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Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus Fiennes, a musician; Sophie Fiennes, a producer; and Joseph Fiennes, an actor. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish origin.
A noted Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage at the Royal National Theatre. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992), opposite Juliette Binoche. 1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon (1993), with Julia Ormond, which was poorly received. Later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role, as well as Best Supporting Actor honors from numerous critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics, and the New York, Chicago, Boston, and London Film Critics associations. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of Top 50 Film Villains. To look suitable to represent Goeth, Fiennes gained weight, but he managed to shed it afterwards. In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show (1994). In 1996, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Count Almásy the World War II epic romance, and another Best Picture winner, Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996), in which he starred with Kristin Scott Thomas. He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, as well as two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations, one for Best Actor and another shared with the film's ensemble cast.
Since then, Fiennes has been in a number of notable films, including Strange Days (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), the animated The Prince of Egypt (1998), István Szabó's Sunshine (1999), Neil Jordan-directed films The End of the Affair (1999) and The Good Thief (2002), Red Dragon (2002), Maid in Manhattan (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Reader (2008), co-starring Kate Winslet, Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar®-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), Clash of the Titans (2010), Mike Newell's screen adaptation of Charles Dickens'Great Expectations (2012), with Helena Bonham Carter and Jeremy Irvine, and Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
He is also known for his roles in major film franchises such as the Harry Potter film series (2005-2011), in which he played the evil Lord Voldemort. His nephew, Hero Fiennes Tiffin played Tom Riddle, the young Lord Voldemort, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). Ralph also appears in the James Bond series, in which he has played M, starting with the 2012 film Skyfall (2012).
In 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy political thriller Coriolanus (2011), in which he also played the title character, opposite Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave. Fiennes has won a Tony Award for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway.
In 2015, Fiennes played a music producer in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015), starring opposite Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts, and in 2016, Fiennes starred in Joel and Ethan Coen's Hail, Caesar! (2016).
Since 1999, Fiennes has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK.- Actor
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Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Drexl in True Romance (1993), George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017), among many others. For much of his career, he was best-known for playing over-the-top antagonists, such as terrorist Egor Korshunov in the 1997 blockbuster Air Force One (1997), though he has reached a new audience with heroic roles in the Harry Potter and Dark Knight franchises. He is also a filmmaker, musician, and author.
Gary Leonard Oldman was born on March 21, 1958 in New Cross, London, England, to Kathleen (Cheriton), a homemaker, and Leonard Bertram Oldman, a welder. He won a scholarship to Britain's Rose Bruford Drama College, in Sidcup, Kent, where he received a B.A. in theatre arts in 1979. He subsequently studied with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and went on to appear in a number of plays throughout the early '80s, including "The Pope's Wedding," for which he received Time Out's Fringe Award for Best Newcomer of 1985-1986 and the British Theatre Association's Drama Magazine Award as Best Actor for 1985. Before fame, he was employed as a worker in assembly lines and as a porter in an operating theater. He also had jobs selling shoes and beheading pigs while supporting his early acting career.
His film debut was Remembrance (1982), though his most-memorable early role came when he played Sex Pistol Sid Vicious in the biopic Sid and Nancy (1986) picking up the Evening Standard Film Award as Best Newcomer. He then received a Best Actor nomination from BAFTA for his portrayal of '60s playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).
In the 1990s, Oldman brought to life a series of iconic real-world and fictional villains including Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), the title character in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Drexl Spivey in True Romance (1993), Stansfield in Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in The Fifth Element (1997) and Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One (1997). That decade also saw Oldman portraying Ludwig van Beethoven in biopic Immortal Beloved (1994).
Oldman played the coveted role of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), giving him a key part in one of the highest-grossing franchises ever. He reprised that role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). Oldman also took on the iconic role of Detective James Gordon in writer-director Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), a role he played again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Prominent film critic Mark Kermode, in reviewing The Dark Knight, wrote, "the best performance in the film, by a mile, is Gary Oldman's ... it would be lovely to see him get a[n Academy Award] nomination because actually, he's the guy who gets kind of overlooked in all of this."
Oldman co-starred with Jim Carrey in the 2009 version of A Christmas Carol in which Oldman played three roles. He had a starring role in David Goyer's supernatural thriller The Unborn, released in 2009. In 2010, Oldman co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli. He also played a lead role in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood. Oldman voiced the role of villain Lord Shen and was nominated for an Annie Award for his performance in Kung Fu Panda 2.
In 2011, Oldman portrayed master spy George Smiley in the adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and the role scored Oldman his first Academy Award nomination. In 2014, he played one of the lead humans in the science fiction action film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) alongside Jason Clarke and Keri Russell. Also in 2014, Oldman starred alongside Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of RoboCop (2014), as Norton, the scientist who creates RoboCop.
Aside from acting, Oldman tried his hand at writing and directing for Nil by Mouth (1997). The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize at the festival.
Oldman has three children, Alfie, with first wife, actress Lesley Manville, and Gulliver and Charlie with his third wife, Donya Fiorentino. In 2017, he married writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best actor for his work on Darkest Hour (2017).- Actor
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Kevin Norwood Bacon was born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Hilda (Holmes), an elementary school teacher, and Edmund Norwood Bacon, a prominent architect who was on the cover of Time Magazine in November 1964.
Kevin's early training as an actor came from The Manning Street. His debut as the strict Chip Diller in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) almost seems like an inside joke, but he managed to escape almost unnoticed from that role. Diner (1982) became the turning point after a couple of television series and a number of less-than-memorable movie roles. In a cast of soon-to-be stars, he more than held his end up, and we saw a glimpse of the real lunatic image of The Bacon. He also starred in Footloose (1984), She's Having a Baby (1988), Tremors (1990) with Fred Ward, Flatliners (1990), and Apollo 13 (1995).
Bacon is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick, with whom he has 2 children.- Actor
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Javier Bardem belongs to a family of actors that have been working on films since the early days of Spanish cinema.
He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, to actress Pilar Bardem (María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz) and businessman José Carlos Encinas Doussinague. His maternal grandparents were actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and his uncle is screenwriter Juan Antonio Bardem. He got his start in the family business, at age six, when he appeared in his first feature, "El picaro" (1974) (A.K.A. The Scoundrel). During his teenage years, he acted in several TV series, played rugby for the Spanish National Team, and toured the country with an independent theatrical group. Javier's early film role as a sexy stud in the black comedy, Jamón, Jamón (1992) (aka Ham Ham) propelled him to instant popularity and threatened to typecast him as nothing more than a brawny sex symbol. Determined to avert a beefcake image, he refused similar subsequent roles and has gone on to win acclaim for his ability to appear almost unrecognizable from film to film. With over 25 movies and numerous awards under his belt, it is Javier's stirring, passionate performance as the persecuted Cuban writer, Reynaldo Arenas, in Before Night Falls (2000) that will long be remembered as his breakthrough role. He received five Best Actor awards and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal.- Actor
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Often mistaken for an American because of his skill at imitating accents, actor Tim Roth was born Timothy Simon Roth on May 14, 1961 in Lambeth, London, England. His mother, Ann, was a teacher and landscape painter. His father, Ernie, was a journalist who had changed the family name from "Smith" to "Roth"; Ernie was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an immigrant family of Irish ancestry.
Tim grew up in Dulwich, a middle-class area in the south of London. He demonstrated his talent for picking up accents at an early age when he attended school in Brixton, where he faced persecution from classmates for his comfortable background and quickly perfected a cockney accent to blend in. He attended Camberwell Art College and studied sculpture before he dropped out and pursued acting.
The blonde actor's first big break was the British TV movie Made in Britain (1982). Roth made a huge splash in that film as a young skinhead named Trevor. He next worked with director Mike Leigh on Meantime (1983), which he has counted among his favorite projects. He debuted on the big screen when he filled in for Joe Strummer in the Stephen Frears neo-noir The Hit (1984). Roth gained more attention for his turn as Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent & Theo (1990) and his work opposite Gary Oldman in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990).
He moved to Los Angeles in search of work and caught the eye of young director Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino had envisioned Roth as a possible Mr. Blonde or Mr. Pink in his heist flick Reservoir Dogs (1992), but Roth campaigned for the role of Mr. Orange instead, and ultimately won the part. It proved to be a huge breakthrough for Roth, as audiences found it difficult to forget his performance as a member of a group of jewelry store robbers who is slowly bleeding to death. Tarantino cast Roth again in the landmark film Pulp Fiction (1994). Roth and actress Amanda Plummer played a pair of robbers who hold up a restaurant. 1995 saw the third of Roth's collaborations with Tarantino, a surprisingly slapstick performance in the anthology film Four Rooms (1995). That same year Roth picked up an Academy Award nomination for his campy turn as a villain in the period piece Rob Roy (1995).
Continuing to take on disparate roles, Roth did his own singing (with an American accent to boot) in the lightweight Woody Allen musical Everyone Says I Love You (1996). He starred opposite Tupac Shakur in Shakur's last film, the twisted comedy Gridlock'd (1997). The pair received positive critical notices for their comic chemistry. Standing in contrast to the criminals and baddies that crowd his CV, Roth's work as the innocent, seafaring pianist in the Giuseppe Tornatore film The Legend of 1900 (1998) became something of a fan favorite. Grittier fare followed when Roth made his directorial debut with The War Zone (1999), a frank, critically acclaimed drama about a family torn apart by incest. He made his next high-profile appearance as an actor as General Thade, an evil simian in the Tim Burton remake of Planet of the Apes (2001). Roth was, of course, all but unrecognizable in his primate make-up.
Roth has continued to enjoy a mix of art house and mainstream work, including everything from the lead role in Francis Ford Coppola's esoteric Youth Without Youth (2007) to becoming "The Abomination" in the special effects-heavy blockbuster The Incredible Hulk (2008). Roth took his first major American television role when he signed on to the Fox-TV series Lie to Me (2009)- Actor
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Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio was born on June 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York, to Phyllis, a restaurant manager and server, and Gene D'Onofrio, a theatre production assistant and interior designer. He is of Italian descent and has two older sisters. He studied at the Actors Studio and the American Stanislavski Theatre. Vincent D'Onofrio is known as an "actor's actor". The wide variety of roles he has played and the quality of his work have earned him a reputation as a versatile talent.
His first paid role was in Off-Broadway's "This Property Is Condemned". He continued appearing in plays and worked as a bouncer, a bodyguard and a delivery man. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in "Open Admissions", followed by work in numerous other stage plays. In 2012, D'Onofrio returned to teach at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute. As a film actor, D'Onofrio's career break came when he played a mentally unbalanced recruit in Full Metal Jacket (1987), directed by the renowned Stanley Kubrick. For this role D'Onofrio gained nearly 70 pounds. He had a major role in Dying Young (1991), and appeared prominently in the box-office smash Men in Black (1997) as the bad guy (Edgar "The Bug").
Other films of note in which he has appeared are Mystic Pizza (1988), JFK (1991), The Player (1992), Ed Wood (1994), The Cell (2000), The Break-Up (2006) and Jurassic World (2015). In 1996, D'Onofrio garnered critical acclaim along with co-star Renée Zellweger for The Whole Wide World (1996), which he helped produce. He also made a guest appearance in The Subway (1997), where he played an accident victim who could not be rescued and was destined to die. For this performance he won an Emmy nomination. In 2000, he both produced and starred in Steal This Movie (2000), a biopic of radical leader Abbie Hoffman.
In 2001, D'Onofrio took the role which has likely given him his greatest public recognition: Det. Robert Goren, the lead character in the TV series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). Goren is based on Sherlock Holmes but, instead of relying upon physical evidence like Holmes, D'Onofrio's character focuses on psychology to identify the perpetrators, whom he often draws into confessing or yielding condemning evidence. He played the part for 10 years.
In his career D'Onofrio's various film characters have included a priest, a bisexual former porn star, a hijacker, a serial killer, Orson Welles, a space alien, a 1960s radical leader, a pulp fiction writer, an ingenious police investigator and Stuart Smalley's dope-head brother. His on-screen love interests have included Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Renée Zellweger, Marisa Tomei, Tracey Ullman, Rebecca De Mornay and Lili Taylor. One of his latest roles is in Marvel's Daredevil (2015) as Daredevil's nemesis, Wilson Fisk. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and children.- Actor
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Born in May 1957 in Bellaire, Ohio, he was among the last graduating class of the Windsor Mountain School in Lenox, Massachusetts. Attended Marlboro College in Vermont. Performed in summer stock and regional theaters in Vermont, Michigan and West Virginia before settling in Chicago and joining The Remains ensemble. Levine worked on stage at Remains, Wisdom Bridge, and The Goodman and Steppenwolf theaters throughout the 1980s before he began working in television and film.- Actor
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Rufus Sewell was born on the 29th of October 1967 in Twickenham, England. His mother, Jo, was Welsh, and was an artist and painter. His father, Bill Sewell, was an English-Australian animator who was born in Australia to English parents and died when Rufus was 10. He has one brother, Caspar. He attended London's Central School of Speech and Drama and left in June of 1989 after completing three years of training.
He made his London Stage debut in "Making It Better" for which he won the "Best Newcomer Award"; he also originated the role of Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppards "Arcadia" and was nominated for an Olivier Award. On the Broadway stage, he debuted in "Translations" and received the Broadway Theater World Award. His film work has been equally varied and acclaimed from the junkie in Twenty-One (1991), the sweet bus driver in A Man of No Importance (1994), and the volatile artist in Carrington (1995). The lustful son in Cold Comfort Farm (1995), the protagonist hounded Dostoevsky-like in Dark City (1998), the star-crossed suitor in Dangerous Beauty (1998), to the the bitter, acidic, alcoholic coke-head of The Very Thought of You (1998), he has appeared in some of the most acclaimed theatre, film and television productions.- Actor
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Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it be Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), or Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), or as the title monster in the Hammer Horror film, The Mummy (1959).
Lee was born in 1922 in London, England, where he and his older sister Xandra were raised by their parents, Contessa Estelle Marie (Carandini di Sarzano) and Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a professional soldier, until their divorce in 1926. Later, while Lee was still a child, his mother married (and later divorced) Harcourt George St.-Croix (nicknamed Ingle), who was a banker. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, while Lee's great-grandmother was English opera singer Marie (Burgess) Carandini.
After attending Wellington College from age 14 to 17, Lee worked as an office clerk in a couple of London shipping companies until 1941 when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following his release from military service, Lee joined the Rank Organisation in 1947, training as an actor in their "Charm School" and playing a number of bit parts in such films as Corridor of Mirrors (1948). He made a brief appearance in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which his future partner-in-horror Peter Cushing also appeared. Both actors also appeared later in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their horror films together.
Lee had numerous parts in film and television throughout the 1950s. He struggled initially in his new career because he was discriminated as being taller than the leading male actors of his time and being too foreign-looking. However, playing the monster in the Hammer film The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) proved to be a blessing in disguise, since the was successful, leading to him being signed on for future roles in Hammer Film Productions.
Lee's association with Hammer Film Productions brought him into contact with Peter Cushing, and they became good friends. Lee and Cushing often than not played contrasting roles in Hammer films, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain, whether it be Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in Horror of Dracula (1958), or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy respectively in The Mummy (1959).
Lee continued his role as "Dracula" in a number of Hammer sequels throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During this time, he co-starred in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), and made numerous appearances as Fu Manchu, most notably in the first of the series The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), and also appeared in a number of films in Europe. With his own production company, Charlemagne Productions, Ltd., Lee made Nothing But the Night (1973) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976).
By the mid-1970s, Lee was tiring of his horror image and tried to widen his appeal by participating in several mainstream films, such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), and the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
The success of these films prompted him in the late 1970s to move to Hollywood, where he remained a busy actor but made mostly unremarkable film and television appearances, and eventually moved back to England. The beginning of the new millennium relaunched his career to some degree, during which he has played Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lee played Count Dooku again in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), and portrayed the father of Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, in the Tim Burton film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
On 16 June 2001, he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama. He was created a Knight Bachelor on 13 June 2009 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama and charity. In addition he was made a Commander of the Order of St John on 16 January 1997.
Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June, in order to break the news to their family.- Actor
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Robert Carlyle was born in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland, to Elizabeth, a bus company employee, and Joseph Carlyle, a painter and decorator. He was raised by his father after his mother left him when he was four. At the age of 21, after reading Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," he enrolled in acting classes at the Glasgow Arts Centre. In 1991, together with four other actors, he founded the Raindog theatre company (named after Tom Waits' album "Rain Dog," one of Carlyle's favorites), a company dedicated to innovative work. Danny Boyle's film Trainspotting (1996) marked his breakthrough.- Christopher Eccleston trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and first came to public attention as Derek Bentley in Let Him Have It (1991). However, it was a regular role in the television series Cracker (1993) that made him a recognizable figure in the United Kingdom. He appeared in the low-budget thriller Shallow Grave (1994), and in the same year, won the part of Nicky Hutchinson in the epic BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North (1996). It was the transmission of the latter series on BBC Two that really made him into a household name in the United Kingdom. In his film career, he has starred as a leading man alongside a number of major actresses, such as Renée Zellweger in A Price Above Rubies (1998), Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998), and Cameron Diaz and Jordana Brewster in The Invisible Circus (2001), and Nicole Kidman in The Others (2001).
In addition to his successful film career, he has continued to work in television, appearing in some of the most challenging and thought-provoking British dramas. These have included Clocking Off (2000) and Flesh and Blood (2002) for the BBC and Hillsborough (1996), the Iago character in a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello", and the religious epic The Second Coming (2003), playing Steve Baxter, the son of God. His stage career, while not as extensive as his screen credits, has nevertheless shown him to be a formidable actor. He has given intense, focused performances in such plays as "Hamlet", "Electricity" and "Miss Julie", for which he received excellent reviews.
A very highly regarded actor, Eccleston has twice been nominated in the Best Actor category at the BAFTA Television Awards, the British premiere television awards ceremony. His first nomination came in 1997 for Our Friends in the North (1996). Although he didn't win those awards, however, he did triumph in the Best Actor categories at the 1997 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards and the Royal Television Society Awards, winning for Our Friends in the North (1996). He won the RTS Best Actor award for a second time in 2003, this time for his performance in "Flesh and Blood". In 2005, he received the Most Popular Actor award in the National Television Awards for starring in Russell T. Davies's re-imagining of Doctor Who (2005). - Actor
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Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Additionally, he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Landa.
Christoph Waltz was born in Vienna, Austria, into a theatrical family, his mother Elisabeth Urbancic, an Austrian-born costume designer, and Johannes Waltz, a German-born stage builder. He has three siblings. His maternal grandmother was Viennese Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was fellow Burgtheater actor Emmerich Reimers. His maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychologist and psychiatrist who wrote the 1949 book "Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness".
Waltz attended the Theresianium and Billrothstrasse in Vienna. Upon graduation, he attended the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar before going to New York to the Lee Strasberg Institute. While in New York, Christoph met his first wife, and moved back to Vienna, then to London.
During the 80s, Christoph worked primarily in theatre, commuting from his home in London to Germany. Slowly Waltz began to work in TV, taking one-off roles in series, and TV movies. Film roles soon followed. Attempts to break into English-speaking film and TV were, however, unsuccessful. Waltz has expressed his gratitude to have been able to make a living and support his family through acting. For thirty years he worked steadily, tirelessly, in this manner.
It was not until he met Quentin Tarantino that his career in Hollywood took off. The role of Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) catapulted Waltz from a lifetime working in German TV/film to the new life of an international superstar and Academy Award-winning actor. He won 27 awards for his performance as Hans Landa, including the Cannes prix d'interpretation Masculin for 2009, the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, the BAFTA Best Supporting Actor award, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (which he won again for 2012's Django Unchained (2012)).
He also has portrayed computer genius Qohen Leth in the film The Zero Theorem (2013), American plagiarist Walter Keane in the biographical film _Big Eyes (2014), and 007's nemesis and head of SPECTRE Ernst Stavro Blofeld in _Spectre (2015)_. In Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, Waltz portrayed SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa, aka "The Jew Hunter". Clever, courteous, and multilingual - but also self-serving, cunning, implacable, and murderous. Waltz played gangster Benjamin Chudnofsky in The Green Hornet (2011). That same year, he starred in Water for Elephants (2011), Roman Polanski's Carnage (2011), and a remake of The Three Musketeers (2011). He played German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012), a role Tarantino wrote specifically for Waltz.
Waltz resides in Berlin and Los Angeles. His wife is costume builder Judith Holste.- Actor
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Kiefer Sutherland was born in London, England, UK, to Canadian actors Shirley Douglas and Donald Sutherland, who moved to California shortly after his birth. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas, was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who was a Premier of Saskatchewan for over 17 years and led the national NDP party for almost 10.
Kiefer got his first film role in the comedy drama Max Dugan Returns (1983). Sutherland's first major role was in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy (1984), which earned Sutherland and director Daniel Petrie, Genie award nominations for best actor and best director, respectively. Following his success in The Bay Boy, Sutherland eventually moved to Los Angeles and landed television appearances in "The Mission", an episode of Amazing Stories (1985) and in the telefilm Trapped in Silence (1986) with Marsha Mason.
In 1992, Sutherland starred opposite Ray Liotta and Forest Whitaker in Article 99 (1992) and in the military drama A Few Good Men (1992) also starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. Later, in 1994, he starred with Jeff Bridges and Nancy Travis in the American version of The Vanishing (1993) for 20th Century Fox. In 1997, he co-starred with William Hurt and Rufus Sewell in Dark City (1998), directed by Alex Proyas, which was a special presentation at the Cannes Film Festival. Sutherland also added his second directorial credit and starred in Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997) alongside Kevin Pollak, Mykelti Williamson, Rod Steiger and Martin Sheen. He stars in the Fox drama series 24 (2001) as Jack Bauer for which he has earned a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Most recently, he has been seen in the movie Phone Booth (2002) as a man who calls up someone at a phone booth and threatens to kill them if they hang up.- Actor
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A blond-haired, fair-complexioned actor with a toothy grin and capable of an unsettling glint in his eyes, Gary Busey was born in Goose Creek, Texas, and was raised in Oklahoma. He is the son of Sadie Virginia (Arnett), a homemaker, and Delmar Lloyd Busey, a construction design manager. He has English, as well as Irish, Scottish, and German, ancestry. He graduated from Nathan Hale High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1962 and for a while was a professional musician. A talented drummer, he played in several bands, including those of country-and-western legends Leon Russell, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.
Busey's first film appearance was as a biker in the low-budget Angels Hard as They Come (1971) and, over the next few years, he landed several film roles generally as a country hick/redneck or surly, rebellious types. His real breakthrough came in the dynamic film The Buddy Holly Story (1978), with Busey taking the lead role as Buddy Holly, in addition to playing guitar and singing all the vocals! His stellar performance scored him a Best Actor nomination and the attention of Hollywood taking overcasting agents. Next up, he joined fellow young actors William Katt and Jan-Michael Vincent as surfing buddies growing up together in the cult surf film Big Wednesday (1978), directed by John Milius. However, a string of appearances in somewhat mediocre films took him out of the spotlight for several years, until he played the brutal assassin Mr. Joshua trying to kill Los Angeles cops Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the runaway mega-hit Lethal Weapon (1987). Further strong roles followed, including alongside Danny Glover once again in Predator 2 (1990). He was back on the beaches, this time tracking bank robbers with FBI agent Keanu Reeves, in Point Break (1991) and nearly stole the show as a psychotic Navy officer in league with terrorists led by Tommy Lee Jones taking over the USS Missouri in the highly popular Under Siege (1992).
The entertaining Busey has continued to remain busy in front of the cameras and has certainly developed a minor cult following among many film fans. Plus, he's also the proud father of accomplished young actor Jake Busey, whose looks make him almost a dead ringer for his famous father.- Actor
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Award-winning actor, writer and director, Danny Huston is known for his versatility and dramatic screen presence. Most recognized for his roles in films like Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men and Alejandro Inarritu's 21 Grams, Huston has worked with some of the finest film directors of his generation.
Huston got his start directing Mr. North with Robert Mitchum, Anthony Edwards and his sister Anjelica Huston. He went on to give his breakthrough acting performance in the independent film Ivansxtc for which he was nominated for Best Male Performance at the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards. Since then his film acting work has included: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins, Wrath of the Titans with Liam Neeson, The Constant Gardener with Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, John Sayles Silver City, The Libertador with Edgar Ramirez, The Congress with Harvey Keitel, John Hillcoat's The Proposition with Guy Pearce, Birth opposite Nicole Kidman, 30 Days of Night with Josh Hartnett, Peter Berg's The Kingdom, and many more.
In 2013, his critically acclaimed role of Ben the butcher in Magic City (STARZ), earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. His other television acting work includes the hit television series Masters Of Sex (Showtime), a recurring role in the hugely popular American Horror Story (FX), and performances in You Don't Know Jack (HBO)with Al Pacino and John Adams (HBO/Playtone).
Additional credits include, Paranoid for Netflix and ITV Studios, Marc Forster's All I See Is You, Frankenstein directed by Bernard Rose, Pressure, directed by Ron Scalpello; and Tim Burton's Big Eyes. Huston also directed himself in The Last Photograph which screened at The Edinburgh Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival.
In 2017, Huston portrayed Robert Evans in the stage adaptation of The Kid Stays in the Picture directed by Simon McBurney, for The Royal Court Theatre in London. Huston also recently appeared in the global box office hit Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins.
He could recently be seen in the Netflix feature IO opposite Anthony Mackie, as well as the feature Stan and Ollie, which was directed by Jon Baird for BBC films.
Huston will next be seen in Angel Has Fallen alongside Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler, which will be released in theaters on August 23rd, 2019, as well as the IM Global feature Richard Says Goodbye with Johnny Depp for writer/director Wayne Roberts. Huston continues to star as "Dan Jenkins" on the Taylor Sheridan and Paramount TV series Yellowstone, which is now airing its second season. It is the number one Summer series of 2019. Huston can be see in a season long-arc on the critically acclaimed series Succession for HBO.
In addition, Huston starred in and directed the feature The Last Photograph (2017), which was on September 6, 2019.- Actor
- Producer
- Animation Department
Jason Isaacs was born in Liverpool. He studied law at Bristol University but fell in love with the theatre and directed, produced and appeared in dozens of productions there, at the National Student Theatre Festival and at the Edinburgh Festival. He graduated in 1985 but then attended the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and began working in 1988.
Jason's notable roles include Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, Mr. Darling/Captain Hook in Peter Pan (2003), and many soldiers: Col. William Tavington in Roland Emmerich's The Patriot (2000), Captain Steele in Ridley Scott's Blackhawk Down, Major Briggs in Paul Greengrass's Green Zone, Captain Waggoner in Fury, Captain Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery, Field Marshall Zhukov in Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin and Rear-Admiral Godfrey in John Madden's Operation Mincemeat. He was Hap in the cult series The OA, Maurice in the WW2 film Good (2008) and Jay in the multi-award winning MASS. He has made many TV series in Britain and the US and has won or been nominated for a Golden Globe, International Emmy, BAFTA, Critics Choice, Peabody, Satellite and many other awards.
On stage he was Louis Ironson in the original productions of Angels in America parts 1 and 2 for the Royal National Theatre and has performed at the Royal Court, Almeida and West End Theatres.
Jason is married to documentary filmmaker Emma Hewitt, who he met at drama school and with whom he has two children.- Actor
- Producer
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Michael Corbett Shannon was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Geraldine Hine, a lawyer, and Donald Sutherlin Shannon, an accounting professor at DePaul University. His grandfather was entomologist Raymond Corbett Shannon.
Shannon began his professional stage career in Chicago. His first acting role was in "Winterset" at the Illinois Theatre Center. Over the next several years, he continued working on the stage with such companies as Steppenwolf, The Next Lab and the Red Orchid Theatre. He subsequently relocated to London for a year, and performed on stage in London's West End in such productions as "Woyzeck", "Killer Joe" and "Bug".
While in Chicago, Shannon also kept busy in front of movie and television cameras, most notably in the big screen project Chicago Cab (1997), based on the long-running stage play "Hellcab". Kangaroo Jack (2003) marked the third Jerry Bruckheimer production in which Shannon has appeared. He also appeared in Bad Boys II (2003), directed by Michael Bay and starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and in Grand Theft Parsons (2003), with Johnny Knoxville and Christina Applegate.
In addition, Shannon appeared in Pearl Harbor (2001), also directed by Bay. His other film credits also include Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile (2002); Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) with Tom Cruise; Carl Franklin's High Crimes (2002) with Morgan Freeman; John Waters' Cecil B. Demented (2000), and Joel Schumacher's war drama Tigerland (2000).- Actor
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Sean Harris was born in 1966 in Bethnal Green, London, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), Harry Brown (2009) and Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018).- Actor
- Producer
British actor Mark Strong, who played Jim Prideaux in the 2011 remake of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), is often cast as cold, calculating villains. But before he became a famous actor, he intended to pursue a career in law.
Strong was born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia in London, England, to an Austrian mother and an Italian father. His father left the family not long after he was born, and his mother worked as an au pair to raise the boy on her own. Strong's mother had his name legally changed, by deed poll, when he was young in order to help him better assimilate with his peers. He became Mark Strong.
Strong attended Wymondham College in Norfolk, and studied at the university level in Munich with the intent of becoming a lawyer. After a year, he returned to London to study English and Drama at Royal Holloway. He went on to further master his craft of at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Although Americans are most familiar with Strong's roles as Sinestro in Green Lantern (2011), mob boss Frank D'Amico in Kick-Ass (2010), and Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes (2009), British audiences know him from his long history as a television actor. He also starred in as numerous British stage productions, including plays at the Royal National Theatre and the RSC.
His most prominent television parts include Prime Suspect 3 (1993) and Prime Suspect: The Last Witness (2003) as Inspector Larry Hall, and starring roles in the BBC Two dramas Our Friends in the North (1996) and The Long Firm (2004), the latter of which netted Strong a BAFTA nomination. He also played Mr. Knightley in the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's classic tale Emma (1996).
Strong resides in London with his wife Liza Marshall, with whom he has two sons, the younger of which is the godson of his longtime friend Daniel Craig.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Marton was born in Invercargill, Aotearoa (New Zealand), to Margaret Christine (Rayner), a nurse, and Márton Csókás, a mechanical engineer. His father is Hungarian and his mother is Australian (of English, Irish, and Danish origin). He inherited some of his talents from his father, who was also a trained opera singer and at one time, a trapeze artist in the Hungarian Circus.
His academic training began at Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand, where he commenced a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Art History, and then transferred to, Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa/ The New Zealand Drama School, graduating in December, 1989. His first acting role was in Te Whanau a Tuanui Jones by Apairana Taylor at the Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington New Zealand, (1990). He has since had an eclectic career of theatre, television and film.
He appeared in the 1994 movie Jack Brown Genius (1996) in which he played the role of Dennis. After starring for two years in the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street (1992), he starred in the 1996 movie Broken English (1996) as Darko. After performing in a great number of theatrical plays, writing his own and co-founding his own theatre company, the Stronghold Theatre, Marton got the role of Tarlus in an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995). After that, he continued working with Renaissance Pictures, playing the roles of Khrafstar and Borias in the 1997-1998 seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess (1995). He continued appearing in many other shows in both NZ and Australia, such as Farscape (1999), BeastMaster (1999), Water Rats (1996), Cleopatra 2525 (2000), and more, returning for the role of Borias in three episodes of the 2000-2001 season of Xena: Warrior Princess (1995). He was also in many movies produced in NZ and Australia, such as Hurrah (1998), The Monkey's Mask (2000) and the mini-series The Farm (2001). He is a citizen of the European Union and Hungary, and is a permanent resident of the United States.
Most recently, Csokas starred opposite Denzel Washington in Sony's hit film The Equalizer. He played a brutal fixer for the Russian mafia and a formidable villain to Washington's reluctant hero.
Csokas appeared in Darren Aronofsky's Noah as well as Robert Rodriguez's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, a sequel to the 2005 hit film Sin City. Csokas also played the psychiatrist, "Dr. Kafka," in the hit movie sequel, The Amazing Spiderman 2, alongside Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx.
Csokas most famously starred as "Lord Celeborn" in one of the highest-grossing film series of all time, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some of his other film credits include 2010's The Debt opposite Jessica Chastain and Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon. His depth of experience is illustrated in Asylum in which he starred opposite Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen, as well as the Ridley Scott epic, Kingdom of Heaven, with Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Liam Neeson.
On the small screen, Csokas recently starred on the History Channel's miniseries Sons of Liberty as well as Discovery Channel's miniseries Klondike with Tim Roth and Sam Shepard.
On stage, Csokas continues to work internationally, most recently starring in a production of Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" at The New York Theatre Workshop by acclaimed director, Ivo van Hove. The play was noted by Time Magazine as one of the "Top 10 of Everything of 2010." The actor has numerous classical credits, including 'Orsino' in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at the National Theatre of Great Britain, 'Anthony' in "Anthony and Cleopatra" at the Theatre of a New Audience, 'Brutus' in "Julius Caesar" and as 'Septimus' in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" in his birthplace of New Zealand. On the Australian stage, Csokas has appeared as 'George' in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," directed by Benedict Andrews of the Schaubuhne Theatre in Berlin and in "Riflemind," directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman at the Sydney Theatre Company.- Actor
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Actor, producer, writer, and director Til Schweiger is Germany's best-known actor and also the country's most successful director. With more than 51 Million admissions no other German filmmaker drew more people to cinemas. He runs his own production company Barefoot Films based in Berlin, Germany.
Til Schweiger (born December 19, 1963) was raised along with his two brothers in his hometown Giessen. In his early years, Schweiger began studying German and Medicine. He decided to drop out of university to pursue his career as an actor and went to drama school from 1986-1989. After graduation, he played at several theaters as a stage actor to gain more experience.
In 1991, Schweiger landed his first lead role in Manta, Manta (1991) following his big breakthrough role on Maybe... Maybe Not (1994) with the support of Germany's renowned film producer and mentor Bernd Eichinger. In 1996, Til Schweiger founded his first film production company Mr. Brown Entertainment together with business partner and film producer Tom Zickler. Schweiger debuted as producer with Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997) winning several Festival Awards. The road movie remains a cult favorite with audiences worldwide. Within the same year, Schweiger was the first foreign actor to win the "Polish Oscar" at the International Warsaw Film festival for his performance in in Bandyta (1997). He has since built up acting credits in dozens of German movies including Der Eisbär (1998), where Schweiger made his debut as director.
Judas Kiss (1998) was Schweiger's first role in an international film. He then appeared in several internationally acclaimed movies including SLC Punk! (1998), The Replacement Killers (1998), Driven (2001), Intimate Affairs (2001), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003), King Arthur (2004), New Year's Eve (2011), and many more.
To this day, Schweiger has delivered a series of German-language hits and won numerous Awards as actor/writer/director/producer: Barefoot (2005) grossed about $7,7 million with 1,5 million admissions, Rabbit Without Ears (2007) was up to 2014 Schweiger's most successful film and earned some $74 million locally, followed by the sequel Rabbit Without Ears 2 (2009). In 2011, Schweiger wrote, produced and directed Kokowääh (2011), which grossed $43 million, starring alongside his youngest daughter Emma. A sequel hit theaters in 2013.
As an actor, he received widespread critical acclaim and further recognition for his portrayal as the legendary Hugo Stieglitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009).
In December 2014, Til Schweiger released the family-friendly dramedy Head Full of Honey (2014) , which he co-wrote, directed, produced and starred in. It is his most successful film to date breaking the 6, 3 million admissions barrier of his 2007 hit Rabbit Without Ears (2007).
Schweiger, who started his career in German TV, plays the lead role on hit local crimes series Tatort (1970)(Hamburg) (Scene of the Crime). His debut generated the best ratings for the long-running procedural in 20 years.- Actor
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Peter Stormare was born in Arbrå, Gävleborgs län, Sweden, to Gunhild (Holm) and Karl Ingvar Storm. He began his acting career at the Royal National Theatre of Sweden, performing for eleven years. In 1990 he became the Associate Artistic Director at the Tokyo Globe Theatre and directed productions of many Shakespeare plays, including "Hamlet". In 1993 he moved to New York, where he appeared in English productions. He continues to work in both the United States and his his homeland of Sweden. He resides in Los Angeles, California, USA, with his wife.- Richard Brake was born in Ystrad Mynach, Hengoed, Wales, UK. He is an actor, known for Doom (2005), 31 (2016) and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014).
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- Music Department
John Joseph Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, one of six children of Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) and Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His father owned a tire repair shop called Travolta Tires in Hillsdale, NJ. Travolta started acting appearing in a local production of "Who'll Save the Plowboy?". His mother, herself an actress and dancer, enrolled him in a drama school in New York, where he studied voice, dancing and acting. He decided to combine all three of these skills and become a musical comedy performer. At 16 he landed his first professional job in a summer stock production of the musical "Bye Bye Birdie". He quit school at 16 and moved to New York, and worked regularly in summer stock and on television commercials. When work became scarce in New York, he went to Hollywood and appeared in minor roles in several series. A role in the national touring company of the hit 1950s musical "Grease" brought him back to New York. An opening in the New York production of "Grease" gave him his first Broadway role at age 18. After "Grease", he became a member of the company of the Broadway show "Over Here", which starred The Andrews Sisters. After ten months in "Over Here", he decided to try Hollywood once again. Once back in Hollywood, he had little trouble getting roles in numerous television shows. He was seen on The Rookies (1972), Emergency! (1972) and Medical Center (1969) and also made a movie, The Devil's Rain (1975), which was shot in New Mexico. The day he returned to Hollywood from New Mexico, he was called to an audition for a new situation comedy series ABC was planning to produce called Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). He got the part of Vinnie Barbarino and the series went on the air during the 1975 fall season.
He starred in a number of monumental films, earning his first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever (1977), which launched the disco phenomenon in the 1970s. He went on to star in the big-screen version of the long-running musical Grease (1978) and the wildly successful Urban Cowboy (1980), which also influenced trends in popular culture. Additional film credits include the Brian De Palma thrillers Carrie (1976) and Blow Out (1981), as well as Amy Heckerling's hit comedy Look Who's Talking (1989) and Nora Ephron's comic hit Michael (1996). Travolta starred in Phenomenon (1996) and took an equally distinctive turn as an action star in John Woo's top-grossing Broken Arrow (1996). He also starred in the classic Face/Off (1997) opposite Nicolas Cage, and The General's Daughter (1999), co-starring Madeleine Stowe. In 2005, Travolta reprised the role of ultra cool Chili Palmer in the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005). In addition, he starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in the critically-acclaimed independent feature film A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where both Travolta and the films won rave reviews. In February 2011, John was honored by Europe's leading weekly program magazine HORZU, with the prestigious Golden Camera Award for "Best Actor International" in Berlin, Germany. Other recent feature film credits include box-office hit-comedy "Wild Hogs", the action-thriller Ladder 49 (2004), the movie version of the successful comic book The Punisher (2004), the drama Basic (2003), the psychological thriller Domestic Disturbance (2001), the hit action picture Swordfish (2001), the infamous sci-fi movie Battlefield Earth (2000), based upon the best-selling novel by L. Ron Hubbard, and Lonely Hearts (2006).
Travolta has been honored twice with Academy Award nominations, the latest for his riveting portrayal of a philosophical hit-man in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for this highly-acclaimed role and was named Best Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, among other distinguished awards. Travolta garnered further praise as a Mafioso-turned-movie producer in the comedy sensation Get Shorty (1995), winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. In 1998, Travolta was honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts with the Britanna Award: and in that same year he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Film Festival. Travolta also won the prestigious Alan J. Pakula Award from the US Broadcast Critics Association for his performance in A Civil Action (1998), based on the best-selling book and directed by Steven Zaillian. He was nominated again for a Golden Globe for his performance in Primary Colors (1998), directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Emma Thompson and Billy Bob Thornton, and in 2008, he received his sixth Golden Globe nomination for his role as "Edna Turnblad" in the big-screen, box-office hit, Hairspray (2007). As a result of this performance, the Chicago Film Critics and the Santa Barbara Film Festival decided to recognize Travolta with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his role.
In addition, Travolta starred opposite Denzel Washington in Tony Scott's remake The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), and he provided the voice of the lead character in Walt Disney Pictures' animated hit Bolt (2008), which was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and a Golden Globe for Best Animated Film, in addition to Best Song for John and Miley Cyrus' duet titled, "I Thought I Lost You".
Next, Travolta starred in Walt Disney Pictures' Old Dogs (2009), along with Robin Williams, Kelly Preston and Ella Bleu Travolta, followed by the action thriller From Paris with Love (2010), starring opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2012, John starred alongside Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demián Bichir in Oliver Stone's, Savages (2012). The film was based on Don Winslow's best-selling crime novel that was named one of The New York Times' Top 10 Books of 2010. John was most recently seen in Killing Season (2013), co-starring Robert De Niro, and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. John recently completed production on the Boston-based film, The Forger (2014), alongside Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer and Critic's Choice nominee Tye Sheridan. John plays a second-generation petty thief who arranges to get out of prison to spend time with his ailing son (Sheridan) by taking on a job with his father (Plummer) to pay back the syndicate that arranged his release. John has received 2 prestigious aviation awards: in 2003, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation Award for Excellence for his efforts to promote commercial flying, and, in 2007, The Living Legends Ambassador of Aviation award.
John holds 11 jet licenses: 747, 707, Gulfstream II, Lear 24, Hawker 1251A, Eclipse Jet, Vampire Jet, Canadair CL-141 Jet, Soko Jet, Citation ISP and Challenger. Travolta is the Qantas Airways Global Goodwill "Ambassador-at-Large" and piloted the original Qantas 707 during "Spirit of Friendship" global tour in July/August 2002. John is also a business aircraft brand ambassador for Learjet, Challenger and Global jets for the world's leading business aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier. John flew the 707 to New Orleans after the 2005 hurricane disaster bringing food and medical supplies, and in 2010, again flew the 707, this time to Haiti after the earthquake, carrying supplies, doctors and volunteers.
John, along with his late wife, actress Kelly Preston (1962-2020), were very involved in their charity, The Jett Travolta Foundation, which raises money for children with educational needs.- Actor
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Lead and supporting actor of the American stage and films, with sandy colored hair, and pale complexion. He won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Deer Hunter (1978), and has been seen in mostly character roles, often portraying psychologically unstable individuals, though that generalization would not do justice to Walken's depth and breadth of performances.
Walken was born in Astoria, Queens, New York. His mother, Rosalie (Russell), was a Scottish emigrant, from Glasgow. His father, Paul Wälken, was a German emigrant, from Horst, who ran Walken's bakery. Christopher learned his stage craft, including dancing, at Hofstra University & ANTA, and picked up a Theatre World award for his performance in the revival of the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo". Walken then first broke through into cinema in 1969 appearing in Me and My Brother (1968), before appearing alongside Sean Connery in the sleeper heist movie The Anderson Tapes (1971). His eclectic work really came to the attention of critics in 1977 with his intense portrayal of Diane Keaton suicidal younger brother in Annie Hall (1977), and then he scooped the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1977 for his role as Nick in the electrifying The Deer Hunter (1978). Walken was lured back by The Deer Hunter (1978) director Michael Cimino for a role in the financially disastrous western Heaven's Gate (1980), before moving onto surprise audiences with his wonderful dance skills in Pennies from Heaven (1981), taking the lead as a school teacher with telepathic abilities in the Stephen King inspired The Dead Zone (1983) and then as billionaire industrialist Max Zorin trying to blow up Silicon Valley in the 007 adventure A View to a Kill (1985). Looking at many of Walken's other captivating screen roles, it is easy to see the diversity of his range and even his droll comedic talents with humorous appearances in Biloxi Blues (1988), Wayne's World 2 (1993), Joe Dirt (2001), Mousehunt (1997) and America's Sweethearts (2001). Most recently, he continued to surprise audiences again with his work as a heart broken and apologetic father to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can (2002).