Jean Dujardin (born 19 June 1972) is a French actor and comedian.
He has worked notably with director Michel Hazanavicius, starring in his OSS 117 spy parodies. His work as George Valentin in Hazanavicius' film The Artist received widespread acclaim, as well a nomination for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Actor. He has also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, and the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award, for the role
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937)
American actor, film director and producer. He is renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters.
Nicholson has been nominated for Academy Awards twelve times. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three), and second to Katharine Hepburn for most acting wins overall (four). He is also one of only two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting (either lead or supporting) in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s (the other one being Michael Caine). He has won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award.
Notable films in which he has starred include, in chronological order, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, Something's Gotta Give, and The Departed.
Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts Born: October 28, 1967Born during the late '60s, Georgia native Julia Roberts was raised in a fervently pro-theater environment. Her parents regularly hosted acting and writing workshops, and both of the Roberts children (Julia and her brother Eric) showed an interest in the performing arts at an early age. Ironically enough, Eric was the first to break into film; in 1978, one year after their father died of lung cancer at 47, Eric_Roberts starred in director Frank_Pierson's psychological drama King of the Gypsies. Though her older brother would go on to have a solid acting career, it was, of course, Julia Roberts who earned a spot among Hollywood's elite.
After making her film debut in Blood_Red -- which wouldn't be released until 1989, despite having been completed in 1986 -- and appearing in several late '80s television features, Roberts got her first real break in the 1988 made-for-cable drama Satisfaction. That role, consequently, led to her first significant supporting role -- a feisty pizza parlor waitress in 1989's Mystic_Pizza with Annabeth_Gish, Lili_Taylor, and a then 19-year-old Matt_Damon. While Mystic_Pizza was not a star-making film for Roberts, it certainly helped earn her the credentials she needed to land the part of Shelby, an ill-fated would-be mother in Steel_Magnolias. The 1989 tearjerker found her acting alongside Sally_Field and Shirley MacLaine, and culminated in an Oscar nomination for Roberts.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Next to Liv_Tyler, Angelina Jolie is the only actress of her generation who can thank her famous father for the lips that have become her trademark. The actress was born Angelina Jolie Voight to the pillow-lipped Jon_Voight and actress Marcheline_Bertrand on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.
Raised mostly by her mother after her parents divorced while she was still a baby, Jolie moved around a lot with her mother and brother. She also did a fair amount of traveling as a professional model, living in such places as London, New York, and Los Angeles before settling for a time in New York as a student at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University, where she first started acting in theater productions. The fledgling actress soon moved on to film with a small role in 1993's Cyborg_2, followed in 1995 by her turn as a computer hacker in the more widely seen Hackers. The film gave her her first taste of recognition, as well as an introduction to Trainspotting's Jonny_Lee_Miller, to whom she was married for a short time.
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Born: August 14, 1966
A woman whose combination of talent, tenacity, and beauty has made her one of Hollywood's busiest actors, Halle Berry has enjoyed a level of success that has come from years of hard work and her share of career pitfalls.
Berry's interest in show business came courtesy of her participation in a number of beauty pageants throughout her teens, including the 1986 Miss U.S.A. Pageant. A native of Cleveland, OH, where she was born to an African-American father and white mother on August 14, 1968, Berry was raised by her mother, a psychiatric nurse, following her parents' divorce. At the age of 17, she appeared in the spotlight for the first time as the winner of the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, and subsequently became a model. Berry won her first professional acting gig on the TV series Living Dolls, and then appeared on Knots Landing before winning her first big-screen role in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever. It was on the set of the film that she first earned her reputation for her full commitment to acting, reportedly refusing to bathe for weeks in preparation for her portrayal of a crack addict.
Universally known as one of the sexiest women in Hollywood, Scarlett Johansson has actually been acting professionally since the age of eight. A native of New York City, where she was born on November 22, 1984, Johansson was raised -- along with her twin brother -- as the youngest of four children, and she developed an interest in acting at the age of three. After enrolling in classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute for Young People, she made her stage debut opposite Ethan_Hawke in the off-Broadway production of -Sophistry. Her film debut followed in 1994, when she had a supporting role in North, and she subsequently appeared in the little-seen Just_Cause (1995) and If_Lucy_Fell (1996).
Johansson had her first significant screen breakthrough with her role as one of two orphaned teenaged sisters in Manny & Lo (1996), a coming-of-age drama directed by Lisa_Krueger. Johansson, who shared the screen with Aleksa_Palladino and Mary_Kay_Place, earned an Independent Spirit Award Best Actress nomination for her work in the film, and she soon found herself being tapped by Robert_Redford to star as Kristin_Scott_Thomas' daughter in The_Horse_Whisperer (1998). Although the film met with a very mixed reception, Johansson was widely praised for her portrayal of a girl who loses her leg and her best friend in a horrific accident.
In 2000, the actress signed on to play one of the heroines (alongside Thora_Birch) of Terry_Zwigoff's screen adaptation of Ghost World, Daniel Clowes' celebrated comic about the adventures of two teen girls grappling with post-high school life. That same year, she starred in American Rhapsody, in which she portrayed a young girl who escapes communist Hungary in the 1950s and travels to the U.S.
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A slender, olive-skinned actress whose elegant beauty is somewhat offset by a collection of vivid tattoos (including a portrait of Marilyn_Monroe on her right forearm and the +King Lear quote "We all laugh at gilded butterflies" on her right shoulder blade), Megan Fox knew she wanted to be an actress from age three, and never once considered another line of work. A native of Memphis, TN, Fox began taking dance lessons when she was five years old and continued perfecting her graceful movements even after her family relocated to Florida five years later. At 13, the aspiring starlet enrolled in modeling and acting classes. It didn't take long for all of Fox's hard work to pay off, with a role in the 2001 Olsen twins comedy Holiday in the Sun marking the ambitious actress' official screen debut.
Over the course of the next few years, Fox became a frequent fixture on television thanks to roles on What_I_Like_About_You, Two and a Half Men, and Hope & Faith. In 2004, Fox would torment a fledgling Lindsay_Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, though it was Fox's performance as a human caught in the middle of an epic robot battle that would truly prove her calling card to Hollywood. Cast as the love interest of Shia LaBeouf in Michael_Bay's 2007 blockbuster Transformers, Fox turned more than a few heads while fighting for the future of the human race. In 2008, Fox could be spotted opposite Kirsten_Dunst, Simon_Pegg, Jeff_Bridges, and Gillian_Anderson in the Robert_B._Weide-directed comedy How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Amy Adams was Born: August 20, 1975
An actress with a knack for light comedy, Amy Adams was born in Italy and raised in Castle Rock, Colorado. After high school, she studied dance and worked in regional dinner theater until age 20, when she moved to Minnesota with her family after being spotted by a visiting Minneapolis producer and recruited to work in his dinner theater there. She landed her first film role in the satiric 1999 comedy Drop_Dead_Gorgeous, which was, appropriately enough, set in Minnesota. After appearing in the independent comedy Psycho_Beach_Party, Adams made guest appearances on a number of television series, including That_70s_Show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The_West_Wing; she was also cast as a regular in Manchester Prep, a TV spin-off of the hit film Cruel_Intentions. Manchester Prep, however, was never aired when its network decided that the show's sexual content was too strong for television, although several episodes were eventually re-edited into a direct-to-video feature entitled Cruel_Intentions_2. 2002 proved to be a very busy year for Adams, who appeared in no fewer than four features, including the eagerly anticipated Catch Me if You Can, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom_Hanks.
Adams took a 2 year break following Catch_Me_If_You_Can, reemerging in 2004 to appear with Fred_Savage in the low-key comedy/drama The_Last_Run. The next year she took a substantial role in the romantic comedy The_Wedding_Date, but the part that proved to be a career-shaping one was the very innocent, very pregnant Ashley in Phil_Morrison's independent film Junebug. Adams was adored by audiences and praised by critics for her quirky, sensitive performance, and she netted a Best Supporting Actress nomination in the process.
The young actress rounded out 2005 with a brief series of regular appearances on the wildly popular TV comedy The_Office. In 2006 Amy co-starred in the NASCAR comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, alongside Will_Ferrell and Sacha_Baron_Cohen. 2007 provided a big boost to her lead-actress stock in the form of Disney's Enchanted, a Splash-like confection in which Adams played a fairytale princess inadvertently plopped into the alternate universe of modern-day New York City. The family-friendly Thanksgiving release racked up considerable praise and millions of box-office dollars. Adams picked up her second Academy Award nomination in 2008 for her work in John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his award winning play Doubt. In addition to that honor, she scored nods from the Screen Actors Guild, and the Hollywood Foreign Press. The following year, Adams teamed with Doubt star Meryl Streep again, to play a young amateur chef who attempts to cook every recipe in a massive cookbook by Julia Child (Streep) in the Nora Ephron-directed Julie and Julia. Rovi
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Born: June 09, 1981
With a major part in the most anticipated film of the 1990s, George_Lucas' Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, repeated comparisons to Audrey_Hepburn, and the drool of a thousand critics at her feet, Natalie Portman has emerged as one of the most promising actresses of her generation.
Born in Jerusalem on June 9, 1981, to an artist mother and doctor father, Portman moved to New York when she was three. Raised on Long Island, she was discovered by a modeling agent who signed her on the spot. Her modeling stint led to an audition for Luc_Besson's Leon (or The_Professional, as it was called in the United States). Due to her age (she was 12 when the film was cast), Portman was initially turned down for the lead role of Mathilda, a girl who asks a hit man (Jean_Reno) to train her as an assassin to avenge her brother's death and falls in love with him in the process. However, she ultimately won the part and her 1994 film debut earned a number of positive notices. In interviews, Portman allowed that making her first film in the toughest sections of Spanish Harlem was frightening, but not quite so frightening, she claimed, as going back to school once shooting wrapped.
Portman then took on the role of Al_Pacino's step-daughter in another demanding film, Michael_Mann's Heat (1995). She followed this up with lighter fare as Jack_Nicholson's daughter in Mars_Attacks! (1996). Despite a triumph of casting (the ensemble also included Glenn_Close, Annette_Bening, and Rod_Steiger) and the direction of the dependably original Tim_Burton, the film was a critical and financial disappointment. Portman emerged relatively unscathed, going on the same year to make Woody_Allen's musical comedy Everyone_Says_I_Love_You. The film met with a decidedly happier fate among critics and filmgoers than her previous venture and Portman continued to ride high with the success of her third film of 1996, Beautiful_Girls. For her performance as Marty, the precocious teen who nearly steals a much older Timothy_Hutton away from his fiancée, Portman received adulation from a host of critics, some of whom stated that she was the best part of the whole movie
Born: September 02, 1966
Widely considered to be the first Mexican actress to become a Hollywood movie star since Dolores_Del_Rio, Salma Hayek is known for bringing a fiery presence and striking, dark-eyed beauty to the screen. A soap star in her native Mexico, Hayek risked her entire career to come to L.A., where she struggled to be taken seriously. Her discovery by director Robert_Rodriguez, who cast her in his 1995 film Desperado, gave Hayek her breakthrough, and she subsequently gained a reputation as one of Hollywood's sexiest and busiest actresses.
The daughter of a Spanish mother and Lebanese father, Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, on September 2, 1966. Raised in a devoutly Catholic family, she was sent to a Louisiana boarding school at the age of 12. After getting into trouble for terrorizing the nuns, Hayek returned to Mexico, but she was eventually sent to Houston, Texas, to live with her aunt, where she stayed until she was 17. She subsequently moved to Mexico City, where she studied International Relations as a university student, but, to the chagrin of her family, decided to drop out in order to pursue a career as an actress. Starting out in local theatre productions, she eventually moved to television and landed a starring role in the popular soap opera Teresa. The show's success made Hayek a celebrity in her native country, but, desiring something more, she shocked her fans by deciding to quit the show in order to pursue a career in L.A.
After taking a year to learn English and study acting with Stella Adler, Hayek got her first break when Allison_Anders cast her in a supporting role in Mi_Vida_Loca (1993). The role allowed Hayek to obtain a Screen Actors Guild card, and after doing so, she continued to audition until she appeared on a Spanish-language cable access talk show that happened to count director Robert_Rodriguez amongst its viewers. Rodriguez tracked Hayek down and promptly cast her in Desperado, his bigger-budget 1995 sequel to El_Mariachi. The film, which also starred Antonio_Banderas, succeeded in giving the actress her own plot on the Hollywood map, and Rodriguez again demonstrated his faith in her when he cast her in his next project, the vampire extravaganza From_Dusk_Till_Dawn (1996).