My Favorite Actresses
by abbyfougerousse | created - 01 Jul 2011 | updated - 27 Apr 2012 | Public
1. Zooey Deschanel
Actress | New Girl
Zooey Deschanel was born in 1980 into a showbiz family. Her father, Caleb Deschanel, is an Academy Award-nominated cinematographer (perhaps most notably for The Passion of the Christ (2004)) and her mother, Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir), is an actress who appeared in Twin Peaks (1990). Her paternal ...
2. Emma Stone
Actress | La La Land
Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the ...
3. Mila Kunis
Actress | Black Swan
Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. ...
4. Rachel McAdams
Actress | The Notebook
Rachel Anne McAdams was born on November 17, 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada, to Sandra Kay (Gale), a nurse, and Lance Frederick McAdams, a truck driver and furniture mover. She is of English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish descent. Rachel became involved with acting as a teenager and by the age of 13 ...
5. Keri Russell
Actress | Mission: Impossible III
Most recently, Keri can be seen starring in "The Diplomat" for Netflix in which Keri plays the titular role of an American Diplomat in London. She also stars in an episode of the limited anthology series "Extrapolations" created by Scott Burns. She also recently starred in "Cocaine Bear" for ...
6. Elliot Page
Actor | Juno
Elliot Page was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. Page wanted to start acting at an early age and attended the Neptune Theater School. They began their career at the age of 10 on the award-winning television series Pit Pony (1999), for...
7. Keira Knightley
Actress | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
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 ...
8. Carey Mulligan
Actress | Never Let Me Go
Carey Hannah Mulligan is a British actress. She was born May 28, 1985, in Westminster, London, England, to Nano (Booth), a university lecturer, and Stephen Mulligan, a hotel manager. Her mother is from Llandeilo, Wales, and Carey also has Irish and English ancestry.
Her first major appearance was ...
9. Amanda Peet
Actress | 2012
Amanda Peet was born and raised in New York City. She is the daughter of Penny (Levy), a social worker, and Charles Peet, a lawyer, and has an older sister. Her father was of mostly English and German ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish family (from Germany, Russia, and Hungary). Peet's ...
10. Malin Akerman
Actress | Watchmen
Malin was born in Stockholm, Sweden and raised in Toronto, Canada. Her mother, Pia (Sundström), is a model and aerobics instructor, and her father, Magnus Åkerman, is an insurance broker. They moved to Toronto when she was age 2. At age 5, she began appearing in TV commercials. Her parents divorced...
11. Natalie Portman
Actress | Black Swan
Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an ...
12. Rosario Dawson
Actress | Rent
This stunning and resourceful actress has been primarily a film player thus far. Only recently has she been opening herself up more to doing television (the series Gemini Division (2008), which she executive-produced), and animated voice-overs. Dawson's powerhouse talent stands out the most in edgy...
13. Eliza Dushku
Actress | Bring It On
Eliza Dushku was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Judith (Rasmussen), a political science professor, and Philip R. Dushku, a teacher and administrator. Her father is Albanian and her mother is American (of Danish, Irish, English, and German descent). She was discovered at the end of a five-month ...
14. Julia Roberts
Actress | Pretty Woman
Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her ...
15. Mandy Moore
Actress | A Walk to Remember
Amanda Leigh Moore was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, on April 10, 1984, to Stacy (Friedman), a former news reporter, and Don Moore, an airline pilot. During her childhood, her family moved to Orlando, Florida, where she was raised. She has Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, ...
16. Kirsten Dunst
Actress | Spider-Man
Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, who also holds German citizenship. She was born on April 30, 1982 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to parents Inez (née Rupprecht), who owned an art gallery, and Klaus Dunst, a medical services executive. She has a younger brother named Christian Dunst, ...
17. Cobie Smulders
Actress | The Avengers
Cobie Smulders was born on April 3, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a Dutch father and an English mother. As a girl, Cobie had set her sights on becoming a doctor or a marine biologist. In fact, it wasn't until high school that Cobie started to explore acting after appearing in several ...
18. Isla Fisher
Actress | Wedding Crashers
Isla Lang Fisher was born on February 3, 1976 in Muscat, Oman, to Scottish parents Elspeth Reid and Brian Fisher, who worked as a banker for the U.N. She spent her early childhood in Bathgate, Scotland, before moving to Perth, Australia with her family in the early 1980s. From a young age, Isla ...
19. Rashida Jones
Actress | Parks and Recreation
Rashida Jones was born in Los Angeles, California, the younger daughter of media mogul, producer, and musician Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. She has an older sister, Kidada Jones, and five half-siblings by her father's other relationships. Her father is African-American and her mother is ...
20. Claire Danes
Actress | My So-Called Life
New Yorker Claire Catherine Danes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Carla (Hall), a day-care provider and artist, and Christopher Danes, a computer consultant and photographer. She has an older brother, Asa. Her paternal grandfather, Gibson Andrew Danes, was a Dean of the Yale School of Art ...
21. Anne Hathaway
Actress | Les Misérables
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series ...
22. Alicia Silverstone
Actress | Clueless
Alicia Silverstone was born on October 4, 1976 in San Francisco, California, the youngest of three children. She is the daughter of Didi (Radford), a former flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, a real estate investor. Her English-born father is from a Jewish family, while her Scottish-born ...
23. Piper Perabo
Actress | Coyote Ugly
Piper Perabo is a Golden Globe nominated film, stage and TV actor. Born in Dallas, Texas, and raised in New Jersey, she graduated summa cum Laude from Ohio University. In 2000 she was cast in a breakout role in Coyote Ugly. Since then she has been seen in such films as Christopher Nolan's "The ...
24. Drew Barrymore
Producer | Charlie's Angels
Since melting audiences' hearts at the age of just six in E.T. (1982), Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most beloved and singularly gifted actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore, the clutches of fame were near inescapable for ...
25. Juliette Lewis
Actress | Cape Fear
Juliette Lewis has been recognized as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors of her generation since she first stunned audiences and critics alike with her Oscar-nominated performance as "Danielle Bowden" in Cape Fear (1991). To date, she has worked with some of the most revered ...
26. Julia Stiles
Actress | 10 Things I Hate About You
Lovely, Julia (O'Hara) Stiles, of Irish, English and German heritage, was born on March 28, 1981 in New York City, the outgoing daughter and eldest of three children of a Greenwich Village artist mother, Judith Newcomb Stiles, and an elementary school teacher father, John O'Hara.
Encouraged to take ...
27. Emma Roberts
Actress | We're the Millers
Emma Roberts was born in Rhinebeck, New York. She was a baby when her parents separated, and she grew up living with her mother, Kelly Cunningham. She was educated at Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, California.
Emma is the daughter of Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts, and the niece of ...
28. Kat Dennings
Actress | Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Kat Dennings was born Katherine Victoria Litwack in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, to Ellen (Schatz), a speech therapist and poet, and Gerald Litwack, a molecular pharmacologist. She is the youngest of five children. Her family is of Russian Jewish descent. Kat was predominantly ...
29. Kristen Bell
Actress | Frozen
Kristen Anne Bell (born 1980) is an American actress and singer. She was born and raised in Huntington Woods, Michigan, and is the daughter of Lorelei (Frygier), a nurse, and Tom Bell, a television news director. Her ancestry is Polish (mother) and German, English, Irish, and Scottish (father). ...
30. Camilla Belle
Actress | Practical Magic
Belle was born as Camilla Belle Routh in Los Angeles, California, to Deborah, a fashion designer, and Jack Wesley Routh, who composed country music and owns a construction company. Her mother is Brazilian and her father, who is from Kingman, Kansas, has English, German, and French ancestry. Camilla...
31. Minka Kelly
Actress | The Roommate
Minka Kelly was born in Los Angeles, California and she is the only child of former Aerosmith guitarist, Rick Dufay, and Maureen Kelly, an exotic dancer and single mother, who often moved with her daughter to different communities before settling in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by the time Minka was in...
32. Sarah Chalke
Actress | Scrubs
Sarah Chalke was born on 27 August 1976 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Her parents are Angie Chalke and Doug Chalke. She is the middle child, having one older sister, Natasha Chalke, and one younger, Piper Chalke. Sarah made her acting debut in a made-for-TV movie, City Boy (1992). In 1993, after her ...
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