1996). In 1997, Crook was scouted by Bob Mortimer at the Edinburgh Festival. Soon he made his debut on television as a stand-up comedian on The 11 O'Clock Show (1998), then worked on other TV shows playing grotesques and exaggerated characters.
He shot to fame as Gareth Keenan, a quirky geek with a funny haircut in a TV hit comedy, The Office (2001), and earned himself a British Comedy Award nomination. He also was a member of the main cast of the BBC show "TV to Go" (2001)_. After that, Crook shared the screen with Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice (2004), with Heath Ledger in The Brothers Grimm (2005), and with Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland (2004). Depp bonded with Crook during the making of 'Neverland' and it was Depp who recommended him for the part of Ragetti, his best-known role, in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006). Crook is also billed as Ragetti in the third installment of the 'Pirates' franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
After having spent about a decade on a stand-up comedian circuit, Crook made a perfect tool out of that character-actor face and added experience to his effortless style. It is in the 'Pirates' trilogy that Mackenzie Crook had showed his funniest and widest variety of emotions, effortlessly shifting his facial expression from a deep philosophical pensiveness to a grotesque excitement, and from a comically exaggerated fear to such a gleeful exuberance while removing his wooden eyeball. For that particular scene he was wearing two contact lenses sandwiched on top of each other.
In 2004, Crook appeared as Billy Bibbit opposite Christian Slater in the West End stage production of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," which initially opened at Gielgud Theatre and then was shown at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival. At the same time, Crook has been writing a script for his own future project; he describes it as a period production that is set in London around the same period as the 'Pirates' movies.
Mackenzie Crook has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife, Lindsay, a former advertising executive and club owner, and their son Jude (born in 2003). He is fond of gardening and is also focused on maintaining an organic way of life. He resides with his family in Peter Sellers' old art-deco house in Muswell Hill, North London, England. - Actor
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Peter Capaldi was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to Nancy (Soutar) and Gerald John Capaldi. His parents owned an ice cream business. He is of Italian (from his paternal grandfather), Scottish, and Irish descent. Capaldi attended drama classes and was accepted into the Glasgow School of Art. After graduating he secured his breakthrough role in Local Hero (1983). Prior to becoming an actor he also worked as a graphic designer for BBC Scotland TV.
Peter was announced as the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who (2005) on 4th August 2013 on a BBC special programme. He had to hide it from his daughter who remarked to him why it is his name never came up during the buzz. It was a huge relief not to have to keep the secret anymore. His agent called and said "Hello Doctor" when informing him he had gotten the part.- Actor
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Matt Smith is an English actor who shot to fame in the UK aged 26 when he was cast by producer Steven Moffat as the Eleventh Doctor in the BBC's iconic science-fiction adventure series Doctor Who (2005).
Matthew Robert Smith was born and raised in Northampton, the son of Lynne (Fidler) and David Smith. He was educated at Northampton School For Boys. He studied Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He got into acting through the National Youth Theatre and performed with the Royal Court and the National Theatre.
Smith made his television debut in The Ruby in the Smoke (2006) and won several further roles on television but was largely unknown when he was announced as the surprise choice for the role of the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who. He was younger than any other actor to have taken the role (Peter Davison was previously the youngest, aged 29 when he was cast in 1981). Smith starred in 49 episodes of Doctor Who (three short of his predecessor, David Tennant). He left in the momentous 50th anniversary year of the Doctor Who legend in 2013, which included starring in the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor (2013), which found him acting with Tennant, guest star John Hurt and the oldest living and longest-serving actor to play the Doctor, Tom Baker.
Since leaving Doctor Who, Smith has launched himself into a film career.- Christopher Eccleston trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and first came to public attention as Derek Bentley in Let Him Have It (1991). However, it was a regular role in the television series Cracker (1993) that made him a recognizable figure in the United Kingdom. He appeared in the low-budget thriller Shallow Grave (1994), and in the same year, won the part of Nicky Hutchinson in the epic BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North (1996). It was the transmission of the latter series on BBC Two that really made him into a household name in the United Kingdom. In his film career, he has starred as a leading man alongside a number of major actresses, such as Renée Zellweger in A Price Above Rubies (1998), Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998), and Cameron Diaz and Jordana Brewster in The Invisible Circus (2001), and Nicole Kidman in The Others (2001).
In addition to his successful film career, he has continued to work in television, appearing in some of the most challenging and thought-provoking British dramas. These have included Clocking Off (2000) and Flesh and Blood (2002) for the BBC and Hillsborough (1996), the Iago character in a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello", and the religious epic The Second Coming (2003), playing Steve Baxter, the son of God. His stage career, while not as extensive as his screen credits, has nevertheless shown him to be a formidable actor. He has given intense, focused performances in such plays as "Hamlet", "Electricity" and "Miss Julie", for which he received excellent reviews.
A very highly regarded actor, Eccleston has twice been nominated in the Best Actor category at the BAFTA Television Awards, the British premiere television awards ceremony. His first nomination came in 1997 for Our Friends in the North (1996). Although he didn't win those awards, however, he did triumph in the Best Actor categories at the 1997 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards and the Royal Television Society Awards, winning for Our Friends in the North (1996). He won the RTS Best Actor award for a second time in 2003, this time for his performance in "Flesh and Blood". In 2005, he received the Most Popular Actor award in the National Television Awards for starring in Russell T. Davies's re-imagining of Doctor Who (2005). - Actor
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A native of Vancouver, British Columbia, actor Finn Wolfhard stars as Mike Wheeler in the critically acclaimed Netflix Original Series Stranger Things (2016). The hit series has received various accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series; two MTV Movie & TV Awards for Show of the Year; an AFI award for TV Program of the Year; and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Drama Television Series. To date, the world-famous series has received 30 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including two for Outstanding Drama Series.
His first role was in the 2013 independent film Aftermath. After appearing in more independent films such as The Resurrection, Wolfhard moved into roles on television shows The 100 (2014) and Supernatural.
In September 2017, Wolfhard moved to the silver screen, playing the lead role of Ritchie Tozier in the film adaptation of the Stephen King acclaimed novel It (2017). Fans of the novel will remember Wolfhard's role as Trashmouth, part of the Losers Club. The film premiered to critical acclaim, breaking opening weekend box office records in its debut and going on to become the highest grossing horror movie ever. Wolfhard, along with his cast, received the Best On-Screen Team award for "IT" at the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards. Wolfhard also starred in Dog Days (2018) alongside Vanessa Hudgens and Nina Dobrev. He can also be heard in the Netflix animated series "Carmen Sandiego," which released its second season in October 2019. Wolfhard reprises his role of Richie Tozier in New Line's blockbuster sequel It Chapter Two (2019).
In May 2019, Wolfhard became the new face of Yves Saint Laurent's Fall/Winter 2019 Campaign. Wolfhard starred as Miles in Amblin's haunted house horror film The Turning (2020) opposite Mackenzie Davis and Brooklynn Prince. Wolfhard will star alongside Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon and McKenna Grace in Sony Pictures' highly anticipated Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), a new chapter in the "Ghostbusters" universe, from director Jason Reitman. Wolfhard stars alongside Oscar winning actress Julianne Moore in the comedy-drama feature When You Finish Saving the World (2022), written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg and produced by Emma Stone. The mother-son story is inspired by Eisenberg's upcoming Audible Original of the same name, which is debuting in 2020. Wolfhard is also set to star as a lead voice over in the upcoming animated series, "NEW-GEN," based on the comic series distributed by Marvel and created by Chris Matonti, J.D. Matonti, and Julia Coppola.
He co-starred in Warner Bros & Amazon Studios' "The Goldfinch," an adaptation of Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning & New York Times best-selling novel. Wolfhard played the role of Young Boris alongside an all-star cast including Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson and Jeffrey Wright. Lastly, he voiced the character Pugsley Addams in MGM's The Addams Family (2019) animated film. He can also be heard in Netflix's animated series "Carmen Sandiego," which released its second season in October 2019.
In addition to acting, Wolfhard has a passion for music and formed a garage-rock band called Calpurnia. Calpurnia recorded their debut EP which was released in June 2018. The band's first single "City Boy" debuted at No. 23 on Billboard's Alternative Digital Song Chart and hit No. 1 on Spotify's Global Viral 50 playlist. During the bands three-year run, Calpurnia toured across North America and Europe.
In the Fall of 2019, Wolfhard and drummer Malcolm Craig formed The Aubreys. In March 2020, The Aubreys released their first official EP entitled "Soda & Pie." Wolfhard also used his growing platform to host an event and raise funds for Sweet Relief, an organization that helps musicians in need.- Actor
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Joseph David "Joe" Keery (born April 24, 1992) is an American actor & musician. He is best known for portraying Steve Harrington in the American science-fiction horror web television series, Stranger Things (2016), as well as a contributing musician for the American psychedelic rock band Post Animal.
Keery grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he attended River Valley Charter School for elementary and middle school, and then Newburyport High School. He is the second of five children and grew up surrounded by 4 sisters. During his younger years he attended Theater in the Open, a performing arts camp at Maudslay State Park, but ultimately began acting in high school, performing there initially at his sister's insistence. Keery went on to study at The Theatre School at DePaul University and graduated in 2014.
After graduating from DePaul, Keery went to over a hundred auditions. Before his breakout role in Stranger Things, Keery appeared in a KFC, Domino's, and amiibo commercial, and had roles in Empire (2015) and Chicago Fire (2012). His first appearance in a full-length film was in Stephen Cone's indie, Henry Gamble's Birthday Party (2015).
In late 2015, Keery was cast in Stranger Things. He initially auditioned for the role of Jonathan, but later sent in a tape for his character, Steve. He was promoted from recurring cast to a series regular for the second season of Stranger Things, which premiered on October 27, 2017.
Aside from acting, Keery is also a musician. He is one of the guitarists for Chicago-based garage and psych-rock band Post Animal. Their debut full-length album was released in October 2015. The band's sophomore album, When I Think Of You In A Castle, was released in April 2018 and saw Keery contributing his guitar playing as well as vocals. As of 2019, Keery is no longer a touring member of the band.
Previously, Keery released music under the name "Cool Cool Cool".- Actor
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Dwayne Douglas Johnson, also known as The Rock, was born on May 2, 1972 in Hayward, California. He is the son of Ata Johnson (born Feagaimaleata Fitisemanu) and professional wrestler Rocky Johnson (born Wayde Douglas Bowles). His father, from Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, is black (of Black Nova Scotian descent), and his mother is of Samoan background (her own father was Peter Fanene Maivia, also a professional wrestler). While growing up, Dwayne traveled around a lot with his parents and watched his father perform in the ring. During his high school years, Dwayne began playing football and he soon received a full scholarship from the University of Miami, where he had tremendous success as a football player. In 1995, Dwayne suffered a back injury which cost him a place in the NFL. He then signed a three-year deal with the Canadian League but left after a year to pursue a career in wrestling.
He made his wrestling debut in the USWA under the name Flex Kavanah where he won the tag team championship with Brett Sawyer. In 1996, Dwayne joined the WWE and became Rocky Maivia where he joined a group known as "The Nation of Domination" and turned heel. Rocky eventually took over leadership of the "Nation" and began taking the persona of The Rock. After the "Nation" split, The Rock joined another elite group of wrestlers known as the "Corporation" and began a memorable feud with Steve Austin. Soon the Rock was kicked out of the "Corporation". He turned face and became known as "The Peoples Champion". In 2000, the Rock took time off from WWE to film his appearance in The Mummy Returns (2001). He returned in 2001 during the WCW/ECW invasion where he joined a team of WWE wrestlers at The Scorpion King (2002), a prequel to The Mummy Returns (2001).
Dwayne has a daughter, Simone Alexandra Johnson, born in 2001, with his ex-wife Dany Garcia, and daughters, Jasmine, born in 2015, and Tiana Gia, born in 2018, with his wife, singer and songwriter Lauren Hashian.- Actor
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British actor Eddie Redmayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor (for The Theory of Everything (2014)).
Edward John David Redmayne was born and raised in London, England, the son of Patricia (Burke) and Richard Charles Tunstall Redmayne, a businessman. His great-grandfather was Sir Richard Augustine Studdert Redmayne, a noted civil and mining engineer. He has English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Redmayne is the only member of his family to follow a career in acting, and also modeled during his teen years. He was educated at Eton College before going on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied History of Art. Encouraged by his parents, Redmayne took drama lessons from a young age. His first stage appearance was in the Sam Mendes production of "Oliver!", in London's West End. He played a workhouse boy. Acting continued through school and university, including performing with the National Youth Music Theatre.
Redmayne's first professional stage performance came in 2002 at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre where he played Viola in "Twelfth Night". In 2004, he won the prestigious Evening Standard Outstanding Newcomer Award for his working in Edward Albee's play "The Goat". Further stage successes followed, and in 2009, he starred in John Logan's "Red" at the Donmar Warehouse in London. He won huge critical acclaim for his role, winning an Oliver Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The play transferred to Broadway in 2010, and Redmayne went on to win a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.
Alongside his stage career, Redmayne has worked steadily in television and film. Notable projects include Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2008), The Pillars of the Earth (2010) and My Week with Marilyn (2011). He co-starred as Marius Pontmercy in the musical Les Misérables (2012). He played scientist Stephen Hawking in the biographical drama The Theory of Everything (2014), opposite Felicity Jones, as Stephen's wife Jane Hawking. For his performance, Redmayne won multiple awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. As such, he became the first man born in the 1980s to win an acting Oscar. He received further critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, in The Danish Girl (2015). For his performance, he was nominated for multiple awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2014, Redmayne married publicist Hannah Bagshawe.- Actor
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Daniel Richard Huttlestone was born in Havering, London, England, to Linda and Mark Huttlestone, a company managing director. He started his stage career from the age of 9 landing the role of 'Nipper' in the 2009 production of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, performing on the opening night with Rowan Atkinson, and continuing until it closed in 2011. He went on to perform the role of Gavroche in Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre, working with Alfie Boe and Matt Lucas, where he stayed with the show for a year.
Huttlestone played Gavroche in the film version, Les Misérables (2012), and later starred as Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk fame) in another film musical, Into the Woods (2014).- Actor
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Chris Pine was born in Los Angeles. His parents are actors Robert Pine and Gwynne Gilford, and his maternal grandparents were Max M. Gilford, a president of the Hollywood Bar Association, and actress Anne Gwynne. His sister, Katherine Pine, has also acted. Chris's ancestry is Russian Jewish (from his maternal grandfather), English, German, Welsh, and French. Pine attended Oakwood School in the San Fernando Valley, and went on to study English at the University of California, Berkeley where he received a bachelor's degree. During this time, he spent one year studying at the University of Leeds in England. Pine also studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. After embarking on an acting career, Pine won guest roles in many television series, and made his feature film debut opposite Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). Other roles in film and television followed, but he became an international star when he was cast as James T. Kirk in the hugely successful franchise reboot, Star Trek (2009).
He subsequently starred in the films Unstoppable (2010), This Means War (2012), People Like Us (2012), and the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). In 2014, Pine co-starred in Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) and, as Cinderella's Prince, in the musical Into the Woods (2014), alongside Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick. In 2015, he appeared in the thriller Z for Zachariah (2015), and in 2016, he headlined the sea-set drama The Finest Hours (2016), the third film in the new Trek universe, Star Trek Beyond (2016), and the bank robber drama Hell or High Water (2016). In 2017, Chris played Steve Trevor opposite Gal Gadot in the title role of Wonder Woman (2017), a film that became his biggest domestic earner.- Actor
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The Canadian actor started out as a national gymnast and diver. He is also fluent in French and German. He received his first break when cast in the starring role of the Nickelodeon movie Spectacular! (2009), opposite Victoria Justice. He is the new celebrity face of Versace, in conjunction with Lady Gaga for women's wear. Funk is mostly known to teens for playing bad boy Collin on Awkward. (2011) or to indie watchers for the scandalous and critically controversial Paul Schrader/Bret Easton Ellis film The Canyons (2013), or to sci-for junkies in the latest Riddick (2013) opposite Vin Diesel for Universal. Nolan revived the role of Conrad Birdie in "Bye Bye Birdie" on Broadway, where we was deemed excellent by "The New Yorker", and played Jennifer Lawrence's love interest in Relativity's House at the End of the Street (2012). He played Glee (2009) warbler captain Hunter, and is a former Nickelodeon star of Spectacular! (2009). Nolan received critical acclaim for his rendition of "Whistle" by Flo Rida on "Glee." The Canyons (2013) was screened at the Venice International Film Festival. He will be featured in the indie film Wildlike (2014), on which Christine Vachon served as executive producer, from Killer Films opposite Brian Geraghty, which makes its festival run later this year. He also starred in American Romance (2016), opposite Daveigh Chase (Big Love (2006)); Mark Boone Junior (Sons of Anarchy (2008)); and John Savage (The Deer Hunter (1978)).- Actor
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English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was educated at Brockworth Comprehensive Secondary School in Gloucestershire and went on to Stratford-upon-Avon College to study English literature and performance studies. He then attended the University of Bristol, and earned a bachelor's degree in drama. In the early 2000s, Pegg moved to London and began forging a successful career in stand-up comedy. Television opportunities followed including roles in Six Pairs of Pants (1995), Asylum (1996), and We Know Where You Live (1997). In 1999, Pegg and Jessica Hynes teamed up to write and star in cult sitcom Spaced (1999), directed by Edgar Wright. The series also featured Pegg's best friend Nick Frost. Pegg's breakthrough in film came with the zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead (2004), which he also co-wrote with director Edgar Wright. Again, the film featured Nick Frost. The trio also scored a hit with police comedy Hot Fuzz (2007). Further film successes followed for Pegg, notably in the iconic role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek (2009) and alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).- Actor
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Nick Frost is an English actor, screenwriter and comedian. He is known for his work in the series of British comedic genre films The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013). He also co-starred in Paul (2011), with frequent collaborator and friend Simon Pegg.
Nicholas John "Nick" Frost is good friends with Simon Pegg and they have appeared alongside each other in several Movies. He resides with his half-Swedish wife, production executive Christina Frostin St Margarets, London. He previously lived in Finsbury Park, which was also the filming location for Shaun of the Dead. In a 2005 interview, Frost stated that he was brought up as a Catholic. He is a supporter of West Ham United, as well as being a rugby player, formerly playing for Barking RFC. On 22 June 2011, Frost's wife gave birth to a son.- Actor
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Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering. During that time, he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he wrote and performed comedy revues.
Later, he co-wrote and appeared in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), which was a huge success and spawned several best-selling books. It won an International Emmy Award and the British Academy Award for "Best Light Entertainment Programme of 1980." He won the "British Academy Award" and was named "BBC Personality of the Year" for his performance in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979).
Atkinson also appeared in several movies, including Dead on Time (1983), Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976) (aka "Monty Python Meets Beyond the Fringe"), Never Say Never Again (1983), and The Tall Guy (1989). He played "Mr. Bean" in the TV series, Mr. Bean (1990) but, apart from that and Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), he also appeared in several other series like Blackadder (1982) and Funny Business (1992), etc.
Atkinson enjoys nothing more than fast cars. He has two children, named Benjamin and Lily, with ex-wife Sunetra Sastry.- Actor
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Tom Ellis is a Welsh actor from Cardiff, Wales. He is best known for playing Lucifer Morningstar in the American television series Lucifer (2016-2021).
Ellis was born in Cardiff. He studied BA Dramatic Studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (previously the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama).
Ellis' notable roles include Hollywood physician in the USA Network series Rush, Mark Etches in the British supernatural drama The Fades and Gary Preston in the hit TV show Miranda which aired on the BBC from November 9, 2009 to January 1, 2015.
In February 2015, it was announced that Ellis was cast as Lucifer Morningstar in the Fox television drama Lucifer, based on the comic of the same name, which premiered on 25 January 2016. The show was continued by Netflix from its fourth to sixth season, later was released on the 10th of September 2021.- Actor
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Channing Tatum was born in a small town, Cullman, Alabama, 50 miles north of Birmingham. He is the son of Kay (Faust), an airline worker, and Glenn Matthew Tatum, who worked in construction. Growing up, he was full of energy and somewhat troublesome, so his parents decided to enroll him in different sports such as track and field, baseball, soccer, and football to keep him out of trouble. In the ninth grade he was sent to Catholic school. It was there that he discovered his passion for football and his hopes became centered on earning an athletic college scholarship. Channing's goal was finally met, and in his senior year in high school, he was recruited and earned a full athletic college scholarship to a school in West Virginia.
Tatum is also skilled in Kung Fu and in Gor-Chor Kung Fu, a form of martial arts, in which he has earned belts. Channing later left college and, in the meantime, worked as a construction worker, a stripper, a mortgage broker and salesman. He has modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch, Nautica, Gap, Aeropostale, Emporio Armani, and has been featured in television commercials for American Eagle, Pepsi, and some very popular Mountain Dew commercials.
Channing can be seen on the big screen as a featured actor in Coach Carter (2005), in which he plays a high school basketball player. He was also in the very popular TV series CSI: Miami (2002) where he played the role of Bob Davenport.- Yûsuke Yamamoto was born on 19 January 1988 in Aichi, Japan. He is an actor, known for Kamen Rider Kabuto (2006), Kamen Rider Kabuto: God Speed Love (2006) and Hansamu sûtsu (2008).
- Shunsuke Daitô was born on 13 March 1986 in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. He is an actor, known for Nobuta wo produce (2005), BraveStorm (2017) and Riaru onigokko (2008).
- Yûdai Chiba was born on 3 March 1989 in Tagajo, Japan. He is an actor, known for Gokaiger Goseiger Super Sentai 199 Hero Great Battle (2011), Kaettekita Tensô Sentai Goseijâ: Rasuto Epikku - Gosei Tenshi ga Kokuminteki Aidoru ni?! (2011) and Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen (2012).
- Masaya Nakamura is known for Inu no kubiwa to korokke to (2011), Pikatsu and Resolution: Pikachin-Hunter (2017) and Ataru (2012). He was previously married to Mari Yaguchi.
- Ryô Ryûsei was born on 24 March 1993 in Tokyo, Japan. He is an actor, known for Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger vs. Go-Busters: Dinosaur Great Battle! Farewell, Eternal Friends (2014), Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z (2013) and Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: Gaburincho of Music (2013).
- Manpei Takagi was born on 22 October 1985 in Nagoya, Japan. He is an actor, known for Juken Sentai Gekiranger (2007), Juken sentai Gekiranger vs. Boukenger (2008) and Engine Sentai Go-onger VS Gekiranger (2009).
- Shinpei Takagi was born on 22 October 1985 in Nagoya, Japan. He is an actor, known for Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger (2012), Juken Sentai Gekiranger (2007) and Toshiue no hito (2014).
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Ken Jeong is an American actor, comedian, and physician. He is known for his roles as Ben Chang on the critically acclaimed NBC/Yahoo! sitcom Community (2009) and gangster Leslie Chow in The Hangover (2009) Trilogy. He appeared in Michael Bay's Pain & Gain (2013), as Johnny Wu, a motivational speaker.
Ken was born in Detroit, to Korean parents. He completed his internal medicine residency at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans while developing his stand-up comedy. He is a licensed physician in California.