Charlize Theron Born in South Africa, she was a ballerina and model before getting
attention as an actress in the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do (1996) and the Woody Allen film Celebrity (1998). She played a New England
ingenue in the 1999 art house hit The Cider House Rules, and by the
year 2000 she was starring in big budget pictures like Reindeer Games (with Ben Affleck)
and Robert
Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance (alongside stars Matt Damonand Will Smith).
What made her a star was her transformation from off screen beauty to onscreen
nightmare as serial killer Aileen
Wuornos in Monster (2003, co-starring Christina
Ricci). The film won Charlize Theron an Oscar as best actress and
launcher her into the top tier of leading ladies. She won another Oscar
nomination for North Country(2005), but the
highly-anticipated Aeon Flux (2005) was raspberried by the critics
and spurned by moviegoers. Her other films include The
Italian Job (2003,
starring Mark Wahlberg),
the 2007 Paul Haggis film In the Valley of Elah(starring Tommy Lee
Jones), the Jason Reitman comedy Young Adult (2011),
the Ridley Scott sci-fi epic Prometheus (2012)
and, as the wicked queen, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012, starring Kristen
Stewart).
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
Tuesday, 29 December 2015
American Actress Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba was born on April 28, 1981 in Pomona ,California is an
American actress, model and businesswoman. She started her acting career
at 13 years old, landing appearances in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex
Mack. When she was 19, she became the lead actress in
television series Dark Angel, which kick started her career into
landing appearances in films Sin City, Fantastic Four: Rise
of the Silver Surfer and Good Luck Chuck. Her
pop culture presence has also been widely received, making Maxim‘s
“Hot 100” section, AskMen.com’s list of “99 Most Desirable Women," and TV
Guide’s 50 Sexiest Stars Of All Time list. Her film roles later in her career
include Valentine’s
Day, Little Fockers , and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Jessica has been nominated
for Teen Choice awards and a Golden Globe.
Jessica
married Cash
Warren in 2008, after meeting on the set of Fantastic Four in 2004. They have two daughters together, Honor Marie
Warren (born 2008) and Haven Garner
Warner (born 2011). Jessica suffers from asthma and ADHD.
Jessica’s charity works include Habitat for Humanity, National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, etc. She is an open Democrat and has been a
stronger supporter of Barack Obama.
Sunday, 27 December 2015
Italy Actress Amy Adams
Amy Lou Adams was born in Italy, to American parents Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, while her father was a U.S. serviceman. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as smaller amounts of Danish, Swiss-German, and Norwegian, ancestry. Adams sang in the school choir at Douglas County High School and was an apprentice dancer at a local dance company, with the ambition of becoming a ballerina. However, she worked as a greeter at The Gap and as a Hooters hostess to support herself before finding work as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse in such productions as "Brigadoon" and "A Chorus Line". It was there that she was spotted by a Minneapolis dinner-theater director who asked her to move to Chanhassen, Minnesota for more regional dinner theater work.
Nursing a pulled muscle that kept her from dancing, she was free to audition for a part in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), which was filming nearby in Minnesota. During the filming, Kirstie Alley encouraged her to move to Los Angeles, where she soon won a part in the Fox television version of the film, Cruel Intentions (1999), in the part played in the film by Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Kathryn Merteuil". Although three episodes were filmed, the troubled series never aired. Instead, parts of the episodes were cobbled together and released as the direct-to-video Cruel Intentions 2 (2000). After more failed television spots, she landed a major role in Catch Me If You Can (2002), playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. But this did not provide the break-through she might have hoped for, with no work being offered for about a year. She eventually returned to television, and joined the short-lived series, Dr. Vegas (2004). Her role in the low-budget independent film Junebug (2005) (which was shot in 21 days) got her real attention, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as well as other awards. The following year, her ability to look like a wide-eyed Disney animated heroine helped her to be chosen from about 300 actresses auditioning for the role of "Giselle" in the animated/live-action feature film,Enchanted (2007), which would prove to be her major break-through role. Her vivacious yet innocent portrayal allowed her to use her singing and dancing talents. Her performance garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Adams next appeared in the major production, Charlie Wilson's War (2007), and went on to act in the independent film, Sunshine Cleaning (2008), which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Her role as "Sister James" in Doubt (2008) brought her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and a British Academy Film award. She appeared as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian(2009) and as a post-9/11 hot line counselor, aspiring writer, amateur cook and blogger in Julie & Julia (2009). More recently, she starred with Jason Segel in The Muppets(2011) and alongside Clint Eastwood in Trouble with the Curve (2012.
Austin Actress Amber Heard
Amber Laura Heard was born in Austin, Texas, to Patricia Paige (Parsons), an internet researcher, and David Clinton Heard, a contractor. She has English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Welsh ancestry. Heard appeared in the Academy Award-nominated film, North Country (2005), in which she played Charlize Theron's character in flashbacks. Her other early film credits include: Syrup (2013), Drive Angry (2011) 3D, The Joneses (2009), Never Back Down(2008), Alpha Dog (2006) and Friday Night Lights (2004). On television, Heard starred on The CW drama, Hidden Palms (2007), and had guest starring roles on Showtime's Californication (2007) and CBS's Criminal Minds (2005) In 2009, Heard starred in the box office hit, Zombieland (2009), opposite Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray and Jesse Eisenberg. She also starred in the suspense thriller,The Stepfather (2009), with Sela Ward, Dylan Walsh and Penn Badgley. In 2008, she garnered attention for her role in the comedic hit, Pineapple Express (2008), with Seth Rogen and James Franco. Heard received a 2008 Young Hollywood Award for her breakthrough performance in "Pineapple Express".
She appeared in The Rum Diary (2011), opposite Johnny Depp, and John Carpenter'sThe Ward (2010), which premiered at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. She also starred in the independent film, And Soon the Darkness (2010), in which she additionally served as a co-producer.Heard starred in Paranoia (2013), opposite Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman. The film was released by "Relativity Media" on August 16, 2013. She also starred in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013), which was released by "Open Road Films" on March 4, 2013, and McG's 3 Days to Kill (2014), opposite Kevin Costner andHailee Steinfeld, which was released in 2014. Additionally, her film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), which premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, was released by The Weinstein Co. in theaters in the fall of 2013. Heard resides in Los Angeles, where she is actively involved with Amnesty International. In 2015, she married actor Johnny Depp.
Saturday, 26 December 2015
American Actress Natalie Portman
Natalie
Portman born on June
9, 1981. She is an actress, film
producer and film director with dual American and
Israeli citizenship. Her first role was in
the 1994 action thriller Leon: The
Professional, opposite Jean Reno,
but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padme Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005).
Born in Jerusalem to an Israeli father and American
mother, Portman grew up in the eastern United States from the age of three. She
studied dancing and acting in New York, and starred in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom
Menace while still at high school on Long Island.
In 1999, Portman enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology, alongside her
work as an actress; she completed a bachelor's degree in 2003. During her
studies she starred in a second Star
Wars film and opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in 2001.
Portman starred in the 2004 drama Closer, appeared in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the
Sith the
following year, and won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance and a
Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in
the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and portrayed the love
interest in Thor (2011) and its 2013 sequel. In 2010, Portman starred in
the psychological horror film Black Swan.
Her performance received widespread critical acclaim and she earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress,
her second Golden Globe
Award, the SAG Award,
the BAFTA Award and the BFCA Award in 2011.
In May 2008, Portman served as the
youngest member of the 61st Annual
Cannes Film Festival jury. The same year she directed a
segment of the collective film New York, I Love You. Her first
feature film as a director, A Tale of Love and Darkness,
was released in 2015.
Portman was born on June 9, 1981 in Jerusalem. Her original given name was Neta-Lee,
a Hebrew name. She is the only
child of Shelley (née Stevens), an American homemaker who works as Portman's
agent, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli fertility specialist and gynecologist.
Her maternal grandparents, Bernice
(née Hurwitz; 1925–2014) and Arthur Stevens (whose
family surname was originally Edelstein),
were from Jewish families that moved to the United
States from Austria and Russia. Natalie's paternal grandparents, Mania
(née Portman) and Zvi Yehuda Hershlag, were Jewish immigrants to Israel. Zvi, born in Poland in 1914, moved to
what was then Mandatory Palestine in 1938 and eventually became an
economics professor; his parents died at Auschwitz. One of Natalie's paternal
great-grandmothers was born in Romania and was a spy for British Intelligence during World War II.
Portman's parents met at a Jewish
student center at Ohio State University, where her mother
was selling tickets. They corresponded after her father returned to Israel and
were married when her mother visited a few years later. In 1984, when Portman
was three years old, the family moved to the United States, where her father
received his medical training. Portman, a dual citizen of the United States and
Israel, has said that although
she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I
feel at home."
Education:
While living in the Washington, D.C.
area, Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland. Portman
learned to speak Hebrew and
while living on Long Island attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of
Nassau County in Jericho, New
York. She graduated
from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island in 1999. She
studied ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop in New Hyde Park, New York, and attended the
Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts in Wheatley Heights, both on Long Island. Portman
skipped the premiere of her film Star Wars Episode I. The Phantom
Menace, so she
could study for her high school final exams.
In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. degree
in psychology.
"I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post.
"I'd rather be smart than a movie star." At Harvard, Portman was Alan
Dershowitz's research assistant. While
attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an essay critical of
Israeli actions toward Palestinians.
Portman returned to Israel and took
graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004. In March 2006, she was a guest
lecturer at a Columbia University course in terrorism and
counterterrorism, where she spoke about her film V for Vendetta. Portman has professed an interest in
foreign languages since childhood and has studied French, Japanese, German, and Arabic.
Career (early life):
Portman started dancing lessons at age
four and performed in local troupes. At the age of 10, a Revlon agent asked her to become a child model, but she turned down the offer to focus
on acting. In a magazine interview, Portman said that she was "different
from the other kids. I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I
wanted, and I worked very hard. I was a very serious kid."
On school holidays, Portman attended
theater camps. When she was 10, Portman auditioned for the 1992 off-Broad way
show Ruthless!, a musical about a girl who is prepared to
commit murder to get the lead in a school play. Portman and future pop star Britney
Spears were chosen as
the understudies for star Laura Bell
Bundy.
In 1993, she auditioned for the role
of an orphan child who befriends a middle-aged Hitman (played by Jean Reno)
in Luc Besson's
film, Leon: The Professional. Soon after getting the part, she took
her paternal grandmother's maiden name, "Portman", as her stage name
in the interest of privacy and to protect her family's identity. Leon:
The Professional opened in 1994, marking
her feature film debut.
American actress Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried is an American
actress born December 3, 1985, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She broke into
acting via soap operas, went on to a supporting role in HBO’s Big Love, and
then broke through in the film Mean Girls. Her first major lead film role was
in Mamma Mia!, co-starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. Seyfried has
appeared on many “up and coming in Hollywood” lists.
Amanda Seyfried is an American
actress born on December 3, 1985, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Seyfried’s
father, Jack, worked as a pharmacist, and her mother, Ann, as an occupational
therapist. Amanda grew up in a close-knit family: "My older sister, Jenn, is
like my best friend," she has said. "My parents are still together.
They were amazing parents."
From an early age, Seyfried suffered from anxiety attacks.
She claimed these were assets: "…that kind of anxiety in me, that
obsession, was helpful. I use it in my acting. It's something I don't want to
give up feeling, because it gives me an edge."
Seyfried’s hobby of taxidermy also sets her apart from other
Hollywood starlets. Seyfried revealed, “When taxidermy is done well it’s an
amazing piece of art. I love animals and they’re very easy to look after when
they’re dead. I have a horse, a miniature horse, it’s a baby.”
Regarding her love life, Seyfried has dated a string of
actors, including Jesse Marchant, Dominic Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Josh
Hartnett, Alexander Skarsgard and Desmond Harrington.
Seyfried’s big break came playing Karen Smith, a ditzy
popular blonde, in the hit film Mean Girls (2004), written by Saturday
Night Live alum Tina Fey. After appearing with co-stars Lindsay Lohan
and Rachel McAdams, Seyfried later said, "Oh, thank God for Mean
Girls! That put me on the map!"
Seyfried acted in several supporting TV and film roles over
the next two years, such as in Nine Lives (2005), American
Guns (2005), Alpha Dog (2006) andVeronica Mars (2004-2006).
Her next prominent role was in the HBO drama series Big Love (2006),
where she played one of the daughters in a polygamous Mormon family and co-starred
with Bill Paxton, Chloe Sevigny and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Seyfried stayed on the
show for four seasons before leaving to focus on her film career.
A lead role in the ABBA-based musical film Mamma
Mia! (2008) lifted Seyfried to A-list status. Co-starring with Meryl
Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, Seyfried played Sophie, a girl looking
to find out the identity of her father before getting married. The actress also
sang one of the lead songs, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),"
on the film’s album. Since its release, the film has grossed over $609 million
dollars.
Seyfried appeared in several more films over the next year,
includingJennifer’s Body (2008), Boogie Woogie (2009)
and Chloe (2009). She was set in 2009 to play the lead role in Sucker
Punch, but withdrew due to scheduling conflicts with Big Love.
2010 and 2011 were busy years for the actress. She took lead
roles in films that did not garner critical acclaim, but did produce decent
box-office results, such as Dear John (2010), Letters
to Juliet (2010), Red Riding Hood (2011) and In
Time (2011).
In early 2012, Seyfried appeared in the film Gone.
Other 2012 films yet to be released include the comedy The Wedding,
the drama The End of Love, the musical Les Misérables and
the biopic Lovelace.
Planned 2013 projects are the animated movie Epic,
the dramedy Pete and Goat and the drama The Girl Who
Conned the Ivy League.
Fans have noticed Seyfried not only for her acting, but also
for her beauty. Moviefone ranked her in its “25 Under 25: Hollywood's Hottest
Young Stars” list each year from 2008 to 2010. Glamour magazine
voted Seyfried “Most Down-to-Earth” (2010) and ranked her No. 3 on its “50 Most
Glamorous Women of 2010” list. People magazine showered her
with love with appearances in its special issues: “Most Beautiful 2009 –
Beautiful at Every Age” (ranked No. 4), “Most Beautiful 2010” (appeared sans
makeup), “25 Beauties (and Hotties) at 25” (ranked No. 1) and “2012 Most
Beautiful at Every Age.”
American Actress Milla Jovovich
Milica Bogdanovna "Milla" Jovovich born on December 17,1975. She is an
American actress, model, musician, and fashion designer. She has appeared in
numerous science fiction and action films,
leading the music channel VH1 to
deem her the "reigning queen of kick-butt" in 2006.
Born in Kiev, Jovovich immigrated with her parents to the United States
when she was five. In 1987, she began modeling at the age of 12 when Herb Ritts photographed
her for the cover of the Italian magazine Lei. Richard Avedon featured her in Revlon's
"Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In
1988, Jovovich had her first acting role in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu,
and that year also appeared in her first feature film, Two Moon Junction.
Jovovich gained attention for her role in the explicit 1991
romance film Return to the Blue
Lagoon, as she was then only 15. She
was considered to have a breakthrough with her role in the 1997 French
science-fiction film The Fifth Element written
and directed by Luc Besson.
She and Besson married that year, but soon divorced. She starred as the heroine
and martyr in Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
In 2002, Jovovich starred in the science fiction horror film Resident Evil, adapted from the video game series of the same name. It was disliked by critics, but was commercially successful. She
reprised her role in four sequels, all in the apocalyptic fiction action horror genre, made
between 2004 and 2012.
Jovovich released an album, The Divine Comedy,
in 1994. She continues to release demos for other songs on her official website
and contributes to film soundtracks. In 2003, she and model Carmen Hawk created
the clothing line Jovovich-Hawk. Jovovich has her own production company, Creature
Entertainment.
Early life and family:
Milla Jovovich was born in 1975 in Kiev, Ukrainian
SSR, Soviet Union.
In 1980, when Milla was five years old, her family left the
Soviet Union for political reasons and emigrated to London. They
subsequently immigrated to Sacramento,
California, settling in Los Angeles seven months later. Milla's parents
divorced soon after their arrival in Los Angeles.
In 1988, her father had a relationship with an Argentine
woman, and they had a son, Marco Jovovich. Due to her parents' divorce years
before, Milla saw little of her half brother.
In Los Angeles, her mother, Galina Jovovich, tried to get
acting jobs, but found little success because of language barriers, and
eventually resorted to cleaning houses to earn money. Both parents served as
cooks and housekeepers for director Brian De Palma. Milla's
father was convicted and imprisoned for participating in an illegal operation
concerning medical insurance;
he was given a 20-year sentence in 1994, but was released in 1999 after
serving five years. According to Milla, "Prison was good for him. He's
become a much better person. It gave him a chance to stop and think."
Milla attended public schools in Los Angeles, becoming
fluent in English in three months. In
school, she was teased by classmates for coming from the Soviet Union: "I
was called a commie and a Russian spy. I was never,
ever, ever accepted into the crowd."] At age 12, Milla left seventh grade
to focus on modeling, which she had started at age nine. She
has said she was rebellious during her early teens, engaging in drug use,
shopping mall vandalism, and credit-card fraud. In
1994, she became naturalized as a U.S. citizen at the age of 19.
Modeling Career:
When Milla was eleven and living in
Los Angeles her mother Galina wanted a new set of head shots for her, they were
recommended to a male model turned photographer Carlos Reynosa. He became
intrigued by her deep presence. After the shoot Carlos Reynosa recommended
Galina take young Milla to the modelling agency he was represented by in Los
Angeles called Prima / East West. Milla was signed to the agency upon arrival.
A few days later, after shooting her first test, her pictures were shown to famed
photographer Herb Ritz who immediately recognized the child Milla's beauty and
strong persona. The next day Ritts booked the 11-year-old Milla for the cover
of Italian magazine Lei,
and London style magazine The Face. The covers gave the young Milla
her launch and soon after legendary photographer Richard Avedon hired her for
the American Edition of Mademoiselle. When the magazine became aware of Milla's age they refused
to run the cover insisting that the magazine was a Women's magazine. Avedon
threatened to stop shooting for the publication if they did not honor his
artistic choice and the magazine relented and ran the cover, making
eleven-year-old Milla the youngest model to ever appear on the cover of an
American Women's Fashion Magazine. Avedon was also head of marketing at Revlon at the time, and chose young Milla
to appear with established models Alexa Singer and Sandra Zatezalo in Revlon's
"Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements.
Acting
Career (early work 1985-1993):
Jovovich's mother had
"raised [her] to be a movie star."
In 1985, Galina
enrolled Jovovich at the age of 10 in the Professional Actors School in California.
In 1988, Jovovich
appeared in her first professional role as Lily McLeod in the
made-for-television film The Night Train to Kathmandu. Later that year, she made her debut in
a feature film as Samantha Delongpre in the romantic thriller Two Moon
Junction.
She had several roles in television series, including Paradise (1988), Married... with Children (1989) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990).
At age 15, she was
cast as the lead as Lilli Hargrave in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), opposite Brian Krause. Given her age and
beauty, she was often compared to Brooke Shields, a child model-turned-actress who
had starred in the original Blue
Lagoon. The role was
controversial, as Jovovich appeared nude in the film, as had Shields in The
Blue Lagoon.. For this role, Jovovich was nominated both for "Best
Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture" at the 1991 Young Artist Awards, and "Worst New
Star" at the 1991 Golden Raspberry
Awards.
In 1992, Milla Jovovich co-starred with Christian Slater in the comedy Kuffs. Later that
year, she portrayed Mildred Harris in the Charlie Chaplin biographical film Chaplin. In 1993 she acted
in Richard Linklater's film Dazed and Confused. She played Michelle
Burroughs, on-screen girlfriend to Pickford (played by her then-boyfriend Shawn Andrews). Strongly featured
in promotions for the film, Jovovich was upset to find her role much reduced in
the released film. Discouraged,
she took a hiatus from acting roles, moving
to Europe. She started to work at music.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)