The 24 most underrated actors & actresses
by atepe-455-176111 | created - 21 Feb 2013 | updated - 21 Feb 2013 | PublicSome of whom have fallen of the big screen radar and all of which deserve more recognition and screen time.
1. Harvey Keitel
Actor | Reservoir Dogs
American actor and producer Harvey Keitel was born on May 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Miriam (Klein) and Harry Keitel. An Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominee, he has appeared in films such as Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976), Ridley Scott's The Duellists (...
2. Holly Hunter
Actress | Broadcast News
Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first...
3. Eric Bana
Actor | Dirty John
Eric Bana was born Eric Banadinovic on August 9, 1968, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He is the younger of two brothers. His father, named Ivan Banadinovic, came from Zagreb, Croatia, and worked as a manager for Caterpillar Inc. His mother, named Eleanor Banadinovic, came from a German family ...
4. Cate Blanchett
Actress | Carol
Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...
5. Mads Mikkelsen
Actor | Hannibal
Mads Mikkelsen's great successes parallel those achieved by the Danish film industry since the mid-1990s. He was born in Østerbro, Copenhagen, to Bente Christiansen, a nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a banker.
Starting out as a low-life pusher/junkie in the 1996 success Pusher (1996), he slowly grew ...
6. Michelle Pfeiffer
Actress | The Fabulous Baker Boys
Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Dick and Donna Pfeiffer. She has an older brother and two younger sisters - Dedee Pfeiffer, and Lori Pfeiffer, who both dabbled in acting and modeling but decided against making it their lives' work. She graduated from Fountain Valley High ...
7. John Turturro
Actor | Fading Gigolo
Highly talented, lightly built American actor who always looks unsettled and jumpy has become a favourite of cult/arthouse film aficionados with his compelling performances in a broad range of cinematic vehicles.
Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian-American parents, Katherine (...
8. Michelle Williams
Actress | Blue Valentine
A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was ...
9. Chiwetel Ejiofor
Actor | 12 Years a Slave
English actor, writer and director Chiwetel Ejiofor is renowned for his portrayal of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, along with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He is also known for playing Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things...
10. Susan Sarandon
Actress | Thelma & Louise
It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who ...
11. Robert Carlyle
Actor | The Full Monty
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 ...
12. Edward Norton
Actor | Fight Club
American actor, filmmaker and activist Edward Harrison Norton was born on August 18, 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Columbia, Maryland.
His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (Rouse), was a foundation executive and teacher of English, and a daughter of famed real estate developer ...
13. Felicity Huffman
Actress | Transamerica
Felicity Huffman was born on December 9, 1962 in Bedford, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Transamerica (2005), Desperate Housewives (2004) and Sports Night (1998). She has been married to William H. Macy since September 6, 1997. They have two children.
14. Tim Roth
Actor | Rob Roy
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 ...
15. Samantha Morton
Actress | Minority Report
Samantha Morton has established herself as one of the finest actors of her generation, winning Oscar nominations for her turns in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and Jim Sheridan's In America (2002). She has the talent to become one of the major performers in the cinema of this young century.
...
16. Terrence Howard
Actor | Crash
Terrence Howard was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Anita Jeanine Williams (née Hawkins) and Tyrone Howard. He was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His love for acting came naturally, through summers spent with his great-grandmother, New York stage actress Minnie Gentry. He later began his acting career ...
17. Laura Linney
Actress | The Big C
Laura Leggett Linney was born in New York City on February 5, 1964, into a theatre family. Her father was prominent playwright Romulus Linney, whose own great-grandfather was a congressman from North Carolina. Her mother, Miriam Anderson (Leggett), is a nurse. Although she did not live in her ...
18. Forest Whitaker
Actor | The Last King of Scotland
Forest Steven Whitaker has packaged a king-size talent into his hulking 6' 2", 220 lb. frame. He won an Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the film The Last King of Scotland (2006), and has also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. He is the fourth African-American male to...
19. Maggie Gyllenhaal
Actress | Secretary
Maggie Gyllenhaal was born on November 16, 1977 in New York City, New York as Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal, the daughter of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and ...
20. Mark Ruffalo
Actor | Spotlight
Award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo was born on November 22, 1967, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, of humble means to father Frank Lawrence Ruffalo, a construction painter and Marie Rose (Hebert), a stylist and hairdresser; his father's ancestry is Italian and his mother is of half French-Canadian and half ...
21. Khandi Alexander
Actress | CSI: Miami
Khandi Alexander was born on September 4, 1957 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. She is an actress, known for CSI: Miami (2002), Patriots Day (2016) and Scandal (2012).
22. Tom Hardy
Actor | Inception
With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream audiences worldwide. However, the versatile actor has been steadily working on both stage and screen since his television debut...
23. Gina McKee
Actress | Notting Hill
She was born in Sunderland but raised just down the coast in Peterlee where she was educated at Peterlee Comprehensive. At 14 she joined the local drama group which led to a part in the children's tv series 'Quest of Eagles' and appeared in some television commercials including one as a shop ...
24. Jean Reno
Actor | Léon
Jean Reno was born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez in Casablanca, Morocco, to Spanish parents (from Andalucía) who moved to North Africa to seek work. His father was a linotypist. Reno settled in France at 17. He began studying drama and has credits in French television and theater as well as films. ...
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