Wesley Snipes

biography:
Wesley Trent Snipes (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor and martial artist. Snipes has made films in a variety of genres, such as numerous thrillers, dramatic feature films, and comedies, though he is best known for his action films. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his work in The Waterdance (1992) and won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in the film One Night Stand (1997).

Born in Florida, Snipes had notable parts in the comedy film Major League (1989), the drama Mo' Better Blues (1990), and the crime drama King of New York (1990) before gaining prominence by playing a drug lord in the crime drama New Jack City (1991). He subsequently received more attention for the drama film Jungle Fever (1991), the sports comedy White Men Can't Jump (1992), and the action film Passenger 57 (1992). He has since starred in various genres, such as the comedy film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), the thriller The Fan (1996), and the drama film Down in the Delta (1998), but mostly established himself as an action star, portraying both heroes and villains in films such as Demolition Man (1993), Rising Sun (1993), Money Train (1995), and U.S. Marshals (1998). Also in 1998, he was cast as Eric Brooks/BBlade in the superhero film Blade, based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name, a role he went on to reprise in Blade II (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004), and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

Snipes had smaller roles during the 2000s and moved to direct-to-video action films before returning to the theatrical release with films such as Brooklyn's Finest (2009) and The Expendables 3 (2014). His television work includes multiple episodes in the drama series H.E.L.P. (1990), the action thriller crime drama series The Player (2015), and the drama limited series True Story (2021), as well as the romantic drama film Disappearing Acts (2000).

He formed a production company, Amen-Ra Films, in 1991, and a subsidiary, Black Dot Media, to develop projects for film and television. Snipes has been training in martial arts since the age of 12, earning a 5thdan black belt in Shotokan karate and a 2nddan black belt in Hapkido. He is credited with helping popularise martial arts in Hollywood and bringing martial arts to mainstream audiences, as well as contributing to the representation of Black actors in action roles, breaking stereotypes. In 2017, Snipes made his debut as a novelist with the urban fantasy supernatural adventure Talon of God.

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place_of_birth: Orlando, Florida, USA


Stephen Dorff

type: Profile

biography:
Stephen Hartley Dorff Jr. (born July 29, 1973) is an American actor. Starting his film career as a child, appearing in the cult horror film The Gate (1987), Dorff first rose to prominence playing Stuart Sutcliffe in Backbeat (1994) and then gained further mainstream attention for portraying Deacon Frost in Blade (1998). Other notable lead roles include Bob Rafelson's Blood and Wine (1997), the titular character in John Waters' Cecil B. DeMented (2000), and Johnny Marco in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (2010), as well as Britney Spears’ boyfriend in her 2004 music video for "Everytime".

Supporting roles include Candy Darling in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), Detective Scott Strauss in World Trade Centre (2006), Homer Van Meter in Public Enemies (2009), Stavros in Immortals (2011), Joseph Kuklinski in The Iceman (2012), and Ketchum in Old Henry (2021). He is also known for portraying Roland West in the third season of HBO's crime drama anthology seriesTrue Detective (2019).

place_of_birth: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

known_for_department: Acting


Donal Logue

biography:
Donal Francis Logue (born February 27, 1966) is an Canadian actor, producer and writer. His notable roles include starring as Dex in The Tao of Steve, Father Brian Norris in Runaway Bride, Quinn in Blade, Dan Scott in The Patriot, Jack in Just Like Heaven, Alex Balder in Max Payne, and Mack in Ghost Rider.

His major roles on TV include starring as Detective Harvey Bullock on Fox's Gotham, Declan Murphy on NBC's Law & Order: SVU, Sean Finnerty on the sitcom Grounded for Life, ADA Dickie Flood on The Practice, Chuck Martin on ER, Capt. Kevin Tidwell on Life, Hank Dolworth on Terriers, Brendan Donovan on Copper, Lee Toric on Sons of Anarchy, King Horik on Vikings, Dan on Quibi's series Dummy, Sheriff McCullough on Departure, Ken Schuler on Public Morals, Eugene Gurkin on The Knights of Prosperity, and Dr. Danny Macklin on Medicine Ball.

place_of_birth: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada


Traci Lords

biography:
Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma; May 7, 1968) is an American actress, singer, and former pornographic actress. She entered the adult film industry using a fake birth certificate to conceal that she was two years under the legal age of 18. Lords starred in adult films and was one of the most sought-after actresses in that industry during her career. When the FBI acted on an anonymous tip that Lords was a minor during her time in the industry, and that pornographers were distributing and selling these illegal images and videotapes, the resulting fallout led to prosecution of those responsible for creating and distributing the tapes. In addition, all but the last of her adult films were banned as child pornography.

After leaving the pornography industry two days after turning the legal age of eighteen, Lords enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, where she studied method acting with the intention of becoming a mainstream actress. She made her mainstream screen debut at age nineteen in a leading role in the 1988 remake of the 1957 Roger Corman science fiction film Not of This Earth. Lords followed with the role of Wanda Woodward in John Waters' teen comedy, Cry-Baby (1990). Her other acting credits included the television series MacGyver, Married... with Children, Tales from the Crypt, Roseanne, Melrose Place, Profiler, First Wave, Highlander: The Series, Gilmore Girls, and Will & Grace. She also appeared in films such as Skinner (1993), Virtuosity (1995), Blade (1998), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), and Excision (2012), which earned her a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as a Fright Meter Award and a CinEuphoria Award.

Lords also pursued music in addition to her film career. After her song "Love Never Dies" was featured on the soundtrack to the film Pet Sematary Two (1992), she was signed to Radioactive Records and subsequently released her debut studio album, 1000 Fires (1995) to generally positive reviews. Despite the poor sales of the album, the lead single "Control" had moderate commercial success. It peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart and was included on the soundtrack to the film Mortal Kombat (1995), which was eventually certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 2003, Lords published her autobiography, Traci Lords: Underneath It All, which received positive reviews from critics and debuted at number 31 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

place_of_birth: Steubenville, Ohio, USA


Guillermo del Toro

biography:
Guillermo del Toro Gómez (Spanish: [ɡiˈʝeɾmo ðelˈtoɾo]; born 9 October 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and artist. His work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales, gothicism, and horror, often blending the genres to infuse visual or poetic beauty into the grotesque. He has had a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power. He is known for pioneering dark fantasy in the film industry and using insectile and religious imagery, his themes of Catholicism, and celebrating imperfection, underworld motifs, practical special effects, and dominant amber lighting.

Throughout his career, del Toro has shifted between Spanish-language films—such as Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006)—and English-language films, including Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army(2008), Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), The Shape of Water (2017), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022).

As a producer or writer, he worked on the films The Orphanage (2007), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), The Hobbit film series (2012–2014), Mama (2013), The Book of Life (2014), Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), and The Witches (2020). In 2022, he created the Netflix anthology horror series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring a collection of classical horror stories.

With Chuck Hogan, he co-authored The Strain trilogy of novels (2009–2011), which was later adapted into a comic book series (2011–15) and a live-action television series (2014–17). With DreamWorks Animation and Netflix, he created the animated franchise Tales of Arcadia, which includes the series Trollhunters (2016–18), 3Below (2018–19), and Wizards (2020) and the sequel film Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (2021).

Del Toro is close friends with fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Mexican Cinema". He has received several awards, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, and a Golden Lion. He was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, and he received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.

place_of_birth: Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

known_for_department: Directing


Leonor Varela

biography:
Leonor Varela Palma (born December 29, 1972) is a Chilean actress and model. She played the character Cleopatra in the 1999 film Cleopatra. She also has actively participated in various ecological causes such as "Save Whales Again".

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place_of_birth: Santiago de Chile, Chile


Luke Goss

biography:
Luke Damon Goss (born 29 September 1968) is an English actor, and drummer of the 1980s band Bros. He has appeared in numerous films including Blade II (2002) as Jared Nomak, One Night with the King (2006) as King Xerxes, Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) as Prince Nuada, Tekken (2009) as Steve Fox, Interview with a Hitman (2012) as Viktor, and Traffik (2018) as Red.

Goss, along with twin brother Matt Goss, started his career with the 1980s boy band Bros. In total he has charted with thirteen hit singles in the UK.

When Bros broke up in the early 1990s, Goss worked with the Band of Thieves where he released two singles "Sweeter Than The Midnight Rain" and "Give Me One More Chance", he then released "L.I.F.E." under the band's name change Thieves Like Us due to a change in lineup. His autobiography "I Owe You Nothing" was a top 10 best seller and went on to have three subsequent printings. He also began to appear in stage musicals including Grease and What a Feeling, and has turned to acting in films full-time, with his first most notable role being the villain in Blade II. He also appeared as The Creature in the Hallmark Channel's Frankenstein. Goss can be seen in the 2004 crime drama, Charlie in which he plays real-life gangster Charlie Richardson. In the 2005 comedy The Man, he starred as another villain, Joey/Kane, alongside Eugene Levy and Samuel L. Jackson.

He has since had roles in One Night with the King, as King Xerxes. He appeared in Bone Dry, as Eddie and in the thriller Unearthed, as Kale. Goss received a CAMIE (Character and Morality in Entertainment) Award for his work in One Night with the King on 12 May 2007 at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. Both One Night with the King and Bone Dry were viewed at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Bone Dry premiered in Los Angeles on 9 January 2008.

In the autumn of 2008, Goss returned from filming Hellboy II: The Golden Army in Budapest, Hungary, in which he plays Prince Nuada. The sequel was released in North America on 11 July 2008.

In February 2008 he signed to play the role of Steve Fox in Tekken, which was filmed in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was seen in a commercial for the new Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. In January 2010, Goss won the role as Frankenstein in Death Race 2 which was originally played by Jason Statham in the first film, under the direction from Roel Reiné, which began shooting on location in Eastern Europe in February 2010. Goss also played the lead role in Syfy's dark tale television film Witchville. In May 2010, he won the Ultimate Badass Award at the PollyGrind Film Festival for his role in the zombie-vampire film The Dead Undead. In February 2018, Goss released his directorial debut Your Move.

Goss was born in Lewisham, London, the son of Alan Goss and his wife Carol (nee Read). His twin brother is Matt Goss.

Both Goss siblings studied at Collingwood College, Surrey.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Luke Goss, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

place_of_birth: London, England, UK


Ryan Reynolds

biography:
Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian and American actor, entrepreneur, and film producer. Known for starring in comedic and superhero films, he was the world's second-highest-paid actor in 2020 and 2024. Reynolds has received numerous accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and nominations for two Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. His films as a leading actor have grossed $6.6 billion worldwide.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Reynolds began acting at the age of thirteen, taking on small roles in various television series. He had his first lead role in the teen soap opera Hillside (1991–1993) then played the lead role in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (1998–2001). Reynolds later starred in a range of films, including the commercially successful romantic comedies National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), Waiting... (2005), and The Proposal (2009), the superhero films Blade: Trinity (2004), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), and Green Lantern (2011), and the biographical drama Woman in Gold (2015).

Reynolds achieved his greatest commercial success as the titular character in the Deadpool franchise, starring in Deadpool (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018), and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024). His performance in the first received a Golden Globe nomination, while the lattermost emerged as his highest-grossing release. He has appeared in the sci-fi horror Life (2017), and action films like 6 Underground (2019), Free Guy (2021), and The Adam Project (2022). Reynolds has also lent his voice to animated films, including The Croods franchise (2013–2020), Turbo (2013), and the animated character Pikachu in Detective Pikachu (2019).

In 2017, Time included Reynolds in Time 100—its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was named People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2010, and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017. A businessman, he holds an ownership stake in Mint Mobile and is a co-owner of Welsh soccer club Wrexham; the latter is documented in the Emmy Award-winning television series Welcome to Wrexham (2022–present). Divorced from actress Scarlett Johansson, Reynolds has been married to Blake Lively since 2012; with whom he has four children.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Ryan Reynolds, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


Jessica Biel

biography:
Jessica Claire Timberlake (née Biel; born March 3, 1982) is an American actress and model. She has received various accolades, including a Young Artist Award, and nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.

Biel began her career as a vocalist appearing in musical productions until she was cast as Mary Camden in the family drama series 7th Heaven (1996–2006), in which she achieved recognition.

In 1997, Biel won the Young Artist Award for her role in the drama film Ulee's Gold. She received further recognition for her lead role as Erin Hardesty in the horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003). Biel has since starred in such films as The Rules of Attraction (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004), Stealth (2005), The Illusionist (2006), I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007), Valentine's Day (2010), The A-Team (2010), New Year's Eve (2011), Total Recall (2012), and Hitchcock (2012).

In 2017, Biel was the executive producer and star of the USA Network limited drama series The Sinner, for which she received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

place_of_birth: Ely, Minnesota, USA


Natasha Lyonne

biography:
Natasha Bianca Lyonne Braunstein (/liˈoʊn/lee-OHN; born April 4, 1979) is an American actress, writer, director, and producer. Lyonne started her career as a teen actress before expanding her career, taking on mature roles in film and television. She is known for her distinctive raspy voice and "tough" persona, and the accolades she has received include nominations for five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2023.

Lyonne started her career as a child actress, making her first uncredited appearance in Heartburn (1986), recurring in Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986), and supporting in Dennis the Menace (1993). She transitioned to taking on teen roles in several independent films such as Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), and Party Monster (2003) as well as in broad comedic films such as American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001), Scary Movie 2 (2001), and American Reunion (2012).

She found a career resurgence and Emmy Award nominations for her performances as Nicky Nichols on the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019), a software engineer stuck in a time loop in the Netflix's comedy-drama series Russian Doll (2019–2022), and a woman who can tell when people are lying in the Peacock crime comedy series Poker Face (2023–present), the former of which she also served as a co-creator, writer, director, and executive producer of the series. She also starred in the Netflix drama film His Three Daughters (2024).

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place_of_birth: New York City, New York, USA


Patton Oswalt

biography:
Patton Peter Oswalt (born January 27, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, and actor. Oswalt first began performing standup comedy in the late 1980s. After spending two seasons writing for MADtv and starring in his own 1996 comedy special for HBO, he began performing in films and television shows including his film debut Down Periscope (1996) and The King of Queens (1998 - 2007). A rare starring film role was the voice of Remy in Pixar's Ratatouille (2007). Oswalt has appeared in dozens of other films and television series, primarily comedies, including many voice roles.

Oswalt was married to writer Michelle Eileen McNamara on September 24, 2005 until her death in 2016. Their daughter, Alice Rigney Oswalt, was born on April 15, 2009. He has been married to actress Meredith Salenger since 2017.

place_of_birth: Portsmouth, Virginia, USA


Françoise Yip

biography:
Françoise Fong-Wa Yip ( born September 4, 1972) is a Canadian actress. Her best-known roles are the redeemable bad girls in Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx and Jet Li's Black Mask. The critical and financial success of Rumble in the Bronx (and its subsequent number-one box-office bow in the United States) made Yip an instant success and garnered her two Hong Kong Film Award nominations. She continued to do movies and star in TV, but her roles were less known or temporary. The characters she plays often get killed or serve as a background character. Yip appeared in the television series Andromeda as two different characters. Her first character was arrested, and her final character was murdered. She did two movies with Jet Li, the first as a lead romantic interest in Black Mask and the second in Romeo Must Die, but this time she played a Chinese gangster motorcycle assassin killed by Jet Li and Aaliyah. An unfortunate aspect of her career is that none of the TV shows she starred in lasted beyond a full season, and if she did have a starring role in a movie it was a straight-to-video/DVD film. Her most recent appearance was in the new Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem movie, and she guest-starred in the Canadian TV show Blood Ties.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Françoise Fong-Wa Yip, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


Will Yun Lee

biography: William Yun Lee is an American actor and martial artist. He is best known for his roles as Danny Woo in the supernatural drama Witchblade and Jae Kim in the sci-fi series Bionic Woman. He has also appeared in the films Die Another Day, Elektra and The Wolverine.

place_of_birth: Arlington County, Virginia, USA


Simon Abkarian

biography:
Simon Abkarian (born 5 March 1962) is a French-Armenian actor.

Born in Gonesse, Val d'Oise, of Armenian descent, Abkarian spent his childhood in Lebanon. He moved to Los Angeles, where he joined an Armenian theater company managed by Gerald Papazian. He returned to France in 1985, settling in Paris. He took classes at the Acting International school, then he joined Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil.

Abkarian left the Théâtre du Soleil in 1993 and played in 2001 "Beast on the Moon" by Richard Kalinoski, directed by Irina Brook, a play about the life of a survivor of the Genocide of the Armenians, a role which won him critical acclaims and the Molière of the best comedian.

His first roles in cinema were proposed by French filmaker Cédric Klapisch, who asked him to play in several of his movies, notably in "Chacun cherche son chat" ("When the Cat is Away" (1996) and in "Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire)" en 2003.

He was featured in Sally Potter's Yes (2004), in which he played the lead role.

Abkarian then played Mehdi Ben Barka in the thriller "J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka" by Serge Le Péron, about the kidnapping and the murder of the leader of the Moroccan opposition. He then played in "Prendre Femme" by Ronit Elkabetz which won him several interpretation prizes. Playing different roles and in different genres, he was featured in the adventure "Zaïna, cavalière de l'Atlas" by Bourlem Guerdjou, in the comedy "Le Démon de midi" by Marie-Pascale Osterriet. He has also appeared in Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002), he was Albert in Almost Peaceful (2004) by French Director Michel Deville a film about Holocaust survivors, he was featured in "Your Dreams" (2005) by Denis Thybaud. He played the role of villain Alex Dimitrios in the James Bond film, Casino Royale. The character is a Government contractor and arms dealer working against Bond.

He was featured as Sahak in the thriller "Les Mauvais Joueurs" ("The Gamblers") (2007) by Frédéric Balekdjian. He has also been the voice of Ebi in the French version of the animated feature "Persepolis". Abkarian played the role of the eminent Armenian poet Missak Manouchianin in "Army of Crime" (2010) by Robert Guédiguian, a French filmaker based in Marseilles, who is also of Armenian parentage.

He has also played Dariush Bakhshi, the Iranian Special Consul, in the BBC drama Spooks MI-5.

Abkarian is known for his intensity in acting and for his ecclectism in the roles he choses.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Simon Abkarian, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .

place_of_birth: Gonesse, Val d'Oise, France


Philip Tonge

place_of_birth: Hampstead, Middlesex, England, UK


Irvin Kershner

biography:
Irvin Kershner (born Isadore Kershner; April 29, 1923 – November 27, 2010) was an American director for film and television. Early in his career as a filmmaker he directed quirky, independent drama films, while working as a lecturer at the University of Southern California. Later, he began making high-budget blockbusters such as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the James Bond adaptation Never Say Never Again and RoboCop 2. Through the course of his career, he received numerous accolades, including being nominated for both a Primetime Emmy Award and a Palme d'Or.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Irvin Kershner , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA


Francis Lawrence

biography:
Francis Lawrence (born March 26, 1971) is an American filmmaker and producer. After establishing himself as a director of music videos and commercials, Lawrence made his feature-length directorial debut with the superhero thriller Constantine (2005) and has since directed the post-apocalyptic horror film I Am Legend (2007), the romantic drama Water for Elephants (2011), four of the five films in The Hunger Games film series, and the spy thriller Red Sparrow (2018).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Francis Lawrence, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Vienna, Austria


Shia LaBeouf

biography:
Shia Saide LaBeouf (born June 11, 1986) is an American actor, performance artist, and filmmaker. He played Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, a role for which he received Young Artist Award nominations in 2001 and 2002 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003. He made his film debut in The Christmas Path (1998).

In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate and later directed a short film titled Maniac (2011), starring American rappers Cage and Kid Cudi.

In 2007, LaBeouf starred in the commercially successful films Disturbia and Surf's Up. The same year he was cast in Michael Bay's science fiction film Transformers as Sam Witwicky, the main protagonist of the series.

Transformers was a box office success and one of the highest-grossing films of 2007. LaBeouf later appeared in its sequels Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), both also box office successes. In 2008, he played Henry "Mutt Williams" Jones III in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

His other credits include the films Holes (2003), Constantine (2005), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Lawless (2012), The Company You Keep (2012), Nymphomaniac (2013), Charlie Countryman (2013), Fury (2014), American Honey (2016), Borg vs McEnroe (2017), Honey Boy (2019), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), and Pieces of a Woman (2020).

Since 2014, LaBeouf has pursued a variety of public performance art projects with LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner.

place_of_birth: Los Angeles, California, USA


Daniel Radcliffe

biography:
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe (born July 23, 1989) is an English actor. He rose to fame at age twelve, when he began portraying Harry Potter in the film series of the same name; and has held various other film and theatre roles. Over his career, Radcliffe has received various awards and nominations.

Radcliffe made his acting debut at age 10 in the BBC One television film David Copperfield (1999), followed by his feature film debut in The Tailor of Panama (2001). The same year, he starred as Harry Potter in the film adaptation of the J.K. Rowling fantasy novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Over the next decade, he played the eponymous role in seven sequels, culminating with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). During this period, he became one of the world's highest-paid actors and gained worldwide fame, popularity, and critical acclaim.

Following the success of Harry Potter, Radcliffe starred in the romantic comedy What If? (2013), and played the lawyer Arthur Kipps in the horror film The Woman in Black (2012), poet Allen Ginsberg in the drama film Kill Your Darlings (2013), Igor in the science-fiction horror film Victor Frankenstein (2015), a sentient corpse in the comedy-drama film Swiss Army Man (2016), technological prodigy Walter Mabry in the heist thriller film Now You See Me 2 (2016), and FBI agent Nate Foster in the critically acclaimed thriller film Imperium (2016). Since 2019, he has starred in the TBS anthology series Miracle Workers. In 2022, he starred in the action comedy The Lost City and portrayed Weird Al Yankovic in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.

Radcliffe branched out to stage acting in 2007, starring in the West End and Broadway productions of Equus. From 2011 to 2012 he portrayed J. Pierrepont Finch in the Broadway revival of the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He continued in Martin McDonagh's dark comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan (2013-2014) in the West End and Broadway and a revival of Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (2017) at The Old Vic. He also starred in the satirical plays Privacy (2016) and The Lifespan of a Fact (2018), respectively off and on Broadway. In 2022 starred in the New York Theatre Workshop revival of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.

place_of_birth: Hammersmith, London, England, UK


Rupert Grint

biography:
Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint (born August 24, 1988) is an English actor. Grint rose to fame for his role as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series. He was cast as Weasley at age eleven, having previously acted only in school plays and his local theatre group. Since then, he continued his work on film, television, and theatre.

Beginning in 2002, he began to work outside of the Harry Potter franchise, with a co-leading role in Thunderpants. He has had starring roles in Driving Lessons, a dramedy released in 2006, and Cherrybomb, a limited-release drama film in 2010. He co-starred with Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt in the comedy Wild Target. His first film project after the Harry Potter series was a supporting role in the 2012 anti-war film Into the White. In 2013, his film CBGB was released, and he was cast in CBS's new show Super Clyde. He made his stage debut in Jez Butterworth's Mojo in October 2013 at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. In 2014, he voiced the character of Josh in Postman Pat: The Movie; and from 2017 to 2018, he executive-produced and starred in the television series Snatch, based on the film of the same name. Since 2019, he stars in the Apple TV+ psychological horror series Servant.

place_of_birth: Harlow, Essex, England, UK


Emma Watson

biography:
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson (born 15 April 1990) is an English actress and activist. She has gained recognition for her roles in both blockbusters and independent films, as well as her women's rights work. Watson has been ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses by Forbes and Vanity Fair, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2015.

Watson attended the Dragon School and trained in acting at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts. As a child, she rose to stardom after landing her first professional acting role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, having acted only in school plays previously. Watson also starred in the 2007 television adaptation of the novel Ballet Shoes and lent her voice to The Tale of Despereaux (2008). After the final Harry Potter film, she took on a supporting role in My Week with Marilyn (2011), before starring as Sam, a flirtatious, free-spirited student in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) to critical success.

Further acclaim came from portraying Alexis Neiers in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring (2013) and the titular character's adoptive daughter in the biblical epic Noah. That same year, Watson was honoured by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, winning British Artist of the Year. She also starred as Belle in the musical romantic fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), which ranks among the highest-grossing films of all time, and Meg March in the coming-of-age drama Little Women (2019).

From 2011 to 2014, Watson split her time between working on films and continuing her education, graduating from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in English literature in May 2014. That year, she was appointed a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and helped launch the UN Women campaign HeForShe, which advocates for gender equality. In 2018, she helped launch Time's Up UK as a founding member. Watson was appointed to a G7 advisory body for women's rights in 2019, consulting with leaders on foreign policy. Her modelling work has included campaigns for Burberry and Lancôme. She also lent her name to a clothing line for the sustainable brand People Tree. In 2020, she joined the board of directors of Kering, a luxury brand group, in her capacity as an advocate for sustainable fashion.

place_of_birth: Paris, France


Bonnie Wright

biography:
Bonnie Francesca Wright (born 17 February 1991) is an English actress, model, director, and activist. She is best known for her role as Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter film series.

Born in London, Wright made her professional acting debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), portraying the role for ten years until the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). Following the series, Wright appeared in a string of independent films, including Before I Sleep (2013), The Sea (2013), and After the Dark (2014); the films received mixed reviews. She made her stage debut as the lead in Peter Ustinov's The Moment of Truth at the Southwark Playhouse in 2013.

Wright graduated from University of the Arts London in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in filmmaking. She subsequently founded her own production company, BonBonLumiere, and began to produce short films. Her first directorial project was the coming-of-age drama Separate We Come, Separate We Go (2012), starring David Thewlis, which was released at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim. She directed Know Thyself (2016), starring Christian Coulson, and Sextant (2016), both of which featured landscape and emotion as themes. Wright's three-part series, Phone Calls, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017. She released Medusa's Ankles (2018) starring Kerry Fox and Jason Isaacs, based on A. S. Byatt's The Matisse Stories. She has also directed music videos for artists Sophie Lowe, Pete Yorn, and Scarlett Johansson.

Wright has gained recognition for her environmental activism; she is also an ambassador for the charities Greenpeace and Lumos.


James Marsden

biography:
James Paul Marsden (born September 18, 1973) is an American actor. He began his acting career by guest-starring on the television shows Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993), Touched by an Angel (1995), and Party of Five (1995). Marsden gained fame for his portrayal of Cyclops in the X-Men film series from 2000 to 2014, and for his roles in the films The Notebook (2004), Superman Returns (2006), Hairspray (2007), Enchanted (2007), 27 Dresses (2008), and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). He portrayed John F. Kennedy in the drama film The Butler (2013) and Tom Wachowski in the Sonic the Hedgehog film series (2020–present).

Marsden starred in the science fiction series Westworld from 2016 to 2022 and in the black comedy series Dead to Me from 2019 to 2022, for which he received a nomination for a Critics' Choice Television Award. He played guest roles in the Modern Family (2011) and 30 Rock (2012–2013) sitcoms. He starred as a fictionalised version of himself in the mockumentary series Jury Duty (2023), for which he received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. Marsden has since starred in the thriller series Paradise (2025).

Description above from the Wikipedia article James Marsden, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA


Ray Park

biography: Raymond Park is a British actor, stuntman and martial artist, best known for his playing the physical part of Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Toad in X-Men, Snake-Eyes in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and Edgar on Heroes.

place_of_birth: Glasgow, Scotland, UK


Rebecca Romijn

biography:
Rebecca Alie O'Connell (née Romijn/roʊˈmeɪn/ roh-MAYN, Dutch: [roːˈmɛin]; later Romijn-Stamos; born November 6, 1972) is an American actress and former model. She is known for her role as Mystique in the original trilogy (2000–2006) of the X-Men film series, as Joan from The Punisher (2004) (both based on Marvel Comics), the dual roles of Laure Ash and Lily Watts in Femme Fatale (2002), and Una Chin-Riley on Star Trek: Discovery (2019) and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–present). She has also had a recurring role as Alexis Meade on the ABC television series Ugly Betty. Her other major roles include Eve Baird on the TNT series The Librarians, voicing Lois Lane in the DC Animated Movie Universe, and as the host of the reality competition show Skin Wars.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Rebecca Romijn, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Berkeley, California, USA


Michael Dougherty

biography:
Michael Patrick Dougherty (born October 28, 1974) is an American writer, director, animator, and producer known for his work in a variety of genre films, both big and small.

Beginning his career as an animator and illustrator, Dougherty’s animated work was featured on MTV, Nickelodeon, and a line of "twisted" greeting cards published by NobleWorks. He then co-wrote the blockbuster films X2 and Superman Returns before making his directorial debut with the horror comedy Trick ‘r Treat (2009). Dougherty then directed and co-wrote the holiday horror comedy Krampus (2015). Dougherty co-wrote and directed the blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and co-wrote the story for its sequel, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). Collectively, Dougherty's work has grossed over two billion dollars at the box office.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Dougherty, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Columbus, Ohio, USA

known_for_department: Writing


Kelly Hu

biography:
Kelly Ann Hu (born February 13, 1968) is an American actress. She starred as Dr. Rae Chang on the American television soap opera Sunset Beach and as Michelle Chan on the American television police drama series Nash Bridges. She has starred in numerous films including The Scorpion King (2002) as Cassandra, Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) as Sona, X2 (2003) as Yuriko Oyama / Lady Deathstrike, The Tournament (2009) as Lai Lai Zhen, and White Frog (2012). She appeared as China White/Chen Na Wei in The CW series Arrow.

Hu has had recurring roles as Pearl on The CW series The Vampire Diaries, Hamato Miwa / Karai on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Stacy Hirano on the Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb, and as Adira in Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure. She also voices Cheshire and Paula Crock / Huntress in Young Justice.

place_of_birth: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA


Dorothy Comingore

biography: Mary Louise Comingore, best known professionally as Dorothy Comingore (August 24, 1913 – December 30, 1971), was an American film actress. She is best known for starring as Susan Alexander Kane in Citizen Kane (1941), the critically acclaimed debut film of Orson Welles. In earlier films she was credited as Linda Winters, and she had appeared on the stage as Kay Winters. Her career ended when she was caught up in the Hollywood blacklist. She declined to answer questions when she was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.


Lukas Moodysson

biography:
Karl Frederik Lukas Moodysson (born 17 January 1969) is a Swedish author and film director. First appearing in public as an ambitious poet in the 1980s, he had his big public, and international, breakthrough directing the 1998 romance film Show Me Love. He has since directed a string of films with different styles and public appeal, as well as continued to write both poetry and novels. In 2007, the Guardian ranked Moodysson 11th in its list of the world’s best directors, describing his directorial style as “heartfelt and uncompromising.”

Description above from the Wikipedia article Lukas Moodysson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Lund, Skåne County, Sweden


Robert Towne

biography:
Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934 - July 1, 2024) was an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays ever written. He later said it was inspired by a chapter in Carey McWilliams's Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946) and a West magazine article on Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990); the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975); and the first two Mission: Impossible films.

Towne directed the sports dramas Personal Best (1982) and Without Limits (1998), the crime thriller Tequila Sunrise (1988), and the romantic crime drama Ask the Dust (2006).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Towne, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA


Lindsay Doran

biography:
Lindsay Doran (born 22 June 1948) is an American film producer and studio executive who has worked on such films as This Is Spinal Tap, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sense and Sensibility, Stranger Than Fiction, and Nanny McPhee.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Lindsay Doran, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

known_for_department: Production


David Strathairn

biography:
David Russell Strathairn (born January 26, 1949) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of journalist Edward R. Murrow in the feature film Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He also starred in L.A. Confidential (1997), Godzilla (2014), and the Bourne franchise (2007–2012).

Strathairn appeared in supporting roles in many notable films such as A League of Their Own (1992), Sneakers (1992), The Firm (1993), The River Wild (1995), Lincoln (2012), Nomadland (2020), and Nightmare Alley (2021). He is a frequent collaborator with director John Sayles, who is a fellow graduate of Williams College.

On television, Strathairn is known for his recurring roles in The Sopranos (2004),  Alphas (2011–2012), The Blacklist (2015–2016), Billions (2017–2019), and The Expanse (2018–2019). He received a Primetime Emmy Award win and a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance in the HBO television film Temple Grandin (2010).

place_of_birth: San Francisco, California, USA


Wilford Brimley

biography: Anthony Wilford Brimley (September 27, 1934 – August 1, 2020) was an American actor and singer. After serving in the Marines and taking on a variety of odd jobs, he became an extra for Western films, and in little more than a decade he had established himself as a character actor in films such as The China Syndrome (1979), The Thing (1982), and The Natural (1984). Brimley was the longtime face of television advertisements for the Quaker Oats Company. He also promoted diabetes education and appeared in related commercials for Liberty Medical.

place_of_birth: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA


Kathy Najimy

biography:
Kathy Ann Najimy (born February 6, 1957) is an American actress, most notable as Olive Massery on the television series Veronica's Closet, Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act and the voice of Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill. Prior to her film work, she was best known for two Off Broadway shows with Mo Gaffney working as the duo Kathy and Mo. One of the shows became an HBO comedy special and garnered Najimy her first nationwide fan base.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Kathy Najimy, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: San Diego, California, USA


Edgar Wright

biography:
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicam tracking shots, dolly zooms and a signature editing style that includes transitions, whip pans and wipes. He first made independent short films before making his first feature film, A Fistful of Fingers, in 1995. Wright created and directed the comedy series Asylum in 1996, written with David Walliams. After directing several other television shows, Wright directed the sitcom Spaced (1999–2001), which aired for two series and starred frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

In 2004, Wright directed the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, starring Pegg and Frost, the first film in Wright's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. The film was co-written with Pegg—as were the next two entries in the trilogy, the buddy cop film Hot Fuzz (2007) and the science fiction comedy The World's End (2013). In 2010, Wright co-wrote and directed the action comedy film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, an adaptation of the graphic novel series. Along with Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat, he adapted The Adventures of Tintin (2011) for Steven Spielberg. Wright and Cornish co-wrote the screenplay for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Ant-Man in 2015, which Wright intended to direct but abandoned, citing creative differences. He has also written and directed the action film Baby Driver (2017), the documentary The Sparks Brothers, and the psychological horror film Last Night in Soho (both 2021).

place_of_birth: Poole, Dorset, England, UK


Dante Spinotti

biography:
Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC, is an Italian cinematographer.

He is known mostly for his collaborations with directors Michael Mann and Brett Ratner.

He received Academy Award nominations for L.A. Confidential (1997) and The Insider (1999). He won a BAFTA Award for The Last of the Mohicans (1992). He has also won two Italian David di Donatello Awards and two Nastro d'Argento Awards.

place_of_birth: Tolmezzo, Italia

known_for_department: Camera


Ben Foster

biography:
Benjamin A. Foster (born October 29, 1980) is an American actor. His films include The Punisher (2004), X-Men: The Last Stand and Alpha Dog (both 2006), 30 Days of Night (2007), The Messenger and Pandorum (both 2009), The Mechanic (2011), Contraband (2012), Kill Your Darlings and Lone Survivor (both 2013), The Program (2015), Warcraft (2016), and Leave No Trace (2018). He has won an Independent Spirit Award for portraying Tanner Howard in Hell or High Water (2016). He also had a recurring role as Russell Corwin in Six Feet Under (2003–05).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Ben Foster (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Boston, Massachusetts, USA


Nick Frost

biography: Nicholas John "Nick" Frost (born 28 March 1972) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He is best known for his work with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the role of Mike Watt in the television comedy Spaced, as well as the film characters Ed in Shaun of the Dead, PC/Sgt. Danny Butterman in Hot Fuzz and Clive Gollings in Paul.

place_of_birth: Dagenham, London, UK


Matt Ross

biography:
Matthew Brandon Ross (born January 3, 1970) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his roles as Alby Grant on the television series Big Love (2006–11) and Gavin Belson on Silicon Valley (2014–19), as well as his performances in the films The Last Days of Disco (1998), American Psycho (2000), and The Aviator (2004). He wrote and directed the 2016 comedy-drama film Captain Fantastic.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Matt Ross (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Greenwich, Connecticut, USA


John Saxon

biography:
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1935 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor and martial artist who worked on more than 200 projects during a span of 60 years. Saxon is known for his work in Westerns and horror movies, often playing police officers and detectives.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Saxon studied acting with Stella Adler before beginning his career as a contract actor for Universal Pictures, playing in such movies as Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Portrait in Black (1961). During the 1970s and 1980s, he established himself as a character actor, frequently portraying law enforcement officials in horror movies such as Black Christmas (1974), Dario Argento's Tenebrae (1982), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

In addition to his roles in horror movies, Saxon co-starred with Bruce Lee in the martial arts movie Enter the Dragon (1973), and has supporting roles in the westerns Death of a Gunfighter (1969) and Joe Kidd (1972), as well as the adventure thriller Raid on Entebbe (1977). In the 1990s, Saxon occasionally appeared in movies, with small roles in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and From Dusk till Dawn (1996).

Saxon died of pneumonia in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on July 25, 2020.

place_of_birth: Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA


Kenneth Branagh

biography:
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. His accolades include an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Olivier Award. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2012 and was given Freedom of the City in his native Belfast in 2018. In 2020, he was ranked in 20th place on The Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Branagh has directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like It (2006). He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director for Henry V and Best Adapted Screenplay for Hamlet. He directed Swan Song (1992), which earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He also directed Peter's Friends (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Thor (2011), and Cinderella (2015). For his semi-autobiographical film Belfast (2021), he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director and won Best Original Screenplay.

Branagh directed and starred as Hercule Poirot in the Hercule Poirot film series (2017–present). He has also acted in Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), and Valkyrie (2008). His portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011) earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He played supporting roles in Christopher Nolan's films Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), and Oppenheimer (2023).

Branagh has starred in the BBC1 series Fortunes of War (1987), the Channel 4 series Shackleton (2002), the television film Warm Springs (2005), and the BBC One series Wallander (2008–2016). He received a Primetime Emmy Award and an International Emmy Award for Best Actor for portraying SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the HBO film Conspiracy (2001).

place_of_birth: Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK


David Thewlis

biography:
David Wheeler (born March 20, 1963), better known as David Thewlis, is an English actor and filmmaker. He is known as a character actor and has appeared in a wide variety of genres in both film and television. He has received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and nominations for two BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Award, Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit (1987) and acted in the Mike Leigh films Life is Sweet (1990) and Naked (1993), winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for the latter. He then appeared in films such as Black Beauty (1994), Restoration (1995), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Dragonheart (1996), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). He became more widely known to film audiences for his roles as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter franchise (2004–2011) and Ares / Sir Patrick Morgan in Wonder Woman (2017). Other film roles include Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), War Horse (2011), The Theory of Everything (2014), Anomalisa (2015), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020), and Enola Holmes 2 (2022).

Thewlis' most notable television roles include V. M. Varga in the third season of FX's Fargo (2017), the voice of the Shame Wizard in the Netflix animated sitcoms Big Mouth (2017–present) and Human Resources (2022–present), Christopher Edwards in the HBO miniseries Landscapers (2021), and John Dee in the Netflix drama series The Sandman (2022). His performance in Fargo earned him nominations for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Critics' Choice Award.

place_of_birth: Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK


Claude Gensac

biography:
Claude Gensac (1 March 1927 – 27 December 2016) was a French actress. She appeared in more than 70 films and television productions since 1952. Gensac is the oldest nominee to date in the category César Award for Best Supporting Actress, nominated in 2015 for her role as Marthe in the film Lulu femme nue.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Claude Gensac, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Acy-en-Multien, Oise, France


Stephen Fry

biography:
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster.

As a solo actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, and is the host of the quiz show QI. He also presented a 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 U.S. states in six episodes. Fry has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones.

Apart from his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot and The Fry Chronicles. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton. Fry is also known in the UK for his audiobook recordings, including as reader for all seven Harry Potter novels.

place_of_birth: Hampstead, London, England, UK


Robert Pattinson

biography: Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson (born May 13, 1986) is an English actor. Noted for his versatile roles in both big-budget and independent films, Pattinson has been ranked among the world's highest-paid actors. After starting to act in a London theatre club at age 15, Pattinson began his film career by playing Cedric Diggory in the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). He gained worldwide recognition for portraying Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga film series (2008–2012), which grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide. After starring in the romantic dramas Remember Me (2010) and Water for Elephants (2011), Pattinson received critical acclaim for his performances in independent films from auteur directors. He starred in David Cronenberg's thriller Cosmopolis (2012), David Michôd's dystopian western The Rover (2014), James Gray's adventure drama The Lost City of Z (2016), the Safdie Brothers' crime drama Good Time (2017), Claire Denis' science-fiction drama High Life (2018), and Robert Eggers' psychological horror film The Lighthouse (2019). He returned to mainstream films with a leading role in Christopher Nolan's spy film Tenet (2020), and starred as the DC Comics superhero Batman in Matt Reeves' film The Batman (2022).

place_of_birth: Barnes, London, England, UK


Natascha McElhone

biography: Natascha McElhone (born 14 December 1969) is an English actress of stage, screen and television, best known for her roles in Ronin, The Truman Show and Solaris. McElhone also plays a leading role in the Showtime series Californication.

place_of_birth: Surrey, England, UK


David Yates

biography:
David Yates (born 8 October 1963) is an English filmmaker who has directed feature films, short films, and television productions. He is best known for directing the final four films in the Harry Potter series and the three films of its prequel series, Fantastic Beasts. His work on the Harry Potter series brought him critical and commercial success, along with accolades such as the British Academy Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing.

Yates directed various short films and became a television director early in his career. His credits include the six-part political thriller State of Play (2003), for which he won the Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, the adult two-part documentary drama Sex Traffic (2004) and the Emmy Award-winning television film The Girl in the Café (2005).

Yates is a founding member of Directors UK and has had a close partnership with Warner Bros. as a director and producer. Around 2022, he began working through his own production company, Wychwood Media.

Description above from the Wikipedia article David Yates, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: St. Helens, Merseyside, England, UK


Imelda Staunton

biography:
Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton (born January 9, 1956) is an English actress and singer. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Staunton began her career in repertory theatre in 1976 and appeared in various theatre productions in the United Kingdom.

Staunton has performed in a variety of plays and musicals in London throughout her career, winning four Laurence Olivier Awards; three for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for her roles in the musicals Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, and Gypsy, and one for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Play for her work in both A Chorus of Disapproval and The Corn is Green. Her other stage appearances include The Beggar's Opera, The Wizard of Oz, Uncle Vanya, Guys and Dolls, Entertaining Mr Sloane, and Good People. She has been nominated for 13 Olivier Awards.

On film, Staunton starred in Antonia and Jane; in several supporting roles in Kenneth Branagh's comedy Peter's Friends, his adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing; Ang Lee's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility; and the costume romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love. She drew critical acclaim for her performance in the title role in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup for Best Actress, in addition to being nominated for Best Actress by the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. She later gained a wider audience for her portrayal as Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films The Order of the Phoenix and The Deathly Hallows - Part 1. She continued supporting roles in Nanny McPhee, reunited with Leigh in Another Year, and the film continuation of Downton Abbey. She portrayed human rights activist Hefina Headon in the historical film Pride, and starred in the British comedy Finding Your Feet. She also provided voice acting roles for the films Chicken Run, Arthur Christmas, and Paddington.

On television, Staunton starred in the sitcoms Up the Garden Path and Is it Legal?. Her performance in My Family and Other Animals earned her a nomination for the International Emmy Award for Best Actress, while her roles in Return to Cranford and The Girl earned her BAFTA TV Award nominations for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. For the latter, she was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. She portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in the final two seasons of The Crown.

place_of_birth: Archway, London, England, UK


Bradley Whitford

biography:
Bradley Whitford (born October 10, 1959) is an American actor and producer. From 1999 to 2006, Whitford starred as Josh Lyman, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, in NBC's political drama television series The West Wing. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the role in 2001.

In addition to The West Wing, Whitford played Danny Tripp in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Dan Stark in the Fox police buddy-comedy The Good Guys, Timothy Carter, a character who was believed to be Red John, in the CBS series The Mentalist, antagonist Eric Gordon in the film Billy Madison, Arthur Parsons in The Post, Dean Armitage in the horror film Get Out, Roger Peralta in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, President Gray in the dystopian science fiction film The Darkest Minds and Rick Stanton in the monster film Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

In 2015, he won a second Primetime Emmy Award for his guest role as Marcy in Transparent and later garnered a fifth Primetime Emmy Award nomination for portraying Magnus Hirschfeld in the same series. From 2018 to 2025, Whitford portrayed Commander Joseph Lawrence in Hulu dystopian drama The Handmaid's Tale, for which he won his third Primetime Emmy Award in 2019.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Bradley Whitford, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Madison, Wisconsin, USA


Peter O'Toole

biography:
Peter Seamus O'Toole (August 2, 1932 – December 14, 2013) was a British-Irish actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company. In 1959 he made his West End debut in The Long and the Short and the Tall, and played the title role in Hamlet in the National Theatre's first production in 1963. Excelling on the London stage, O'Toole was known for his "hellraiser" lifestyle off it.

Making his film debut in 1959, O'Toole achieved international recognition playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for this award another seven times – for playing King Henry II in both Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and Venus (2006) – and holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting without a win (tied with Glenn Close). In 2002, he was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements.

O'Toole was the recipient of four Golden Globe Awards, one BAFTA Award for Best British Actor and one Primetime Emmy Award. Other performances include What's New Pussycat? (1965), How to Steal a Million (1966), Supergirl (1984), and minor roles in The Last Emperor (1987) and Troy (2004). He also voiced Anton Ego, the restaurant critic in Pixar's Ratatouille (2007).

place_of_birth: Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England


Alan Moore

biography:
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English writer known primarily for his work in comic books including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Ballad of Halo Jones and From Hell.Frequently described as the best graphic novel writer in history, he has been widely recognized by his peers and by critics. He has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, and Translucia Baboon; also, reprints of some of his work have been credited to The Original Writer when Moore requested that his name be removed.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Alan Moore, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Northampton, England, UK


Ray Liotta

biography:
Raymond Allen Liotta (December 18, 1954 – May 26, 2022) was an American actor and producer. His best-known roles include Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams (1989), Henry Hill in Goodfellas (1990), and Tommy Vercetti in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002).

His other roles included Ray Sinclair in Something Wild (1986), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, as well as starring in Unlawful Entry (1992), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Killing Them Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), and Marriage Story (2019), as well as the drama series Shades of Blue (2016–2018).

place_of_birth: Newark, New Jersey, USA


Clark Gable

biography:
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American actor. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable the seventh-greatest male star of all-time. His most famous role was Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh. His performance earned him his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor; he won for It Happened One Night (1934) and was also nominated for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Later performances were in Run Silent, Run Deep, a submarine war film, and his final film, The Misfits (1961), which paired Gable with Marilyn Monroe, also in her last screen appearance.

During his long film career, Gable appeared opposite some of the most popular actresses of the time. Joan Crawford, who was his favorite actress to work with, was partnered with Gable in eight films, Myrna Loy was with him seven times, and he was paired with Jean Harlow in six productions. He also starred with Lana Turner in four features, and with Norma Shearer in three. Gable was often named the top male star in the mid-30s, and was second only to the top box-office draw of all, Shirley Temple.

place_of_birth: Cadiz, Ohio, USA


Harry Davenport

biography: Harold George Bryant Davenport was an American film and stage actor who worked in show business from the age of six until his death. After a long and prolific Broadway career, he came to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he often played grandfathers, judges, doctors, and ministers.

place_of_birth: Canton, Pennsylvania, USA


John Hughes

biography:
John Wilden Hughes Jr. (February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009) was an American filmmaker. He directed and scripted some of the most successful films of the 1980s and 1990s, including National Lampoon's Vacation, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Uncle Buck, Career Opportunities, 101 Dalmatians, Home Alone, and its sequels, Home Alone 2 and 3.

Hughes' movies often combined slapstick comedy with heartfelt moments.

place_of_birth: Lansing, Michigan, USA


Loren Dean

biography: Loren Dean Jovicic (born July 31, 1969) is an American actor. He has appeared onstage and  in feature films such as Billy Bathgate (1991), Apollo 13 (1995), Gattaca (1997), Mumford (1999) and many others. He also had recurring roles on the television series Bones and Terriers. Dean is married to longtime partner James Jovicic. They met in the early 90's and Married on June 21st, 2008. Dean retired from acting in 2019 and resides in Los Angeles with his husband.

place_of_birth: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA


Bertolt Brecht

biography:
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled his home country, initially to Scandinavia. During World War II he moved to Southern California, where he established himself as a screenwriter while being surveilled by the FBI. In 1947, he was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for alleged Communist Party affiliations. The day after testifying, he returned to Europe, eventually settling in East Berlin, where he co-founded the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Bertolt Brecht, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Augsburg, Germany


Michael Angarano

biography:
Michael Anthony Angarano (born December 3, 1987) is an American actor, director, and producer. He became known for his roles in the film Music of the Heart (1999) and the television series Cover Me (2000–2001), as well as for playing a recurring role as Elliott in the sitcom Will & Grace. Since then he has starred in a number of films including Sky High (2005), The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), Haywire (2011), The English Teacher (2013), and Sun Dogs (2017). He has also appeared in the television series I'm Dying Up Here (2017–2018) and This Is Us. The latter earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination as an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2019.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Angarano, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA


Jimmy Fallon

biography: James Thomas Fallon, Jr. (born September 18, 1974) is an American actor, television host, comedian, singer, and musician. He currently hosts NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show. Prior to that, he was best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1998–2004, as well as appearing in several films.


Mark Pellington

place_of_birth: Baltimore, Maryland, USA


Michael Earl Reid

biography: Actor. Michael Earl Reid is known for Army of Darkness (1992), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Ballistic (1995).


Ted Raimi

biography: Theodore "Ted" Raimi  (born December 14, 1965) is an American character actor, director and writer. He is known for his roles in the works of his brother Sam Raimi, including a fake Shemp in The Evil Dead, possessed Henrietta in Evil Dead II, and Ted Hoffman in the Spider-Man trilogy. He later reprised his role as Henrietta in the television series Ash vs. Evil Dead, in which he also played the character Chet Kaminski. He is also known for his roles as Lieutenant JG Tim O'Neill in seaQuest DSV, his recurring role as the merchant in Legend of the Seeker and Joxer the Mighty in both Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Raimi has appeared in minor roles including the films Crimewave, Intruder, Shocker, Darkman, Candyman, Army of Darkness, Clear and Present Danger, The Grudge, Drag Me to Hell and Oz the Great and Powerful, as well as the television series ALF, Twin Peaks, Baywatch and Supernatural. He has had voice roles in the television series Invader Zim and Code Monkeys, and in the video games Evil Dead: Regeneration and The Quarry.

place_of_birth: Detroit, Michigan, USA


Tom Welling

biography: Thomas "Tom" Joseph Welling is an American actor, director, producer, podcaster, and model. He is best known for his role as Clark Kent in The WB/The CW superhero drama Smallville (2001–2011). He also co-starred in the third season of Fox fantasy comedy-drama Lucifer as Lt. Marcus Pierce/Cain (2017–2018)

place_of_birth: New York City, New York, USA


Maggie Grace

biography:
Margaret 'Maggie' Grace Denig (born September 21, 1983) is an American actress and model. She is known for her roles as Shannon Rutherford on the ABC television series Lost (2004–2006; 2010), Kim Mills in the Taken trilogy (2008–2014), Irina in The Twilight Saga (2011–2012), and Althea Szewczyk-Przygocki on Fear the Walking Dead (2018–2021).

Originally from Worthington, Ohio, she dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents' divorce. While struggling financially, she landed her first role as the title character in the web-based video series Rachel's Room in 2001. She went on to earn a Young Artist Award nomination in 2002 with her portrayal of 15-year-old murder victim Martha Moxley in the television movie Murder in Greenwich.

In 2004, Grace was cast as Shannon Rutherford in the television series Lost, on which she was a main cast member for the first two seasons, winning a Screen Actors Guild Award shared with the ensemble cast. Leaving the series, Grace was keen to work more prominently in film having starred opposite Tom Welling in The Fog in 2005. She appeared in Suburban Girl, The Jane Austen Book Club (both 2007), and Taken (2008). She has the lead role of Alice in Malice in Wonderland, a modern take on Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Grace reprised the role of Shannon in two more episodes of Lost, including the series finale.

place_of_birth: Worthington, Columbus, Ohio, USA


Candice Bergen

biography:
Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress and former fashion model. She won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of the title character on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown (1988–1998, 2018-2019). She is also known for her role as Shirley Schmidt on the ABC drama Boston Legal (2005–2008). In films, Bergen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Starting Over (1979), and for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Gandhi (1982).

Bergen began her career as a fashion model and appeared on the cover of Vogue before she made her screen debut in the film The Group (1966). She starred in The Sand Pebbles (1966), Soldier Blue (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), and The Wind and the Lion (1975). She made her Broadway debut in the 1984 play Hurlyburly and starred in the revivals of The Best Man (2012) and Love Letters (2014). From 2002 to 2004, she appeared in three episodes of the HBO series Sex and the City. Her other film roles include Miss Congeniality (2000), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Women (2008), Bride Wars (2009), Book Club (2018) and Let Them All Talk (2020).

place_of_birth: Beverly Hills, California, USA


Om Puri

biography: Om Puri (1950 -2017) was an Indian actor who has appeared in both mainstream Indian films and art films. His credits also include appearances in British and American films, including East is East and Charlie Wilson's War, and he was the recipient of  an honorary OBE.

place_of_birth: Ambala, Haryana, India


Geraldine James

biography:
Geraldine James, OBE (born 6 July 1950) is an English actress.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Geraldine James, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, UK


Erich Kästner

biography: Emil Erich Kästner (23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poetry and for children's books including Emil and the Detectives. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1960 for his autobiography Als ich ein kleiner Junge war.

place_of_birth: Dresden, Germany


Alain Resnais

biography:
Alain Resnais (3 June 1922 – 1 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Night and Fog (1955), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.

Resnais began making feature films in the late 1950s and consolidated his early reputation with Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and Muriel (1963), all of which adopted unconventional narrative techniques to deal with themes of troubled memory and the imagined past. These films were contemporary with, and associated with, the French New Wave (la nouvelle vague), though Resnais did not regard himself as being fully part of that movement. He had closer links to the "Left Bank" group of authors and filmmakers who shared a commitment to modernism and an interest in left-wing politics. He also established a regular practice of working on his films in collaboration with writers previously unconnected with the cinema such as Jean Cayrol, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jorge Semprún and Jacques Sternberg.

In later films, Resnais moved away from the overtly political topics of some previous works and developed his interests in an interaction between cinema and other cultural forms, including theatre, music, and comic books. This led to imaginative adaptations of plays by Alan Ayckbourn, Henri Bernstein and Jean Anouilh, as well as films featuring various kinds of popular song.

His films frequently explore the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the imagination, and he was noted for devising innovative formal structures for his narratives. Throughout his career, he won many awards from international film festivals and academies.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Alain Resnais, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Vannes, Morbihan, Bretagne, France


Michel Bouquet

biography:
Michel Bouquet (6 November 1925 – 13 April 2022) was a French stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1947 to 2020. He won the Best Actor European Film Award for Toto the Hero in 1991 and two Best Actor Césars for How I Killed My Father (2001) and The Last Mitterrand (2005). He also received the Molière Award for Best Actor for Les côtelettes in 1998, then again for Exit the King in 2005. In 2014, he was awarded the Honorary Molière for the sum of his career. He received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 2018.

Michel François Pierre Bouquet was born on 6 November 1925 in Paris. When he was seven years old, he was sent to a boarding school where he stayed until the age of 14. He aspired to become a doctor but had to quit school at the age of 15 after his father had been taken prisoner during World War II. Bouquet worked as a baker's apprentice, then a bank clerk, to provide for the family. After a short stay in Lyon, he returned with his mother to Paris. Marie Bouquet was passionate about theater, and that helped the young Bouquet to find his vocation. He took acting classes under the tutelage of Maurice Escande, a member of the Comédie Française, and made his stage debut in the play La première étape in 1944. Then he studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris where he met Gérard Philippe.

In the mid-1940s Michel Bouquet began working with the playwright Jean Anouilh and director André Barsacq, who staged plays at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in Montmartre. In 1946, Anouilh gave Bouquet a part in Roméo and Jeannette, followed by The Rendez-vous of Senlis and The Invitation to the Castle in 1947. In the 1950s, the actor met another stage director, Jean Vilar, with whom he would frequently collaborate. Bouquet played many roles from the classical repertoire at the Festival d'Avignon, created by Vilar in 1947 (Henry IV in 1950, The Tragedy of King Richard II in 1953, and The Miser in 1962). Bouquet regularly worked with Anouilh until the early 1970s, then helped popularize in France the works of the British author Harold Pinter: The Collection in 1965, The Birthday Party in 1967 and No Man's Land in 1979.

At the same time, at the end of the 1970s, Michel Bouquet was appointed professor at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts and taught there until 1990. In the 1980s-1990s, he returned to the Théâtre de l'Atelier where he once began his career. In 1994, he played in Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco, the role he would perform many times until 2014. In 1998 he received the Molière Award for Best Actor for Bertrand Blier's Les côtelettes, then again for Exit the King in 2005. In 2014, he was awarded the Honorary Molière for the sum of his career. A year later, the actor received accolades for his performance in Taking Sides by the British playwright Ronald Harwood. Bouquet announced his retirement from stage in 2019. ...

Source: Article "Michel Bouquet" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

place_of_birth: Paris, France


Dalton Trumbo

biography:
James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Roman Holiday (1953), Spartacus (1960), and Exodus (1960). One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry.

Trumbo, the other members of the Hollywood Ten, and hundreds of other professionals in the industry were blacklisted by Hollywood. He continued working clandestinely on major films, writing under pseudonyms or other authors' names. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards for Best Story: for Roman Holiday (1953), which was presented to a front writer, and for The Brave One (1956), which was awarded to a pseudonym used by Trumbo. When he was given public screen credit for both Exodus and Spartacus in 1960, it marked the beginning of the end of the Hollywood Blacklist for Trumbo and other affected screenwriters. He finally was given full credit by the Writers' Guild for Roman Holiday in 2011, nearly 60 years after the fact, and 35 years after his death.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Dalton Trumbo, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Montrose, Colorado, USA


Maurice Evans

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maurice Herbert Evans (June 3, 1901 – March 12, 1989) was an English-born British-American actor of Welsh descent, noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. His best-known screen roles are Dr. Zaius in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and as Samantha Stephens's father, Maurice in TV series Bewitched.

place_of_birth: Dorchester, Dorset, England, UK


Julia Stiles

biography: Julia O'Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981) is an American actress. After beginning her career in small parts in a New York City theatre troupe, she has moved on to leading roles in plays by writers as diverse as William Shakespeare and David Mamet. Her film career has included both commercial and critical successes, ranging from teen romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) to dark art house pictures such as The Business of Strangers (2001). She's known for playing the supporting character Nicky Parsons in the Bourne film series, the starring role in Save the Last Dance, and for her role in Mona Lisa Smile. She guest starred as Lumen Pierce in the fifth season of the Showtime series Dexter, a role that earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination.


Michael Rooker

biography:
Michael Rooker (born April 6, 1955) is an American actor who mainly plays roles of antagonists. He first rose to prominence for portraying the titular role in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and is best known for starring as Merle Dixon in the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010–2013) and as Yondu Udonta in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), followed by its sequels Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). He is a recurring collaborator of Guardians of the Galaxy director and co-CEO of DC Studios, James Gunn, appearing in all of his films to date, including Slither (2006), Super (2010), and The Suicide Squad (2021).

Rooker's other notable roles include Chick Gandil in Eight Men Out (1988), Frank Bailey in Mississippi Burning (1988), Terry Cruger in Sea of Love (1989), Rowdy Burns in Days of Thunder (1990), Bill Broussard in JFK (1991), Hal Tucker in Cliffhanger (1993), Sherman McMaster in Tombstone (1993), Jared Svenning in Mallrats (1995), Detective Edward Kennesaw in Deceiver (1997), Detective Howard Cheney in The Bone Collector (1999), Detective Jake Riley in Replicant (2001), and Buddy in F9 (2021).

place_of_birth: Jasper, Alabama, USA


Laurie Metcalf

biography:
Laura Elizabeth Metcalf (born June 16, 1955) is an American actress and comedian. Often described as a character actor, she is known for her complex and versatile roles across the stage and screen. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including two Tony Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.

Metcalf began her career with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and frequently works in Chicago theatre. She made her Broadway debut in the 1985 play My Thing of Love. She went on to receive six Tony Award nominations, winning Best Actress in a Play in 2017 for her performance in A Doll's House, Part 2 and Best Featured Actress in a Play for the 2018 revival of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women. Her other Tony-nominated roles were for November (2008), The Other Place (2010), Misery (2016), and Hillary and Clinton (2019).

She gained national attention for her performance as Jackie Harris on the sitcom Roseanne (1988–1997, 2018) and its spinoff The Conners (2018–present), for which she won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She also won a Primetime Emmy Award for her guest role in Hacks (2022), and her other Emmy-nominated roles include 3rd Rock from the Sun (1999), Monk (2006), Desperate Housewives (2007), The Big Bang Theory (2016), Getting On (2013–2015), and Horace and Pete (2016). She also appeared on The Norm Show (1999–2001), Frasier, and The Dropout (2022).

In film, Metcalf is best known for her performance as Marion McPherson in Greta Gerwig's comedy-drama film Lady Bird (2017). She was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, and a BAFTA Award. From 1995, she has voiced Mrs. Davis, the mother of Andy, in the Toy Story franchise, and voiced Sarah Hawkins in the Disney animated Treasure Planet (2002). Other notable film credits include Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Uncle Buck (1989), JFK (1991), Dear God (1996), Georgia Rule (2007) and Scream 2 (1997).

place_of_birth: Carbondale, Illinois, USA


Spencer Tracy

biography:
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor, noted for his natural style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy won two Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations, sharing the record for nominations in that category with Laurence Olivier.

Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College, and he later received a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He spent seven years in the theatre, working in a succession of stock companies and intermittently on Broadway. Tracy's breakthrough came in 1930, when his lead performance in The Last Mile caught the attention of Hollywood. After a successful film debut in John Ford's Up the River starring Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, he was signed to a contract with Fox Film Corporation. His five years with Fox featured one acting tour de force after another that were usually ignored at the box office, and he remained largely unknown to audiences after 25 films, almost all of them starring Tracy as the leading man. None of them were hits although The Power and the Glory (1933) features arguably his most acclaimed performance in retrospect.

In 1935, Tracy joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, at the time Hollywood's most prestigious studio. His career flourished with a series of hit films, and in 1937 and 1938 he won consecutive Oscars for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. He made three smash hit films supporting Clark Gable, the studio's principal leading man, firmly fixing the notion of Gable and Tracy as a team in the public imagination. By the 1940s, Tracy was one of the studio's top stars. In 1942, he appeared with Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year, beginning another popular partnership that produced nine movies over 25 years. Tracy left MGM in 1955, and continued to work regularly as a freelance star, despite an increasing weariness as he aged. His personal life was troubled, with a lifelong struggle against severe alcoholism and guilt over his son's deafness. Tracy became estranged from his wife in the 1930s, but never divorced, conducting a long-term relationship with Katharine Hepburn in private. Towards the end of his life, Tracy worked almost exclusively for director Stanley Kramer. It was for Kramer that he made his last film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967, completed just 17 days before his death.

During his career, Tracy appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

place_of_birth: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA


Richard Roxburgh

biography:
Richard Roxburgh (born 23 January 1962) is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He has received several accolades across film, television, and theatre, including AFI and AACTA Awards, Logie Awards, and Helpmann Awards.

He began his career working with the Sydney Theatre Company. He went on to appear in Australian and international productions such as Baz Luhrmann's films Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Elvis(2022), the ABC series Rake (2010–2018), and the action films Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), and Van Helsing (2004).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Richard Roxburgh, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Albury, New South Wales, Australia


Kylie Minogue

biography:
Kylie Ann Minogue (born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Frequently referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she has achieved recognition in both the music industry and the fashion world as a major style icon. Her accolades include two Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards and eighteen ARIA Music Awards. Minogue is the highest-selling Australian female artist of all time, with sales surpassing 80 million records worldwide. In 2024, Time listed her in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Minogue first achieved recognition starring as Charlene Robinson in the Australian soap opera Neighbours (1986–1988). She began her music career in the late 1980s, releasing four dance-pop studio albums under PWL. By the early 1990s, Minogue had amassed several hit singles in Australia and the UK, including "The Loco-Motion", "I Should Be So Lucky", "Especially for You", "Hand on Your Heart", and "Better the Devil You Know". Taking more creative control over her music, she signed with Deconstruction Records in 1993 and released the albums Kylie Minogue (1994) and Impossible Princess (1997).

By joining Parlophone in 1999, Minogue returned to mainstream dance-oriented music with Light Years (2000), including the number-one hits "Spinning Around" and "On a Night Like This". The follow-up, Fever (2001), was an international breakthrough for Minogue, becoming her best-selling album to date. The lead single, "Can't Get You Out of My Head", was a worldwide chart-topper and became one of the most successful singles of the 2000s, selling over five million units. Follow-up singles "In Your Eyes" and "Love at First Sight" became hits as well. She continued reinventing her image and experimenting with a range of genres on her subsequent albums, which spawned successful singles such as "Slow", "I Believe in You", "2 Hearts" and "All the Lovers". In 2017, she signed with BMG Rights Management, leading to several number-one albums in Australia and the UK – Golden (2018), Step Back in Time: The Definitive Collection (2019), Disco (2020), Tension (2023) and Tension II (2024). She is the only female artist in the UK charts with chart-topping albums and a top ten single in five consecutive decades.

In film, Minogue made her debut in The Delinquents (1989), and appeared in Street Fighter (1994), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Holy Motors (2012) and San Andreas (2015). In reality television, she appeared as a judge on The Voice UK and The Voice Australia, both in 2014. Her other ventures include product endorsements, books, perfumes, charitable work and a wine brand. Minogue's achievements include being an ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and an honorary Doctor of Health Science (D.H.Sc.).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Kylie Minogue, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia


Walter Pidgeon

biography: Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was a Canadian actor who lived most of his adult life in the United States. He starred in many motion pictures, including Mrs. Miniver, The Bad and the Beautiful, Forbidden Planet, Advise and Consent and Funny Girl.

place_of_birth: Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada


Paul Le Mat

biography:
Paul Le Mat (born September 22, 1945) is an American actor. He first came to prominence with his role in American Graffiti (1973); his performance was met with critical acclaim and earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor.

Le Mat's breakout performance in George Lucas's American Graffiti landed him the lead role in box office hit Aloha, Bobby and Rose (1975). He also is known for his work in the Jonathan Demme films Handle with Care (1977) and Melvin and Howard (1980). He won another Golden Globe award for his performance in the TV film The Burning Bed (1984) and starred in the cult film Puppet Master (1989), which spawned a franchise.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Le Mat, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Rahway, New Jersey, USA


Peter Sellers

biography:
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE (September 8, 1925 – July 24, 1980), known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, for playing three different characters in Dr. Strangelove, as Clare Quilty in Lolita, and as the man-child and TV-addicted Chance the gardener in his penultimate film, Being There. Leading actress Bette Davis once remarked of him, "He isn't an actor—he's a chameleon."  Sellers rose to fame on the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show. His ability to speak in different accents (e.g., French, Indian, American, German, as well as British regional accents), along with his talent to portray a range of characters to comic effect, contributed to his success as a radio personality and screen actor and earned him national and international nominations and awards. Many of his characters became ingrained in public perception of his work. Sellers' private life was characterized by turmoil and crises, and included emotional problems and substance abuse. Sellers was married four times, and had three children from the first two marriages.

An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played, but he left his own portrait since, "he obsessively filmed his homes, his family, people he knew, anything that took his fancy right to the end of his life—intimate film that remained undiscovered until long after his death in 1980." The director Peter Hall has said: "Peter had the ability to identify completely with another person, and think his way physically, mentally and emotionally into their skin. Where does that come from? I have no idea. Is it a curse? Often. I think it's not enough though in this business to have talent. You have to have talent to handle the talent. And that I think Peter did not have."

place_of_birth: Southsea, Hampshire, England, UK


Tracy Middendorf

biography: Tracy Middendorf (born January 26, 1970) is an American actress and producer.

place_of_birth: Miami Beach, Florida, USA


Daniel Sackheim

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Daniel Sackheim is an American TV and film director. He has directed several episodes of the TV show The X-Files, 3 episodes of Harsh Realm, House, and Life, the last two of which he also served on as an executive producer.

place_of_birth: USA


Matthew Robbins

biography: Matthew Robbins is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is good friends with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Guillermo Del Toro and Walter Murch and has had cameo appearances in THX 1138 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Robbins frequently worked with Hal Barwood. He wrote the screenplay for the Bollywood thriller 7 Khoon Maaf, along with Vishal Bhardwaj.

place_of_birth: New York City, New York, USA


Senta Berger

biography:
Senta Berger (born May 13, 1941) is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author.

Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an Adolf Grimme Award, both a Deutscher and a Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, and a Goldene Kamera.

Berger married director and producer Michael Verhoeven in 1966. They are the parents of actors Simon and Luca Verhoeven.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Senta Berger, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Vienna, Austria


Simon West

biography: Simon West (born 1961) is an English-born film director. West started as a film editor with the BBC, then directed documentaries and commercials including many for Budweiser. His film directing career started when he directed Con Air in 1997.

place_of_birth: Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England, UK