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Ornella Muti was born on 9 March 1955 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Flash Gordon (1980), Oscar (1991) and The Most Beautiful Wife (1970). She was previously married to Federico Fachinetti and Alessio Orano.- Joanna Pacula was born on 30 December 1957 in Tomaszów Lubelski, Lubelskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Tombstone (1993), Gorky Park (1983) and The Kiss (1988).
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Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26, 1985 in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her father is English, while her Scottish-born mother is of Scottish and Welsh origin. Brought up immersed in the acting profession from both sides - writing and performing - it is little wonder that the young Keira asked for her own agent at the age of three. She was granted one at the age of six and performed in her first TV role as "Little Girl" in Royal Celebration (1993), aged seven.
It was discovered at an early age that Keira had severe difficulties in reading and writing. She was not officially dyslexic as she never sat the formal tests required of the British Dyslexia Association. Instead, she worked incredibly hard, encouraged by her family, until the problem had been overcome by her early teens. Her first multi-scene performance came in A Village Affair (1995), an adaptation of the lesbian love story by Joanna Trollope. This was followed by small parts in the British crime series The Bill (1984), an exiled German princess in The Treasure Seekers (1996) and a much more substantial role as the young "Judith Dunbar" in Giles Foster's adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's novel Coming Home (1998), alongside Peter O'Toole, Penelope Keith and Joanna Lumley. The first time Keira's name was mentioned around the world was when it was revealed (in a plot twist kept secret by director George Lucas) that she played Natalie Portman's decoy "Padme" to Portman's "Amidala" in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). It was several years before agreement was reached over which scenes featured Keira as the queen and which featured Natalie!
Keira had no formal training as an actress and did it out of pure enjoyment. She went to an ordinary council-run school in nearby Teddington and had no idea what she wanted to do when she left. By now, she was beginning to receive far more substantial roles and was starting to turn work down as one project and her schoolwork was enough to contend with. She reappeared on British television in 1999 as "Rose Fleming" in Alan Bleasdale's faithful reworking of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1999), and traveled to Romania to film her first title role in Walt Disney's Princess of Thieves (2001) in which she played Robin Hood's daughter, Gwyn. Keira's first serious boyfriend was her Princess of Thieves (2001) co-star Del Synnott, and they later co-starred in Peter Hewitt's 'work of fart' Thunderpants (2002). Nick Hamm's dark thriller The Hole (2001) kept her busy during 2000, and featured her first nude scene (15 at the time, the film was not released until she was 16 years old). In the summer of 2001, while Keira studied and sat her final school exams (she received six A's), she filmed a movie about an Asian girl's (Parminder Nagra) love for football and the prejudices she has to overcome regarding both her culture and her religion). Bend It Like Beckham (2002) was a smash hit in football-mad Britain but it had to wait until another of Keira's films propelled it to the top end of the US box office. Bend It Like Beckham (2002) cost just £3.5m to make, and nearly £1m of that came from the British Lottery. It took £11m in the UK and has since gone on to score more than US$76m worldwide.
Meanwhile, Keira had started A-levels at Esher College, studying Classics, English Literature and Political History, but continued to take acting roles which she thought would widen her experience as an actress. The story of a drug-addicted waitress and her friendship with the young son of a drug-addict, Pure (2002), occupied Keira from January to March 2002. Also at this time, Keira's first attempt at Shakespeare was filmed. She played "Helena" in a modern interpretation of a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" entitled The Seasons Alter (2002). This was commissioned by the environmental organization "Futerra", of which Keira's mother is patron. Keira received no fee for this performance or for another short film, New Year's Eve (2002), by award-winning director Col Spector. But it was a chance encounter with producer Andy Harries at the London premiere of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) which forced Keira to leave her studies and pursue acting full-time. The meeting lead to an audition for the role of "Larisa Feodorovna Guishar" - the classic heroine of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (2002), played famously in the David Lean movie by Julie Christie. This was to be a big-budget TV movie with a screenplay written by Andrew Davies. Keira won the part and the mini-series was filmed throughout the Spring of 2002 in Slovakia, co-starring Sam Neill and Hans Matheson as "Yuri Zhivago". Keira rounded off 2002 with a few scenes in the first movie to be directed by Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley writer Richard Curtis. Called Love Actually (2003), Keira played "Juliet", a newlywed whose husband's Best Man is secretly besotted with her. A movie filmed after Love Actually (2003) but released before it was to make the world sit up and take notice of this beautiful fresh-faced young actress with a cute British accent. It was a movie which Keira very nearly missed out on, altogether. Auditions were held in London for a new blockbuster movie called Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), but heavy traffic in the city forced Keira to be tagged on to the end of the day's auditions list. It helped - she got the part. Filming took place in Los Angeles and the Caribbean from October 2002 to March 2003 and was released to massive box office success and almost universal acclaim in the July of that year.
Meanwhile, a small British film called Bend It Like Beckham (2002) had sneaked onto a North American release slate and was hardly setting the box office alight. But Keira's dominance in "Pirates" had set tongues wagging and questions being asked about the actress playing "Elizabeth Swann". Almost too late, "Bend It"'s distributors realized one of its two stars was the same girl whose name was on everyone's lips due to "Pirates", and took the unusual step of re-releasing "Bend It" to 1,000 screens across the US, catapulting it from no. 26 back up to no. 12. "Pirates", meanwhile, was fighting off all contenders at the top spot, and stayed in the Top 3 for an incredible 21 weeks. It was perhaps no surprise, then, that Keira was on producer Jerry Bruckheimer's wanted list for the part of "Guinevere" in a planned accurate telling of the legend of "King Arthur". Filming took place in Ireland and Wales from June to November 2003. In July, Keira had become the celebrity face of British jeweller and luxury goods retailer, Asprey. At a photoshoot for the company on Long Island New York in August, Keira met and fell in love with Northern Irish model Jamie Dornan. King Arthur (2004) was released in July 2004 to lukewarm reviews. It seems audiences wanted the legend after all, and not necessarily the truth. Keira became the breakout star and 'one to watch in 2004' throughout the world's media at the end of 2003.
Keira's 2004 started off in Scotland and Canada filming John Maybury's time-travelling thriller The Jacket (2005) with Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. A planned movie of Deborah Moggach's novel, "Tulip Fever", about forbidden love in 17th Century Amsterdam, was canceled in February after the British government suddenly closed tax loopholes which allowed filmmakers to claw back a large proportion of their expenditure. Due to star Keira and Jude Law in the main roles, the film remains mothballed. Instead, Keira spent her time wisely, visiting Ethiopia on behalf of the "Comic Relief" charity, and spending summer at various grandiose locations around the UK filming what promises to be a faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride & Prejudice (2005), alongside Matthew Macfadyen as "Mr. Darcy", and with Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench in supporting roles. In October 2004, Keira received her first major accolade, the Hollywood Film Award for Best Breakthrough Actor - Female, and readers of Empire Magazine voted her the Sexiet Movie Star Ever. The remainder of 2004 saw Keira once again trying a completely new genre, this time the part-fact, part-fiction life story of model turned bounty hunter Domino (2005). 2005 started with the premiere of The Jacket (2005) at the Sundance Film Festival, with the US premiere in LA on February 28th. Much of the year was then spent in the Caribbean filming both sequels to Pirates Of The Caribbean. Keira's first major presenting role came in a late-night bed-in comedy clip show for Comic Relief with presenter Johnny Vaughan. In late July, promotions started for the September release of Pride & Prejudice (2005), with British fans annoyed to learn that the US version would end with a post-marriage kiss, but the European version would not. Nevertheless, when the movie opened in September on both sides of the Atlantic, Keira received her greatest praise thus far in her career, amid much talk of awards. It spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK box office.
Domino (2005) opened well in October, overshadowed by the death of Domino Harvey earlier in the year. Keira received Variety's Personality Of The Year Award in November, topped the following month by her first Golden Globe nomination, for Pride & Prejudice (2005). KeiraWeb.com exclusively announced that Keira would play Helene Joncour in an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco's novella Silk (2007). Pride & Prejudice (2005) garnered six BAFTA nominations at the start of 2006, but not Best Actress for Keira, a fact which paled soon after by the announcement she had received her first Academy Award nomination, the third youngest Best Actress Oscar hopeful. A controversial nude Vanity Fair cover of Keira and Scarlett Johansson kept the press busy up till the Oscars, with Reese Witherspoon taking home the gold man in the Best Actress category, although Keira's Vera Wang dress got more media attention. Keira spent early summer in Europe filming Silk (2007) opposite Michael Pitt, and the rest of the summer in the UK filming Atonement (2007), in which she plays Cecilia Tallis, and promoting the new Pirates movie (her Ellen Degeneres interview became one of the year's Top 10 'viral downloads'). Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) broke many box office records when it opens worldwide in July, becoming the third biggest movie ever by early September. Keira sued British newspaper The Daily Mail in early 2007 after her image in a bikini accompanied an article about a woman who blamed slim celebrities for the death of her daughter from anorexia. The case was settled and Keira matched the settlement damages and donated the total amount to an eating disorder charity. Keira filmed a movie about the life of Dylan Thomas, The Edge Of Love (2008) with a screenplay written by her mother Sharman Macdonald. Her co-star Lindsay Lohan pulled out just a week before filming began, and was replaced by Sienna Miller.
What was announced to be Keira's final Pirates movie in the franchise, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007), opened strongly in June, rising to all-time fifth biggest movie by July. Atonement (2007) opened the Venice Film Festival in August, and opened worldwide in September, again to superb reviews for Keira. Meanwhile, Silk (2007) opened in September on very few screens and disappeared without a trace. Keira spent the rest of the year filming The Duchess (2008), the life story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, based on Amanda Foreman's award-winning biography of the distant relation of Princess Diana. The year saw more accolades and poll-topping for Keira than ever before, including Women's Beauty Icon 2007 and gracing the covers of all the top-selling magazines. She won Best Actress for Atonement (2007) at the Variety Club Of Great Britain Showbiz Awards, and ended the year with her second Golden Globe nomination. Christmas Day saw - or rather heard - Keira on British TV screens in a new Robbie The Reindeer animated adventure, with DVD proceeds going to Comic Relief. At the start of 2008, Keira received her first BAFTA nomination - Best Actress for Atonement, and the movie wins Best Film: Drama at the Golden Globes. Seven Academy Award nominations for Atonement soon follow. Keira wins Best Actress for her role as Cecilia Tallis at the Empire Film Awards. In May, Keira's first Shakespearean role is announced, when she is confirmed to play Cordelia in a big-screen version of King Lear, alongside Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow, with Sir Anthony Hopkins as the titular monarch. After two years of rumours, it is confirmed that Keira is on the shortlist to play Eliza Doolittle in a new adaptation of My Fair Lady. The Edge Of Love opens the Edinburgh Film Festival on June 18th, and opens on limited release in the UK and US. A huge round of promotions for The Duchess occurs throughout the summer, with cast and crew trying to play down the marketers' decision to draw parallels between the duchess and Princess Diana. Keira attends the UK and US premieres and Toronto Film Festival within the first week of September. The Duchess opens strongly on both sides of the Atlantic. Two more movies were confirmed for Keira during September - a tale of adultery called Last Night (2010), and a biopic of author F Scott Fitzgerald entitled The Beautiful and the Damned.
Keira spent October on the streets of New York City filming Last Night alongside Sam Worthington and Guillaume Canet. Keira helped to promote the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, by contributing to a series of short films produced to mark the occasion. In January 2009 it was announced Keira had signed to play a reclusive actress in an adaptation of Ken Bruen's novel London Boulevard (2010), co-starring Colin Farrell. Keira continues her close ties with the Comic Relief charity by helping to launch their British icons T-shirts campaign. In the same week King Lear was revealed to have been shelved, it was announced that Keira would instead star alongside her Pride & Prejudice co-star Carey Mulligan in an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010). A new short film emerges in March, recorded in the January of 2008 in which Keira plays a Fairy! The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers (2009) was written by Keira's boyfriend Rupert Friend and actor Tom Mison. It went to be shown at the London Film Festival in October and won Best Comedy Short at the New Hampshire Film Festival. Keira continued to put her celebrity to good use in 2009 with a TV commercial for WomensAid highlighting domestic abuse against women. Unfortunately, UK censors refused to allow its broadcast and it can only be viewed on YouTube. May and June saw Keira filming Never Let Me Go (2010) and London Boulevard (2010) back-to-back. In October, a new direction for Keira's career emerged, when it was announced she would appear on the London stage in her West End debut role as Jennifer, in a reworking of Moliere's The Misanthrope, starring Damian Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald. More than $2m of ticket sales followed in the first four days, before even rehearsals had begun! The play ran from December to March at London's Comedy Theatre.- Music Artist
- Actress
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Kylie Ann Minogue was born on 28 May, 1968. The eldest of three children, Kylie's acting career began early, but it was her role as "Charlene" in the Australian soap, Neighbours (1985), which established Kylie as an international star. Her singing career began, purely by accident, when a record company executive heard Kylie's rendition of Little Eva's 1962 hit, "The Loco-Motion". She signed with PWL Records and hit-makers Stock/Aitken/Waterman in 1987. Five albums and a greatest hits compilation followed, and she made history by having more than 20 consecutive top ten hits in the UK. Her motion picture debut came with the starring role of "Lola" in The Delinquents (1989). She left PWL Records in 1992 to head in a decidedly more mature musical direction, and her self-titled debut on deconstruction records was released in 1994, spawning chart hits like "Confide In Me" and "Put Yourself In My Place". Kylie's doings were always a favorite subject of the press, but she really made waves with her controversial 1995 duet with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "Where the Wild Roses Grow". 1997 saw the release of Kylie's first single in more than 3 years, "Some Kind of Bliss", co-written and produced by James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of The Manic Street Preachers.- Actress
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Naomi Ellen Watts was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, England to Myfanwy Edwards "Miv" (Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume/set designer, and Peter Watts (Peter Anthony Watts), Pink Floyd's road manager. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh. Her father died when she was seven and she followed her mother and brother around England until she was 14 and they finally settled in Australia, homeland of her maternal grandmother. When they arrived, she coaxed her mother to let her take acting classes. After bit parts in commercials, she landed her first role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi met her best friend Nicole Kidman when they both auditioned for a bikini commercial and shared a taxi ride home. In 1991, Naomi starred with Kidman in the sleeper hit Flirting (1991), directed by John Duigan. Naomi continued her career by starring in the Australian Brides of Christ (1991) co-starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Brenda Fricker.
In 1993, she worked with John Duigan again in Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and director George Miller in Gross Misconduct (1993). Tank Girl (1995), in 1995, an adaptation of the comic book was a cult hit, starred Naomi as "Jet Girl", but it didn't do at the box-office or do much for her career. Watts continued to take insignificant parts in movies including the much forgotten film Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996). It wasn't until David Lynch cast her in the critically acclaimed film Mulholland Drive (2001) that she began to become noticed. Her part as an aspiring actress showed her strong acting ability and wide range and earned her much respect, as much as to say by some that she was overlooked for a Oscar nomination that year. Stardom finally came to Naomi in the surprise hit The Ring (2002), which grossed over $100,000,000 at the box-office and starred Watts as an investigative reporter hunting down the truth behind several mysterious deaths seemingly caused by a video tape. While the movie did not fare well with the critics, it launched her into the spotlight. In 2003, she starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003) which earned her - what some say is a much overdue Oscar nomination and brought others to call her one of the best in her generation of actors. The same year, she was nominated for 21 Grams (2003), Naomi was chosen to play "Ann Darrow" in director Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) which took her to New Zealand for a five month shoot. Watts completed her first comedy in I Heart Huckabees (2004) for director David O. Russell, playing a superficial spokes model - a break from her usual intense and dramatic roles she is known for.
In 2005, she reprized her role as the protective-mother-reporter "Rachel Keller" in The Ring Two (2005). The movie, released in March, opened to $35,000,000 at the box office in the first weekend and established her as a box-office draw. Also in 2005, it was decided that her independent movie Ellie Parker (2001) would be re-released in late 2005 after its success at resurfacing at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, which Naomi also produced, features her in the title role and is a bit biographical, but yet exaggerated take of the life of a struggling actress as she comes to Hollywood and encounters nightmares of the profession (it also features Watts' own beat-up Honda which she travels around in). In 2006, she starred with Edward Norton in The Painted Veil (2006). In July of 2007, Naomi gave birth to a boy, Alexander Pete (Sasha Schreiber) in Los Angeles with Liev Schreiber. Since then her career choices have gathered even more critical acclaim with starring roles roles in German director Michael Haneke's American remake of his thriller Funny Games (2007), David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007), and the action-thriller, The International (2009), released in February 2009. In mid-2008, Watts announced she was expecting her second child with Schreiber and gave birth to second son Samuel Kai Schreiber, in New York on December 13.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (1912-1970) and Zeta Davies Jones (1917-2008)) is of Welsh descent and her mother (the daughter of William (1921-2000) and Catherine O'Callaghan Fair (1920-2001) ) is of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. Her brothers are David Jones (born 1967), a development executive, and Lyndon Jones (born 1972), who works at her production company. Her birth name was simply Catherine Jones, but she added her paternal grandmother's name ("Zeta") so as to stand out from the many other young women with the exact same name.
She showed an interest early on in entertainment. She starred on stage in "Annie", "Bugsy Malone" and "The Pajama Game". At age 15, she had the lead in the British revival of "42nd Street". She was originally cast as the second understudy for the lead role in the musical but when the star and first understudy became sick the night the play's producer was in the audience, she was given the lead for the rest of the musical's production. She first made a name for herself in the early 1990s when she starred in the Yorkshire Television comedy/drama series The Darling Buds of May (1991). The series was a success and made her one of the United Kingdom's most popular television actresses.
She subsequently played supporting roles in several films including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), the miniseries Catherine the Great (1995) and a larger role as the seductive Sala in The Phantom (1996) before landing her breakthrough role playing the fiery Elena opposite Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro (1998). She starred in many big-budget blockbusters like Entrapment (1999), The Haunting (1999) and Traffic (2000), for which many believed she was robbed of an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as murderous vaudevillian Velma Kelly in the musical comedy Chicago (2002). She then appeared opposite George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and reprised her starring role in the sequel The Legend of Zorro (2005).
In November 2000, she married actor Michael Douglas. She gave birth to their son Dylan Michael in August 2000 followed by daughter, Carys, in April 2003. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.- Actress
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Salma Hayek was born on September 2, 1966 in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. Her father is of Lebanese descent and her mother is of Mexican/Spanish ancestry. After having seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) in a local movie theater, she decided she wanted to become an actress. At age 12, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, Louisiana. After attending Mexico City's prestigious university Universidad Iberoamericana, she felt ready to pursue acting seriously.
She soon landed the title role in Teresa (1989), a hugely successful soap opera which earned her the star status in her native Mexico. However, anxious to make films and to explore her talent as well as passion, she left both Teresa (1989) and Mexico in 1991. Heartbroken fans spread rumors that she was having a secret affair with Mexico's president and left to escape his wife's wrath. She made her way to Los Angeles. She approached Hollywood with naive enthusiasm and quickly learned that Latina actresses were typecast as the mistress maid or local prostitute. By late 1992, she had landed only small roles. She appeared on Street Justice (1991), The Sinbad Show (1993), Nurses (1991), and as a sexy maid on Dream On (1990). She also had only one line in My Crazy Life (1993). Feeling under-appreciated by Anglo filmmakers, she vented her frustrations on Paul Rodriguez's late-night Spanish-language talk show.
Robert Rodriguez and his wife Elizabeth Avellan happened to be watching and were immediately smitten with her. He soon gave her big break -- to star opposite Antonio Banderas in the cult classic Desperado (1995), bringing her into Hollywood prominence. The moviegoers were as dazzled with her as he had been. Afterwards, she was cast again by Rodriguez to star in the cult classic From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). Her first star billing came later that year with Fools Rush In (1997) opposite Matthew Perry. It was a modest hit and her star continued to rise in both commercial and films such as Breaking Up (1997) with an unknown Russell Crowe, 54 (1998), Dogma (1999) and In the Time of the Butterflies (2001), the small artistic film which won her an ALMA award as best actress and the summer blockbuster Wild Wild West (1999). Her production company Ventanarosa produced the Mexican feature film El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1999), which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and selected as Mexico's official Oscar entry for best foreign film.
The new millennium started out quietly as she prepared to produce and star in her dream role of Frida Kahlo, the legendary Mexican painter whom she had been admiring her entire life and whose story she wanted to bring to the big screen ever since she arrived in Hollywood. Frida (2002) was full of passion and enthusiasm, with performances from her and Alfred Molina as Kahlo's cheating husband Diego Rivera. It also featured an entourage of stars such as Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, Geoffrey Rush, Edward Norton and Valeria Golino.
It was a box office hit and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best actress for Hayek. It won awards for make-up and score by Elliot Goldenthal. Later that year, she expanded her horizons, directing The Maldonado Miracle (2003), which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, she starred in the finale of Rodriguez's Desperado trilogy Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), again opposite Banderas. She also starred in After the Sunset (2004) opposite Pierce Brosnan, and Ask the Dust (2006) opposite Colin Farrell. She then starred in Bandidas (2006), which also featured Penélope Cruz, and Lonely Hearts (2006) opposite Jared Leto.- Actress
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- Writer
Actress, model, presenter and singer Brigitte Nielsen was born July 15, 1963 in Rødovre, a little place near Copenhagen in Denmark. At the end of high school when she was sixteen, Gitte (her given name) left her family to begin her modeling career. She worked for top fashion designers like Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace and Gianfranco Ferré and divided her time between New York, Paris, Milan and Berlin. In 1983, she married Danish musician Kasper Winding, and the year after, her first son Julian was born but, in the same period, acted in Red Sonja (1985) and left her husband and son for an acting career. The film with Arnold Schwarzenegger was successful and, in 1985, she also acted in Rocky IV (1985) with her future husband, Sylvester Stallone. Stallone met Nielsen in the summer of 1985 during Red Sonja (1985)'s promo and, after six months, they married in Malibu. After 19 months, another film together Cobra (1986) and many scandals, Gitte and Sly divorced. In 1987, Brigitte acted in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), directed by Tony Scott, with Eddie Murphy, Paul Reiser and Chris Rock. She went to Italy, where she worked in a big Italian television show called Festival (1987), recorded a dance album, "Every Body Tells a Story", and a pop music single, "Body Next to Body" with Austrian singer Falco. In January 1988, she met football player Mark Gastineau in an Los Angeles gym and soon she was in love with him. In December 1989, her second son, Killian, was born but the relationship with Gastineau finished. In 1990, Nielsen married the photographer/director Sebastian Copeland (Orlando Bloom's cousin) in Las Vegas and recorded another album called "I'm the One...Nobody Else". In 1992, when her third marriage was finished, Brigitte met Swiss/Italian Raoul Meyer and married him in December 1993. The same year, her third son, Douglas Aaron, was born and Gitte also acted in some films such as: The Double 0 Kid (1992) with Seth Green and Wallace Shawn, Fantaghirò 2 (1992), and in the erotic thriller Chained Heat 2 (1993). Meanwhile, she also worked in European television and, in 1995, her last son, Raoul Jr. Ayrton (in memory of her friend Ayrton Senna) was born. Since then, Brigitte left her fourth husband. She continues to act in many films such as:She's Too Tall (1998), Body Count (1995), 976-Evil II (1991), Galaxis (1995) with Sam Raimi, Compelling Evidence (1995), Corey Feldman, George Hamilton, Snowboard Academy (1997), Hostile Environment (1999) and Doomsdayer (2000). She has also recorded some dance music singles: "No More Turning Back" and "You're No Lady", with RuPaul. In 2004, she participated in three reality television shows, the Italian La talpa (2004) (Celebrity Mole) and the American The Surreal Life (2003) and Strange Love (2005).
She divides her residences between Milan, Italy and the United States.- Actress
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New Zealand icon Lucy Lawless is most known for her role as "Xena the Warrior Princess." Lucy is married to producer Rob Tapert (Robert Gerard Tapert) and resides in New Zealand. They have two sons, Julius Robert Bay Tapert and Judah Miro Tapert, who were both born in New Zealand. Lucy also has a daughter, Daisy Lawless, from her first marriage to Garth Lawless.
Lucy was born Lucille Frances Ryan in Mount Albert, Auckland, to Julie, a teacher, and Frank Ryan, a banker and the city's mayor. She was awarded an Order of Merit in the New Zealand Queen's Birthday Honor List in June 2004. Lucy, whose role as Xena in "Xena: Warrior Princess" made her a cult television star, has been involved with the Starship Foundation and has held a role on its board of trustees. She was awarded the Order of Merit for services to entertainment and the community.
In 1995, Lucy landed the role of "Xena: Warrior Princess" in the show, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995), in a three-story arc, that led to her own spin-off show, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995), for six seasons.
Whilst she has been primarily known for her role on "Xena: Warrior Princess," Lucy has also appeared in the classic TV series, Battlestar Galactica (2004), in the semi-regular role of "D'anna Biers," among her other many and varied roles, including the hit Adam Sandler movie, Bedtime Stories (2008). Lucy was also in several made-for-TV movies including: Locusts (2005) and Vampire Bats (2005). She also lent her voice to the straight-to-video movies: Justice League: The New Frontier (2008) and Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (2008). During 2011, Lucy appeared in the "No Ordinary Family" as the mysterious "Mrs. X" and also appeared in the prequel to Spartacus (2010), Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011) and "Spartacus Vengeance" as "Lucretia."
She portrayed "Caroline Platt" in Jane Campion's Top of the Lake (2013), a BBC Mini-Series in New Zealand, with Holly Hunter and Elisabeth Moss, the recurring character of "Diane Lewis" on NBC's Parks and Recreation (2009), and "Velma Kelly" in the Auckland Theatre Company's adaptation of "Chicago: The Musical," the latter from November 1-24, 2013.
As of 2019 she can be seen starring as Alexa Crowe in the light, colorful, Auckland-set mystery, "My Life is Murder."- Rebecca Ryan was born on 27 April 1991 in Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for State of Play (2003), Shameless (2004) and Doctors (2000).
- Actress
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Born in Toronto, Canada, Laura Vandervoort is a versatile actress who not only crosses over genres, but also transforms from character to character embracing the essence of every role she plays. Best known for her roles on the television shows "Smallville" as Supergirl, and "V," Laura has built an international fan base of men and women of all ages. Between her experience and stellar acting chops, Laura has been consistently working as an actress since she was thirteen years old.
Laura first began her career in background work as a child on Canadian commercials and TV shows. This led her into the hands of Disney, where she starred in several now classic Halloween movies as well as several kids tv series.
Laura's career took off from there and the consistently working actress would be seen in many projects such as the series "Instant Star" which went for 4 seasons, the feature, "The Lookout," starring Joseph Gordon Lovitt and Jeff Daniels, "Smallville," where she portrayed the iconic character 'Supergirl.' She worked alongside Ray Liotta in the feature, "The Entitled" and many more. Laura then booked a series regular for ABC's sci-fi series "V" among Elizabeth Mitchell ("Lost") and Scott Wolf ("Party of Five") and then booked feature films including a role in "This Means War" starring Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine and "Ted" directed by Seth Macfarlane, starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. Laura would soon after star in "Jigsaw," (Number one at the box office for its first run) the most recent of the horror film series "Saw."
Laura would then lead the sci fi-action series "Bitten" for Syfy and the Space network. The series ran for three successful seasons and is now a popular stream on Netflix. With high praise critically and a large fan following the series gained strength and praise for both performance and cinematography.
Laura has been developing and producing films and has found another passion working behind the camera. In 2019, Laura developed, executive produced and starred in film festival favorite, 'Age Of Dysphoria' alongside Canadian icon Gordon Pinsent. Laura recently had her directorial debut with 'My Soul to Take,' a short film Laura also wrote, starring Colm Feore. During the 2020 pandemic, Laura shot 5 feature films and an anticipated guest spot on the critically acclaimed series 'Handmaid's Tale.' Laura wrapped the lead role in a feature film thriller entitled 'Black Bags' in Oklahoma at the beginning of 2022 and her production company "Lava Works Entertainment Inc." currently has three films in development.
Laura has also just released her first children's book worldwide on Amazon. The book, 'Super-Duper Deelia' marks her entry as a published writer in the children literary world. Most recently Laura has joined the cast of the CTV/CW series, 'Sullivan's Crossing' starring Chad Michael Murray.- Actress
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Ashley Newbrough was born in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Ashley is an actor and producer, known for Privileged (2008), Mistresses (2013) and Small Town Christmas (2018).- Actress
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Born and raised in Brisbane, Australia. Daughter of a British father. Adelaide Clemens began working as an actress on Australian television while in high school. She guest-starred in a 2006 episode of Blue Water High (2005) as Juliet, and in 2007, she starred in the children's series Pirate Islands: The Lost Treasure of Fiji (2007) as Alison. Clemens played Harper in the Showtime drama Love My Way (2004) that year, and was nominated for the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent at the 2008 Logie Awards for the role. Clemens was seen in the 2008 MTV Networks Australia dramatic film Dream Life (2008), alongside Sigrid Thornton, Xavier Samuel, Linda Cropper and Andrew McFarlane. She had small roles in the television series All Saints (1998), and the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), in 2009. She became the face of Jan Logan's jewelry that year. Clemens relocated to Los Angeles, California in 2009 and starred in the 2010 film Wasted on the Young (2010) as Xandrie. In 2012, Clemens starred in Camilla Dickinson (2012), alongside Gregg Sulkin, Cary Elwes, and Samantha Mathis. The drama was an adaptation of the 1951 novel of the same name by young-adult fiction author Madeleine L'Engle. She portrayed teenager Heather Mason in Silent Hill: Revelation (2012). The horror film was based on the survival horror video game Silent Hill 3 (2003), and was a sequel to the film Silent Hill (2006). That year, Clemens also played a lead role as the young suffragette Valentine Wannop in Parade's End (2012), a television mini-series adaptation of the Ford Madox Ford tetra-logy co-produced by HBO and BBC Two. Clemens appeared in the horror film No One Lives (2012) starring Luke Evans. She also appeared in the film The Great Gatsby (2013), based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name. She played Catherine, the sister of Myrtle Wilson, played by Isla Fisher. Clemens starred as Tawney Talbot in the Sundance Channel television miniseries Rectify (2013), created by Ray McKinnon. She will also star with Natalie Dormer, Stephen Graham and Zachary Quinto in the independent drama, The Girl Who Invented Kissing.- Actress
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Debicki was born in Paris to a Polish father and an Australian mother of Irish descent who were both dancers. When she was five, the family moved to Melbourne, where she grew up with two younger siblings. She became interested in ballet at an early age and trained as a dancer until deciding to switch to theatre. A student at Huntingtower School in Melbourne's east, Debicki achieved two perfect study scores in drama and English and was the school's dux when she graduated in 2007. In 2010, she completed a degree in drama at the University of Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts. In August 2009, she was the recipient of a Richard Pratt Bursary for outstanding acting students in their second year of training.- Actress
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Olivia began her career on the stage at the RSC and The National Theatre, breaking into TV with the Andrew Davies adaptation of Emma (1996).
From a damp basement in Camden Town she won the role of Abby in the $120 million blockbuster The Postman (1997) starring alongside Kevin Costner. In the following year, Olivia was cast as Rosemary Cross in Rushmore (1998), co-starring Bill Murray, from acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson and producer Barry Mendel.
Her association with Mendel brought her to the attention of M. Night Shyamalan and the role of Anna Crowe in The Sixth Sense (1999) which would become a defining moment in Olivia's career. The box office success of the M. Night Shyamalan film, starring Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, and Toni Collette, saw it become one of the highest grossing films of all time.
In the subsequent years Olivia starred in The Body (2001) with Antonio Banderas, in Below (2002) from Dimension Films, and in the $100 million big screen adaptation of Peter Pan (2003) from Universal Studios.
Shortly after, in The Heart of Me (2002), with Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Bettany, Olivia's performance won her Best Actress at the prestigious British Independent Film Awards.
Olivia then took on the challenge of playing Jane Austen in the BBC film, Miss Austen Regrets (2007), quickly followed by another lead role, as Miss Stubbs, in the Oscar-nominated An Education (2009).
Based on these performances, Joss Whedon cast Olivia as Adelle DeWitt in Dollhouse (2009), the cult television series from 20th Century Fox that ran for two seasons.
Olivia returned to cinema screens, playing Ruth Lang in The Ghost Writer (2010) with Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor. Olivia's performance earned her ALFS and NSFC awards for Best Supporting Actress.
Joe Wright cast Olivia in his next two films, Hanna (2011), alongside Cate Blanchett and Saoirse Ronan, and in Anna Karenina (2012) with Jude Law and Keira Knightley.
In the same year, Olivia joined the ensemble cast of Bill Murray, Olivia Colman, and Laura Linney, in the hit film Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) from director Roger Michell.
In television, Olivia then landed lead roles in Case Sensitive (2011), and Manhattan (2014), both of which received critical acclaim.
During this period, Olivia was also cast in the features, The Last Days on Mars (2013), Seventh Son (2014) with Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, and Alicia Vikander, Maps to the Stars (2014) directed by David Cronenberg, and playing Lady Churchill in Victoria & Abdul (2017) directed by Stephen Frears.
Returning to television, Olivia starred as Lady Priscilla Hamilton in the period drama, The Halcyon (2017), and as Emily Burton Silk in both seasons of Counterpart (2017), with co-star J.K. Simmons.
Olivia has always had a deep passion for theatre. At the RSC, Olivia has performed in Misha's Party, Wallenstein, The Broken Heart, The Wives Excuse, and Peer Gynt. Olivia's expansive stage career at the National Theatre includes such shows as Waste from director Roger Michell, Love Labour's Lost directed by Trevor Nunn, Richard III including its US tour, Happy Now?, Tartuffe, and Mosquitoes directed by Rufus Norris. Along with these, Olivia also starred alongside Matthew Fox in the Neil LaBute play In A Forest Dark and Deep at the Garrick Theatre.
Olivia can next be seen as Lavinia Bidlow in the HBO show The Nevers (2021), created and directed by Joss Whedon, and as Catherine in The Father (2020), with Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman.- Producer
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Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner military figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle.
Theron received an education as a ballet dancer and has danced both the "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker". There was not much work for a young actress or dancer in South Africa, so she soon traveled to Europe and the United States, where she got a job at the Joffrey Ballet in New York. She was also able to work as a photo model. However, an injured knee put a halt to her dancing career.
In 1994, her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, and Charlize started visiting all of the agents on Hollywood Boulevard, but without any luck. She went to a bank to cash a check for $500 she received from her mother, and became furious when she learned that the bank would not cash it because it was an out-of-state check. She made a scene and an agent gave her his card, in exchange for learning American English, which she did by watching soap operas on television.
Her first role was in the B-film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995), a non-speaking part with three seconds of screen time. Her next role was as Helga Svelgen in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), which landed her the role of Tina Powers in That Thing You Do! (1996). Since then, she has starred in movies like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Italian Job (2003). On February 29, 2004, she won her first Academy Award, a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Monster (2003).- Actress
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Mischa Barton is a versatile actress with a passion for storytelling and an impressive career spanning over two decades. Working with such acclaimed directors and writers as M. Night Shyamalan, James Lapine and Naomi Wallace, she is known for her magnetic on-screen presence and natural acting abilities that have captivated audiences worldwide. She has earned her reputation as one of the most talented performers of her generation.
Born in London, England, Barton quickly made her mark in the entertainment industry with her debut film role in "Lawn Dogs" (1997). From there, she continued to showcase her versatility in a variety of film and television projects, including the hit supernatural thriller "The Sixth Sense" (1999) and the critically acclaimed drama series "Once and Again" (2002-2003).
However, it was her iconic role as Marissa Cooper in the hit television series "The O.C." (2003-2006) that truly launched Barton to superstardom. Her portrayal of the troubled, yet lovable character resonated with audiences worldwide, cementing her place as a pop culture icon and earning her widespread critical acclaim with critics praising her nuanced portrayal of a complex character.
She has appeared in several stage productions throughout her career, including the acclaimed Off-Broadway productions of "Where the Truth Lies," "Twelve Dreams," and "One Flea Spare." Her performances were praised for their depth, nuance, and emotional range, demonstrating her versatility as an actress.- Actress
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Connie Nielsen is set to begin production on Ridley Scott's "Gladiator 2," where she will star alongside Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, reprising her iconic role of 'Lucilla' from the Academy Award-winning film "Gladiator." She appears in Ava Duvernay's feature, "Origin," based on the book by Isabel Wilkerson, opposite Jon Bernthal and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Additionally, Nielsen has roles in the following upcoming films: "Role Play," alongside Kaley Cuoco, Bill Nighy, and David Oyelowo for StudioCanal; and "Follow Me," directed by Siri Rodnes. Nielsen is also preparing for the production of "Birds Eye," alongside Maria Bakalova and Jean Reno.
Nielsen starred in and served as an executive producer for the Danish mini-series, "The Dreamer: Becoming Karen Blixen," and starred in "Close to Me" for AMC/Channel 4, opposite Christopher Eccleston.
Previously, Nielsen starred as 'Queen Hippolyta' in Warner Brother's blockbuster hits, "Wonder Woman," "Justice League," "Wonder Woman 1984," and the Snyder Cut of "Justice League", co-starred with Bob Odenkirk in the successful Universal feature, "Nobody," and appeared alongside Simon Pegg and Lily Collins in "The Inheritance," directed by Vaughn Stein. She also appeared in TNT's limited series, "I Am the Night," directed by Patty Jenkins, opposite Chris Pine, and the Danish mini-series, "Liberty," created by Asger Leth. Her other film credits include: "I'll Find You" (directed by Martha Coolidge/Fred Roos), where she starred alongside Stellan Skarsgárd; "Sea Fever" (TIFF 2019), directed by Ken O'Sullivan; "Catcher Was a Spy," opposite Paul Rudd and Guy Pearce; "Stratton," opposite Dominic Cooper; "Le Confessioni," opposite Toni Servillo; the Norwegian film, "The Lion Woman," and Lars Van Triers' "Nymphomaniac," in which she had a leading role. Nielsen was the female lead in the Golden Globe Award-nominated series "Boss," opposite Kelsey Grammer, had a recurring role as a femme fatale on FOX's "The Following," opposite Kevin Bacon, and appeared in a recurring arc on CBS' "The Good Wife."- Cristina Brondo was born on 16 January 1977 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. She is an actress, known for The Spanish Apartment (2002), Lola vende cá (2002) and Russian Dolls (2005). She has been married to Diego Yaker since 13 April 2007. They have two children.
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Spanish actress Elena Anaya impressed the critics with her performance in Sex and Lucía (2001).
Elena was born in Palencia, Spain, on July 17th, 1975. An active child, she excelled in karate and mountain climbing. By the time she was 17 Elena knew that she wanted to channel her energy into being an actress and enrolled in a drama course being given in her local town by actor Manuel Moron. More determined than ever, she then opted out of school, choosing instead to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Madrid.
Moron mentioned Elena's exceptional talent to his agent, Katrina Bayonas, who was looking for a young girl to star in the film, "Africa". Elena auditioned and the role was hers.
Elena was obliged to leave the Royal Academy when Fernando Leon de Aranoa called her to work in his comedy, "Familia". But, aware of the importance of studying, Elena her formation at the Juan Carlos Corazza school of acting.
Following her feature debut in the 1996 drama "África"(Alfonso Ungría) Anaya continued to impress with supporting roles in such features as "Lagrimas negras" (Fernando Bauluz y Ricardo Franco, 1998) "Finisterre" (Xavier Villaverde, 1998), "Las Huellas borradas" (Enrique Gabriel, 1999) and the romantic drama "El Invierno de las Anjanas"(Pedro Telechea). In 2000, director Julio Medem cast her as the seductive baby sitter, Belen, in the erotic drama "Lucia y el sexo" (2001). The explosive mixture of innocence and provocation earned her a Goya (Spanish Academy Award) nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also received the Spanish Actors Union Award for Best Supporting Actress. That same year she was featured in the comedy "Sin noticias de Dios" (Agustín Díaz Yanes 2001) with Penelope Cruz and Victoria Abril.
As her star continued to rise thanks to roles in "Dos Tipos duros" (Juan Martínez Moreno 2003) and Pedro Almodóvar's "Talk to Her", it was only a matter of time before she caught the attention of international directors and she was offered the role of Dracula's most possessive bride in 2004's "Van Helsing" (Stephen Sommers). Then, in 2004, came the action comedy "Dead Fish" (Charley Stadler) with Gary Oldman, in 2005 the thriller "Fragile" (Jaume Balagueró), and the period adventure "Capitán Alatriste "(Agustín Díaz Yanes). In 2007 she starred in "Miguel & William" (Inés París) and "Savage Grace" (Tom Kalin) with Julianne Moore.
In 2008 she was introduced to French audiences in "L'instinct de Mort" (Jean-François Richet) with Vincent Cassel and Gerard Depardieu. She then travelled to Cairo to work in the romantic drama "Cairo Time" (Ruba Nadda). Agustín Díaz Yanes called her again for his film "I only want to walk" and she then starred in Gaby Ibanez's thriller "Hierro".
2009 brought Elena and Julio Medem together again to make "Room in Rome". The role of Alba earned her Best Actress nominations for both the Spanish Actors Guild and the Goya Awards. She then returned to France to shoot Fred Cavaye's "A Bout Portant".
In 2010 Pedro Almodovar offered her the leading role of Vera in his new film "The Skin I live in" with Antonio Banderas. This role won her the 2011 Best Actress Goya (Spanish Academy Award).
In 2012 she received the honorary Málaga Sur Award at the yearly Film festival in Málaga.
This same year took Elena to Argentina to make "Pensé que iba haber fiesta". In 2013 she starred as Lupe in "Todos están muertos", directed by Beatriz Sanchis. This role won her six Best Actress nominations, the only actress to be nominated for all the awards in the 2015 Spanish Award season. She received the Spanish SAG Best Actress Award.
In 2013 Elena also starred in the Scottish film "Swung". In 2014 she shot Chilean director Matias Bize's "La memoria del Agua" and has recently finished filming Imanol Uribe's "Lejos del mar".
2015 started for Elena with a cameo role in Brad Furman's "The Infiltrator" working alongside Bryan Cranston and John Leguizamo.- Actress
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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. After attending one semester of college between gigs, she realized that she wanted to act for the rest of her life. She started acting when she was nine years old, when her father heard about an acting class on the radio and decided to enroll Mila in it. There, she met her future agent. Her first gig was when she played a character named Melinda in Make a Wish, Molly (1995). From there, her career skyrocketed into big-budget films.
Although she is mostly known for playing Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show (1998), she has shown the world that she can do so much more. Since 1999, she provided the voice of self-conscious daughter Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy (1999). Her breakthrough film was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), in which she played a free-spirited character named Rachel Jansen. She has since starred or co-starred in the films Max Payne (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Mila Kunis is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.- Actress
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Kim Victoria Cattrall was born on August 21, 1956 in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, England to Gladys Shane (Baugh), a secretary, and Dennis Cattrall, a construction engineer. At the age of three months, her family immigrated to Canada, where a large number of her films have been made. At age 11, she returned to her native country and studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA). She returned to Vancouver and, at age 16, graduated from high school and won a scholarship to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in New York City. During her final year at the Academy, she won a role in Otto Preminger's action thriller Rosebud (1975). Following her film debut, Kim returned to the theatre, first in Vancouver and then in repertory in Toronto before winning a contract at Universal Pictures in Los Angeles, California.
Kim continued to work steadily through the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, including roles in 1980s cult classics such as Police Academy (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and Mannequin (1987), and as Mr. Spock's protegee Lieutenant Valeris in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). However, it was her portrayal of sexually liberated public relations executive Samantha Jones on the HBO sitcom Sex and the City (1998) and its two feature film follow-ups that brought her worldwide attention, and gained her five Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations including winning the 2002 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.- Actress
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Bre Blair was born on 29 April 1980 in Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for Game of Silence (2016), The Baby-Sitters Club (1995) and S.W.A.T. (2017).- Actress
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Mercedes Mason immigrated to the United States at the age of 12. At age 13 she was discovered by FORD modeling agency, launching her into an international modeling career while attending high school. While studying psychology in college, she booked her first audition opposite Vince Vaughn in The Break-Up (2006). After graduating, she starred in Red Sands (2009) opposite Shane West and J.K. Simmons. She then continued the franchise cult favorite Quarantine (2008) as the lead in Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011) for Sony Screen Gems. Mercedes gained notoriety for her role in the film Three Veils (2011), getting nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the UK International Filmmaker Festival in 2011. Three Veils went on to win numerous awards including Best Feature Film at ARPA International Film Festival. Mercedes can most recently be seen on ABC's The Rookie (2018) as Captain Zoe Andersen. She's also appeared in critically acclaimed shows like Entourage (2004), The Closer (2005), and Traffic Light (2011), as well as recurring in the fan favorite, Chuck (2007). She was also the lead female in FOX's Bones (2005) spin-off, The Finder (2012), opposite Oscar nominated Michael Clarke Duncan. She starred in the ABC hit series, 666 Park Avenue (2012), with Emmy Award winner Terry O'Quinn and Emmy Nominated Vanessa Williams. She had recurring rolls on Californication (2007), opposite David Duchovny, NCIS: Los Angeles (2009), and Anger Management (2012) opposite Charlie Sheen.- Actress
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The dark and classically beautiful British actress and social activist Julia (Karin) Ormond was born on January 4, 1965, in Surrey, into England, the second of five children. Born of privilege as the daughter of a well-to-do laboratory technician, her parents divorced when she was young. Julia attended Guildford High School and Cranleigh, a private school, where she showed interest in theatre at that time appearing in a couple of their musicals.
Julia's grandparents were artists, and she initially intended to be one herself but, after one year of art school, renewed her dedication to acting and transferred to Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where she graduated in 1988.
Appearing in the play "Wuthering Heights" as Catherine, she met and eventually married her Heathcliff (actor Rory Edwards) in real life. In 1989 she won the London Drama Critic's Award for her performance in "Faith, Hope and Charity" as "best newcomer." Julia also made an immediate impression on TV with her debuting role as a young drug addict in the series Traffik (1989)
She earned star-making attention in the TV-movie Young Catherine (1991), in which she portrayed Catherine the Great (also featuring husband Edwards). She then portrayed wife Nadya in the TV movie Stalin (1992) starring Robert Duvall in the title role. She made the jump into feature films scoring a top-billed debut opposite Ralph Fiennes in The Baby of Mâcon (1993), a drama about a woman giving an "immaculate birth." She followed this this with lead or second lead roles in such films as the European biopic Nostradamus (1994); the romantic drama Captives (1994) co-starring Tim Roth; and the period war drama Legends of the Fall (1994) as the object of affection for both Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn. It was around the time of this career rise (1994) that her marriage ended.
With Hollywood now taking a firm notice, Julia was given the fetching role of Queen Guinevere alongside Sean Connery's King Arthur and Richard Gere's Lancelot in First Knight (1995) and, more importantly, was entrusted with Audrey Hepburn's title role in the revival of Sabrina (1995), her radiant presence nearly stealing the picture away from handsome co-stars Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear.
Strangely, Julia's major rise led her in a different direction. From there she instead went on to grace a number of independents and foreign features. She played the title role in the Danish/German/Swedish co-production Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) as a woman who gets involved with a strange murder mystery; the Russian period drama The Barber of Siberia (1998) as a lovely American who gets dangerously involved with a young Russian cadet; and involved herself in another messy affair with Vince Vaughn in the indie drama The Prime Gig (2000). On stage, she appeared in David Hare's "My Zinc Bed," for which she received a 2001 Olivier Award nomination for "Best Actress."
Into the millennium, Julia found herself busy film-wise with the political drama Resistance (2003), cult filmmaker David Lynch's thoroughly offbeat Inland Empire (2006), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Music Never Stopped (2011), Albatross (2011), My Week with Marilyn (2011) (as Vivien Leigh), Chained (2012), Ladies in Black (2018) and Son of the South (2020). On TV she appeared in the mini-series Beach Girls (2005), and had recurring roles on CSI: NY (2004), Nurse Jackie (2009), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Mad Men (2007), Gold Digger (2019), plus a series starring role as one of Witches of East End (2013). She also co-starred in the short-lived series Incorporated (2016).
In 1999, she married a second time to political activist Jon Rubin. They had one daughter, Sophie, before their divorce. On a political front, Julia has been involved fighting human trafficking since the mid-1990s. In 2005, she was appointed United Nations Goodwill Ambassador with a focus on anti-human-trafficking initiatives and awareness.- Swedish-born Lena Olin already had a successful career as an actress before she came to Hollywood. She acted at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and was directed by Ingmar Bergman. She was born in Stockholm, to actors Britta Holmberg and Stig Olin, who appeared in six of Bergman's films. Lena also belongs to the Bergman "family". As a young actress, she played in the great classics of William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. She made her international debut as a movie actress in After the Rehearsal (1984) (aka "After the Rehearsal"), directed by Bergman. In western Europe, she became well-known in the political movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) as "Sabina", in a story about the Prague spring (1968). After coming to the US, she played mostly distinguished, exotic temptresses, intelligent women and crude vamps. Bergman had developed Lena's artistic gift to play different human emotions and express them in a subtle way. Sydney Pollack, director of Out of Africa (1985), rewrote the screenplay for Havana (1990) especially for her. This explains why this film recalls associations with the classic Casablanca (1942), starring Ingrid Bergman, also from Sweden. Olin received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Enemies, A Love Story (1989). She went on to have a choice role in Chocolat (2000), which received a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. She made a move to the smaller screen and played the role for one season as the deliciously evil "Irina Derevko", the mother to Jennifer Garner's "Sydney Bristow" in the series Alias (2001). Olin received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.
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Paz Vega
A renowned international actress who has captivated audiences in Europe, North America, and Latin America with her talent and versatility in acting. After starting her career on the successful sitcom "Siete vidas", the Sevillian actress made the jump to the big screen with Julio Medem's "Sex and Lucia" in 2001, which earned her prestigious accolades as a breakthrough actress in Spain and the rest of Europe, including the Goya and the Chopard Trophy at the Cannes International Film Festival.
In 2006, Paz Vega took a significant step in her career by working in Hollywood, alongside director James L. Brooks, who invited her to co-star in "Spanglish" alongside Adam Sandler. This role allowed her to win the Best Breakthrough Actress award from the Phoenix Film Critics Society. Since then, she has worked with prestigious directors such as Pedro Almodóvar, Frank Miller, Danis Tanovic, Oliver Parker, Michelle Placido, and the Taviani Brothers, and has shared the screen with big names in international cinema such as Scarlett Johansson, Diego Luna, Jason Clarke, Andie MacDowell, Eva Mendes, Adrien Brody, Colin Farrell, and legendary actors such as Rob Lowe, Christopher Lee, Christopher Walken, Antonio Banderas, Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, and Sylvester Stallone, to name a few. In 2022, Paz Vega starred in the comedy "A todo Tren 2", which achieved excellent results at the Spanish box office, becoming the third most-watched movie in the country. Additionally, that same year, Vega filmed "Luciérnagas en el Mozote", the first Hollywood movie made in El Salvador and produced by Bob Yari.
2023 has started exceptionally well for Paz Vega, who leads the cast of "Kaleidoscope" alongside Giancarlo Esposito, Tati Gabrielle, Rufus Sewell, and Jai Courtney, a new Netflix production produced by Ridley Scott that has already become a worldwide success. Additionally, Vega has ventured into directing and screenwriting, demonstrating her commitment and passion for the film industry and establishing herself as a multidisciplinary artist willing to continue surprising audiences. In short, Paz Vega is one of the most outstanding and recognized actresses in international cinema- Actress
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Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she heeded her true calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. The resulting contract landed her several roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos, which in turn paved the way for a career on the big screen. Cruz made her movie debut in El laberinto griego (1993) (The Greek Labyrinth), then appeared briefly in the Timothy Dalton thriller Framed (1992). Her third film was the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), in which she played one of four sisters vying for the love of a handsome army deserter. The film also garnered several Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Her resume continued to grow by three or four films each year, and soon Cruz was a leading lady of Spanish cinema. Live Flesh (1997) (Live Flesh) offered her the chance to work with renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (who would later be her ticket to international fame), and the same year she was the lead actress in the thriller/drama/mystery/sci-fi film Open Your Eyes (1997), a huge hit in Spain that earned eight Goyas (though none for Cruz). Her luck finally changed in 1998, when the movie-industry comedy The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) won her a Best Actress Goya. Cruz made a few more forays into English-language film, but her first big international hit was Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999), in which she played an unchaste but well-meaning nun. As the film was showered with awards and accolades, Cruz suddenly found herself in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Her next big project was Woman on Top (2000), an American comedy about a chef with bewitching culinary skills and a severe case of motion sickness. While in the US, she also signed up to star opposite Johnny Depp in the drug-trafficking drama Blow (2001) and opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000). Cruz says she's wary of being typecast as a beautiful young damsel, but it's hard to imagine disguising her wide-eyed charms and generous nature. Fortunately, with Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) (a remake of Open Your Eyes (1997)) and a John Madden collaboration looming in her future, Damsel Penelope isn't likely to disappear just yet.- Actress
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Linn Natassia Malthe is a Norwegian model and actress.
Natassia is the middle of two sisters with an older brother she recently discovered she had. She was born in Oslo, Norway, and is of half Norwegian/Chinese descent. Her mother is from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. She is usually credited by her birth name but is sometimes credited Natassia Linn Malthe.
In Scotland, and Norway, Malthe went to dance schools at the Goh Ballet Academy, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and The Norwegian Opera House, The Oslo National academy of the Arts where she studied dance, art history, and anatomy. Later she moved to London, England to study musical theater. From there she went to Los Angeles and landed her first part on television. She is getting a bachelor's degree in Film and TV School and is planning on studying at AFI after her bachelor's degree which will be completed in 2024.
In 2005, Natassia Malthe, with Jennifer Garner was nominated at MTV Movie Awards for MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss. She has been the main character in multiple video game movies such as DOA and Bloodrayne and she has also played a Marvel Comic book character Typhoid Mary in Elektra with Jennifer Garner and Will Yun Lee.
In 2009, Malthe starred as an elf bounty-hunter and sorceress-in-training in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Knights of Bloodsteel. Starred opposite Jason Statham and Ryan Philippe in the movie "Chaos". At the start of her career she also did fashion modeling to help finance her move from Norway to Hollywood to pursue an acting career and is among the Girls of Maxim and Toro Women.
She was also the face of LG electronics and starred in a 100 million dollar budget campaign called "Scarlet" with Emmy award winning director David Nutter as the director best known for Band of Brothers and Games of Thrones.- Actress
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Rachael Taylor grew up in Tasmania, Australia, with her parents Nigel and Christine Taylor. She began modelling during her teens, working for the Skye-Jilly International agency. She competed for Miss Teen Tasmania, as well as the Miss Universe/Miss World state finals. She moved to Sydney to further her modeling career as well as to pursue acting. She also began studying for a degree in History and Politics at the University of Sydney.
In 2004, she landed her first acting role in the television movie The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004). After performing several roles, she left her studies to play a regular role on the Australian drama Headland (2005). She won a Logie Award for her performance as Most Popular New Female Talent. Her breakthrough role came in Transformers (2007) when she played Maggie Madsen.- Simonetta Stefanelli was born on 30 November 1954 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Godfather (1972), Young Lucrezia (1974) and The Godfather Saga (1977). She was previously married to Michele Placido.
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She was born in Viareggio (Tuscany, Italy) on June 5th, 1946. She won a beauty contest when she was just 15 years old, which led to her first role in "Il federale" together with the great Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi. She was then cast by Germi for the Italian comedy "Divorzio all'Italiana", working with Marcello Mastroianni, but she became well known a few years later performing in the movie "Sedotta e abbandonata". At 16 she had a relationship with the Italian musician Gino Paoli and in 1964 she gave birth to her first daughter Amanda. In the 70s she worked with directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Ettore Scola, Comencini and acted with Vittorio Gassman, Dustin Hoffman (Alfredo, Alfredo), Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu (Novecento). In the 80s she performed her sexiest role in "La chiave" by Tinto Brass, which made her an erotic icon for a whole generation of men, and participated in important Italian movies (for example Speriamo che sia femmina, with Catherine Deneuve and Liv Ullman). In the 90s she especially worked for tv series and became very popular as Gigi Proietti's fiancée in "Il Maresciallo Rocca". She worked a little less for the cinema industry, nevertheless she participated in Bertolucci's "Io ballo da sola" and in Muccino's "L'ultimo bacio", where she portrayed a woman in the deep of a midlife crises. On September 10th 2005 she received the Golden Lion at the 62th Venice Film Festival for her life achievements.
Stefania Sandrelli represents one of the few actresses who are able to age gracefully and still get interesting roles. She is still regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Italy and she is still able to charm the audience with her sweet smile and sparkling eyes.- Actress
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Lene Nystrøm was born on 2 October 1973 in Tønsberg, Norway. She is an actress and composer, known for Cold Pursuit (2019), BASEketball (1998) and Monsters vs. Aliens (2009). She was previously married to Søren Rasted.- Actress
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Viktoria Winge was born on 5 March 1980 in Oslo, Norway. She is an actress and producer, known for Max Manus: Man of War (2008), Reprise (2006) and Cold Prey (2006).- Ewa was born and raised in Norway. Her name is Portugese, but she is half Norwegian and half Egyptian.
She went to American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in New York. Upon graduation she was invited to join AADA's own Theatre Company and did so for one year where she was a part of four big stage productions such as Ibsens "A Dolls House", "Rough Crossing", " Dancock's Dance" and "Pains of Youth". In addition to acting in the United States, she has done acting and theater work in Norway and Sweden as well. She is also a freelance journalist with monthly columns in Norwegian magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Mascara and Rouge. - Actress
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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 was performing in Shakespearean productions in summer theater camp; she went on to graduate with honors with a BFA degree in Theater from York University. After her debut in an episode of Disney's The Famous Jett Jackson (1998), she co-starred in the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows (2003), a comedy-drama about the trials and travails of a Shakespearean theater group, and won a Gemini award for her performance in 2003.
Her breakout role as Regina George in the hit comedy Mean Girls (2004) instantly catapulted her onto the short list of Hollywood's hottest young actresses. She followed that film with a star turn opposite Ryan Gosling in the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks bestseller The Notebook (2004), which was a surprise box office success and became the predominant romantic drama for a new, young generation of moviegoers. After filming, McAdams and Gosling became romantically involved and dated through mid-2007. McAdams next showcased her versatility onscreen with the manic comedy Wedding Crashers (2005), the thriller Red Eye (2005), and the holiday drama The Family Stone (2005).
McAdams then explored the independent film world with Married Life (2007), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and also starred Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Starring roles in the military drama The Lucky Ones (2008), the newspaper thriller State of Play (2009), and the romance The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) followed before she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Guy Ritchie's international blockbuster Sherlock Holmes (2009). McAdams played the plucky producer of a failing morning TV show in Morning Glory (2010), the materialistic fiancée of Owen Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and returned to romantic drama territory with the hit film The Vow (2012) opposite Channing Tatum. The actress also stars with Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick's To the Wonder (2012) and alongside Noomi Rapace in Brian De Palma's thriller Passion (2012).
In 2005, McAdams received ShoWest's "Supporting Actress of the Year" Award as well as the "Breakthrough Actress of the Year" at the Hollywood Film Awards. In 2009, she was awarded with ShoWest's "Female Star of the Year." As of 2011, she has been romantically linked with her Midnight in Paris (2011) co-star Michael Sheen.- Kathrine Fagerland was born on 30 March 1976 in Bergen, Norway. She is an actress, known for Varg Veum - Bitre blomster (2007), Varg Veum: Woman in the Fridge (2008) and Varg Veum (2007).
- Emilie Ullerup-Petersen was born in Denmark, where her father Ove Ullerup-Petersen, a Jurist and Diplomat and a decorated Ambassador of Denmark in Vietnam, held the title of Lord Chamberlain for the Danish Royal Family.
It was always been her ambition to become an actress. When she graduated from high school in Copenhagen in 2003, she moved to Vancouver to pursue acting as a career. She studied at the Vancouver Film School and graduated in 2005.
Her first role was that of Julia Prynne in the hit sci-fi TV show Battlestar Galactica (2004). She also played the part of Sandra in the first episode of Blood Ties (2006). She was one of the main characters in the ground breaking series Sanctuary (2008) where she starred alongside Amanda Tapping. - Actress
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Halina Reijn is a renowned director, actress, author and producer. She is the winner of multiple awards, including the Dutch film Award, the Golden Calf for Best Actress , the Dutch theater awards Theo D'Or and Colombina, as well as the Courbois pearl, an oeuvre award which honours an actress who has made an indelible impression, both on stage as in film and television. Since 2017 she is also the proud owner of the Theo Mann-Bouwmeester Ring, an award to honour an actress who has contributed greatly to the Dutch theatre.
Her critically acclaimed directorial feature film debut INSTINCT (2019), starring Carice van Houten (GAME OF THRONES) and Marwan Kenzari (ALADDIN) has been selected for film festivals in Locarno (winner Variety Piazza Grande Award and special mention First Feature Competition), Toronto (world cinema competition), BFI Londen (Sutherland competition), Gent and Chicago, and is the foreign language Oscar submission of The Netherlands. INSTINCT is the first outing for Man Up, the production banner of Halina and Carice. MAN UP's goal is to create films and television drama with high current value and relevance, told from a female perspective. To explore darker, edgy stories that, through shame or fear, often remain untold. Quality, artistic integrity and openness to their audiences defines the productions of MAN UP.
Halina was professionally trained at the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts and in 1997 debuted on stage as Ophelia in Hamlet, directed by Theu Boermans. She continued to act on stage in such productions as Shopping & Fucking, Three Sisters, Mourning Becomes Electra, Hedda Gabler, La Voix Humaine, The Fountainhead and recently Obsession, opposite Jude Law. Halina works with internationally acclaimed director Ivo van Hove at the International Theatre Amsterdam, performing their plays all over the world. She starred in the Oscar nominated film ZUS & ZO, in Paul Verhoeven's critically acclaimed BLACK BOOK and in Bryan Singer's VALKYRIE, opposite Tom Cruise. She can also be seen in the Swedish series CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE, directed by Charlotte Brändström.
In 2005, her first novel Prinsesje Nooitgenoeg (Prometheus) debuted, followed by Halina: doen alsof ik iemand anders ben (Prometheus, 2009), Antiglamour (co-written with Carice van Houten, Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 2013), and Loos (Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 2016). She is working on film scripts and television series based on original ideas. In 2019, Halina was named one of 20 most influential people in the Dutch media by a leading Dutch newspaper. She writes columns for Dutch and Belgian magazines and newspapers and is regularly a co-host on one of the best watched daily news shows on Dutch TV.- Actress
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Evangeline Lilly, born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, in 1979, was discovered on the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia, by the famous Ford modeling agency. Although she initially decided to pass on a modeling career, she went ahead and signed with Ford anyway, to help pay for her University of British Columbia tuition and expenses.- Actress
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Gemma Christina Arterton was born in Gravesend, Kent, England, where she was raised. She is the daughter of Sally-Anne (Heap), a cleaner, and Barry J. Arterton, a welder. Her mother's cousin is singer-songwriter Eric Goulden.
Her parents divorced when she was age five, and Gemma subsequently lived with her younger sister and her mother. Her parents encouraged their children to explore their creative abilities. Gemma's sister, Hannah, liked to sing, whereas Gemma chose acting. During her teenage years, she was part of the Masquerade and Miskin theater companies, appearing in productions of The Massacre of Civitella and Guiding Star. In 2004, she won an award for Best Supporting Actress, which helped her to win a grant to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Whilst studying at RADA, she landed her first professional role in Capturing Mary (2007), directed by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Maggie Smith. Gemma graduated from RADA in 2007 and won her first film role in St. Trinian's (2007). Her breakthrough role came in 2008, when she appeared in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008). In 2009, she was the winner of Empire's Best Newcomer Award.- Actress
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Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.
She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.
Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.
Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.
Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.
Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.
She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.
Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.- Mia Kirshner was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Etti, a teacher, and Sheldon Kirshner, a journalist. Her father is of Polish Jewish descent and her mother is a Bulgarian Jewish immigrant. Mia had a middle class upbringing and graduated from McGill University with a degree in English Literature. She had a love for acting from her school days at the Jarvis Institute, and her parents helped find her a talent agent at the age of 12, then began acting in several Canadian television series.
By the age of 14, Mia was acting professionally and made her film debut in 1993 in Denys Arcand's Love and Human Remains (1993). Kirshner won a Genie nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a supporting role for her part in the film. Mia's performance also brought her to the attention of Atom Egoyan, who cast her as the female lead in the 1994 film Exotica (1994). Mia's depiction of a sexy stripper in the film, won her critical acclaim, and by 1996 she established herself with an equally inspiring performance in The Crow: City of Angels (1996).
Having established herself in Hollywood as a leading and versatile performer, Mia also appeared in the first three episodes of 24 (2001) as the assassin Mandy in 2001. She would later reprise the role for the second season's finale and in the latter half of the show's fourth season. Also in 2001, Kirshner played Catherine Wyler, The Cruelest Girl in School, in Not Another Teen Movie (2001). The character is primarily a spoof of Kathryn Merteuil (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Cruel Intentions (1999), and was partially based on Mackenzie Siler (played by Anna Paquin) from She's All That (1999). In the music video for Marilyn Manson: Tainted Love (2001), which was featured on the movie's soundtrack, she made a cameo appearance as her character Catherine Wyler.
In 2004, Kirshner was cast as author Jenny Schecter, a main character in the drama series The L Word (2004). She remained with the show for all of the show's six seasons through 2009. She won several awards for her role as Jenny Schecter, and a world-wide fan base which followed her character throughout the seasons of the L Word.
In 2006, Mia starred in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006) in which she plays the young aspiring actress, Elizabeth Short, who was mysteriously mutilated and murdered in 1947. While the film itself was critically panned, many reviews singled out her performance for acclaim. In 2010, Kirshner co-starred in the film 30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010) which began filming in the fall of 2009. In 2010, she was cast as Isobel Fleming, a guest role on The Vampire Diaries (2009).
In 2011, she voiced the title character in Bear 71 (2012), a National Film Board of Canada web documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
On April 20, 2012, it was announced that Kirshner would join the new Syfy series Defiance (2013).
Kirshner was ranked #43 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002. She and Beverly Polcyn were nominated for Best Kiss at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards (2002) for Not Another Teen Movie (2001). In 2012 it was announced that Kirshner would be the face of Monica Rich Kosann's jewelry collection.
Already established as Canada's most decorated female performer, Mia is also a decorated writer, winning acclaim for her 2007 book I Live Here. - Dagmara Dominczyk is a Polish-American actress and author. She has appeared in the films Rock Star (2001), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), Kinsey (2004), Trust the Man (2005), Lonely Hearts (2006), Running with Scissors (2006), Higher Ground (2011), The Letter (2012), The Immigrant (2013), Big Stone Gap (2014), A Woman, a Part (2016), The Assistant (2019), and The Lost Daughter (2021).
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Canadian born actress/director, AJ is best known for her role as "Special Agent Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau" in the CBS long running series CRIMINAL MINDS. She can currently be seen reprising her role on CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION for Paramount+, which will be going into a second season later this year. AJ has also directed an episode of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION this season and did so in season 14 of CRIMINAL MINDS, as well. AJ's film credits include THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, OUT COLD, BACK FORK and FINAL DESTINATION 2.
After 15 years playing Special Agent Jennifer "JJ" Jareau on CBS' Criminal Minds, AJ Cook turned her eye toward directing and successfully directed an episode of the series in Season 14. Most recently, she directed episode 1608 for CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, now on Paramount+.- Actress
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Lily Jane Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is English musician Phil Collins, while her mother, Jill Tavelman, who is from Los Angeles, California, was president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club for three terms. Lily moved with her mother to LA at the age of five, after her parents split up. She is of Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, and German descent.
Her first screen role was at the age of two in the BBC series Growing Pains, in 1992. Collins performed at the Youth Academy for Dramatic Arts as a child, but her main interest was journalism. She graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School, and attended the USC, where she majored in broadcast journalism. She began writing a column ("NY Confidential") for the British magazine Elle Girl in her teens as well as contributing to Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and the Los Angeles Times magazines.
After some early television appearances as a presenter/reporter (for instance, covering the 2008 US Presidential campaign as a host on the Nickelodeon show, Kids Pick the President (2000)), she made a couple of appearances on 90210 (2008) in 2009. She co-starred as the daughter of Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock's characters in the massive box office hit The Blind Side (2009). More dramatic roles followed, and she came to worldwide attention when she played the starring role in Mirror Mirror (2012), following it up by headlining The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) and Love, Rosie (2014).- Actress
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Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.
She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved to her mother's native country when she was four years old. Her first acting job ever was at age nine in the movie The Piano (1993), which was shot in New Zealand. At age 16, she relocated to Los Angeles where she completed her last two years of high school (graduating in 2000). She then moved to New York where she attended Columbia University for one year. Between 2001 and 2004, she worked almost exclusively on stage in both New York and London. In 2007, Anna was cast in HBO's True Blood (2008), which concluded shooting its seventh and final season in 2014.- Actress
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Elisha Ann Cuthbert (born November 30, 1982) is a Canadian actress and model. She became internationally known for playing Kim Bauer in the series 24 (2001); Danielle in the teen comedy film The Girl Next Door (2004) and Carly Jones in the horror remake House of Wax (2005). She was voted the sexiest actress in the world in 2015 by the magazine Glam'Mag. In 2013, she was elected the most "Beautiful woman of American TV."
Cuthbert is considered a sex symbol, and she has often been cited as one of the "sexiest" women and as one of the "most beautiful" in the world.
At the age of 14, Cuthbert made her feature film debut in the 1997 family-drama Dancing on the Moon (1997). Her first major lead role came in the 1998 drama film Airspeed (1999) (No Control) alongside Joe Mantegna. In 2001, she starred in the movie My Daughter's Secret Life (2001), in which she received her first award, the Gemini Awards, but her career began in earnest in the decade of 2000 when she was listed to play Kim Bauer, daughter of Jack Bauer in the award-winning action series 24 (2001). Subsequently, Cuthbert appeared in the lead role in the films The Quiet (2005) and Captivity (2007).
From 2011 to 2013, Cuthbert starred as Alex Kerkovich, in the series Happy Endings (2011).
In 2011, Cuthbert was named one of "The 100 Hottest Women of the 2000s", and also entered the list of "The 25 Hottest Blonde Bombshell Actresses" by Complex magazine. In 2013 GQ Magazine listed her among "The 100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century."- Lena Ellingsen (1980) is a musical, - and classical theatre educated actress, continuously working on TV, film and theatre productions since 2004. She won the Norwegian Emmy ("Gullruten") in 2009 and the Norwegian Tony ("Heddaprisen") for "best supporting actress" in 2015. She's been a part of the ensemble of The National Theatre in Oslo since 2011.
- Karoline Stemre was born on 7 November 1991. She is an actress, known for Vegas (2009), Christmas Blood (2017) and The Mare (2020).
- Estella Warren was a synchronized swimmer from the age of 7 until 17 in her native Canada. She moved away from home at 12 to train for the Canadian National Team. She was the Canadian National Champion for three years and represented her country at the World Aquatic Championship, where she placed second. A talent scout who came to a charity high school fashion show in which she appeared was impressed enough with her to take a Polaroid of her and send it to a New York City modeling agency. She was almost immediately signed to a modeling contract, and eventually appeared in "Sports Illustrated", "Vogue", "Vanity Fair" and two TV commercials for Chanel #5 perfume, both directed by Luc Besson. She decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and has appeared in films with such stars as Sylvester Stallone.
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Andrea Roth, a first generation Scottish-Dutch Canadian, was born in Woodstock, Ontario. Her first theatrical appearance was in The Miracle Worker when she was eleven. She received her big show business break when she starred in the mini-series A Woman of Independent Means (1995), playing Sally Field's character's daughter Eleanor. In this period piece, she aged from 16 to 60. Other cast members included Charles Durning and Tony Goldwyn.
Andrea began her career in television with HBO's Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985). She has been a guest star on over 15 television shows, including Highlander (1992), Dead at 21 (1994) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). She also starred in A Change of Place (1994) and In Spite of Love (1994), two very well-received mini-series.- Actress
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Tonkin was born in Sydney. When she was four, she attended dance courses in classical ballet, hip hop, contemporary dance, and tap dance. At the age of 12, Tonkin began courses at the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) at the Wharf Theatre. Tonkin attended Loreto Kirribilli and later graduated from the Queenwood School for Girls.
In December 2005, Tonkin was cast as the role of Cleo Sertori on the Australian children television series H2O: Just Add Water which follows the lives of three teenage girls who turn into mermaids. Tonkin improved on her swimming abilities during the pre-production of the series. The series premiered on 7 July 2006 on Network Ten and has since gone on to be aired to a worldwide audience of more than 250 million. To promote the series she and her co-stars presented the best band award at the Nickelodeon UK Kids' Choice Awards in October 2007. In 2008, Tonkin was nominated for "Best Lead Actress in a Television Series" at the prestigious Australian Film Institute Awards. The series ran for three seasons with the series finale airing on 16 April 2010.
Tonkin has also appeared on fellow Australian television shows Packed to the Rafters and Home and Away. In September 2010, Tonkin made her film debut starring in the Australian action ensemble film Tomorrow, When the War Began. In the film, which revolves around a group of teenagers waging a guerrilla war against an invading foreign power in their fictional hometown of Wirrawee, she played the role of the rich and uptight Fiona Maxwell. In December 2010, a sequel was announced with Tonkin expected to return, though production of a sequel never came to fruition.
In January 2011, Tonkin moved to Los Angeles to pursue an international acting career. She was cast in March 2011 as Faye Chamberlain on The CW supernatural drama series The Secret Circle which premiered on 15 September 2011 to over 3.5 million viewers. The series follows a group of young witches who are a part of a secret coven. For her performance, Tonkin has received critical acclaim, with critics referring to her as the breakout star of the series; she was featured on Variety's list of "new faces to watch" and named one of 2011's breakout TV stars by E! Online. The Secret Circle, however, had only one full season as it was canceled on 11 May 2012.
In August 2010, Tonkin was cast in the 3D horror film Bait 3D. Filming took place on Australia's Gold Coast and follows a group of strangers who are trapped in a supermarket after a freak tsunami with a pack of great white sharks. The film was expected to be released in Australia in September 2012. In August 2012, Tonkin joined the cast of The CW television series, The Vampire Diaries, in the recurring role of Hayley, a friend of Tyler. She joined her co-star from H2O: Just Add Water, Claire Holt, who portrays Rebekah Mikaelson on the show.
On 11 January 2013, The CW confirmed that a spin-off series to The Vampire Diaries was in the works, titled The Originals. The series revolves around the Original Vampire family members, and Tonkin would "be heavily featured in the prospective pilot" of the series. The CW confirmed on 13 February that Claire Holt would also join the cast of The Originals, marking the third time Tonkin and Holt have starred together on a show. Tonkin has had a main role in all the seasons.
Tonkin has appeared in a number of advertisements which include Vauxhall Motors and was previously signed to Chic Management. Her modeling career includes shoots for Girlfriend, Teen Vogue, ELLE Australia, Miss Vogue Australia, Vogue Australia, Dolly and Free People. Tonkin has also appeared in Miles Fisher's music video "Don't Let Go". In 2012 Tonkin opened a website about health with friend Teresa Palmer called YourZenLife.- Mitra was born in Paddington, London, England, the daughter of Nora Downey and Anthony Mitra, a cosmetic surgeon. She has an older and a younger brother. Her father is of Bengali Indian and English descent, and her mother is Irish. In 1984, when Mitra was eight, her parents divorced, and she was sent to boarding school. She spent several years at two different schools, including Roedean, but Mitra claims she was eventually expelled from both of them.
Mitra's first main role came as Scott Wolf's illicit love interest on Party of Five (1994). In 2000, Mitra had a small, key role in the film Hollow Man (2000), as the rape victim of Kevin Bacon, an incident that drives his character insane. She had a main role in the medical drama Gideon's Crossing (2000), as "Dr. Alejandra Ollie Klein". Mitra then had roles in Ali G Indahouse (2002); Sweet Home Alabama (2002); Stuck on You (2003), and leading roles in Highwaymen (2004) and Spartacus (2004). Mitra appeared in the final season of The Practice (1997) as "Tara Wilson", and continued that role into its spin-off Boston Legal (2004), but left not long into the second season. In 2005, Mitra played the role of "Kit McGraw" during Season 3 of Nip/Tuck (2003). Mitra then went on to appear in Skinwalkers (2006), The Number 23 (2007) and Shooter (2007). In 2008, Mitra starred in the lead role of the science fiction/action film Doomsday (2008) as "Major Eden Sinclair", and, in 2009, went on to star in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) as "Sonja", the daughter of the powerful vampire elder, "Viktor" (played by Bill Nighy).
Mitra appeared as the live action model for "Lara Croft", the lead character in Eidos Interactive's Tomb Raider video game series. She was ranked #46 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2001. - Actress
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Asia Argento was born in Rome, Italy, into a family of actors and filmmakers, both occupations which she has herself pursued. She made her debut when she was only nine years old in Sergio Citti's Sogni e bisogni (1985). In 1988 she had the leading role in Cristina Comencini's first film, Zoo (1988), and was part of the cast of The Church (1989), directed by Michele Soavi. The following year she played Nanni Moretti's daughter in Red Wood Pigeon (1989) (also directed by Moretti).
It was with Close Friends (1992), written and directed by Michele Placido, that Asia's career really took off and she was able to move on from playing very young girls to more mature, complex roles. The movie was well-received at the Cannes International Film Festival. In Trauma (1993), she worked for the first time with her father, famed Italian horror director Dario Argento (her mother is one of Argento's favorite actresses, Daria Nicolodi, playing an anorexic girl in search of her parents' killer. The Phantom of the Opera (1998) is the third film she has made with her father, the others being Trauma (1993) (filmed in the US) and The Stendhal Syndrome (1996).
Asia's absorbed, intense style of acting was well-used in Giuseppe Piccioni's Condannato a nozze (1993). In 1993 she co-starred in Carlo Verdone's Perdiamoci di vista (1994) in which she played Arianna, a physically disabled girl--an intricate, difficult role that won her the David di Donatello for best actress (1993-1994). She also had a featured role in the international cast of Queen Margot (1994), directed by Patrice Chéreau. In 1995 she worked with Michel Piccoli in Peter Del Monte's Traveling Companion (1996), which again won her a David di Donatello and a Grolla d'oro.
In 1994 Asia turned her hand to directing and turned out two short films: "Prospettive" (an episode of the film DeGeneration (1994)) and "A ritroso". In 1996 she directed a documentary on her father and, in 1998, one on cult director Abel Ferrara, Abel/Asia (1998), which won an award at the Rome Film Festival. In 1999 Asia made her feature-directing debut with Scarlet Diva (2000), in which she was the leading actress and author of the screenplay. The film was released in May 2000 in Italy and the rest of the world. It won an award at the Williamsburg Film Festival in Brooklyn, New York. In 2001, after directing a number of music videos, she gave birth to her first daughter, Anna Lou. In 2002 she starred in The Red Siren (2002) by Olivier Megaton with Jean-Marc Barr and the action thriller xXx (2002), directed by Rob Cohen, with Vin Diesel.
Asia is also the author of a number of short stories published in many prestigious magazines such as "Dynamo," "L'Espresso," "Sette," and "Village," Her first novel, "I Love You, Kirk," was published in Italy by Frassinelli Editrice in October 1999 and in France by Florent Massot in 2001.- Actress
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Born in Poland to accomplished thespian parents, Grazyna Dylag and Aleksander Mikolajczak, Izabella Miko could dance before she could walk. She began to pursue her dream career as a ballerina as soon as the opportunity was available to her at the age of 10. Izabella was accepted at the National Ballet School in Warsaw, though her teachers were concerned about what seemed to be some flexibility limitations of her body. At the age of 15, she was recruited to go to New York on full scholarship and study at the School of American Ballet. However, her body could no longer withstand the rigors of a seven-day a week ballet-training schedule, and in 1997 she suffered from a series of injuries to her vertebrae, knee and ankle injuries, ending her career as a ballet dancer.
She found herself 17 years old and wondering what career she would ever find that would fulfill her the same way dance did. While back in Warsaw and recovering, a casting director who was working with Izabella's parents asked if she would play a part in a TV movie, "Lithuania You're My Motherland". She accepted, not knowing where else to turn. Having been bitten by the acting bug, Miko was headed back to America shortly before her 18th birthday. She immediately began training at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and laying the groundwork for a successful career as an actor.
She went to Los Angeles just after she turned 18, and a series of fortuitous event resulted in her landing the role in Jerry Bruckheimer's Coyote Ugly (2000) playing "Cammie". This role put her on the map in Hollywood, leading to a slew of magazine covers and billboards. She followed "Coyote Ugly" with a leading role in J.S. Cardone's The Forsaken (2001) and Minimal Knowledge (2002). She has also appeared in The Shore (2006), starring alongside Lesley Ann Warren and Ben Gazzara. Miko than starred alongside actors Derek Jacobi and Michael Lonsdale in Bye Bye Blackbird (2005). Her portrayal of Alice, a circus trapeze artist in the early 1900s, was the perfect combination of Izabella's most innate talents. She prepared for this role with a rigorous three-month training schedule on both the flying and static trapeze. Utilizing her dance and trapeze skills, along with rapidly learned tightrope walking, she secured a part time role of Raia, a member of the "Circus of Crime" circus troop in the 2011 NBC series The Cape (2011).- Helena Mattsson was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, with her two sisters. In her early teens she was discovered by one of the biggest modeling agencies in Sweden. After graduating from her Performing Arts High School in Stockholm, Helena traveled to London and New York to continue to study acting. Her big break came at the age of 19 when she left London for Los Angeles and was cast as the lead in the Warner Bros. comedy Sweden, Ohio (2004).
Mattsson recently had recurring roles on ABC's Desperate Housewives (2004) and CW's Nikita (2010). In 2012 she was cast as Alexis Blume in 666 Park Avenue (2012) for ABC.
Her feature film credits include: Seven Psychopaths (2012) with Colin Farrell, Guns, Girls and Gambling (2012) with Gary Oldman, Surrogates (2009) with Bruce Willis and Iron Man 2 (2010) with Robert Downey Jr.. - Actress
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Minnie Driver was born January 31, 1970 in London and raised in Barbados until she was seven. Her mother, Gaynor Churchward, was a designer and former couture model. Her father, Charles Ronald "Ronnie" Driver, was a businessman. Minnie's mother was her father's mistress while he was still married to his wife. Minnie's sister, Kate Driver, is a manager and producer.
Her breakout role was in the 1995 film Circle of Friends. Minnie then appeared briefly in the James Bond picture Goldeneye. Since then, she has focused on working in a wide tonal range of films. These include several cult classics: Grosse Point Blank, Big Night, and Owning Mahowny; the painted romance of Good Will Hunting (earning an Oscar nomination for best actress in a supporting role); musicals like The Phantom of the Opera; period comedies like the Oscar Wilde classic An Ideal Husband; and Princess Mononoke, the seminal animated Japanese film by Hayao Miyazaki. Minnie has also starred in several family films such as Tarzan, Ella Enchanted, and the 2021 live action Cinderella.
Minnie has a wide-range of television work in place from FX's dark comedy classic The Riches, in which she co-starred with Eddie Izzard, to starring in two network sitcoms including NBC's About A Boy adaptation as well as ABC's Speechless. Both of which ran for several seasons. Minnie also pops up in key guest-starring roles such as her turn as Lorraine Finster on Will & Grace which lasted almost fifteen years and as Cath on the current BBC / HBO comedy Starstruck. Minnie is also starring in the Amazon anthology Modern Love which is on air now (2021).
On September 5, 2008, she gave birth to a boy named Henry Story Driver. She is in a long-term relationship with Addison O'Dea.- Ivana Milicevic (pronounced Ee-vah-nah Mee-lee-cheh-veech) was born on April 26, 1974, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (part of Yugoslavia at the time), into a Croat family. She is the daughter of Tonka and Damir Milicevic, and has a younger brother, Tomo. The family emigrated to the United States, and young Ivana was raised in Michigan. She attended Athens High school in Troy, Michigan, and worked as a model during her school years. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
In 1992, Milicevic graduated from high school and moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of an acting career. She was a struggling stand-up comedienne, trying to win over crowds with her stories of the modeling business. In 1996, she made her film debut under the name Ivana Marina with a one-line role as a former girlfriend of Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire (1996). In 1997, she followed up with a guest role on NBC's Seinfeld (1989) and made guest appearances on several other television shows, including Royal Pains (2009) and playing the love interest of John Casey on Chuck (2007). She played bit parts in Vanilla Sky (2001) and Love Actually (2003), among her many other cameo appearances. Milicevic capitalized on her experience as a comedienne in a supporting role as Russian model Roxana Milla Slasnikova in the romantic comedy Head Over Heels (2001). She appeared as a lookalike of Uma Thurman's character opposite Ben Affleck, trying to fool him into thinking she is Uma's character, in Paycheck (2003). In a departure from her one-dimensional roles, Milicevic showed her dramatic talent in a supporting role as Milla Yugorsky in a dark and gritty drama Running Scared (2006). In 2006, she started a recurring role on the CBS TV series Love Monkey (2006).
In 2006, Milicevic made a big step forward in her career appearing as Valenka, one of three Bond girls in Casino Royale (2006), for which she did most of her scenes on locations in Prague and in London. She resides in Los Angeles, California. - Laura Jill Ramsey was born in Brandon, Wisconsin. After arriving in LA at the age of 19 and a stint of gypsy living, Laura was "discovered" while waiting tables and was sent out the next day on her first audition. She booked the job and her career has been dotted by strong and consistent work, ever since. Also, taking time off in-between roles to indulge her other creative outlets has helped define Laura's career as she believes being well-rounded is paramount to being able to deliver a strong performance. Laura currently resides in Los Angeles, CA, yet can be found exploring the furthest reaches of the globe from time to time.
Highlights of Laura's career include, but are not limited to, Lords of Dogtown (2005), She's the Man (2006), The Ruins (2008), Mad Men (2007) and Somewhere (2010). Laura has recently wrapped a few very exciting projects, including the Luke Evans' vehicle, No One Lives (2012) (due out in Spring 2012) and Cynthia Mort's Radical. - The confidence and fresh energy of Lori Heuring shines through both on and off-screen. This Texan spit-fire studied rigorously in college, resulting in a Finance degree. She then changed her focus and made her way out to Los Angeles, setting her sights on an acting career. With an ever-growing resume, that career is no longer a dream. Lori was recently seen in 20th Century Fox's hit thriller, Runaway Jury (2003), alongside Gene Hackman and John Cusack. She has recently been released in three films: Columbia Pictures Soccer Dog: European Cup (2004), and the independent films False Prophets (2006) and The Scare Hole (2004), in which she co-stars with Brad Renfro.
Lori has recently shot 8MM 2 (2005) in Budapest, Hungary with Johnathon Schaech. The film is a Sony production, directed by J.S. Cardone.
Heuring recently finished working with Kathleen Quinlan in Lifetime's Perfect Romance (2004). She was also seen in the CBS telepic The Locket (2002) alongside Vanessa Redgrave. Heuring's other film credits include Taboo (2002), in which she co-stars with Nick Stahl and was seen at the Sundance Film Festival and True Blue (2001) in which she co-starred with Tom Berenger. In addition, Heuring appeared in the indy feature Nailed (2001) with Harvey Keitel, Just Sue Me (2000), The Operator (2000), Snake Tales (1998), and The Newton Boys (1998).
In addition to appearing in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) with Naomi Watts and Justin Theroux, Heuring is most noticeably recognized for her role in the Warner Bros. psychological thriller, The in Crowd (2000), directed by Mary Lambert (Morgan Creek/Warner Bros.). In this film, Heuring plays the lead role of Adrien Williams. The 19 year-old character was recently released from a mental hospital, where she was treated for her problem differentiating between fantasy and reality. The story takes on many twists as Williams takes on a summer job at her doctor's country club.
Heuring's list of television credits is extensive, including a series regular role on ABC's The Player (1997) opposite Patrick Dempsey, Viggo Mortensen and 'Jennifer Garner (I)'. She also landed recurring roles in television pilots such as Charles Haid's "Sherman Oaks," for CBS, opposite Esai Morales, Jonathan Silverman and Kelly Rutherford and "LA Confidential," with Kiefer Sutherland. Episodic appearances include guest star roles on WB's "Seventh Heaven," CBS' "Early Edition," UPN's "Legacy," and ABC's "Ellen," and a recurring role on ABC's "Alias."
Heuring was born in Panama, but after a family move, relocated to Austin, Texas, where she was raised and will always think of as "home." With the support of her family, she began spending summers studying with an acting coach in Los Angeles and returning to school in the fall. After co-starring in her first movie, Animal Room, with Matthew Lillard and Amanda Peet, Heuring graduated from the University of Texas with an Honor's Business degree, and moved to Los Angeles to further her career as an actress.
Now residing on the west coast and still heavily influenced by "those who have lived," Heuring often turns to classic novels or "the magic of old movies" to stay grounded. Dividing her time between Austin and Los Angeles, Heuring finds her "smiles and laughter" in her friends, family, and her dog, Stan Musial. She couldn't live without her books, writing and "doing anything outside."
With her career steadily climbing, Lori Heuring maintains a credo from her In Crowd experience that she plans to keep with her throughout her life - "Always remember where you came from." - Actress
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Buxom and shapely 5'4" blonde bombshell Kristin Novak was born on October 20, 1980 in Los Angeles, California. Novak grew up traveling with her family all over America to amusement parks and going on roller coasters. Kristin was the Playboy Cybergirl of the Week for July 13, 2003. Novak was subsequently named Cybergirl of the Month for November, 2003. Moreover, Kristin has also acted in a handful of movies.- Actress
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Lindy Booth was born on April 2, 1979, in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. She played "Riley Grant" on the Disney Channel series, The Famous Jett Jackson (1998) (and "Agent Hawk" in the show-within-a-show, "Silverstone"). Other credits include guest-starring as different characters in two different episodes of the A&E Network series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001), and a recurring role in season two of the USA Network series, The 4400 (2004).- Actress
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Juliette Marquis was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Ukraine]. She is an actress and producer, known for Horn Maker, Dent (2017) and Into the Sun (2005).- Music Artist
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Avril Lavigne was born on September 27, 1984 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, to Judith-Rosanne (Loshaw) and Jean-Claude Joseph Lavigne. Her ancestry is French-Canadian, Polish, English, Irish, and Scottish. At sixteen, she moved to Manhattan and began work on her debut album. She dropped out of high school after the 11th grade when she secured a record deal. When Avril was almost 18, she released "Complicated" from her debut album titled: "Let Go," which went 6x platinum. As a petite skater girl from a small town, Avril has shown she is independent, full of confidence and determination, providing a good combination to make "Complicated" and Avril a musical breakthrough. "Complicated" went to number #1 on Billboards Top 100 while also earning her 5 Grammy nominations, MTV music awards, MTV European music awards and many more.- Music Artist
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Shania Twain was born as Eilleen Regina Edwards in 1965 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, one of three daughters of Clarence and Sharon (Morrison) Edwards (sister Jill is two years older and Carrie-Ann three years younger). When she was age six, her mother remarried Jerry Twain, a full-blooded Ojibwa native from Timmins, Ontario, who adopted her as his own. She started out singing in bars as a child after hours, and, at thirteen, appeared on The Tommy Hunter Show (1965). When she was 22, her parents were killed in an accident, and she became the legal guardian of her half-brothers (Mark, then 13, and Darryl, then 14) and sister, putting her musical career on hold to raise her family. In 1991 she changed her name to Shania (meaning "I'm on my way" in Ojibwa, it was the name of a co-worker), and signed a contract with Mercury Nashville that same year. Her first album went by without notice, but her second album (produced with Mutt Lange, who she wed in 1993) broke world records with its sales!- Nikki Sanderson was born on 28 March 1984 in Bury, Lancashire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Hollyoaks (1995), Coronation Street (1960) and Heartbeat (1992).
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Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara was born and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia. Her mother, Margarita Vergara Dávila de Vergara, is a housewife. Her father, Julio Enrique Vergara Robayo, provides cattle to the meat industry. She has five siblings. She was educated at a private bilingual Spanish/English school. She then went on to study pre-dentistry. However, Sofía was discovered by a photographer, whilst at the beach, and this led to various jobs in modeling and television. At age 23, she was a runway model. From 1995 to 1998, she co-hosted a travel show, Fuera de serie (1995), which gave her exposure in the United States. Her first film role was the criminal comedy Big Trouble (2002). Her breakthrough role was as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett on the American television series Modern Family (2009). In 2010-2013, she received four Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for this role. Sofía resides in Los Angeles, California with her son, Manolo.- Actress
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Katia Winter is known for her portrayal of Katrina Crane in FOX's hit series "Sleepy Hollow," and as Nadia in Showtime's award-winning series "Dexter." She has also appeared in DC's "Legends of Tomorrow" for CW and in the CBS action-adventure series "Blood & Treasure." She also recently starred in Amazon's hit series "The Boys" as the villain Little Nina.
On the film front, Winter starred in the award-winning indie movie "The Catch," directed by Matthew Balzer and "The Wave" opposite Justin Long. She was also in the thriller "Negative" and appears in Terrence Malick's drama "Knight of Cups," opposite Christian Bale.- Actress
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Known for her performance in La Vie d'Adèle (Blue Is The Warmest Color) by Abdellatif Kechiche, that landed her both the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and the César for Most Promising Actress that same year, Adèle Exarchopoulos has been on the French and International big screen regularly since then. Going forward with original projects, such as "Qui Vive" by Marianne Tardieu (2014) or "Les Anarchistes" by Elie Wajeman (2015), she took part in international projects like "The Last Face" by Sean Penn and "Noureev" by Ralph Fiennes before returning to Cannes in 2019 with "Sibyl", a psychological drama by Justine Triet. The past year marks another turning point in her career as she was in two critically acclaimed comedy projects: the successful TV show "La Flamme" by Jonathan Cohen and long awaited movie "Mandibules" by Quentin Dupieux. She will soon be seen in the big action drama "Bac Nord" by Cedric Jimenez as well as a few other projects including "Rien à Foutre" by Emmanuel Marre and "Les Cinq Diables" by Léa Mysius.- Actress
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Novakovic was born on 17 November 1981 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia. She moved to Australia in 1988, at the age of seven. Novakovic was initially interested in becoming a social worker or doctor, but after a significant set of events, she changed her mind and decided to pursue the performing arts. Novakovic studied at The McDonald College in Sydney, (where she was Dux of 1999) and graduated from NIDA with a BA in Dramatic Arts in 2002. She has a younger sister, Valentina Novakovic, who is also an actress, famous for having performed in the Australian soap opera, Neighbours (1985).
In 2003, Novakovic played Randa in the ABC mini-series Marking Time (2003), a role which won her an AFI Award for "Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama or Comedy". As an actor, Novakovic's film credits in Australia include Blackrock (1996), Strange Fits of Passion (1998), The Monkey's Mask (1999), Thunderstruck (2004), Solo (2005), and the Serbian movies Optimisti (2005) and Skinning (2010). From 2007 to 2009, she played Tippi in the TV series Satisfaction for Showtime Australia. Other breakout roles include: Drag Me to Hell (2009), Edge of Darkness (2009), Devil (2010), Burning Man (2011) and Generation Um(2012).
Theatre credits in Australia include These People, Away and Strange Fruit at the Sydney Theatre Company; The Female of the Species at the Melbourne Theatre Company; Woyzeck (Helpmann award nomination for best supporting actress in 2009), Criminology (Green Room award nomination for best actress 2007), Eldorado (Helpmann nomination for best supporting actress, 2006) and Necessary Targets at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, Death Variations and Loveplay (Ride On) for B Sharp, Romeo and Juliet with Bell Shakespeare Company and Debris for Ride On Theatre (which received a Green Room nomination for best Independent production and best actress in 2006).
Novakovic also runs her own independent theatre company, Ride On Theatre Sydney and Melbourne) with co-director Tanya Goldberg. She was a producer and performer for the 2004 Ride On Theatre sell out season of "Loveplay" at the Downstairs Belvoir Street Theatre, and the 2006 Green Room nominated production of Debris (in which she was also nominated for best actress).
In 2008, she translated, adapted and directed Fake Porno in Melbourne, which was invited to be part of the Powerhouse season in Brisbane in 2009, and also received three Green Room nominations including best production. Outside of Ride On, she wrote and directed with Melbourne's Black Lung Theatre for the critically acclaimed production of Sugar at the 2007 Adelaide Fringe Festival. In 2010, Novakovic received an AFI nomination for International Award for Best Actress for her role in Edge of Darkness.
Novakovic landed the part of a beautiful prostitute-turned-law-student in Fox's series, Rake, starring Greg Kinnear. The show was canceled in May, 2014. She portrayed Clare Hitchens in The Hallow, a horror film set in Ireland and directed by Corin Hardy.
Earlier this year [2015], The Toronto Film Festival premiered her feature film The Little Death. Novakovic can be seen playing the lead in the ABC pilot Agatha, and has also booked a recurring role in Showtime dramedy Shameless.
She's repped by CAA, Management 360, Lisa Mann Creative Management in Australia and attorney Bob Wallerstein.- Stephanie Leonidas is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Helena in the fantasy film MirrorMask and as Irisa on the American science fiction television series, Defiance. Leonidas was born in Westminster, London.
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Jessalyn Gilsig has an extensive list of theater credits to her name. A graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Gilsig received her theatrical training at the American Repertory Theatre's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. Among the American Repertory Theatre projects in which she appeared are "The Cherry Orchard," "Henry V," "The Oresteia," "Tartuffe" and "The Tempest." She also appeared in the Alliance Theatre production of "The Last Night of Ballyhoo," and in numerous other live productions and television commercials.- Actress
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Julie Gonzalo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and moved to Miami, Florida when she was 8 years old.
She won her first acting role when she was 20 and she made a few TV appearances during the early 2000s. She also appeared in some high-profile movies during that time, including Freaky Friday (2003)) but her breakthrough role came in 2006 when she won the role of Parker Lee in Veronica Mars (2004).
More TV and movie work followed (including several as producer) until she was cast as Rebecca Sutter in the revival of the hit 1980s soap Dallas (2012).- Actress
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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 is an only child. She was named after a character played by Renata Sorrah in her mother's favorite Brazilian soap opera Cavalo de Aço (1973). However, most people call her by her middle name Belle.
She went to St Paul's Catholic Elementary School in West Los Angeles and, afterwards, attended the elite all-girls Marlborough School in Los Angeles. At school, she studied classical piano and was fond of languages. She can speak fluent Portuguese.
Camilla appeared in a national print commercial before the age of 1. At age 5, she appeared in two TV movies Trouble Shooters: Trapped Beneath the Earth (1993) and Empty Cradle (1993). Because of her work, she had never completed a full year of school. So, at age 13, she took time off to focus on her studies. She returned to work when she was age 16, with a main role in the film The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005). The role that provided her first major exposure was Roland Emmerich's 10,000 BC (2008).
From 2006 to 2008, she got a taste of her mother's world with some fashion jobs - she modeled for Vera Wang's Princess fragrance.
Camilla is also involved in various charities and is an international spokesperson for "Kids With A Cause".- Actress
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Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. Rachel has a sister, Minnie, a curator and photographer.
Rachel started modeling when she was 14, and began acting during her studies at Cambridge University. While there, she formed a theater company named "Talking Tongues", which won the Guardian Award, at the Edinburgh Festival, for its take on Neville Southall's "Washbag". Rachel went on to star on stage in the lauded Sean Mathias revival of Noël Coward's "Design For Living". It was a role that won her a vote for Most Promising Newcomer by the London Critics' Circle.
She has starred in many movies, including The Mummy (1999), Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Stealing Beauty (1996). Rachel can also be seen in the movies The Shape of Things (2003), About a Boy (2002), Constantine (2005) and The Constant Gardener (2005), for which she won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rachel has a son with her former partner, director Darren Aronofsky. In June 2011, she married "James Bond" actor Daniel Craig in a private ceremony in New York.- Actress
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Laura San Giacomo was born in West Orange, New Jersey, to MaryJo and John San Giacomo. She was raised in the nearby city of Denville. She went to Morris Knolls High School in Denville, where she got the acting bug and had the lead in several school plays. Laura got a Fine Arts degree, specializing in acting, at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama (Pittsburgh). After graduation, she moved to New York.
During the late 1980s (1987-89) before starting her film career, she appeared on Spenser: For Hire (1985), Crime Story (1986), The Equalizer (1985), All My Children (1970) and Miami Vice (1984). Her breakout film was her first credited role in Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). The movie won the Cannes Film Festival's Grand Prize, the Palme d'Or. Laura received a Los Angeles Film Critics Association's New Generation Award and a Golden Globe nomination for her role. Next, she was Kit De Luca in Pretty Woman (1990) (1990) opposite Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. The film won the People's Choice Awards for Best Comedy and Best Film.
On stage, Laura has appeared in many theater productions. She was on the Los Angeles stage in the Garry Marshall-Lowell Ganz production of "Wrong Turn at Lungfish", in "North Shore Fish" (WPA Theatre), in "Three Sisters" (Princeton/McCarter Theatre, New Jersey, 1992) and in "Beirut" (Off-Broadway, Westside Arts Theatre, New York City, 1987). She also starred in "Italian American Reconciliation" (Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, 1988) and "The Love Talker" (Off-Broadway in 1988). In regional theater, Laura was in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", "As You Like It" and "Romeo and Juliet". She also starred in "Crimes of the Heart".
During the early 1990s, she was busy making movies (Vital Signs (1990), Quigley Down Under (1990), Once Around (1991) (where she played Holly Hunter's sister), Under Suspicion (1991), Where the Day Takes You (1992) and Nina Takes a Lover (1994)). In 1994, she also appeared in Stephen King's television miniseries, The Stand (1994). During the mid 1990s, she also provided her voice to an animated series Gargoyles (1994). Offscreen, Laura got married to Cameron Dye in 1990 (and divorced in 1998). They had a son, Mason, in 1996. Having a child influenced Laura to make the transition to television. She started in the sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997), which also starred George Segal (as her father, Jack), Wendie Malick, Enrico Colantoni and David Spade. Television gave her a more regular work schedule and less traveling. The series lasted for seven seasons and 148 episodes. She appeared in all of them together with the other four regular cast members.
After Just Shoot Me! (1997) was canceled in 2003, Laura appeared infrequently on television and in feature films. She was the narrator for Snapped (2004), a true crime series. In 2005, she appeared in two feature films (Checking Out (2005) and Havoc (2005)). In 2006, she was reunited with her Just Shoot Me! (1997) co-star Enrico Colantoni in Veronica Mars (2004), where she played Harmony Chase for three episodes. In September 2006, she secured a starring role in Saving Grace (2007) as Grace's (Holly Hunter's) best friend, Rhetta Rodriguez. Laura continued to play the role through all three seasons.- Actress
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Born to public school teachers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Laura Harris began acting professionally in CBC radio dramas at an early age. With a taste for quirky, character-driven material, Harris is known for playing 1930's starlet "Daisy Adair" in Showtime's cult hit Dead Like Me (2003) with Mandy Patinkin and Callum Blue. Film work includes Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty (1998), Christopher Guest 's A Mighty Wind (2003) and Chris Smith's comedic thriller Severance (2006) with Toby Stephens and Tim McInnerny. Recently voicing the role of "Kitty Pryde" in Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men (2009), other television work includes Showtime's The Outer Limits (1995), CTV's Defying Gravity (2009) with Ron Livingston and a SAG nominated turn in FOX's runaway hit 24 (2001) starring Kiefer Sutherland. In her personal time, Laura is active in the food justice community, recently receiving a full scholarship for the University of California, Berkeley to study social-ecological systems design. She splits her time between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.- Born in the northern Polish town of Bialystok, Izabella Scorupco moved to Sweden with her mother as a young child. She studied drama and music and, at 17, was discovered by a Swedish film director who cast her in the movie Ingen kan älska som vi (1988), which made her a local teen idol. She then became a successful model in Sweden and throughout Europe, where she made good use of her fluency in four languages.
In 1989, Scorupco displayed another facet of her talents, launching her career as a pop singer with her first single, Substitute. The single and subsequent album, IZA, both went gold, and she followed with another hit single, Shame, Shame, which she recorded in 1991. Returning to acting in 1994, she immediately won the lead role in the Swedish film The Tears of Saint Peter (1995). Scorupco stars as a woman who lives her life as a man in the medieval drama, which was released in August 1995.
Shortly after Izabella received international attention after landing the leading female role in the Bond movie "Goldeneye" starring against Pierce Brosnan. In 2000 she played one of the adventurers in "Vertical limit" and went on to the lead female in the science-fantasy movie "Reign of fire" against Matthew Mc Conaughey and Christian Bale. In 2004 Izabella acted against fellow Swede Stellan Skarsgård in the Renny Harlin film "The Exorcist- the beginning". After a couple of roles in American TV-series, Izabella decided to work on the Scandinavian market again, first in the crime/thriller story "Solstrom" against Michael Persbrandt and and then onto the drama "Guardian angel", a heartbreaking story opposite Michael Nyqvist. Izabella tried a whole different genre in 2014 when she starred the in the hit comedy movie "Micke and Veronica". Izabella resides in Los Angeles with her two teenage kids and three dogs. - Actress
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Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy to modern-day mysticism and erotica.
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, into a family of thespians -- parents Roger Winslet and Sally Anne Bridges-Winslet were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and uncle Robert Bridges was a fixture in London's West End theatre district. Kate came into her talent at an early age. She scored her first professional gig at eleven, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years, she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms. Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.
Still a relative unknown, Winslet attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood. Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
The role that transformed Winslet from art house attraction to international star was Rose DeWitt Bukater, the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet, swooning over all that face time opposite heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and noting her refreshingly healthy, unemaciated physique. Winslet's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations.
After the swell of unexpected attention surrounding Titanic (1997), Winslet was eager to retreat into independent projects. Rumor has it that she turned down the lead roles in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in order to play adventurous soul searchers in Hideous Kinky (1998) and Holy Smoke (1999). The former cast her as a young single mother traveling through 1970s Morocco with her daughters in tow; the latter, as a zealous follower of a guru tricked into a "deprogramming" session in the Australian outback. The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000). Kate holds the distinction of being the youngest actor ever honored with four Academy Award nominations (she received her fourth at age 29). As of 2016, she has been nominated for an Oscar seven times, winning one of them: she received the Best Actress Oscar for the drama The Reader (2008), playing a former concentration camp guard.
For her performance of Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs (2015), she received her seventh Academy Award nomination.
Off camera, Winslet is known for her mischievous pranks and familial devotion. She has two sisters, Anna Winslet and Beth Winslet (both actresses), and a brother, Joss.
In 1998, she married assistant director Jim Threapleton. They had a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, in October 2000. They divorced in 2001. She later married director Sam Mendes in 2003 and gave birth to their son, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, later that year. After seven years of marriage, in February 2010 they announced that they had amicably separated, and divorced in October 2010. In 2012, Kate married Ned Rocknroll, with whom she has a son. She was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama.- Actress
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Alex Kingston was born on 11 March 1963 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for ER (1994), Doctor Who (2005) and Alpha Dog (2006). She has been married to Jonathan Stamp since 18 July 2015. She was previously married to Florian Haertel and Ralph Fiennes.- Actress
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Known primarily for her acting career, 'In Her Name' is Sarah Carter's debut as a feature director and filmmaker. This movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2022. Canadian-born, Sarah trained classically in theater, dance, and fine arts at Ryerson University Toronto. When she arrived in Los Angeles, her acting career took off quickly with string of long-running series regular roles. She became well known for her role as "Madeleine Poe" opposite James Woods on CBS' Shark directed by Spike Lee and most recently she took the lead as "Harper Deakins" opposite Cole Hauser and Richard Shiff on her series Rogue.
Her guest-starring and recurring roles leave a memorable impression, namely as "Alicia Baker" on the CW's Smallville; as "Wrenn Darcy" opposite Peter Krause, Donald Sutherland, and Jill Clayburgh in HBO's Dirty Sexy Money; as "Cassie" in the much-talked-about "The Sundance Kids" episode of HBO's Entourage; as "Lynn Downey" on CBS' long-running remake of Hawaii Five-0, and she's maintained her status as a fan favorite recurring as "Cicada," the first female villain, on CW's The Flash, as well as a guest-star in Law & Order SVU opposite Mariska Hargitay portraying a charismatic capo of NXIVM sex cult.
Her success as an actor inspired a quiet pursuit of the director's chair beginning with Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan inviting her into the writing room to develop her character on their comedy series 'Undeclared'. Since then, she has shadowed and worked with several top directors, most notably over the course of her 5-year run on Steven Spielberg's "Falling Skies".
In film, Sarah has starred in several independent and studio pictures, including Haven, Killing Zelda Sparks, Berkeley, The Weinstein Co.'s DOA: Dead or Alive, New Line Cinema's Final Destination 2. She appeared opposite Rachel McAdams, as "Diane" in SpyGlass Pictures' blockbuster, The Vow, and opposite Larenz Tate as "Veronica" in Business Ethics.
With the birth of her daughter, Alice, Sarah completed her first original screenplay, 'Girl Who Needed A Ride'. She is CEO and founder of her own house, Cheshire Moon Productions. Along with her husband, Emmy Award-winning editor, Kevin Barth, she has successfully produced two full-length features, "A Pity", and her self-penned directorial debut "In Her Name". Both have shared success on the 2022 festival circuit.
Sarah honors her mastery of the artistic process by teaching and contributing as a philanthropist in various ways. She's worked with teenage boys at Camp Kilpatrick Juvenile Delinquent Hall to help them tell their stories and move their emotions creatively, and facilitates women's groups intended to share and release trauma, celebrate wisdom, and find freedom in a safe community. For years, she was the spokesperson for The Breast Cancer Fund promoting health and wellness, raising funds for research, and was featured in Elle Magazine for climbing Mt. Shasta in honor of all the women in her life and around the world who live with or who have died fighting cancer. Today, Cheshire Moon Productions has partnered with EmpowerHer, an organization to support and inspire young women who have lost their mothers.
Working and traveling alone as an actor for over a decade, she values her ability to bond and communicate beyond language and culture. As a practicing Buddhist and yogini, with professional training in core energetics, and having acquired teaching status for her studies with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes on story analysis and channeling archetypes, Sarah applies her experience as a mystic to all facets of her life's work.
Along with being a professional actor, director, writer, producer, and devoted mother, Sarah is a singer/songwriter in her band, "SanguinDrake."- Actress
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Born into a traditional south Indian family, Aishwarya started modeling at a young age. This green-blue-eyed beauty appeared in advertisements for many prestigious firms; the ones that brought her into the limelight were the garden sari and the Pepsi ad. Crowned Miss India 1994 runner-up, she was a hot favorite in the run for miss world title, which she won, her beauty and charm made her India's darling. Ash stormed into the Indian movie industry, where she has proven herself a brilliant & genuine actress. Her performance in Iruvar (1997) was critically acclaimed, and she won the Screen best female debutant award for her role in ...Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya (1997). She was adored in movies like Taal (1999), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), Devdas (2002), her item number in 'Bunty & Bubbly' had sent waves of rhythm across the nation. With her successful Bollywood movies and prestigious Hollywood projects lined up for release it is impossible to ignore this Indian diva in international scenes.- Actress
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This elegant lady has defined the television version of the rich, sophisticated businesswoman who knows what she wants, and will do whatever it takes to get it. She was born Patsy Ann McClenny on February 3, 1950 in Dallas, Texas. She began acting as a child, when her mother enrolled her in drama lessons after she was too shy to give a book report in class. From the age of 10, she performed in children's plays. Later, she would do dinner theater and stock productions in Dallas. She chose Morgan as a stage name. In 1973, Morgan decided to pursue a career in television; just 6 weeks after moving to New York, she landed the key role of Jennifer in the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow (1951); she stayed on until 1977.
Morgan moved to Los Angeles, where she originated the role of Jenna Wade on the wildly popular nighttime soap opera Dallas (1978) (Jenna was later portrayed by Priscilla Presley). Morgan made numerous guest appearances on television series. She played Constance (Weldon) Carlyle in Flamingo Road (1980), and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress; that was her breakout series that propelled her to stardom.
Morgan continued to perform in live theater, her acclaimed portrayal of Skye in the off-Broadway comedy "Geniuses" helped make it one of the "Top Ten Plays" of the year according to Time Magazine and the New York Times. Other stage appearances have included productions of "Goodbye Charlie" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." On television, she played the naughty Racine in the soap opera Paper Dolls (1984) in 1984. Later, she starred in the soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) from 1985-86, having made a niche for herself playing ambitious beauties. Morgan received an Emmy nomination for a special episode of Murphy Brown (1988).
Morgan has shared some of her beauty secrets by authoring the book "Super Looks" which is a complete guide that includes makeup, exercise, and diet tips. Morgan is a member of the Entertainment Industry AIDS Task Force. She is an active speaker on environmental issues and helped found the Environmental Communications Office, which encourages entertainment industry professionals to become better educated and more active on environmental issues. Morgan is a collector of movie memorabilia (particularly anything about Marilyn Monroe) and antique clothing. She is a ballet fan and is also interested in anthropology and paleontology; Morgan is truly a brainy beauty.- Actress
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Ana Alicia Ortiz Torres is a Mexican actress, she was born in Mexico City, Mexico on December 12, 1956. Ana Alicia became the third of four children to Carlos Celestino Ortiz and Alicia Torres Ortiz. Her parents were hotel agents in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico. She grew up between Acapulco, Mexico City and El Paso, Texas from age 6 after the passing of her father. There, she lived with her grandmother, widowed mother, her uncle Louie and three siblings in a house her father had purchased for her grandmother.
Ana Alicia received a full scholarship to attend the prestigious Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Upon arrival, Ana Alicia auditioned and won the lead role for Jules Feiffer's "Crawling Arnold". On summer break after her freshmen year, Ana Alicia auditioned for The Adobe Horseshoe Dinner Theatre outside El Paso, Texas. The theatre offered her a position as a recurring actress in all feature productions. The opportunity would allow her to work with name actors from Hollywood and New York and receive a large weekly salary. She accepted the offer and also acquired her actor's equity card through her term. She left Wellesley and finished her education at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Ana Alicia spent the next three years, performing in main stage productions at UTEP as well as having significant roles in the Adobe Horseshoe repertoire.
After graduation, Ana Alicia moved to Los Angeles and struggled to attain success as an actress while studying for her law school entrance exam. Six months later, her big acting break came when she won the role of Alicia Nieves on ABC's Ryan's Hope (1975). According to Ana Alicia, working on the show in New York was exciting - not only because it was an acting job, but because she was a fan of the the show. Although the role was a secondary one - Nieves had romances with policeman Bob Reid and Dr. Pat Ryan. It provided her with much-needed exposure.
After 15 months, Ana Alicia left the show to become one of the last Universal Studios contract players. She moved to Los Angeles and in addition to her work as a contract player, she attended Southwestern University Law School at night. As she acquired larger roles that required her to leave town, it became impossible to continue the grueling schedule of acting during the day and studying for school at night. She had to make a choice so she sat down and wrote the pros and cons of each decision and when she realized her passion was to act, she made the very difficult decision to drop out of law school. Once she was focused, her career began to open up quickly.
She landed several roles on major television films and series' episodes. Within a year, the Universal terminated their contract player department. It was the end of an era. Soon after, her teacher Milton Katselis suggested she stop playing virginal roles and turn to roles such as the tortured, sexually deprived Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Exploring this previously undiscovered part of her acting range, Ana Alicia pursued an audition for Falcon Crest (1981). In the room was a female casting director Doris Sabbagh along with Earl Hamner, Robert McCollough, and Larry Elikann. Ana Alicia's job was to seduce Lorenzo, played in the room by Doris. As Ana Alicia ran her fingers up Doris' stockings, conservative Southerner Earl Hamner stood up and stopped the scene, and said, "Thank you very much. That was wonderful." Less than an hour later, Ana Alicia's agent called to let her know she had won the role of Melissa Agretti.
Ana Alicia was on the show for seven years, playing the ambitious, scheming Melissa Agretti, and playing opposite Jane Wyman as Angela Channing and a plethora of handsome men. In October of 1988, Ana Alicia was written out of Falcon Crest (1981), and the show subsequently dropped considerably in the ratings. In a last ditch attempt to revitalize the show, she was brought back to the show later that season as a look-a-like of Melissa's, named Samantha Ross. The guest stint was short-lived and Ana Alicia quickly moved on to other projects, including the TV movies Miracle Landing (1990) and Rio Shannon (1993), as well as the feature film, Romero (1989). Ana Alicia has also devoted much of her time to various animal and human causes. She was the national spokesperson for the Humane Society, and has presented awards promoting Hispanic achievements in the media on behalf of the Golden Eagle Awards. Lorenzo Lamas was co-presenter.
In 1991, while in France hosting an episode of The World's Greatest Stunts for GRB Entertainment, she met and fell madly in love with her now ex husband Gary Benz. In 1996, after finishing the pilot for Acapulco Heat, Ana Alicia made the decision to leave her acting career and invest in being a mother to her two young children Cathryn and Michael, her new passion in life.
In March 2015, having raised her children and with her youngest in college, she returned to her first love but as a producer opening up her own production company Quebrada Entertainment: its purpose is to develop scripted and unscripted film and television that reaches a culturally and demographically diverse audience across all genres through the development and execution of quality storytelling.- Actress
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Principal is the elder daughter of Ree (née Veal) and Victor Rocco Principal. Her paternal grandparents were Italian, while her mother's family was from Gordon, Georgia, and South Carolina. Her father, a United States Air Force sergeant, was often transferred to different duty stations, so the family constantly moved, and Victoria grew up in London, Florida, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places. She and her sister attended 17 different schools. Victoria's acting career began when she made a commercial at age five, and she began modeling in high school. She enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, and wanted to study chiropractic medicine. However, being seriously injured in a car crash at age 18 made her refocus her energy on her love of acting. She moved to New York City, where she worked as a model and actress. She then studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and moved to Los Angeles, California in 1971.
Her first film was as a Mexican mistress in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), starring Paul Newman. Four years later, she became so disappointed with her career that she quit acting and spent the next three years working as an agent. In 1978, she planned on going to law school and later become a studio executive, but Aaron Spelling offered her a year's tuition to accept a role in the pilot of Fantasy Island (1977). She agreed, and soon after that, she landed the role of Pamela Barnes Ewing on CBS' long-running soap opera Dallas (1978). She left the series after nine years, and began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions. She continues to work as an actress and producer, and has also created a line of skin care products and written three books about beauty and skin-care.- Actress
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The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a strict German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had an impetuous desire to explore the world outside Switzerland. (For instance, she was tracked down by Interpol for running away from boarding school at 17 years old.) The stunning young woman found work as an art model in Rome and did walk-on parts in three quickie Italian pictures before coming to Hollywood in 1955 and getting nowhere professionally; a four-month fling with rising star James Dean brought her good publicity but not much else. That same year, still just 19, she met and had an affair with fading matinée idol John Derek, who left his wife Pati Behrs and two kids for Ursula even though she spoke almost no English at the time. In 1957 they eloped to Las Vegas, and the new bride put her acting aspirations on hold for a few years thereafter.
1962 saw the relatively unknown Swiss beauty back on the set, playing opposite Sean Connery in the first movie version of Ian Fleming's fanciful "James Bond" espionage novels, Dr. No (1962). Andress' role as bikini-clad Honey Ryder was somewhat brief, and her Swiss/German accent so thick that her entire performance had to be dubbed by a voiceover artist. Nevertheless, her striking looks and smoldering screen presence made a strong impression on moviegoers, immediately establishing her as one of the most desired women in the world and as an ornament to put alongside some of the most bankable talent of the era, such as Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963) and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas (1963). In 1965, she was one of several European starlets to co-star in What's New Pussycat (1965) -- a film that perhaps sums up mid-'60s pop culture better than any other -- written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.
Andress appeared in many more racy-for-their time movies in both the United States and Europe, including The 10th Victim (1965), in which she wore a famously ballistic bra, and The Blue Max (1966), where she was aptly cast as the sultry, insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general. She was also featured in Casino Royale (1967), a satirical foray into the world of James Bond, and gave a sparkling performance in the T&A-filled crime caper Perfect Friday (1970). Roles as a prostitute kidnapped by outlaws in Red Sun (1971), a stewardess living on the edge in Loaded Guns (1975), and a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in The Sensuous Nurse (1975) all provided plenty of excuses to throw her clothes to the wind. In Slave of the Cannibal God (1978), she was notoriously stripped and slathered in orange paint by a pair of nubiles. Then she took on the sophisticated role of Louise de la Valliere, slinky, conspiratorial mistress of King Louis XIV (Beau Bridges) in The Fifth Musketeer (1979).
As for her personal life, Andress separated from Derek in 1964 and got divorced two years later, after falling in love with French superstar Jean-Paul Belmondo on the Malaysian set of Up to His Ears (1965). (Ron Ely, John Richardson and Marcello Mastroianni kept her company during the interim.) The relationship with Belmondo hit a wall in 1972, and she was next attached to her leading man from Stateline Motel (1973), Italian heartthrob Fabio Testi. When that didn't work out, Andress jumped into the dating pool, sporadically involved with a host of Lotharios including (but by no means limited to) Dennis Hopper, Franco Nero, John DeLorean and Ryan O'Neal. In 1979, she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Clash of the Titans (1981) (in which she was cast, predictably, as "Aphrodite"). While subsequently traveling in India, Andress' belly began to swell out of her clothing, and she felt very nauseous. What at first seemed a severe case of "Delhi Belly" turned out to be pregnancy, her first and only, at age 43. Hamlin encouraged her to have the baby, and on May 19, 1980, the international sex symbol gave birth to a boy named Dimitri Hamlin amid much hoopla.
After the birth of her son, Andress scaled back her career, which now focused on slight European productions, as she was raising Dimitri in Italy. This meant turning down a big-budget Mel Brooks film in lieu of Red Bells (1982) (starring old flame Nero). Occasional television stints on the soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and critically lauded miniseries Peter the Great (1986) helped maintain her visibility as an actress. Dumped by Hamlin in 1983, she started seeing Fausto Fagone, a Sicilian student three decades her junior, in 1986. In 1991, she met a new man when things dwindled with Fagone -- karate master Jeff Speakman. Since the breakup of that relationship, her love life has gone undocumented. She last worked on a film in 2005. Apparently retired from acting, Ursula makes the rounds of charity events and pops up on foreign talk shows every now and then. She divides her time between family in Switzerland, friends in Virginia and Spain, and her properties in Rome and L.A.- Actress
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Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister Maria Scicolone). Growing up in the slums of Pozzuoli during the second World War without any support from her father, she experienced great sadness in her childhood. Her life took an unexpected turn for the best when, at age 14, she entered into a beauty contest and placed as one of the finalists. It was here that Sophia caught the attention of film producer Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she later married. Perhaps he was the father figure she never experienced as a child. Under his guidance, Sophia was put under contract and appeared as an extra in ten films beginning with Le sei mogli di Barbablù (1950), before working her way up to supporting roles. In these early films, she was credited as "Sofia Lazzaro" because people joked her beauty could raise Lazzarus from the dead.
By her late teens, Sophia was playing lead roles in many Italian features such as La favorita (1952) and Aida (1953). In 1957, she embarked on a successful acting career in the United States, starring in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), Legend of the Lost (1957), and The Pride and the Passion (1957) that year. She had a short-lived but much-publicized fling with co-star Cary Grant, who was nearly 31 years her senior. She was only 22 while he was 53, and she rejected a marriage proposal from him. They were paired together a second time in the family-friendly romantic comedy Houseboat (1958). While under contract to Paramount, Sophia starred in Desire Under the Elms (1958), The Key (1958), The Black Orchid (1958), It Started in Naples (1960), Heller in Pink Tights (1960), A Breath of Scandal (1960), and The Millionairess (1960) before returning to Italy to star in Two Women (1960). The film was a period piece about a woman living in war-torn Italy who is raped while trying to protect her young daughter. Originally cast as the more glamorous child, Sophia fought against type and was re-cast as the mother, displaying a lack of vanity and proving herself as a genuine actress. This performance received international acclaim and was honored with an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Sophia remained a bona fide international movie star throughout the sixties and seventies, making films on both sides of the Atlantic, and starring opposite such leading men as Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, and Charlton Heston. Her English-language films included El Cid (1961), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Arabesque (1966), Man of La Mancha (1972), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). She gained wider respect with her Italian films, especially Marriage Italian Style (1964) and A Special Day (1977), both of which co-starred Marcello Mastroianni. During these years she received a second Oscar nomination and won five Golden Globe Awards.
From the eighties onward, Sophia's appearances on the big screen came few and far between. She preferred to spend the majority of her time raising sons Carlo Ponti Jr. (b. 1968) and Edoardo Ponti (b. 1973). Her only acting credits during the decade were five television films, beginning with Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (1980), a biopic in which she portrayed herself and her mother. She ventured into other areas of business and became the first actress to launch her own fragrance and design of eyewear. In 1982 she voluntarily spent nineteen days in jail for tax evasion.
In 1991 Sophia received an Honorary Academy Award for her body of work, and was declared "one of world cinema's greatest treasures." That same year, she experienced a terrible loss when her mother died of cancer. Her return to mainstream films in Ready to Wear (1994) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. She followed this up with her biggest U.S. hit in years, the comedy Grumpier Old Men (1995), in which she played a sexy divorcée who seduces Walter Matthau. Over the next decade Sophia had plum roles in a few independent films like Soleil (1997), Between Strangers (2002) (directed by Edoardo), and Lives of the Saints (2004). Still beautiful at 72, she posed scantily-clad for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar. Sadly, that same year she mourned the death of her 94-year-old spouse, Carlo Ponti. In 2009, after far too much time away from film, she appeared in the musical Nine (2009) opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. These days Sophia is based in Switzerland but frequently travels to the states to spend time with her sons and their families (Eduardo is married to actress Sasha Alexander). Sophia Loren remains one of the most beloved and recognizable figures in the international film world.- Actress
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Jacqueline Bisset has been an international film star since the late '60s. She received her first roles mainly because of her stunning beauty, but over time she has become a fine actress respected by fans and critics alike. Bisset has worked with directors John Huston, François Truffaut, George Cukor and Roman Polanski. Her co-stars have included Anthony Quinn, Paul Newman, Nick Nolte, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Kenneth Branagh and Marcello Mastroianni.
Her somewhat French-sounding name has led many to assume that she is from France, but she was brought up in England and had to study to learn French. Her mother was French and was an attorney before being married. As a child Jacqueline studied ballet. During her teenage years her father left the family when her mother was diagnosed with disseminating sclerosis; Jacqueline worked as a model to support her ailing mother and eventually her parents divorced, an experience she has said she considered character-strengthening. She took an early interest in film, and her modeling career helped pay for acting lessons.
In 1967 Bisset gained her first critical attention in Two for the Road (1967), and that same year appeared in the popular James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967), playing Miss Goodthighs. In 1968 her career got a boost when Mia Farrow unexpectedly dropped out of the shooting of The Detective (1968); Farrow's marriage to co-star Frank Sinatra was on the rocks, and her role was eventually given to Bisset, who received special billing in the film's credits. In the following year she earned a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer for The Sweet Ride (1968) and gained even more attention playing opposite Steve McQueen in the popular action film Bullitt (1968). In 1970 she was featured in the star-studded disaster film Airport (1970) and had the main role in The Grasshopper (1970). Then she co-starred with Alan Alda in the well-reviewed but commercially underperforming horror movie, The Mephisto Waltz (1971). In 1973 she became recognized in Europe as a serious actress when she played the lead in Truffaut's Day for Night (1973). However, it would be several years before her talents would be taken seriously in the US. Though she scored another domestic hit with Murder on the Orient Express (1974), her part in it, as had often been the case, was decorative. She did appear to good effect in Believe in Me (1971), Le Magnifique (1973), The Sunday Woman (1975) and St. Ives (1976).
Jacqueline's stunning looks and figure made quite a splash in The Deep (1977). Her underwater swimming scenes in that movie inspired the worldwide wet T-shirt craze, and Newsweek magazine declared her "the most beautiful film actress of all time." The film's producer, Peter Guber, said "That T-shirt made me a rich man." However, she hated the wet T-shirt scenes because she felt exploited. At the time of filming she was not told that the filmmakers would shoot the scenes in such a provocative way, and she felt tricked. On the plus side, the huge success of the picture made Bisset officially bankable. She was next seen in high-profile roles in The Greek Tycoon (1978), a thinly disguised fictionalization of the marriage of Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis, and Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Comedy.
In the early '80s, Bisset starred in the box office disasters When Time Ran Out... (1980) and Inchon (1981), but her well-received turn opposite Candice Bergen in Rich and Famous (1981) between those two films helped gain her recognition as a serious actress from American audiences. She rebounded neatly with Class (1983) and Under the Volcano (1984), getting a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress for the latter. She also earned praise for her work in the excellent made-for-cable WWII drama Forbidden (1984), then appeared on network TV in adaptations of Anna Karenina (1985) with Christopher Reeve and Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story (1987) with Armand Assante. In 1989 she co-starred in the raunchy yet witty comedy Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989) and the erotic thriller Wild Orchid (1989), neither of which fared too well, but her output remained consistent. As she transitioned seamlessly out of her ingenue years, smaller-scale productions such as CrimeBroker (1993) and Leave of Absence (1994) would provide Bisset with plum roles, even if they went largely unseen.
In 1996 she was nominated for a César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for her performance in Claude Chabrol's La Cérémonie (1995). She held roles in period pieces like Dangerous Beauty (1998), as well as the Biblical epics Jesus (1999) and In the Beginning (2000). Other notable credits included the miniseries Joan of Arc (1999) alongside Leelee Sobieski, which gained her an Emmy nomination, and The Sleepy Time Gal (2001), which premiered at Sundance but unfortunately was not picked up for theatrical distribution. In 2005 Jacqueline was back on the big screen, playing Keira Knightley's mother in the Domino Harvey biopic Domino (2005) for Tony Scott. In 2006 she appeared in the fourth season of Nip/Tuck (2003) as the ruthless extortionist "James." Bisset then turned in strong performances in Boaz Yakin's disturbing independent drama Death in Love (2008) and the telepic An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving (2008), garnering accolades for both. In 2013 she appeared in BBC's program Dancing on the Edge (2013), for which she finally won her first Golden Globe. She followed that up with the movies Welcome to New York (2014) with Gérard Depardieu and Miss You Already (2015) with Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette.
2016 saw the long-awaited release of Linda Yellen's comedy The Last Film Festival (2016), where Jacqueline was a riot as a washed-up Italian diva alongside Dennis Hopper in his final role. Since then she's kept busy on the indie circuit, appearing in Backstabbing for Beginners (2018) with Ben Kingsley, Here and Now (2018) with Sarah Jessica Parker, and Asher (2018) with Ron Perlman and Famke Janssen, as well as the Amazon original movie Birds of Paradise (2021) and a title role in Loren & Rose (2022).
Bisset has never married, but has been involved in long-term romantic relationships with Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin, Moroccan entrepreneur Victor Drai, Russian ballet dancer Alexander Godunov, Swiss actor Vincent Perez and Turkish martial arts instructor Emin Boztepe. She continues to make numerous films, and frequently participates in film festivals and award ceremonies around the world.- Actress
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Wendy Jane Crewson is a Canadian actress and producer. She began her career appearing on Canadian television, before her breakthrough role in 1991 dramatic film The Doctor. Crewson has appeared in many Hollywood films, including The Good Son (1993), The Santa Clause (1994) and its sequels The Santa Clause 2 (2002) and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), as well as Air Force One (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000), The 6th Day (2000), The Covenant (2006) and Eight Below (2006). She also starred in a number of independent movies, such as Better Than Chocolate (1999), Suddenly Naked (2001), Perfect Pie (2002), Away from Her (2006), Into the Forest (2015) and Room (2015). Crewson has won six Gemini Awards, two Canadian Screen Awards and ACTRA Award for her performances on television. She played leading roles in a number of television films, include playing Joanne Kilbourn in six movies based on novels by Gail Bowen. She had recurring roles on American television series 24 and Revenge, and the Canadian television series Frankie Drake Mysteries. From 2012 to 2017, Crewson co-starred in the CTV medical drama Saving Hope.- Actress
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Roselyn Milagros Sánchez Rodríguez is a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, dancer, model, actress, producer, and writer. On television, she is best known for her roles as Elena Delgado on the CBS police procedural Without a Trace (2005-09), as Carmen Luna on the Lifetime comedy-drama Devious Maids (2013-16), and as Elena Roarke on the new Fantasy Island (2021-present). In film, Sánchez has appeared in Rush Hour 2 (2001), Boat Trip (2002), The Game Plan (2007), and Act of Valor (2012).- Actress
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Audrey Justine Tautou was born on August 9, 1976 in Beaumont, France, to Evelyne Marie Laure (Nuret), a teacher, and Bernard Tautou, a dental surgeon. Audrey showed an interest for comedy at an early age and started her acting lessons at 'Cours Florent'. In 1998 she won the best young actress award in the ninth 'Jeune Comedien de Cinema Festival' in Bezier. Then, she came to the attention of Tonie Marshall who gave her a role in her film Venus Beauty Institute (1999) for which she won a Best New Actress Cesar. It came as a surprise to even Audrey: "I was so certain I could not be chosen that I told her that she probably dialled a wrong number." The director chose her for her natural nature: "She came, she gaffed, she turned reddish, her ears were in a funny position and her hair was relaxed. In five minutes, she gave me the heart of the character, a petite young girl who would like to be a lady and will become a woman." In 2000, Audrey was again nominated for a Cesar and her movie Amélie (2001) has been a phenomenal success worldwide.- Actress
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Gal Gadot is an Israeli actress and model. She was born in Petah Tikva, Israel, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family (from Poland, Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia who Hebraized their name from 'Greenstein' to sound less European). She served in the IDF for two years, and won the Miss Israel title in 2004.
Gal began modeling in the late 2000s, and made her film debut in the fourth film of the Fast and Furious franchise, Fast & Furious (2009), where she appeared as Gisele Yashar; she repriced the role of Yashar in several subsequent installments of The Fast Saga. Gadot went on to achieve global stardom for her portrayal of Wonder Woman in the DC Extended Universe, including in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Wonder Woman (2017) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021). She has since starred in the Netflix action-comedy film Red Notice (2021) and the mystery film Death on the Nile (2022).
Gal is a motorcycle enthusiast, and owns a black 2006 Ducati Monster-S2R. She has been married to Yaron Versano since September 28, 2008. They have three daughters.- Actress
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Holly Rachel Valance was born 11th May 1983 in Melbourne, Australia to parents Rachel Stevens and Ryko Valance (Ryko legally changed his name at 18 from Vukadinovic). Holly's mother is from Southampton, England and her father is Serbian Montenegrin. Both of her parents were models and her father is a musician. Holly modelled from 12 and was signed to the famous Aussie TV soap "Neighbours" from the age of 15. At 19 Holly moved to the UK to pursue music, as she was signed to London Records (Warner) and released 2 successful albums worldwide. "Kiss Kiss", her first single reaching No.1 in the UK & Australia. At 20 she moved to LA full-time for 8 years focussing on film and TV. Holly now resides in London, England with her British entrepreneur husband Nick Candy. They also have a home in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles. The couple share 2 daughters Luka and Nova. Holly runs her own foundation with husband Nick, focussing on children with disabilities. The Candy Foundation.- Actress
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Born in NSW, Australia, Sharni Vinson grew up in Sydney's southern beach suburb of Cronulla. As a teenager, she competed at a National Level in swimming, holding 4 State records throughout high school. Sharni began singing, dancing and acting at a young age, becoming the 3rd generation of performers in her family. Her mother was a performer in musical theater, and her grandmother was Australia's youngest ballerina in 1945 to be offered a scholarship in the Borovansky Ballet Company in England. At the age of 12, Sharni enrolled as a student in the Brent Street School of Performing Arts in Sydney, where she trained in all faucets of dance over the next 10 years. At the age of 17 after graduating high school, Sharni was signed to Roadshow Music Australia as a member of the all girl pop group, "Foxfire IV", whose debut single 'Roses' reached the top 50 on Australia's ARIA charts.
Vinson is still best known amongst Australian audiences for her role as 'Cassie Turner' in the long running television series, "Home and Away" after she joined the show permanently in 2004. Her performance earned her a nomination for 'Most Popular New Talent' at the TV Week Logie Awards in 2006. In 2008, Sharni announced she would be leaving the #1 Australian drama series to pursue a career in America, where she was immediately embraced by the entertainment industry. In January 2008, she was chosen by director David Nutter (Smallville, Supernatural), to appear in the $50M LG 'Scarlet' TV series advertisement campaign, shot in Bangkok,Thailand. From there, she booked continuous guest roles on CSI:NY, NCIS, My Boys, Cold Case, and CW pilot 'Austin Golden Hour'. She also secured herself the lead role in the pilot presentation, 'The Depths', produced by Gregory Bonann (creator/producer 'Baywatch').
In March 2009, after an extensive search for a leading lady with amazing dance capability, Vinson booked the coveted lead role of 'Natalie' in Disney's "Step Up 3D"- the third installment of the 'Step Up' dance film franchise. The physically demanding role required a brutal 5 month 'boot camp', which included lengthy days of weight lifting, dance rehearsals, dialect coaching, capoeira classes and parkour training. 'Step Up 3D' was released in August 2010 and has grossed over $180M worldwide. The 'Step Up' series has since become the most successful dance film franchise in the world.
In need of an actress highly accomplished in water skills, Vinson portrayed pro-surfer 'Tara' in 'Blue Crush 2, Wild Coast' - a role which was specifically written in to add Vinson to the film. The film required all of its actors to partake in a vigorous surf camp, where her ocean savvy skills were put on display in the middle of shark infested waters in Durban, South Africa. The film was released in June 2011 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment 10 years after the original 'Blue Crush' premiered in Hawaii.
By the end of 2010, Sharni headed back to her home country where she joined the Australian/Singaporean co-produced shark thriller 'BAIT 3D', written by Russell Mulcahy (Resident Evil- Extinction). The film literally took a bite out of the Chinese box office after it opened #1 in October 2012, grossing over $25M in its first 3 weeks in theaters. But it was Vinson's next role which would finally earn her the industry credibility and recognition she had been seeking.
In March 2011, Sharni had auditioned for the low budget, indie horror film, titled "YOU'RE NEXT", which for months had been unable to cast its lead female actress. It was during her audition that director Adam Wingard (Godzilla v Kong) became convinced he had finally found his lead girl. He asked writer, Simon Barrett to re-create the role of 'Erin' to suit the actresses' native Australian background and the result was history in the making. During the film's premiere screening in 2011 at the Toronto International Film Festival, an immediate bidding war erupted, which eventually saw 'Lionsgate' win the battle to acquire the film. The company then soon merged with Summit Entertainment, creating a back log in their combined list of films, and by the time "YOU'RE NEXT" was finally released in September 2013, it had sat 'on the shelf' for 2 years. However, due to the buzz which had been building throughout the industry and by word of mouth via horror fans across the globe, the film managed to open to overwhelming success. Rolling Stone named 'YOU'RE NEXT' one of the "best horror movies of 2013", and Vinson's role as Erin was praised as the perfect blend of girl-next-door meets tough action survivalist, since earning her the title of America's new 'scream queen'. Vinson's most critically acclaimed role saw her take home 'Best Horror Actress' at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas in 2011 and the film has since become a horror cult classic in the industry worldwide.
In November 2012, Sharni led the way in the remake of an Australian cult classic, 'PATRICK', originally released in 1978. She was asked to play the lead role of 'Nurse Kathy' opposite Charles Dance (Game of Thrones, Alien) and Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under, Brothers and Sisters). The film was shot in Melbourne, Australia, and again, earned Sharni critical acclaim for her portrayal of a caring nurse who becomes the subject of her telepathic, murderous coma patient. The Australian Film Critics Association nominated her performance for Best Actress in 2014 at the AFCA Awards alongside Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts.
In June 2014, Sharni was asked to join Jackie Chan in his latest action adventure epic, "Dragon Blade", opposite John Cusack (Being John Malkovich) and Adrien Brody (The Pianist). As one of most costly Chinese films of all time, it released in February 2015 breaking all records at the box office in China. In "Dragon Blade", Sharni plays the Queen of the Roman Empire in the days of early war on the Silk Road.
In October 2014, Sharni teamed up with NYFA film student Shantal Freedman to play small town cop 'Jackie' in her final graduation project at the New York Film Academy. The short film titled "TICKETED" went on to become an official selection for the 2015 Short Film Corner at Cannes International Film Festival, the LA Shorts Fest, and won Best Student Film at the LA Cinema Festival of Hollywood. Vinson also received an honorable mention for Best Principal Actress at the Independent Film Awards 2015.
In May 2015, Adi Shankar (The Grey, Castlevania) approached Sharni about playing the lead female character in his highly anticipated new series titled, 'The Guardians of Justice'. In the half animated, half live-action superhero saga, Sharni portrays the fastest woman on Earth, 'The Speed,' opposite Jane Seymore, Denise Richards, and WWE wrestler Diamond Dallas Page. The original Netflix series premiered at the Cannes Series Festival in October 2021 and was released in March 2022 after 6 years in the making. The groundbreaking action series saw Vinson earn her first credit as co-executive producer.
Constantly taking on physically demanding roles and always up for a challenge, Sharni most recently agreed to participate in the 8th season of Australian SURVIVOR, 'Heroes verses Villains', competing on the Heroes Tribe.The reality series filmed in Samoa in August 2022 and is now streaming on Channel 10 in Australia.- Raven-haired beauty Jordana Brewster was born on April 26, 1980 in Panama City, Panama. Her mother, Maria João Leal de Sousa, is a Brazilian-born model who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1978. Her father, Alden Brewster, is an American-born investment banker, who has English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Her paternal grandfather, Mayflower descendant Kingman Brewster, Jr., was president of Yale University from 1963 to 1977. Jordana was raised in London, England up until the age of six. At this time, her family decided to move back to her mother's native Rio de Janeiro. Here, they would stay for the next 4 years. Jordana learned to speak fluent Portuguese during her 4 year stay in Rio de Janeiro. At the age of ten, Jordana's family decided to move again, only this time they would relocate to Manhattan. It was here where Jordana studied at Sacred Heart, an all-girl Catholic school before moving on to the New York Professional Children's School. It was in her teens that Jordana began to make a name for herself by appearing in two of daytime television's longest-running soap operas, All My Children (1970) and in 1996 As the World Turns (1956), where she played the role of "Nikki Munson" for three years. Jordana also went on to co-star in the NBC mini-series The '60s (1999). The year 1998 marked her big-screen debut as "Delilah Profitt" in the teen-driven film, The Faculty (1998). However, it was her role as "Mia Toretto" in the blockbuster hit The Fast and the Furious (2001) that led her to reach Hollywood stardom. Despite her success, Jordana continued to attend Yale University, in the class of 2003. She played the lead in the prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), and reprised her role, Mia, in the sequels Fast & Furious (2009), Fast Five (2011), Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Furious 7 (2015).
Brewster was married to producer Andrew Form in 2007, and they have two sons. - Charlotte Sullivan is a Canadian actress, known for her role as officer Gail Peck in the Global police drama series Rookie Blue. Sullivan was born in Toronto, Ontario. Her first on-screen role was an extra in a Liza Minnelli music video. She has had starring roles in the film Harriet the Spy (1996) and the CBS series The New Ghostwriter Mysteries (1997), as well as smaller parts in the films How to Deal (2003) and Fever Pitch (2005). She played Katie in the drama television series Across the River to Motor City (2007).
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Rose McGowan is an American actress and director, known for her contribution to independent film. Since the age of nineteen, she has appeared in acclaimed films by Gregg Araki, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. In 2014, her directorial debut Dawn (2014) was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Rose Arianna McGowan was born on September 5, 1973 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy, to American parents Terri and Daniel Patrick McGowan. She is the second eldest of six siblings, and has Irish, French, and English ancestry. As a young child, she was raised within the Italian chapter of the Children of God. During the early 1980s, her family severed ties with the community and migrated to Eugene, Oregon, USA. Following the divorce of her parents, Rose relocated to Gig Harbor, Washington, to live with her grandmother. At age 14, McGowan was accused of drug use by a family friend and committed to rehabilitation. She has consistently maintained the decision was unjustified. Upon release, she spent a year without a home and was emancipated from her parents by the age of 15. McGowan's career as an actor began with The Doom Generation (1995). Originally intended for Jordan Ladd, the character of Amy Blue was, coincidentally, awarded to McGowan by an associate of director Gregg Araki. For her performance, she was nominated at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Debut Performance. Subsequently cast in Wes Craven's Scream (1996), she experienced further success when the project defied expectations to become one of the highest grossing films of the year. The innovative career of McGowan was overshadowed throughout much of the 1990s by her high-profile relationship with musician Brian Warner (aka Marilyn Manson). Strong performances in Going All the Way (1997), Lewis & Clark & George (1997), Southie (1998) and Jawbreaker (1999) were largely unseen by the general public. When the relationship ended between Rose and Manson in 2001, she remarked: "There is great love, but our lifestyle difference is, unfortunately, even greater". Rose continued to work solidly, appearing in a string of soft-sounding studio and independent films. Performances from this period included: a political activist in Showtime's The Killing Yard (2001), a grifter in Roads to Riches (2002) and a factory worker in "Stealing Bess" (aka Vacuums (2003)). She was re-introduced to the mainstream as Paige Matthews in Aaron Spelling's Charmed (1998), a popular television series for which she devoted five consecutive years. When "Charmed" finished its run in 2006, McGowan emerged in top form. Critics praised her efforts in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror (2007), and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007). In several interviews, McGowan has expressed a general apathy and disdain for Hollywood. Despite this, her work ethic remains strong. Following her recent marriage to LA-based artist Davey Detail, the actress has resolved to purse further projects as a director.- Actress
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Caroline Dhavernas commands the attention of filmgoers and television viewers with her beauty, talent and poise. Beginning her career at age 11, the Montreal native is already an acclaimed young actress who has also made her mark in Hollywood. She is the recipient of two Gemeaux Awards, one for "Best Interpretation in a Youth Series" for Zap (1993) and the second for "Best Supporting Role" in Tag.
Her first feature film, Thick as Thieves (1999), was followed by L'île de sable (1999).
She co-starred in English director Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story (2003), which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003.
Dhavernas made her American television debut in 2002 in Law & Order (1990). But it's her role as "Jaye Tyler" in the critically acclaimed FOX comedy Wonderfalls (2004) that will make a mark in the minds of viewers.
In 2005, she landed a part in the drama Niagara Motel (2005) and received a Genie Award nomination for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role".
In 2006, she starred in the Focus Features film Hollywoodland (2006) opposite Adrien Brody, with whom she reunited in 2010 in Wrecked (2010). She also acted alongside Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe in Breach (2007).
Dhavernas appeared in the widely acclaimed Canadian feature Passchendaele (2008), which won the 2009 Genie Award for "Best Motion Picture".
She was in the supernatural thriller Devil (2010) produced by M. Night Shyamalan and The Switch (2010) with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman.
She also starred as "Vera Keller" in The Pacific (2010), a mini-series about World War II that debuted on HBO in March 2010.
In 2011, she could be seen in the ABC medical drama Off the Map (2011).
In 2013, she reunited with Wonderfalls (2004) creator Bryan Fuller in NBC's psychological horror thriller hit Hannibal (2013). Her performance as "Dr. Alana Bloom" earned her 4 nominations: a Saturn Award nod for "Best Supporting Actress on Television", an ACTRA Montreal Award nod for "Outstanding Female Performance", a Golden Maple Award nod for "Best Actress in a TV Series Broadcasted in the US" and a Chainsaw Award nod for "Best TV Actress".
2017 will see Dhavernas take on another strong TV leading role in Lifetime's thought-provoking euthanasia drama Mary Kills People (2017).