BAFTA Awards 2017 — Best Leading Actress
Which of the nominees of BAFTA Awards 2017 for Best Leading Actress do you think should win?
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Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as smaller amounts of Danish, Swiss-German, and Norwegian, ancestry.
Adams sang in the school choir at Douglas County High School and was an apprentice dancer at a local dance company, with the ambition of becoming a ballerina. However, she worked as a greeter at The Gap and as a Hooters hostess to support herself before finding work as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse in such productions as "Brigadoon" and "A Chorus Line". It was there that she was spotted by a Minneapolis dinner-theater director who asked her to move to Chanhassen, Minnesota for more regional dinner theatre work.
Nursing a pulled muscle that kept her from dancing, she was free to audition for a part in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), which was filming nearby in Minnesota. During the filming, Kirstie Alley encouraged her to move to Los Angeles, where she soon won a part in the Fox television version of the film, Cruel Intentions (1999), in the part played in the film by Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Kathryn Merteuil". Although three episodes were filmed, the troubled series never aired. Instead, parts of the episodes were cobbled together and released as the direct-to-video Cruel Intentions 2 (2000). After more failed television spots, she landed a major role in Catch Me If You Can (2002), playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. But this did not provide the break-through she might have hoped for, with no work being offered for about a year. She eventually returned to television, and joined the short-lived series, Dr. Vegas (2004).
Her role in the low-budget independent film Junebug (2005) (which was shot in 21 days) got her real attention, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as well as other awards. The following year, her ability to look like a wide-eyed Disney animated heroine helped her to be chosen from about 300 actresses auditioning for the role of "Giselle" in the animated/live-action feature film, Enchanted (2007), which would prove to be her major break-through role. Her vivacious yet innocent portrayal allowed her to use her singing and dancing talents. Her performance garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Adams next appeared in the major production, Charlie Wilson's War (2007), and went on to act in the independent film, Sunshine Cleaning (2008), which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Her role as "Sister James" in Doubt (2008) brought her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and a British Academy Film award. She appeared as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and as a post-9/11 hot line counselor, aspiring writer, amateur cook and blogger in Julie & Julia (2009). In the early 2010s, she starred with Jason Segel in The Muppets (2011), with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012), and alongside Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake in Trouble with the Curve (2012). She played reporter Lois Lane in Man of Steel (2013) and con artist Sydney Prosser in American Hustle (2013), before portraying real-life artist Margaret Keane in Tim Burton's biopic Big Eyes (2014).
In 2016, she reprised her role as Lane in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and headlined Denis Villeneuve's science fiction drama Arrival (2016) and Tom Ford's dark thriller Nocturnal Animals (2016). In 2018, she received another Oscar nomination, her sixth, for starring as Lynne Cheney in the biographical drama Vice (2018), opposite Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.For Arrival (2016).- Actress
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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 American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).For Jackie (2016).- Actress
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Emily Olivia Leah Blunt is a British actress known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Young Victoria (2009), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and The Girl on the Train (2016), among many others.
Blunt was born on February 23, 1983, in Roehampton, South West London, England, the second of four children in the family of Joanna Mackie, a former actress and teacher, and Oliver Simon Peter Blunt, a barrister. Her grandfather was Major General Peter Blunt, and her uncle is MP Crispin Blunt. Emily received a rigorous education at Ibstock Place School, a co-ed private school at Roehampton. However, young Emily Blunt had a stammer, since she was a kid of 8. Her mother took her to relaxation classes, which did not do anything. She reached a turning point at 12, when a teacher cleverly asked her to play a character with a different voice and said, "I really believe in you". Blunt ended up using a northern accent, and it did the trick, her stammer disappeared.
From 1999 - 2001, Blunt went to Hurtwood House, the top co-ed boarding school where she would excel at sport, cello and singing. She also had two years of drama studies at Hurtwood's theatre course. In August 2000, she was chosen to perform at the Edinburgh Festival. She was signed up by an agent, Kenneth Mcreddie, who led her to the West End and the BBC, scoring her roles in several period dramas on stage as well as on TV productions, such as Foyle's War (2002), Henry VIII (2003) and Empire (2005). In 2001, she appeared as "Gwen Cavendish" opposite Dame Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall's production of "The Royal Family" at Haymarket Theatre. For that role, she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer. In 2002, she played "Juliet" in "Romeo and Juliet" at the prestigious Chichester Festival.
Blunt's career ascended to international fame after she starred as "Isolda" opposite Alex Kingston in Warrior Queen (2003). A year later, she won critical acclaim for her breakout performance as "Tamsin", a well-educated, cynical and deceptive 16-year-old beauty in My Summer of Love (2004), a story of two lonely girls from the opposite ends of the social heap. Emily Blunt and her co-star, Natalie Press, shared an Evening Standard British Film award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 2005, she spent a few months in Australia filming Irresistible (2006) with Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill. Blunt gave an impressive performance as "Mara", a cunning young destroyer who acts crazy and surreptitiously provokes paranoia in others. She also continued her work on British television, starring as "Natasha" in Stephen Poliakoff's Gideon's Daughter (2005), opposite Bill Nighy, a role that won her a 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role.
She continued the line of playing manipulative characters as "Emily", a caustic put-upon assistant to Meryl Streep's lead in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Blunt's performance with a neurotic twist added a dimension of sarcasm to the comedy, and gained her much attention as well as new jobs: in two dramas opposite Tom Hanks, then in the title role in the period drama, The Young Victoria (2009). Her most recent works include appearances as antiques dealer "Gwen Conliffe" in The Wolfman (2010) and as the ballerina in The Adjustment Bureau (2011).
Emily is a highly versatile actress and a multifaceted person. Her talents include singing and playing cello; she is also skilled at horseback riding.
On August 28, 2009, Blunt and Krasinski announced their engagement. The couple married on July 10, 2010, at the estate of their friend, George Clooney, on Lake Como in Italy. Blunt and Krasinski live in the Los Angeles area, California, and have two children.- Actress
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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 Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, where she made her stage debut in a production of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". She appeared in many more productions through her early teens until, at the age of fifteen, she decided that she wanted to make acting her career.
The official story is that she made a PowerPoint presentation, backed by Madonna's "Hollywood" and itself entitled "Project Hollywood", in an attempt to persuade her parents to allow her to drop out of school and move to Los Angeles. The pitch was successful and she and her mother moved to LA with her schooling completed at home while she spent her days auditioning.
She had her TV breakthrough when she won the part of Laurie Partridge in the VH1 talent/reality show In Search of the Partridge Family (2004) which led to a number of small TV roles in the following years. Her movie debut was as Jules in Superbad (2007) and, after a string of successful performances, her leading role as Olive in Easy A (2010) established her as a star.For La La Land (2016).- Actress
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Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Her father was of German and Swiss-German descent, and her mother had English, Irish, and German ancestry.
Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances over the next decade in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the executive producer for the moving ...First Do No Harm (1997). A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..."