Who is your favorite of the current group of acting Kates?

Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy to modern-day mysticism and erotica.

Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, into a family of thespians -- parents Roger Winslet and Sally Anne Bridges-Winslet were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and uncle Robert Bridges was a fixture in London's West End theatre district. Kate came into her talent at an early age. She scored her first professional gig at eleven, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years, she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms. Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.

Still a relative unknown, Winslet attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood. Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).

The role that transformed Winslet from art house attraction to international star was Rose DeWitt Bukater, the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet, swooning over all that face time opposite heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and noting her refreshingly healthy, unemaciated physique. Winslet's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations.

After the swell of unexpected attention surrounding Titanic (1997), Winslet was eager to retreat into independent projects. Rumor has it that she turned down the lead roles in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in order to play adventurous soul searchers in Hideous Kinky (1998) and Holy Smoke (1999). The former cast her as a young single mother traveling through 1970s Morocco with her daughters in tow; the latter, as a zealous follower of a guru tricked into a "deprogramming" session in the Australian outback. The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000). Kate holds the distinction of being the youngest actor ever honored with four Academy Award nominations (she received her fourth at age 29). As of 2016, she has been nominated for an Oscar seven times, winning one of them: she received the Best Actress Oscar for the drama The Reader (2008), playing a former concentration camp guard.

For her performance of Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs (2015), she received her seventh Academy Award nomination.

Off camera, Winslet is known for her mischievous pranks and familial devotion. She has two sisters, Anna Winslet and Beth Winslet (both actresses), and a brother, Joss.

In 1998, she married assistant director Jim Threapleton. They had a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, in October 2000. They divorced in 2001. She later married director Sam Mendes in 2003 and gave birth to their son, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, later that year. After seven years of marriage, in February 2010 they announced that they had amicably separated, and divorced in October 2010. In 2012, Kate married Ned Rocknroll, with whom she has a son. She was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama.

Almost everyone who has spent time with Kate Hudson -including directors, family members, co-stars and interviewers - is quick to comment on her ability to light up a room. Through some combination of a winning smile, solid work ethic, and good old-fashioned talent, the young actress has gone from indie beginner to Vanity Fair cover girl in just three years. What's more, she's done it all without capitalizing on the success of legendary actress mom, Goldie Hawn.

Kate Hudson was born in Los Angeles, California, to Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, a comedian, actor and singer. She was raised by her mother and her mother's longtime boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell, whom she considers to be her father. Kate is the sister of actor Oliver Hudson, the half-sister of actor and hockey player Wyatt Russell, and the granddaughter of band musician Rut Hawn. She is the niece of entertainment publicist Patti Hawn, record producer Mark Hudson and musician Brett Hudson. Kate is of Hungarian Jewish (from her maternal grandmother), Italian (from her paternal grandmother), English, and German ancestry.

By all accounts, Hudson was a born performer - as a child she danced and sang at every opportunity. Her family hoped that she would attend New York University after graduating from high school, but she opted to get her feet wet in the professional acting world first. She made her big-screen debut as an ambitious young starlet stranded in a tiny California town in Desert Blue (1998). Her next two films, while critically panned, made it into wider release: 200 Cigarettes (1999) (in which she played an earnest but accident-prone ditz) and Gossip (2000) (which cast her as a rich, virginal college student). Perhaps Hudson's biggest break was landing the role of rock groupie (or "Band Aide") Penny Lane in Almost Famous (2000). The part was originally intended for Sarah Polley; when Polley backed out to pursue another project, director Cameron Crowe considered scrapping the film altogether. Hudson, who had been cast in a smaller role (as William's stewardess sister), begged for a chance to read for Penny. Crowe was impressed, Hudson got the part, and the show went on. As much as Tinseltown gossipmongers would like to put them at odds, mother and daughter agree that Hawn is one of Hudson's biggest supporters.

Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth, Middlesex, England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the series Rising Damp (1974), Porridge (1974) and The Lovers (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 31, when Kate was five years old, and her mother Judy Loe never remarried, and her grandmother moved in to help her mother.

Kate attended the private school Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens she twice won the British bookseller W.H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting.

Her major acting debut came in a TV film about World War II called One Against the Wind (1991), filmed in Luxembourg during the summer of 1991. It first aired on American television that December. Kate began attending Oxford University's New College in the fall of 1991, majoring in French and Russian literature. She had already decided that she wanted to act, but to broaden her horizons she chose university over drama school. While in her first year at Oxford, Kate received her big break in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Kate worked in three other films while attending Oxford, beginning with a part in the medieval historical drama Royal Deceit (1994), cast as Ethel. The film was shot during the spring of 1993 on location in Denmark, and she filmed her supporting part during New College's Easter break. Later in the summer of that year she played the lead in the contemporary mystery drama Uncovered (1994). Before she went back to school, her third year at university was spent at Oxford's study-abroad program in Paris, France, immersing herself in the French language, Parisian culture and French cigarettes.

A year away from the academic community and living on her own in the French capital caused her to re-evaluate the direction of her life. She faced a choice: continue with school or concentrate on her flourishing acting career. After much thought, she chose the acting career. In the spring of 1994 Kate left Oxford, after finishing three years of study. Kate appeared in the BBC/Thames Television satire Cold Comfort Farm (1995), filmed in London and East Sussex during late summer 1994 and which opened to spectacular reviews in the United States, grossing over $5 million during its American run. It was re-released to U.K. theaters in the spring of 1997.

Acting on the stage consumed the first part of 1995; she toured in England with the Thelma Holts Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". After turning down several mediocre scripts "and going nearly berserk with boredom", she waited seven months before another interesting role was offered to her. Her big movie of 1995 was the romance/horror movie Haunted (1995), starring opposite Aidan Quinn and John Gielgud, and filmed in West Sussex. In this film she wanted to play "an object of desire", unlike her past performances where her characters were much less the siren and more the worldly innocent. Kate's first film project of 1996 was the British ITV production of Jane Austen's novel Emma (1996). Her last film of 1996 was the comedy Shooting Fish (1997), filmed at Shepperton Studios in London during early fall. She played the part of Georgie, an altruistic con artist. She had a daughter, Lily, in 1999 with actor Michael Sheen.

Kate Mara is an American actress. She starred in the Netflix political drama House of Cards (2013) as Zoe Barnes and appeared in the Fox TV series 24 (2001) as computer analyst Shari Rothenberg. She appeared in Brokeback Mountain (2005), We Are Marshall (2006), Shooter (2007), Transsiberian (2008), Stone of Destiny (2008), The Open Road (2009), Transcendence (2014), and Fantastic Four (2015) as the Invisible Woman. She also appeared in the FX horror mini-series American Horror Story (2011) as Hayden McClaine. Mara's film debut was in Random Hearts (1999), with Harrison Ford in 1999, directed by Sydney Pollack. In 2015, she also had a supporting role as astronaut "Beth Johanssen" in director Ridley Scott's film The Martian (2015). In the same year, she also starred as Ashley Smith in the movie Captive (2015).

Mara also starred in Morgan (2016), Megan Leavey (2017) and My Days of Mercy (2017).

Kate was born in Bedford, New York. She is one of four children of Kathleen McNulty (Rooney) and NFL football team New York Giants executive Timothy Christopher Mara. Her younger sister is actress Rooney Mara.

Her grandfathers were Wellington Mara, co-owner of the Giants, and Timothy Rooney, owner of Yonkers Raceway, and her grand-uncle is Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the former US Ambassador to Ireland. She is the great-granddaughter of Art Rooney Sr., the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise. She often sings the national anthem at Giants home games. Her father has Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry, and her mother is of Irish and Italian descent.

Mara graduated from high school a year early. She was accepted at the prestigious NYU Tisch School of the Arts but deferred her admission for three consecutive years.

Kate Bosworth was born in Los Angeles, California, to Patricia (Potter), a homemaker, and Harold Bosworth, who was an executive for Talbots. Unlike the characters Bosworth has portrayed in television and in film, which are known as "townies", Kate spent most of her childhood in different cities and states. At age 6, she and her parents moved to San Francisco, then to Connecticut at 9, and to Cohasset, Massachusetts, at 14. It was at 14 that Kate, a champion equestrian, learned of a casting call for a movie about horses.

Although Kate attended the open audition in New York for the Robert Redford film The Horse Whisperer (1998) simply in hopes of getting the experience of what it was like to audition for a movie role, she won the role of the female lead's best friend and the chance to work with director/star Robert Redford. Her previous acting experience had consisted of singing at county fairs in California and acting in a community theatre production of "Annie". However, since landing the movie role, Kate seemed to be in more sound stages than ranches. Fearful that an early career would rob her of her childhood, she took 18 months off to live a normal life before opting to plunge into acting again. In 2000, she landed the role of the bratty sister in the feature film The Newcomers (2000) and the part of a football co-captain's girlfriend in the Denzel Washington movie Remember the Titans (2000).

Throughout high school, Kate maintained academic excellence and was an honor roll student and a member of National Honor Society. In her spare time, she has volunteered with various non-profit organizations, including a Los Angeles program for physically challenged children who learn to ride horses with assistance.

Katherine Elizabeth Upton was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, to Shelley Fawn (Davis), a state tennis champion from Texas, and Jefferson Matthew Upton, a high school athletics director. Her uncle is Michigan congressman Fred Upton. Upton always knew she wanted to be a model. Since signing with IMG Models in 2010, Kate has taken the world by storm. For the past two years, Kate has graced the cover of the legendary Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, which has led to an onslaught of media buzz about the 21-year-old. Kate's stardom was elevated to an even higher level with her June 2013 American Vogue cover shot by Mario Testino, whose byline proclaims "American Dream Girl: How Kate Upton Became the Hottest Supermodel on Earth." She has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Ellen Show, The Late Show, Saturday Night Live, The Dan Patrick Show, and Le Grand Journal, and continues to be one of the most searched-for names on Google.

Beyond Sports Illustrated, Kate has been featured on the covers of Vogue Italia, British Vogue, CR Fashion Book, Cosmopolitan, French ELLE, GQ, Italian GQ, German GQ, Jalouse, Sunday Times Style, Esquire, The Daily, and Muse Magazine. She has appeared in fashion editorials for American Vogue, Vogue Spain, V Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, and Russian Interview, and has worked with photographers such as Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Terry Richardson, Alasdair McLellan, Bruce Weber, Sebastian Kim, Guy Aroch, Matt Jones, Miguel Reveriego, Norman Jean Roy, Josh Olins, Gilles Bensimon, Yu Tsai, Sebastian Faena, Walter Iooss, Ellen von Unwerth, and Stewart Shining. A favorite of high-fashion notables such as Stephen Gan, Tonne Goodman, Carlyne Cerf, Carine Roitfeld, and Katie Grand, Kate was also shot for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations" Exhibition Catalogue in 2012. Models.com exclaims, "The sexy market just got a little more competitive thanks to the meteoric rise of Kate Upton. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition was a major coup, but the momentum keeps building with cover after cover. We can't remember the last time a newbie made such a splash!"

Kate's YouTube video of her dancing to Cali Swag District's "Teach Me How to Dougie" last year was the number one watched video on Twitter and Google for multiple weeks. She has an enterprising reputation for creating viral hits, and the clip has over 8 million views.

Known for her vivacious personality and incredible physique, Kate has been the face for Sam Edelman, Accessorize, Guess Lingerie, Guess Jeans, Guess Accessories, Liverpool, Dylan George, and Dooney & Burke. She has also worked with Gillette, Skullcandy Headphones and Beach Bunny Swimwear, even designing a Beach Bunny Swimwear collection herself. She has starred in commercials for Mercedes-Benz, Carl's Junior and Sobe, and starred in The Other Woman (2014), by director Nick Cassavetes.

Kate resides in New York City. Kate is a five-time world champion equestrian, and she enjoys hanging out at the barn, horseback riding, and is an avid sportsfan.