Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest 2006 premiere
Saturday June 26th, Disneyland Park 1313 Disneyland Dr, Anaheim, CA 92802
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John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one named 'The Kids'. When he married Lori A. Depp, he took a job as a ballpoint-pen salesman to support himself and his wife. A visit to Los Angeles, California, with his wife, however, happened to be a blessing in disguise, when he met up with actor Nicolas Cage, who advised him to turn to acting, which culminated in Depp's film debut in the low-budget horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), where he played a teenager who falls prey to dream-stalking demon Freddy Krueger.
In 1987 he shot to stardom when he replaced Jeff Yagher in the role of undercover cop Tommy Hanson in the popular TV series 21 Jump Street (1987). In 1990, after numerous roles in teen-oriented films, his first of a handful of great collaborations with director Tim Burton came about when Depp played the title role in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following the film's success, Depp carved a niche for himself as a serious, somewhat dark, idiosyncratic performer, consistently selecting roles that surprised critics and audiences alike. He continued to gain critical acclaim and increasing popularity by appearing in many features before re-joining with Burton in the lead role of Ed Wood (1994). In 1997 he played an undercover FBI agent in the fact-based film Donnie Brasco (1997), opposite Al Pacino; in 1998 he appeared in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), directed by Terry Gilliam; and then, in 1999, he appeared in the sci-fi/horror film The Astronaut's Wife (1999). The same year he teamed up again with Burton in Sleepy Hollow (1999), brilliantly portraying Ichabod Crane.
Depp has played many characters in his career, including another fact-based one, Insp. Fred Abberline in From Hell (2001). He stole the show from screen greats such as Antonio Banderas in the finale to Robert Rodriguez's "mariachi" trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In that same year he starred in the marvelous family blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), playing a character that only the likes of Depp could pull off: the charming, conniving and roguish Capt. Jack Sparrow. The film's enormous success has opened several doors for his career and included an Oscar nomination. He appeared as the central character in the Stephen King-based movie, Secret Window (2004); as the kind-hearted novelist James Barrie in the factually-based Finding Neverland (2004), where he co-starred with Kate Winslet; and Rochester in the British film, The Libertine (2004). Depp collaborated again with Burton in a screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and later in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012).
Off-screen, Depp has dated several female celebrities, and has been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. He was married to Lori Anne Allison in 1983, but divorced her in 1985. Depp has two children with his former long-time partner, French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis: Lily-Rose Melody, born in 1999 and John Christopher "Jack" III, born in 2002. He married actress/producer Amber Heard in 2015, divorcing a few years later.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Copeland Bloom was born on January 13, 1977 in Canterbury, Kent, England. His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine Bloom (née Copeland), was born in Kolkata, India, to an English family then-resident there. The man he first knew as his father, Harry Bloom, was a legendary political activist who fought for civil rights in South Africa. But Harry died of a stroke when Orlando was only four years old. After that, Orlando and his older sister, Samantha Bloom, were raised by their mother and family friend, Colin Stone. When Orlando was 13, Sonia revealed to him that Colin is actually the biological father of Orlando and his sister; the two were conceived after an agreement by his parents, since Harry, who suffered a stroke in 1975, was unable to have children.
Orlando attended St. Edmund's School in Canterbury but struggled in many courses because of dyslexia. He did embrace the arts, however, and enjoyed pottery, photography and sculpturing. He also participated in school plays and was active at his local theater. As a teen, Orlando landed his first job: he was a clay trapper at a pigeon shooting range. Encouraged by his mother, he and his sister began studying poetry and prose, eventually giving readings at Kent Festival. Orlando and Samantha won many poetry and Bible reciting competitions. Then Orlando, who always idolized larger-than-life characters, gravitated towards serious acting. At the age of 16, he moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre, spending two seasons there and gaining a scholarship to train with the British American Drama Academy. Like many young actors, he also auditioned for a number of television roles to further his career, landing bit parts in British television shows Casualty (1986), Midsomer Murders (1997) and Smack the Pony (1999). He also appeared in the critically acclaimed movie Wilde (1997).
He then attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It was there, in 1998, that Orlando fell three stories from a rooftop terrace and broke his back. Despite fears that he would be permanently paralyzed, he quickly recovered and returned to the stage. As fate would have it, seated in the audience one night in 1999 was a director named Peter Jackson. After the show, he met with Orlando and asked him to audition for his new set of movies. After graduating from Guildhall, Orlando began work on the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, spending 18 months in New Zealand bringing to life "Legolas", a part which made him a household name. Today, he is one of the busiest and most sought-after actors in the industry.- Actress
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Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26, 1985 in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her father is English, while her Scottish-born mother is of Scottish and Welsh origin. Brought up immersed in the acting profession from both sides - writing and performing - it is little wonder that the young Keira asked for her own agent at the age of three. She was granted one at the age of six and performed in her first TV role as "Little Girl" in Royal Celebration (1993), aged seven.
It was discovered at an early age that Keira had severe difficulties in reading and writing. She was not officially dyslexic as she never sat the formal tests required of the British Dyslexia Association. Instead, she worked incredibly hard, encouraged by her family, until the problem had been overcome by her early teens. Her first multi-scene performance came in A Village Affair (1995), an adaptation of the lesbian love story by Joanna Trollope. This was followed by small parts in the British crime series The Bill (1984), an exiled German princess in The Treasure Seekers (1996) and a much more substantial role as the young "Judith Dunbar" in Giles Foster's adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's novel Coming Home (1998), alongside Peter O'Toole, Penelope Keith and Joanna Lumley. The first time Keira's name was mentioned around the world was when it was revealed (in a plot twist kept secret by director George Lucas) that she played Natalie Portman's decoy "Padme" to Portman's "Amidala" in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). It was several years before agreement was reached over which scenes featured Keira as the queen and which featured Natalie!
Keira had no formal training as an actress and did it out of pure enjoyment. She went to an ordinary council-run school in nearby Teddington and had no idea what she wanted to do when she left. By now, she was beginning to receive far more substantial roles and was starting to turn work down as one project and her schoolwork was enough to contend with. She reappeared on British television in 1999 as "Rose Fleming" in Alan Bleasdale's faithful reworking of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1999), and traveled to Romania to film her first title role in Walt Disney's Princess of Thieves (2001) in which she played Robin Hood's daughter, Gwyn. Keira's first serious boyfriend was her Princess of Thieves (2001) co-star Del Synnott, and they later co-starred in Peter Hewitt's 'work of fart' Thunderpants (2002). Nick Hamm's dark thriller The Hole (2001) kept her busy during 2000, and featured her first nude scene (15 at the time, the film was not released until she was 16 years old). In the summer of 2001, while Keira studied and sat her final school exams (she received six A's), she filmed a movie about an Asian girl's (Parminder Nagra) love for football and the prejudices she has to overcome regarding both her culture and her religion). Bend It Like Beckham (2002) was a smash hit in football-mad Britain but it had to wait until another of Keira's films propelled it to the top end of the US box office. Bend It Like Beckham (2002) cost just £3.5m to make, and nearly £1m of that came from the British Lottery. It took £11m in the UK and has since gone on to score more than US$76m worldwide.
Meanwhile, Keira had started A-levels at Esher College, studying Classics, English Literature and Political History, but continued to take acting roles which she thought would widen her experience as an actress. The story of a drug-addicted waitress and her friendship with the young son of a drug-addict, Pure (2002), occupied Keira from January to March 2002. Also at this time, Keira's first attempt at Shakespeare was filmed. She played "Helena" in a modern interpretation of a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" entitled The Seasons Alter (2002). This was commissioned by the environmental organization "Futerra", of which Keira's mother is patron. Keira received no fee for this performance or for another short film, New Year's Eve (2002), by award-winning director Col Spector. But it was a chance encounter with producer Andy Harries at the London premiere of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) which forced Keira to leave her studies and pursue acting full-time. The meeting lead to an audition for the role of "Larisa Feodorovna Guishar" - the classic heroine of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (2002), played famously in the David Lean movie by Julie Christie. This was to be a big-budget TV movie with a screenplay written by Andrew Davies. Keira won the part and the mini-series was filmed throughout the Spring of 2002 in Slovakia, co-starring Sam Neill and Hans Matheson as "Yuri Zhivago". Keira rounded off 2002 with a few scenes in the first movie to be directed by Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley writer Richard Curtis. Called Love Actually (2003), Keira played "Juliet", a newlywed whose husband's Best Man is secretly besotted with her. A movie filmed after Love Actually (2003) but released before it was to make the world sit up and take notice of this beautiful fresh-faced young actress with a cute British accent. It was a movie which Keira very nearly missed out on, altogether. Auditions were held in London for a new blockbuster movie called Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), but heavy traffic in the city forced Keira to be tagged on to the end of the day's auditions list. It helped - she got the part. Filming took place in Los Angeles and the Caribbean from October 2002 to March 2003 and was released to massive box office success and almost universal acclaim in the July of that year.
Meanwhile, a small British film called Bend It Like Beckham (2002) had sneaked onto a North American release slate and was hardly setting the box office alight. But Keira's dominance in "Pirates" had set tongues wagging and questions being asked about the actress playing "Elizabeth Swann". Almost too late, "Bend It"'s distributors realized one of its two stars was the same girl whose name was on everyone's lips due to "Pirates", and took the unusual step of re-releasing "Bend It" to 1,000 screens across the US, catapulting it from no. 26 back up to no. 12. "Pirates", meanwhile, was fighting off all contenders at the top spot, and stayed in the Top 3 for an incredible 21 weeks. It was perhaps no surprise, then, that Keira was on producer Jerry Bruckheimer's wanted list for the part of "Guinevere" in a planned accurate telling of the legend of "King Arthur". Filming took place in Ireland and Wales from June to November 2003. In July, Keira had become the celebrity face of British jeweller and luxury goods retailer, Asprey. At a photoshoot for the company on Long Island New York in August, Keira met and fell in love with Northern Irish model Jamie Dornan. King Arthur (2004) was released in July 2004 to lukewarm reviews. It seems audiences wanted the legend after all, and not necessarily the truth. Keira became the breakout star and 'one to watch in 2004' throughout the world's media at the end of 2003.
Keira's 2004 started off in Scotland and Canada filming John Maybury's time-travelling thriller The Jacket (2005) with Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. A planned movie of Deborah Moggach's novel, "Tulip Fever", about forbidden love in 17th Century Amsterdam, was canceled in February after the British government suddenly closed tax loopholes which allowed filmmakers to claw back a large proportion of their expenditure. Due to star Keira and Jude Law in the main roles, the film remains mothballed. Instead, Keira spent her time wisely, visiting Ethiopia on behalf of the "Comic Relief" charity, and spending summer at various grandiose locations around the UK filming what promises to be a faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride & Prejudice (2005), alongside Matthew Macfadyen as "Mr. Darcy", and with Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench in supporting roles. In October 2004, Keira received her first major accolade, the Hollywood Film Award for Best Breakthrough Actor - Female, and readers of Empire Magazine voted her the Sexiet Movie Star Ever. The remainder of 2004 saw Keira once again trying a completely new genre, this time the part-fact, part-fiction life story of model turned bounty hunter Domino (2005). 2005 started with the premiere of The Jacket (2005) at the Sundance Film Festival, with the US premiere in LA on February 28th. Much of the year was then spent in the Caribbean filming both sequels to Pirates Of The Caribbean. Keira's first major presenting role came in a late-night bed-in comedy clip show for Comic Relief with presenter Johnny Vaughan. In late July, promotions started for the September release of Pride & Prejudice (2005), with British fans annoyed to learn that the US version would end with a post-marriage kiss, but the European version would not. Nevertheless, when the movie opened in September on both sides of the Atlantic, Keira received her greatest praise thus far in her career, amid much talk of awards. It spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK box office.
Domino (2005) opened well in October, overshadowed by the death of Domino Harvey earlier in the year. Keira received Variety's Personality Of The Year Award in November, topped the following month by her first Golden Globe nomination, for Pride & Prejudice (2005). KeiraWeb.com exclusively announced that Keira would play Helene Joncour in an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco's novella Silk (2007). Pride & Prejudice (2005) garnered six BAFTA nominations at the start of 2006, but not Best Actress for Keira, a fact which paled soon after by the announcement she had received her first Academy Award nomination, the third youngest Best Actress Oscar hopeful. A controversial nude Vanity Fair cover of Keira and Scarlett Johansson kept the press busy up till the Oscars, with Reese Witherspoon taking home the gold man in the Best Actress category, although Keira's Vera Wang dress got more media attention. Keira spent early summer in Europe filming Silk (2007) opposite Michael Pitt, and the rest of the summer in the UK filming Atonement (2007), in which she plays Cecilia Tallis, and promoting the new Pirates movie (her Ellen Degeneres interview became one of the year's Top 10 'viral downloads'). Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) broke many box office records when it opens worldwide in July, becoming the third biggest movie ever by early September. Keira sued British newspaper The Daily Mail in early 2007 after her image in a bikini accompanied an article about a woman who blamed slim celebrities for the death of her daughter from anorexia. The case was settled and Keira matched the settlement damages and donated the total amount to an eating disorder charity. Keira filmed a movie about the life of Dylan Thomas, The Edge Of Love (2008) with a screenplay written by her mother Sharman Macdonald. Her co-star Lindsay Lohan pulled out just a week before filming began, and was replaced by Sienna Miller.
What was announced to be Keira's final Pirates movie in the franchise, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007), opened strongly in June, rising to all-time fifth biggest movie by July. Atonement (2007) opened the Venice Film Festival in August, and opened worldwide in September, again to superb reviews for Keira. Meanwhile, Silk (2007) opened in September on very few screens and disappeared without a trace. Keira spent the rest of the year filming The Duchess (2008), the life story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, based on Amanda Foreman's award-winning biography of the distant relation of Princess Diana. The year saw more accolades and poll-topping for Keira than ever before, including Women's Beauty Icon 2007 and gracing the covers of all the top-selling magazines. She won Best Actress for Atonement (2007) at the Variety Club Of Great Britain Showbiz Awards, and ended the year with her second Golden Globe nomination. Christmas Day saw - or rather heard - Keira on British TV screens in a new Robbie The Reindeer animated adventure, with DVD proceeds going to Comic Relief. At the start of 2008, Keira received her first BAFTA nomination - Best Actress for Atonement, and the movie wins Best Film: Drama at the Golden Globes. Seven Academy Award nominations for Atonement soon follow. Keira wins Best Actress for her role as Cecilia Tallis at the Empire Film Awards. In May, Keira's first Shakespearean role is announced, when she is confirmed to play Cordelia in a big-screen version of King Lear, alongside Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow, with Sir Anthony Hopkins as the titular monarch. After two years of rumours, it is confirmed that Keira is on the shortlist to play Eliza Doolittle in a new adaptation of My Fair Lady. The Edge Of Love opens the Edinburgh Film Festival on June 18th, and opens on limited release in the UK and US. A huge round of promotions for The Duchess occurs throughout the summer, with cast and crew trying to play down the marketers' decision to draw parallels between the duchess and Princess Diana. Keira attends the UK and US premieres and Toronto Film Festival within the first week of September. The Duchess opens strongly on both sides of the Atlantic. Two more movies were confirmed for Keira during September - a tale of adultery called Last Night (2010), and a biopic of author F Scott Fitzgerald entitled The Beautiful and the Damned.
Keira spent October on the streets of New York City filming Last Night alongside Sam Worthington and Guillaume Canet. Keira helped to promote the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, by contributing to a series of short films produced to mark the occasion. In January 2009 it was announced Keira had signed to play a reclusive actress in an adaptation of Ken Bruen's novel London Boulevard (2010), co-starring Colin Farrell. Keira continues her close ties with the Comic Relief charity by helping to launch their British icons T-shirts campaign. In the same week King Lear was revealed to have been shelved, it was announced that Keira would instead star alongside her Pride & Prejudice co-star Carey Mulligan in an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010). A new short film emerges in March, recorded in the January of 2008 in which Keira plays a Fairy! The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers (2009) was written by Keira's boyfriend Rupert Friend and actor Tom Mison. It went to be shown at the London Film Festival in October and won Best Comedy Short at the New Hampshire Film Festival. Keira continued to put her celebrity to good use in 2009 with a TV commercial for WomensAid highlighting domestic abuse against women. Unfortunately, UK censors refused to allow its broadcast and it can only be viewed on YouTube. May and June saw Keira filming Never Let Me Go (2010) and London Boulevard (2010) back-to-back. In October, a new direction for Keira's career emerged, when it was announced she would appear on the London stage in her West End debut role as Jennifer, in a reworking of Moliere's The Misanthrope, starring Damian Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald. More than $2m of ticket sales followed in the first four days, before even rehearsals had begun! The play ran from December to March at London's Comedy Theatre.- British actress Naomie Harris was born in London, England, the only child of television scriptwriter Lisselle Kayla. Her father is from Trinidad and her mother is from Jamaica. They separated before she was born, and Harris was raised by her mother and has no relationship with her father. She showed an interest in acting from an early age and attended the prestigious Anna Scher Theatre School. From here, Harris won roles in various projects, such as Simon and the Witch (1987) and The Tomorrow People (1992). She went on to study social and political sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, an experience Harris did not enjoy.
After graduating from the University, Harris trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Acting success soon followed and her breakthrough film role came in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002). Other notable projects include Miami Vice (2006) and Small Island (2009) (for which she was named best female actor by the Royal Television Society). Harris also won fans for her role as voodoo witch Tia Dalma in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), and further international attention came her way when she played field agent Eve Moneypenny in the James Bond film Skyfall (2012).
Naomie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the drama Moonlight (2016), which won the Best Picture Oscar that year.
Naomie Harris was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2017 New Years Honours for her services to drama. - Actor
- Producer
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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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Bill Nighy is an award-winning British character actor. He was born William Francis Nighy on December 12, 1949 in Caterham, Surrey, England, to Catherine Josephine (Whittaker), a psychiatric nurse from Glasgow, and Alfred Martin Nighy, who was English-born and managed a garage in Croydon.
At school, he gained 'O'-levels in English Language and English Literature and enjoyed reading, particularly Ernest Hemingway. On leaving school he wanted to become a journalist but didn't have the required qualifications. He eventually went on to work as a messenger boy for the Field magazine. He stayed in Paris for a while because he wanted to write "the great novel", but he only managed to write the title. When he ran out of money, the British consul shipped him home.
Nighy wound up training at Guildford School of Dance and Drama in London, and has since then worked consistently in film, television, and on stage.
Nighy is perhaps best-known to international audiences for his memorable performance as washed-up pop singer Billy Mack in Love Actually (2003), which won him a BAFTA for best supporting actor. He has also made appearances in major franchises: he played vampire leader Viktor in Underworld (2003), Underworld: Evolution (2006) and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), did the performance capture and voice for Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), and made a brief appearance as Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010).
Nighy's recent film credits include roles in I Capture the Castle (2003), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), The Constant Gardener (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), Hot Fuzz (2007), Valkyrie (2008) and The Boat That Rocked (2009). He has also provided voice work for many animated movies in the past few years including Flushed Away (2006), Astro Boy (2009), Rango (2011) and Arthur Christmas (2011).
With supporting turns in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Wrath of the Titans (2012) and Total Recall (2012), 2012 was a busy year for Nighy. There are no signs of slowing down either, as he next appeared in Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), About Time (2013), and I, Frankenstein (2014).
Nighy has also had an active career on the small screen, beginning with Agony (1979), and his first widely-recognized role was in 1991 mini-series The Men's Room (1991). He has also made a habit of working on television with Harry Potter director David Yates: projects together include State of Play (2003), The Young Visiters (2003), The Girl in the Café (2005) and Page Eight (2011). Nighy won a Golden Globe for his performance in Gideon's Daughter (2005).
Nighy actually began his career on the stage, and has earned acclaim for his work in numerous plays including "The Vertical Hour," "Pravda". "A Map of the World", Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in 1993, and David Hare's Skylight. He received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in 2001 play "Blue/Orange."
Bill's partner was actress Diana Quick (he asked her to marry him but she said: "don't ask me again"; he called her his wife because anything else would have been too difficult). They have a daughter, Mary Nighy, who is studying at university and contemplating an acting career. She has already begun to appear on TV dramas and radio programs.- Actor
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Tom Hollander was born the second child of educated parents, both teachers. He grew up in Oxford, (UK).
Hollander credits the happy atmosphere of the Dragon School with his childhood introduction to acting. There, encouraged by an influential teacher named Andrew Roberts, he won the title role in "Oliver". His studies continued at Abingdon, as did his pursuit of acting. At about this point, he won a place in the National Youth Theatre, a UK organization for young people in the field of musical theatre, based in London, and later at the Children's Music Theatre. It was during CMT's "The Leaving of Liverpool" (1981) that he came to the attention of BBC television, and subsequently found himself front and center as the young protagonist in a well-regarded John Diamond (1981), based on the popular Leon Garfield adventure novel. He was just fourteen years old.
Other early projects included two roles in Bertholt Brecht's "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" (1985) for the National Youth Theatre, and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for Oxford University Dramatic Society.
Hollander attended Cambridge University at about the same time as his childhood friend Sam Mendes in a visually bold (and well-remembered) staging of "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1988). Other collaborations with Mendes have followed, including work at the West End production of "The Cherry Orchard" (1989, with Judi Dench), and the Chichester Festival Theatre (1989) as well as a Toronto staging of "Kean" (1991) with Derek Jacobi. He also appeared in the Cambridge Footlights Revue (1988).
Upon graduation, Hollander hoped to gain entry to drama school, but found himself disappointed. The oversight did nothing to discourage a successful career already well under way: he garnered an Ian Charleson Award for his turn as Witwould in "The Way of the World" (1992), was nominated again for a "splendidly sinister, manic" performance as "Tartuffe" (1996), and yet again as a finalist for his Khlestakov ("a performance of ideal vigour and impudence"), in Gogol's "The Government Inspector" (1997). Inevitably, Hollander was urged to try films, and appeared in two films as early as 1996. True Blue (1996) (aka "Miracle at Oxford") found him in a small but memorable role as the cox for Oxford's noted 1987 "mutiny crew" that went on to win the that year's boat race against Cambridge, and in a thankless role in Some Mother's Son (1996), a sober drama about an IRA gunman, playing a Thatcher representative.
Hollander's career has featured a number of memorable gay roles. His fans are especially fond of the larger-than-life Darren from Bedrooms and Hallways (1998), a romantic comedy with what one reviewer called the "funniest bedroom scene of the year" involving Hollander's character and Hugo Weaving. The over-the-top Darren was so convincing that some viewers assumed Hollander was gay. "Sometimes I call myself a professional homosexual impersonator," he told an interviewer at the time, quickly adding, "you could say that ...Sir Ian McKellen and Rock Hudson do straight actors." The following year, he would take on a very different kind of "gay" role, playing the notorious "Bosie" (Lord Alfred Douglas) against Liam Neeson's Oscar Wilde in "The Judas Kiss" (1998).
"Martha -- Meet Frank Daniel and Laurence" (aka The Very Thought of You (1998), with Joseph Fiennes and Rufus Sewell, brought accolades for his standout role as Daniel, a difficult music executive. Variety, impressed, noted him for "U.K. legit work" and called him the "undisputed hit of the pic".
2001 brought Gosford Park (2001), Robert Altman's masterfully stylized murder mystery, in which he played the quietly desperate Anthony Meredith against Michael Gambon's callously indifferent paterfamilias. Hollander's name figures in a half dozen or more "Best Ensemble" awards for this complex, multi-storied film.
Considered the character-actor-of-choice for roles with comedic qualities, Hollander has challenged assumptions about his capacity by taking on difficult, troubled characters such as the tightly-wound King George V in Stephen Poliakoff's The Lost Prince (2003) for BBC and the demented fascist dictator Maximillian II in Land of the Blind (2006). Hollander himself is particularly proud of the film Lawless Heart (2001), a slyly humorous, cleverly constructed comedy-drama told from three viewpoints. Hollander's character, the heart of the film, is a decent man, devastated by the death of his partner, and grieving privately as the stories of friends and family unfold around him. A study of desire, loyalty and courage, the film was very well reviewed and much respected.
More recent film work has brought him to the attention of mainstream movie audiences, who now know him as the magnificently petty tyrant Lord Cutler Beckett in the second and third installments of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007). This role brought another kind of achievement: Hollander could now say that he'd been commemorated in collectible action-figure form.
He's worked three times with director Joe Wright, beginning with the prissy, yet strangely likeable Mr. Collins in Pride & Prejudice (2005), as a clueless classical cellist in an unfortunately truncated role in The Soloist (2009), and as Issacs, the German henchman in Hanna (2011).
With In the Loop (2009), Hollander brought a perfectly unbearable, delicate tension to the role of Simon Foster, the earnestly clueless "British Secretary of State for International Development" who says the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. The film acted as a kind of companion piece to the critically-acclaimed The Thick of It (2005) on BBC2, Armando Iannucci's furious political satire on the machinations of war and media. Hollander's contribution to the expanded story was apparently so well-received he was "brought back" (but in a different role, entirely) from film to television for a series-ending surprise-appearance in series 3, delighting fans of the show.
Recent work in television has brought him the opportunity to expand on his special capacity for conveying nuanced and contradictory characters. He earned an award for Best Actor at the FIPA International Television Festival for his portrayal of Guy Burgess in Cambridge Spies (2003), and earned praise for the monstrously rude yet oddly endearing Leon in the satire Freezing (2008), with Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) for BBC. He was unforgettable in an elegantly brief but very moving portrayal of King George III for HBO's John Adams (2008).
2010 brought Hollander to widespread attention with Rev. (2010), which he co-created with James Wood. The show, initially described in what was assumed to be familiar terms ("vicar", "comedy") became something entirely new: "...an exploration of British hypocrisy and a warmly played character piece", wrote Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor at St Paul's Cathedral in a piece for The Sunday Telegraph. Rev. was much more than it appeared: reviews called it intelligent, realistic and very funny, with a stellar cast headed by Hollander as the sympathetic and very human vicar, Adam Smallbone. The show would garner a BAFTA in 2011 for Best Situation Comedy, among other awards and recognition.
Hollander supports a variety of charitable causes in innovative ways. In 2006 he ran his first race for the Childline Crisis hotline, and in 2007 ran for the Teenage Cancer Trust. He is a long-time supporter of the Helen and Douglas House in Oxford, which provides Hospice care for children, and continues to support charitable organizations by contributing readings and other appearances throughout the year. Hollander is a patron of BIFA, the British Independent Film Awards, and has supported the efforts of the Old Vic's "24 Hour Plays New Voices" Gala, which forwards the cause of young writers for the British stage.
Hollander continues to diversify with voicework roles in radio, reading audiobooks, doing voiceover work and onstage. He appeared in the Old Vic's production of Georges Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear" (2010), playing a demanding dual role: the upstanding Victor Emmanuel Chandebise and the lame-brained Poche. Reviews called it "insanity", and his performance "a breathtaking combination of lightning physical precision and shockingly true confusion".
Hollander is in production for series 2 of the winning comedy Rev. (2010).- Kevin McNally was born on April 27, 1956, in Bristol, England. He grew up in Birmingham where he attended Redhill and Mapledene Junior schools and Central Grammar School for Boys. At the age of 16, he got his first job at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. A year later he received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1975 he won the Best Actor Bancroft Gold Medal for his stage performance. McNally's most notable stage performances in London's West End include his appearance as Alan Bennett opposite Maggie Smith in 'The Lady in the Van' and opposite Juliette Binoche in 'Naked'. He also starred as Richard in Terry Johnson's 'Dead Funny' at the Savoy Theatre.
Since 1976 McNally has been involved in numerous TV productions beginning with his portrayal of the Roman ruler Castor, son of Tiberius, in the acclaimed BBC history series I, Claudius (1976) and his portrayal of Drake Carne in the popular series Poldark (1975). His career on television ascended after his work in Masada (1981) and in the cult TV series Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma (1984). During the 1980s and 1990s McNally established himself as a reputable and versatile actor on both the British and American TV. He played a broad variety of leading and supporting characters ranging from the Soviet politician Kirov in Stalin (1992) to homicide detective Jack Taylor in Chiller (1995), and from an insecure son, Alan Hook, in TV series Dad (1997) to a convicted murderer James Hopkin in Bloodlines (2005). His portrayal of Frank Worsley in Shackleton (2002) as well as the role of Harry Woolf in Life on Mars (2006) are among his best known works for television.
In 1977 McNally made his big screen debut as HMS Ranger Crewman in the James Bond adventure The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). After having played bit parts in more than twenty feature films, McNally shot to international fame as pirate Joshamee Gibbs, his best known film 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). He returned in the role Joshamee Gibbs in the third installment of the 'Pirates' franchise Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
Kevin McNally has been enjoying a happy family life with Scottish actress Phyllis Logan and his two children. He resides with his family in Chiswick, London, England. - Actor
- Writer
- Director
Lee Arenberg has the remarkable ability to morph himself into frightening aliens, twisted psychotherapists, lascivious entertainment executives and everything in between. Most frequently referred to as a character actor, Arenberg maintains a flourishing acting career--almost 20 years spanning television, stage and film. Arenberg has appeared in more than 30 movies, including Cradle Will Rock (1999), RoboCop 3 (1993), Waterworld (1995), Bob Roberts (1992), The Apocalypse (1997), Cross My Heart (1987) and the fantasy adventure feature Dungeons & Dragons (2000). Bitten by the acting bug at age eight when he portrayed David in his Hebrew school play, "Killing Goliath", Arenberg notes that the parable "could be the title of any actor's chances in this game." A native Angeleno, Lee attended Santa Monica high school with "brat packers" Sean Penn, Robert Downey Jr. and Emilio Estevez, and co-wrote a play with Estevez which was directed by Penn. Lee's first professional job was in 1986 at the Mark Taper Forum in "Ghetto", a play directed by Gordon Davidson. Within weeks he was cast in three films, including the role of Norton in the feature Tapeheads (1988)opposite Tim Robbins and John Cusack. Guest appearances on television began in 1987 with the hit sitcom Perfect Strangers (1986), and have continued with memorable roles such as the parking space-stealing New Yorker on Seinfeld (1989) and as the murderous rock promoter opposite Katey Sagal and Sam Kinison in Tales from the Crypt (1989), as well as roles on Arli$$ (1996), Friends (1994), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995). Arenberg can also be seen in the role of the notoriously huge studio head, Bobby G., on the controversial syndicated comedy Action (1999) opposite series star Jay Mohr. Arenberg names his family and friends as his inspirations, and states that having grown up on Los Angeles' Westside, he was able to see actors as the parents of friends and classmates, not as just as movie stars. "It also gave me an honest assessment of the industry and what I was getting myself into," he laughs. He credits "fear of failure" as his main motivation, and admires the talents and creativity of such legendary actors Paul Muni, Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff. Lee also credits much of his development as an actor to his participation in the Actors' Gang, one of Los Angeles' oldest theater companies. The Actors' Gang was founded by Lee in 1981 with Tim Robbins and other friends from UCLA. After 20 years as an actor in the group, Lee recently made his writing and directing debut with Foursome, a play about golf, sex and witchcraft. In his leisure time, Arenberg enjoys golf, cooking, blues harmonica, video games and pitching for his softball team Bubblin' Crude, which is made up of other actors, many of whom are friends from high school. He is involved with St. Jude's Children's Hospital and other children's health causes, and animal rights organizations, participating regularly in fund raising efforts on behalf of those charitable causes.- 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
- Stunts
- Producer
Martin Klebba was born on 23 June 1969 in Troy, Michigan, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Electric State (2024), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and Knee High P.I. (2003). He has been married to Michelle Dilgard since 18 June 2011.- Producer
- Music Department
- Writer
Jerry Bruckheimer is a film and television producer born on September 21, 1943 in Detroit. He graduated from high school in 1961 before it was moving to Arizona. He started his career in 1968 to produce television commercials and advertising for the firm BBD&O in New York.
He left the commercial industry, and branched out into film production and served as associate producer for Dick Richards on the films The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972) and Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975). He started out his production company Jerry Bruckheimer & Associates and then served as producer on the following two films Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and March or Die (1977) before the duo broke up.
He then became an independent producer, serving his job on his films American Gigolo (1980), Defiance (1980), Thief (1981), Cat People (1982) and Young Doctors in Love (1982) throughout the early 1980s, for one of their major studios.
In 1979, Don Simpson met Bruckheimer while working on "American Gigolo" for Paramount. In 1982, Simpson left Paramount Pictures to start out its own independent company with a deal at Paramount, and weeks later, Simpson's production services were merged with Bruckheimer's. During his lifetime, he produced films in the 80s and 90s for Paramount like Flashdance (1983), Thief of Hearts (1984), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and its sequel Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Top Gun (1986) and Days of Thunder (1990), most of them met with success.
After the minor failure of "Days of Thunder", Simpson and Bruckheimer severed its ties with Paramount, and signed a deal with The Walt Disney Studios. In the mid 90s, both Simpson and Bruckheimer produced The Ref (1994), Bad Boys (1995), Crimson Tide (1995), Dangerous Minds (1995) and The Rock (1996). In 1995, Simpson and Bruckheimer terminated its relationship, and the next year Simpson died.
Bruckheimer expanded its activity on television with a deal at Touchstone Television. He produced two shows Dangerous Minds (1996) for ABC and Soldier of Fortune, Inc. (1997) for Rysher Entertainment and TV affiliates and two telepics Max Q (1998) and Swing Vote (1999), both for ABC.
The next few Bruckheimer productions after Simpson died in the late 90s and the early 2000s were Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), Enemy of the State (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) and Coyote Ugly (2000). In 1998, he established Technical Black Films to produce the film Remember the Titans (2000). In 1999, his Bruckheimer production company signed a deal with Ridley Scott and Tony Scott's Scott Free Productions to produce films over a two year period.
In 2000, Bruckheimer hit big with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000). The success of the show led to spinoffs CSI: Miami (2002), CSI: NY (2004) and CSI: Cyber (2015). He followed the franchise up with the reality show The Amazing Race (2001), of which it is also an success made Bruckheimer a major producer for the CBS network. In 2001, he signed a deal with Warner Bros. Television to produce TV shows. He followed up his TV career with Without a Trace (2002) and Cold Case (2003).
In 2001, he produced two war films Pearl Harbor (2001) and Black Hawk Down (2001). The former received negative critical reaction, and the latter gained them critical acclaim. He followed up in 2002 with Bad Company (2002). Throughout the 2000s, Bruckheimer was an active entertainment producer, working on the films Kangaroo Jack (2003), Veronica Guerin (2003), King Arthur (2004), Glory Road (2006), Deja Vu (2006), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) and G-Force (2009) for Disney Studios, and the TV shows Profiles from the Front Line (2003), Skin (2003), E-Ring (2005), Just Legal (2005), Close to Home (2005), Justice (2006), Eleventh Hour (2008), Dark Blue (2009) and The Forgotten (2009).
He is the creative force for franchise films. In 2003, he made a sequel to his "Bad Boys", Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), and he launched the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, starting with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), and spawning sequels like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) and the "National Treasure" franchise, comprising of two films National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007).
In 2007, he had to partner with MTV to create a game studio, and joined the ZeniMax board of directors. In 2009, he launched Jerry Bruckheimer Games, and by 2011 rumored to be worked on three titles, before it was shut down in 2013.
By the 2010s, he was in declining force, and his films Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010), The Lone Ranger (2013), 12 Strong (2018) and Gemini Man (2019) are turned out to be box office disappointments, and his TV shows Miami Medical (2010), Chase (2010), The Whole Truth (2010), Hostages (2013), Training Day (2017) and Council of Dads (2020) turned out to be failures after one season.
In 2013, he signed a deal with Paramount Pictures to produce follow-up films to "Top Gun" and "Beverly Hills Cop" and their deal with Disney ended. Three years later, he terminated its deal with Warner Bros. Television and a year later signed with CBS Television Studios. His minor box office success rolled in with Deliver Us from Evil (2014). His only big TV hits came in from the decade were Lucifer (2016) and L.A.'s Finest (2019).
Bruckheimer was named as one of the investors of a proposed sports arena in Las Vegas, and had been rumored to be the leading choice by the National Hockey League (NHL) to own an expansion hockey team that would play in the arena. Bruckheimer was also named as one of the investors of a proposed Seattle-based NHL expansion team whose application was submitted in early 2018. The NHL Board of Governors voted to approve the team, named the Seattle Kraken, on December 4, 2018, which will start play in the 2021-22 season. Jerry Bruckheimer was part of an investment group that also included Tim Leiweke (Oak View Group) and David Bonderman (minority owner NBA's Boston Celtics).
He is currently on post-production on the sequel to his 1986 film "Top Gun", Top Gun: Maverick (2022) for Paramount Pictures.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Gore Verbinski, one of American cinema's most inventive directors who was a punk-rock guitarist as a teenager and had to sell his guitar to buy his first camera, is now the director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) which made the industry record for highest opening weekend of all time ($135,600,000) and grossed over $1 billion dollars worldwide.
He was born Gregor Verbinski on March 16, 1964 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to Laurette Ann (McGovern) and Victor Vincent Verbinski, a nuclear physicist who worked at the Oak Ridge Lab. His paternal grandparents were Polish. In 1967, the family moved to California, and young Gregor grew up near San Diego. His biggest influences as a kid were Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Black Sabbath's Master of Reality. He started his professional career as a guitarist for punk-rock bands, such as The Daredevils and The Little Kings, and also made his first films together with friends. After having developed a passion for filmmaking, he sold his guitar to buy a Super-8mm camera. Then Verbinski attended the prestigious UCLA Film School, from which he graduated in 1987 with his BFA in Film. His first professional directing jobs were music videos for alternative bands, such as L7, Bad Religion, and Monster Magnet. Then he moved to advertising and directed commercials for Nike, Canon, Skittles, United airlines and Coca-Cola. In 1993 he created the renowned Budweiser advertising campaign featuring croaking frogs, for which he was awarded the advertising Silver Lion at Cannes and also received four Clio Awards.
Verbinski made his feature directorial debut with Mousehunt (1997), a remarkably visual cartoonish family comedy. His next effort, The Mexican (2001), came to a modest result. However, Verbinski bounced back with a hit thriller The Ring (2002), grossing over $230 million dollars worldwide. His biggest directorial success came with the Disney theme park ride based Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), with a brilliant acting ensemble, grossing over $650 million dollars, and bringing five Oscar nominations and many other awards and nominations. Disney ordered two more films which Verbinski shot one after another on location in the Caribbean islands, for which he had to endure both tetanus and typhoid immunization shots. After having survived several hurricanes, dealing with sick and injured actors, and troubleshooting after numerous technical difficulties of the epic-scale project, Verbinski delivered. He employed the same stellar cast in the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and the third installment of the 'Pirates' franchise Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
Gore Verbinski does not like publicity. He has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife and his two sons. He resides with his family in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Cuba Gooding Jr. was born on January 2, 1968, in The Bronx, New York. His mother, Shirley (Sullivan), was a backup singer for The Sweethearts. His father, Cuba Gooding, was the lead vocalist for the R&B group The Main Ingredient, which had a hit with the song "Everybody Plays The Fool". His paternal grandfather was from Barbados.
Cuba's father moved the family to Los Angeles in 1972, only to leave them a few years later. Despite this setback, Cuba was able to maintain a positive outlook and overachieved throughout school. He attended four different high schools and was elected class president in three of them. While at high school, Cuba met and fell in love with Sara Kapfer, whom he later lived with for seven years before tying the knot in March 1994.
Following high school, Cuba studied Japanese martial arts for three years before turning his focus toward acting. Early on, he landed guest starring roles on shows like Hill Street Blues (1981) and MacGyver (1985). His first major role was in the 1991 box office surprise Boyz n the Hood (1991). He followed this success with supporting roles in major films like A Few Good Men (1992), Lightning Jack (1994) and Outbreak (1995).
In 1996, Cuba was cast as an arrogant but loyal football player in the Tom Cruise-Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire (1996). The film became a huge box office smash and earned Cuba an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His "Show Me The Money" line in the movie became a nationwide catchphrase. The role elevated him to superstar status, as many of Hollywood's top producers began to "show him the money" to appear in their films.
Since Jerry Maguire (1996), Cuba has managed to keep busy with a wide range of roles alongside many of Hollywood's biggest stars. Most recently, he won critical support for his portrayal of a mentally handicapped man in the heartwarming film Radio (2003), another movie about football. In 2002, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He resides in Studio City, California.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Christina Applegate was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, to record producer/executive Robert Applegate and singer-actress Nancy Priddy. Her parents split-up shortly after her birth. She has two half-siblings from her father's re-marriage - Alisa (b. October 10, 1977) and Kyle (b. July 15, 1981). Alisa and Christina are best friends and even lived together while Alisa was going to college. Christina's mother took her along on all of her auditions and acting jobs. She made her acting debut at age five months, when her mother got her in a commercial for Playtex nursers. Her mother never remarried, but kept company with Stephen Stills. Christina still cherishes a guitar Stephen gave her when she was young. She played in a number of TV series before landing her breakout role in Married... with Children (1987). Christina still studies jazz dance.- Actress
- Producer
Rachel Bilson was born in Los Angeles, to Janice (Stango), a sex therapist, and Danny Bilson. Her father is Ashkenazi Jewish and her mother is of Italian descent. She began acting while still at Notre Dame High School. She graduated high school in 1999 and went to Grossmont College but dropped out after a year and was encouraged to pursue a career in acting by her father, himself a writer, director and producer.
She worked in commercials and landed a few one-off roles in high profile TV shows before landing the part of Summer Roberts in the hit TV series The O.C. (2003), establishing herself as a household name.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.- Actress
- Producer
Lived with her parents in Colorado, until her parents divorced. Her dad moved to Laguna Beach, California with her brother, and she moved to Illinois with her mother. She also has a stepfather and stepbrother there. She acted out while there to get attention and, after her mother couldn't handle it anymore, Kristin moved to Laguna Beach to be with her dad and brother. Her freshman year, she attended a Catholic school with the uniforms to boot. But that year, she took Driver's Ed at Laguna High.. where she met Alex Murrel (aka Alex M.) and soon the rest of the Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County (2004) crew. She convinced her Dad to let her switch to the public school starting her sophomore year.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Trachtenberg grew up in Brooklyn and started her acting career young; she began appearing in commercials at the age of 3.
She continued to act and dance through her school years, making regular television appearances from the age of 10. She landed a recurring role in the kids' TV show The Adventures of Pete & Pete (1992) and starred in Harriet the Spy (1996), but it was her role as Buffy's sister Dawn from the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) that really brought her to worldwide attention, and all before she was 18 years old.
More high profile TV and movie work followed.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Mark Hoppus was born on 15 March 1972 in Ridgecrest, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for American Pie (1999), Bubble Boy (2001) and Charlie's Angels (2000). He has been married to Skye Everly since 2 December 2000. They have one child.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Travis Barker was born on 14 November 1975 in Fontana, California, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for American Pie (1999), Ride Along (2014) and Spenser Confidential (2020). He has been married to Kourtney Kardashian since 15 May 2022. They have one child. He was previously married to Shanna Moakler and Melissa Kennedy.- Actress
- Producer
Shanna Moakler was born on 28 March 1975 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for The Wedding Singer (1998), Back Stabber (2016) and Big Momma's House 2 (2006). She was previously married to Travis Barker.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jennifer Love Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas, to Patricia Mae (Shipp), a speech-language pathologist, and Herbert Daniel Hewitt, a medical technician. She has English, Italian, French, Scottish, and German ancestry. She got her first name from her older brother Todd Daniel Hewitt (b. November 8, 1970), who picked the name after a little blonde girl on whom he'd had a crush. Her mother selected Jennifer's middle name, Love (which she goes by offstage), from her best college friend. Her parents separated when she was six months old and her mother raised her in Killeen, Texas.
Hewitt made her official performing debut at age 3 when she sang at a livestock show. At age 5, she was taking tap, jazz, and ballet lessons, which led to her joining the Texas Show Team, who toured the Soviet Union and Europe. When she was 10 her family moved to Los Angeles with encouragement from talent scouts, while Todd stayed behind to finish high school in Texas Jennifer quickly found commercial work and a role on Disney's Kids Incorporated (1984) in 1989. She went through a series of television flops before finally hitting it big on Party of Five (1994) in 1995.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
The second of three children born to a dentist and his wife in Nashville, Tennessee, Denton grew up in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, attended Goodlettsville High School, briefly played basketball at a junior college, then went on to graduate with honors from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, snagging a degree in advertising as a television/journalism major on the way out the door. Even though his father was involved in community theater, Denton didn't jump in until he was 23, during the Tennessee bicentennial in Nashville, Tennessee. His role as "George Gibbs" in a production of "Our Town" turned out to be only the first in a long line of plays that he would do, first in Nashville and then, later, in North Carolina, Chicago and California.
Although he spent the next four years selling advertising for two radio stations and then for the CBS affiliate in Nashville, Denton's heart was already in another place and, after a short stint in North Carolina, he headed to Chicago to try his hand at acting full-time.
In Chicago, his first role was as "Stanley" in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and his last was as the terrorist "Bebert" in the French farce "Lapin Lapin". In the years that came between the two, JD was a company member at The Griffin Theater and at Strawdog Theater Ensemble. He added a steady string of roles and accolades to his quickly growing list of achievements, including one of the leads in the world premiere of "Flesh and Blood", performing in and composing the music for "the Night Hank Williams Died", and his portrayal of Kentucky preacher "C.C. Showers" in "The Diviners" - which gained him a much coveted nomination for a Best Actor Joseph Jefferson Award (Chicago's only theater award). A small part in The Untouchables (1993) (the series, not the movie), JAG (1995), Sliders (1995) and Dark Skies (1996). A spot on Moloney (1996), a pilot for ABC called "L.A. Med" and a stint on the silver screen in That Old Feeling (1997), were preludes to his first appearance as "Mr. Lyle" on The Pretender (1996). Immediately afterward, JD made another pilot, this time for his own series, "The Hanleys". When ABC shelved the sitcom at the last minute, Denton continued producing chilling portrayals as "Mr. Lyle" on NBC's The Pretender (1996), as a series regular.
The summer of 1999 found Denton heading back to the theater, starring in the world premiere of the play, "In Walked Monk." During the fourth season of The Pretender (1996), Denton added three more guest-starring roles to his credits - the first on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (1998), another on Ally McBeal (1997) and the last on the hugely popular The West Wing (1999). That summer, he co-starred in "Asylum" at The Court Theatre and, at the end of the year, headed for Canada to film two MOWs for TNT - The Pretender 2001 (2001) and The Pretender: Island of the Haunted (2001). 2001 found Denton back at ABC after Steven Bochco cast him as "Judge Augustus "Jack" Ripley," in his struggling new series, Philly (2001). Viewers liked "Judge Ripley," and hopes were high that the sizzling on-screen chemistry between Denton's character and the one portrayed by Kim Delaney would convince ABC to give the show another season to improve its ratings. Ironically, Denton was in Australia, promoting Philly (2001), when he received word that ABC had passed on renewing the show for a second season. Denton ended 2002 with a two-part guest-starring role on The Drew Carey Show (1995).
Denton returned as a guest star on JAG (1995) in 2003, and pilot season landed him the opportunity to once again head up the cast of an ABC series in Threat Matrix (2003), a Touchstone production offering up fictionalized events relating to terrorist activity around the world. Denton played "John Kilmer", the man who lead the ultra-covert team of anti-terrorist specialists and who answered solely to the President of the United States. The timely and serious role also gave Denton the opportunity to change his professional billing from "Jamie Denton" to "James Denton". Only days before the annual up-fronts in New York, where the major networks announce their new fall season line-ups, ABC picked up the show for September, 2003.
Although Threat Matrix (2003) held its own in one of the worst time-slots of the season (sandwiched between the hugely popular "Survivor" and the last season of Friends (1994)), ABC nonetheless pulled the series after only fourteen episodes aired (sixteen episodes were filmed). Threat Matrix (2003) was officially canceled on the same day as Denton's role as "Mike Delfino" on Desperate Housewives (2004), a new ABC series scheduled for the Fall, was announced at the 2004 up-fronts in New York.
On October 3, 2004, Desperate Housewives (2004) garnered incredible ratings with its debut episode and ABC picked up the rest of the first season before the end of the month. Less than three months later, Denton was included in People Magazine's 2004 "Sexiest Men Alive" issue.
During the first and second seasons of Desperate Housewives (2004), Denton managed to schedule a sweeps week guest star spot on Reba (2001) and, toward the end of the second season, played the role of "Brother John Brown" in Ascension Day (2007).
Years after composing the music for and performing in "The Night Hank Williams Died" - a play from his days in Chicago - Denton accepted an invitation that was proffered to him by Greg Grunberg (Heroes (2006)) and became a singer and guitar player for a band that was first known as "16:9" and then, later, as "The Band From TV". Other members of the band include, and have included, (the founder and drummer)Greg Grunberg, Hugh Laurie (keyboards, House (2004)), 'Bonnie Somerville' (singer, Cashmere Mafia (2008)) and Bob Guiney (singer, Bachelor #4 on The Bachelor (2002)). The band largely plays at Hollywood events but does, on occasion, play elsewhere. The band donates any money that it makes to charities that are selected by each of its primary members. When the WGA writer's strike of 2007 shut down production on TV series, there was talk of a tour for the temporarily unemployed band members. A CD that the band made in 2007, "Hoggin' All The Covers" is available for sale at Amazon.com. In addition, at least one of the band's songs are on the soundtrack for House (2004) and two of its songs, "Minnie the Moocher" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want", are available for purchase on iTunes.
While on hiatus, between the second and third seasons of Desperate Housewives (2004), Denton teamed up with Chris Kattan in the straight-to-DVD film, Undead or Alive: A Zombedy (2007).
2007 was a busy year for Denton. In addition to traveling all over the country in order to lend his celebrity to dozens of charitable causes, he also completed three projects - ABC's Masters of Science Fiction (2007)'s episode, The Discarded (2007); Custody (2007), which aired on Lifetime and Tortured (2007).
The same year, Denton, a lifelong fan of baseball, joined an Orange County investment group that purchased the Golden Baseball League Team, "The Fullerton Flyers". Shortly after the purchase and, although the team's home field remained at Cal State Fullerton, the group changed the name of the team to "The Orange County Flyers". Not content to merely be an investor, Denton took as active a role as his schedule and the team structure allowed, attending try-outs, where he had a hand in selecting some of the players during his first season as a co-owner, and attending quite a few of the home games.
When "Housewives" isn't in production, JD still takes part in other productions. These have included Group Sex (2010) and bringing the voice of "Superman" to life in the animated video, All-Star Superman (2011). He played the role of "Slim" in the independent film, Karaoke Man (2012).
Denton announced on the Christopher Gabriel radio program that he and his family were moving to Minnesota in August of 2012 and that he would pursue whatever comes next from there. His fans didn't have to wait long to hear from him again. In 2013 JD took on the role of Johnny Trey in "Grace Unplugged" and in short order won an award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor. The film won a Top Ten Family Film of the Year and the Grand Prize, "The Epiphany Award" for Most Inspirational Film of 2013. Denton went on to do the Hallmark Channel's "Stranded In Paradise", "Ovation", "Strangers", "The Dancer and the Dame" and "Revelation Road 3: The Black Rider". 2014 found Denton making a deal with The Hallmark Channel to become (as "Dr. Sam") part of their original series, "The Good Witch" which is in its seventh season.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Matt Leinart was born on 11 May 1983 in Santa Ana, California, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for The House Bunny (2008), All American (2018) and Big Noon Kickoff (2019). He has been married to Josie Loren since 26 May 2018. They have two children.