actors
by dflrbul | created - 17 Aug 2015 | updated - 25 Mar 2023 | Public1. Mads Mikkelsen
Actor | Hannibal
Mads Mikkelsen's great successes parallel those achieved by the Danish film industry since the mid-1990s. He was born in Østerbro, Copenhagen, to Bente Christiansen, a nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a banker.
Starting out as a low-life pusher/junkie in the 1996 success Pusher (1996), he slowly grew ...
2. Daniel Day-Lewis
Actor | There Will Be Blood
Born in London, England, Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the U.K., and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema and head of the famous Ealing ...
3. Matthew McConaughey
Actor | Interstellar
American actor and producer Matthew David McConaughey was born in Uvalde, Texas. His mother, Mary Kathleen (McCabe), is a substitute school teacher originally from New Jersey. His father, James Donald McConaughey, was a Mississippi-born gas station owner who ran an oil pipe supply business. He is ...
4. Jake Gyllenhaal
Actor | Nightcrawler
Jake Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980 in Los Angeles, California as Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal, the son of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and ...
5. Gary Oldman
Actor | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), ...
6. Clive Owen
Actor | Children of Men
British actor Clive Owen is one of a handful of stars who, though he is best known for his art house films, can handle more mainstream films with equal measures of grace and skill. Owen is typically cast as characters whose primary traits are a balance of physical strength, intellect, conflicting ...
7. Tom Hardy
Actor | Inception
With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream audiences worldwide. However, the versatile actor has been steadily working on both stage and screen since his television debut...
8. Michael Fassbender
Actor | Shame
Michael Fassbender is an Irish actor who was born in Heidelberg, Germany, to a German father, Josef, and an Irish mother, Adele (originally from Larne, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland). Michael was raised in the town of Killarney, Co. Kerry, in south-west Ireland, where his family moved to when ...
9. Choi Min-sik
Actor | Oldeuboi
Choi Min-shik first made a name for himself in theater before breaking into the film world with a role in Park Chong-won's acclaimed film 'Our Twisted Hero' (1992). In the mid-nineties he continued to act in theater productions as well as in several TV dramas, including Moon Over Seoul with Han ...
10. Vincent Cassel
Actor | Black Swan
Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles, eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema. First in La haine (1995), the young actor, ...
11. Robert De Niro
Actor | Cape Fear
One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained ...
12. Leonardo DiCaprio
Actor | Inception
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s,...
13. Edward Norton
Actor | Fight Club
American actor, filmmaker and activist Edward Harrison Norton was born on August 18, 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Columbia, Maryland.
His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (Rouse), was a foundation executive and teacher of English, and a daughter of famed real estate developer ...
14. Christian Bale
Actor | The Dark Knight
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries ...
15. Heath Ledger
Actor | Brokeback Mountain
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised ...
16. Jeff Bridges
Actor | The Big Lebowski
Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without ...
17. Anthony Hopkins
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...
18. Hugo Weaving
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Hugo Wallace Weaving was born on April 4, 1960 in Nigeria, to English parents Anne (Lennard), a tour guide and teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. Hugo has an older brother, Simon, and a younger sister, Anna, who both also live and work in Australia. During his early childhood, the ...
19. Christopher Walken
Actor | The Deer Hunter
Lead and supporting actor of the American stage and films, with sandy colored hair, and pale complexion. He won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Deer Hunter (1978), and has been seen in mostly character roles, often portraying psychologically unstable individuals, though...
20. Michael Shannon
Actor | Take Shelter
Michael Corbett Shannon was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Geraldine Hine, a lawyer, and Donald Sutherlin Shannon, an accounting professor at DePaul University. His grandfather was entomologist Raymond Corbett Shannon.
Shannon began his professional stage career in Chicago. His ...
21. Rami Malek
Actor | Bohemian Rhapsody
Rami Said Malek (born May 12, 1981) is an American actor. He won a Critics' Choice Award and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his lead role as Elliot Alderson in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot. He also received Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors ...
22. Martin Wallström
Actor | Mr. Robot
Martin Wallström was born on July 7, 1983 in Uddevalla, Västra Götalands län, Sweden. He is an actor, known for Mr. Robot (2015), Parallel (2018) and Johan Falk: GSI - Gruppen för särskilda insatser (2009). He was previously married to Lisa Linnertorp.
23. Bryan Cranston
Actor | Breaking Bad
Bryan Lee Cranston was born on March 7, 1956 in Hollywood, California, to Audrey Peggy Sell, a radio actress, and Joe Cranston, an actor and former amateur boxer. His maternal grandparents were German, and his father was of Irish, German, and Austrian-Jewish ancestry. He was raised in the Canoga ...
24. Aaron Paul
Actor | Breaking Bad
Aaron Paul was born Aaron Paul Sturtevant in Emmett, Idaho, to Darla (Haynes) and Robert Sturtevant, a retired Baptist minister. While growing up, Paul took part in church programs, and performed in plays.
He attended Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho. It was there, in eighth grade, that Aaron ...
25. Giancarlo Esposito
Actor | Breaking Bad
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to an Italian carpenter/stagehand father from Naples, Italy, and an African-American opera singer mother from Alabama. His parents, working in Europe at the time of his birth, settled in Manhattan by the time he was 6, and ...
26. Bob Odenkirk
Actor | Nobody
Robert John Odenkirk was born in Berwyn, Illinois, to Barbara (Baier) and Walter Odenkirk, who worked in printing. His ancestry includes German and Irish. He grew up in Naperville, IL, the second of seven children. He worked as a DJ for WIDB, his college radio station at Southern Illinois ...
27. Jonathan Banks
Actor | Mudbound
Versatile veteran character actor Jonathan Banks was born in Washington, D.C. in 1947. While growing up he always had an interest in acting and stage work, so decided to pursue a career in entertainment. To this day he is a very accomplished stage actor. While acting in film, he usually plays ...
28. Cillian Murphy
Actor | 28 Days Later...
Striking Irish actor Cillian Murphy was born in Douglas, the oldest child of Brendan Murphy, who works for the Irish Department of Education, and a mother who is a teacher of French. He has three younger siblings. Murphy was educated at Presentation Brothers College, Cork. He went on to study law ...
29. Benedict Cumberbatch
Actor | The Imitation Game
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born and raised in London, England. His parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch), are both actors. He is a grandson of submarine commander Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, and a great-grandson of diplomat Henry Arnold ...
30. Martin Freeman
Actor | Black Panther
Martin Freeman is an English actor, known for portraying Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film trilogy, Tim Canterbury in the original UK version of sitcom mockumentary The Office (2001), Dr. John Watson in the British crime drama Sherlock (2010) and Lester Nygaard in the dark ...
31. Billy Bob Thornton
Actor | Sling Blade
Billy Bob Thornton was born on August 4, 1955 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Virginia Roberta (Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond (Billy Ray) Thornton, an educator, high school history teacher, and basketball coach (now deceased). He is the older brother of James Donald (Jimmy Don) (born in ...
32. Jesse Plemons
Actor | Game Night
Jesse Lon Plemons is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor and achieved a career breakthrough with his major role as Landry Clarke in the NBC drama series Friday Night Lights (2006-2011). He subsequently portrayed Todd Alquist in season 5 of the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad...
33. Pedro Pascal
Actor | The Last of Us
Pedro Pascal is a Chilean-born actor. He is best known for portraying the roles of Oberyn Martell in the fourth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011), Javier Peña in the Netflix series Narcos (2015), the titular character in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian (2019) and Joel Miller in the...
34. Peter Dinklage
Actor | Game of Thrones
Peter Dinklage is an American actor. Since his breakout role in The Station Agent (2003), he has appeared in numerous films and theatre plays. Since 2011, Dinklage has portrayed Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) . For this he won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a...
35. Sean Bean
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Sean Bean's career since the eighties spans theatre, radio, television and movies. Bean was born in Handsworth, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to Rita (Tuckwood) and Brian Bean. He worked for his father's welding firm before he decided to become an actor. He attended RADA in London and appeared in a ...
36. Charles Dance
Actor | Gosford Park
Charles Dance is an English actor, screenwriter, and film director. Dance typically plays assertive bureaucrats or villains. Some of his most high-profile roles are Tywin Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones (2011), Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child (1986),...
37. Liam Cunningham
Actor | Hunger
Irish actor Liam Cunningham was an electrician in the mid-'80s. He saw an ad for an acting school and he decided to give it a try. His first film role was as a policeman in "Into the West." Since then, he has been involved in many films and theater productions on both sides of the Atlantic.
38. Michael McElhatton
Actor | Game of Thrones
Michael McElhatton was born on September 12, 1963 in Terenure, Dublin, Ireland. He is an actor and writer, known for Game of Thrones (2011), Jack Ryan (2018) and Chernobyl (2019).
39. Conleth Hill
Actor | Game of Thrones
Conleth Hill was born on November 24, 1964 in Ballycastle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. His great work of exquisite artistic generosity, intelligence, sensation and insights both on stage and screen reflects the wide range of his unique acting qualities as a superb "chameleon" in memorable ...
40. Iwan Rheon
Actor | Game of Thrones
Iwan Rheon (born 13 May 1985) is a Welsh actor, singer and musician, best known for portraying Ramsay Bolton in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011), Simon Bellamy in the E4 series Misfits (2009) and Ash Weston in the ITV sitcom Vicious (2013).
Rheon was born in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire. When he...
41. Oscar Isaac
Actor | Ex Machina
Oscar Isaac was born Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada in Guatemala, to a Guatemalan mother, María Eugenia, and a Cuban father, Oscar Gonzalo Hernández-Cano, a pulmonologist. Oscar was raised in Miami, Florida. Before he became an actor, he played lead guitar and sang vocals in his band the Blinking ...
42. Joaquin Phoenix
Actor | Walk the Line
Joaquin Phoenix was born Joaquin Rafael Bottom in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Arlyn (Dunetz) and John Bottom, and is the middle child in a brood of five. His parents, from the continental United States, were then serving as Children of God missionaries. His mother is from a Jewish family from New ...
43. Dennis Hopper
Actor | Easy Rider
Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a ...
44. Philip Seymour Hoffman
Actor | The Master
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in ...
45. Bill Murray
Actor | Lost in Translation
Bill Murray is an American actor, comedian, and writer. The fifth of nine children, he was born William James Murray in Wilmette, Illinois, to Lucille (Collins), a mailroom clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, who sold lumber. He is of Irish descent. Among his siblings are actors Brian Doyle-Murray, ...
46. Willem Dafoe
Actor | Spider-Man
Having made over one hundred films in his legendary career, Willem Dafoe is internationally respected for bringing versatility, boldness, and daring to some of the most iconic films of our time. His artistic curiosity in exploring the human condition leads him to projects all over the world, large ...
47. Eric Bana
Actor | Dirty John
Eric Bana was born Eric Banadinovic on August 9, 1968, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He is the younger of two brothers. His father, named Ivan Banadinovic, came from Zagreb, Croatia, and worked as a manager for Caterpillar Inc. His mother, named Eleanor Banadinovic, came from a German family ...
48. Ben Mendelsohn
Actor | Rogue One
Despite his prominence in Hollywood as a character actor known for playing villains and criminals, Ben Mendelsohn has been a leading man in Australia since starting acting as a teenager.
Paul Benjamin Mendelsohn was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Carole Ann (Ferguson), a nurse, and Frederick ...
49. Garret Dillahunt
Actor | 12 Years a Slave
Garret studied journalism at the University of Washington and received an MFA from New York University's Graduate Acting Program. He performed on and off Broadway and in theaters around the country before he also began pursuing film and television roles. A self described workaholic, he enjoys a ...
50. Jack Nicholson
Actor | Chinatown
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...
51. Ed Harris
Actor | Appaloosa
By transforming into his characters and pulling the audience in, Ed Harris has earned a reputation as one of the most talented actors of our time.
Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, to Margaret (Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert Lee Harris, a bookstore worker who also sang professionally. ...
52. Mickey Rourke
Actor | Sin City
Mickey Rourke was born Phillip Andre Rourke, Jr. on September 16, 1952, in Schenectady, New York, the son of Annette Elizabeth (Cameron) and Philip Andre Rourke. His father was of Irish and German descent, and his mother was of mostly English and French-Canadian ancestry. When he was six years old,...
53. Michael Caine
Actor | The Dark Knight
Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of ...
54. Harvey Keitel
Actor | Reservoir Dogs
American actor and producer Harvey Keitel was born on May 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Miriam (Klein) and Harry Keitel. An Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominee, he has appeared in films such as Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976), Ridley Scott's The Duellists (...
55. James Franco
Actor | Spring Breakers
Known for his breakthrough starring role on Freaks and Geeks (1999), James Franco was born April 19, 1978 in Palo Alto, California, to Betsy Franco, a writer, artist, and actress, and Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, who ran a Silicon Valley business. His mother is Jewish and his father was of ...
56. Javier Bardem
Actor | Skyfall
Javier Bardem belongs to a family of actors that have been working on films since the early days of Spanish cinema.
He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, to actress Pilar Bardem (María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz) and businessman José Carlos Encinas Doussinague. His maternal grandparents were...
57. Vincent Gallo
Actor | Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo. American-born, Buffalo, New York, 1961. Left home, moved to New York City in 1978, and began playing in the experimental musical group, Gray, with artist Jean Michel Basquiat. After leaving Gray, he formed the band, Bohack, and recorded the highly regarded avant-garde industrial ...
58. John Hurt
Actor | Nineteen Eighty-Four
One of stage, screen and TV's finest transatlantic talents, slight, gravel-voiced, pasty-looking John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Shirebrook, a coal mining village, in Derbyshire, England. The youngest child of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Reverend ...
59. John Hawkes
Actor | The Sessions
John Hawkes is an award-winning actor known for crafting memorable performances across a wide range of styles and genres. He will next be seen in the upcoming fourth season of HBO's "True Detective" with Jodie Foster. Previous projects include the indie film "Roving Woman," "The Peanut Butter ...
60. Takeshi Kitano
Actor | Zatôichi
Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...
61. Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Actor | Inception
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt was born February 17, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, to Jane Gordon and Dennis Levitt. Joseph was raised in a Jewish family with his late older brother, Dan Gordon-Levitt, who passed away in October 2010. His parents worked for the Pacifica Radio station KPFK-FM and ...
62. Wes Bentley
Actor | American Beauty
Wes Bentley is an American actor who first became well-known via his role in the Oscar-winning film American Beauty (1999), in which he played the soulful, artistic next-door neighbor Ricky Fitts. He also portrayed game-maker Seneca Crane in The Hunger Games (2012), and co-stars in Lovelace (2013) ...
63. Kevin Spacey
Actor | The Usual Suspects
Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known by his stage name Kevin Spacey, is an American actor of screen and stage, film director, producer, screenwriter and singer. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in...
64. Tom Hanks
Producer | Cast Away
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has ...
65. Ralph Fiennes
Actor | The Constant Gardener
Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus ...
66. Ben Kingsley
Actor | Sexy Beast
Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji on December 31, 1943 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was a Kenyan-born medical doctor, of Gujarati Indian descent, and his mother, Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), was an English actress. Ben began to act in stage plays during ...
67. Simon Pegg
Actor | The World's End
English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was ...
68. Ewan McGregor
Actor | Moulin Rouge!
Ewan Gordon McGregor was born on March 31, 1971 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland, to Carol Diane (Lawson) and James Charles McGregor, both teachers. His uncle is actor Denis Lawson. He was raised in Crieff. At age 16, he left Morrison Academy to join the Perth Repertory Theatre. His parents ...
69. Ken Watanabe
Actor | The Last Samurai
Ken Watanabe was born on October 21, 1959 in Uonuma, Japan. Both of his parents were teachers: his mother taught general education and his dad taught calligraphy. He became interested in acting at the age of 24, when a director of England's National Theater Company, where he was studying, told him ...
70. Woody Harrelson
Actor | True Detective
Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor Woodrow Tracy Harrelson was born on July 23, 1961 in Midland, Texas, to Diane Lou (Oswald) and Charles Harrelson. He grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, where his mother was from. After receiving degrees in theater arts and English from Hanover College, he...
71. Bruce Willis
Actor | Die Hard
Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.
Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany,...
72. Benicio Del Toro
Actor | Sicario
Benicio Del Toro emerged in the mid-1990s as one of the most watchable and charismatic character actors to come along in years. A favorite of film buffs, Del Toro gained mainstream public attention as the conflicted but basically honest Mexican policeman in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000).
...
73. Viggo Mortensen
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Since his screen debut as a young Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness (1985), Viggo Mortensen's career has been marked by a steady string of well-rounded performances.
Mortensen was born in New York City, to Grace Gamble (Atkinson) and Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. His father was Danish, his mother ...
74. Sam Rockwell
Actor | Moon
Sam Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in San Mateo, California, the only child of two actors, Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess. The family moved to New York when he was two years old, living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan. When Sam was five years old, his parents separated, at which ...
75. Adrien Brody
Actor | The Pianist
Adrien Nicholas Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the only child of retired history professor Elliot Brody and Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy. He accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice, and credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the ...
76. Ethan Hawke
Actor | Training Day
Ethan Green Hawke was born on November 6, 1970 in Austin, Texas, to Leslie Carole (Green), a charity worker, and James Steven Hawke, an insurance actuary. His parents were students at the University of Texas at the time but divorced when Ethan was 5 years old. His mother raised him alone for the ...
77. Jeremy Renner
Actor | The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, the son of Valerie (Tague) and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with his four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of...
78. Christoph Waltz
Actor | Django Unchained
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won...
79. Sam Neill
Actor | Jurassic Park
Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to army parents, an English-born mother, Priscilla Beatrice (Ingham), and a New Zealand-born father, Dermot Neill. His family moved to the South Island of New Zealand in 1954. He went to boarding schools and then attended the universities ...
80. Jared Leto
Actor | Dallas Buyers Club
Jared Leto is a very familiar face in recent film history. Although he has always been the lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and songwriter for American band Thirty Seconds to Mars, Leto is an accomplished actor merited by the numerous, challenging projects he has taken in his life. He is known to be ...
81. Paul Dano
Actor | There Will Be Blood
An actor for all seasons and all kinds of roles (from dark, difficult characters to more loving ones) Paul Dano has an extensive body work that includes working with directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Steve McQueen, Dayton & Ferris, Ang Lee, Denis Villenueve and Paolo Sorrentino; acting with ...
82. Kurt Russell
Actor | Escape from New York
Kurt Vogel Russell was born on March 17, 1951 in Springfield, Massachusetts and raised in Thousand Oaks, California to Louise Julia Russell (née Crone), a dancer & Bing Russell, an actor. He is of English, German, Scottish and Irish descent. His first roles were as a child on television series, ...
83. Colin Firth
Actor | A Single Man
Colin Andrew Firth was born into an academic family in Grayshott, Hampshire, England. His mother, Shirley Jean (Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at the Open University, and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, lectured on history at Winchester University College (formerly King Alfred's...
84. Ben Gazzara
Actor | Road House
Ben Gazzara's screen career began with two critically acclaimed roles as heavies in the late 1950s. He turned to television in the 1960s but made a big screen comeback with roles in three John Cassavetes films in the 1970s. The 1980s and 1990s saw Gazzara work more frequently than ever before in ...
85. Geoffrey Rush
Actor | The King's Speech
Geoffrey Roy Rush was born on July 6, 1951, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, to Merle (Bischof), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His mother was of German descent and his father had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. ...
86. Bradley Cooper
Actor | A Star Is Born
Bradley Charles Cooper was born on January 5, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Gloria (Campano), is of Italian descent, and worked for a local NBC station. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Immediately after Bradley graduated from the ...
87. Mark Wahlberg
Producer | The Fighter
American actor Mark Wahlberg is one of a handful of respected entertainers who successfully made the transition from teen pop idol to acclaimed actor. A Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for The Departed (2006) who went on to receive positive critical reviews for his performance in The Fighter (...
88. Johnny Depp
Actor | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one ...
89. Mark Ruffalo
Actor | Spotlight
Award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo was born on November 22, 1967, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, of humble means to father Frank Lawrence Ruffalo, a construction painter and Marie Rose (Hebert), a stylist and hairdresser; his father's ancestry is Italian and his mother is of half French-Canadian and half ...
90. Russell Crowe
Actor | Les Misérables
Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Jocelyn Yvonne (Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom catered movie sets. His maternal grandfather, Stanley Wemyss, was a cinematographer. Crowe's recent ancestry includes Welsh (where his paternal grandfather was born, in Wrexham),...
91. Steve Buscemi
Actor | Fargo
Steve Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Dorothy (Wilson), a restaurant hostess, and John Buscemi, a sanitation worker. He is of Italian (father) and English, Dutch, and Irish (mother) descent. He became interested in acting during his last year of high school. After graduating, he moved to...
92. Samuel L. Jackson
Actor | Pulp Fiction
Samuel L. Jackson is an American producer and highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000), Formula 51 (2001), Black Snake Moan (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005), ...
93. Denzel Washington
Actor | Fences
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at ...
94. Forest Whitaker
Actor | The Last King of Scotland
Forest Steven Whitaker has packaged a king-size talent into his hulking 6' 2", 220 lb. frame. He won an Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the film The Last King of Scotland (2006), and has also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. He is the fourth African-American male to...
95. Brad Pitt
Actor | Fight Club
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student ...
96. Gael García Bernal
Actor | Mozart in the Jungle
Gael García Bernal was born in Guadalajara to Patricia Bernal, an actress/model & José Ángel García, an actor/director. His stepfather's cinematographer Sergio Yazbek. He began his acting career as a child, working w/ his parents in a variety of plays. At 14, he starred in a soap opera called El ...
97. Ben Foster
Actor | Hell or High Water
Ben Foster was born October 29, 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Gillian Kirwan and Steven Foster, restaurant owners. His younger brother is actor Jon Foster. His paternal grandparents were from Russian Jewish families that immigrated to Massachusetts (his grandfather became a prominent judge in ...
98. Daniel Craig
Actor | Casino Royale
One of the British theatre's most famous faces, Daniel Craig, who waited tables as a struggling teenage actor with the National Youth Theatre, has gone on to star as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
He was born ...
99. William Hurt
Actor | A History of Violence
William McChord Hurt was born in Washington, D.C., to Claire Isabel (McGill) and Alfred McChord Hurt, who worked at the State Department. He was trained at Tufts University and The Juilliard School and has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including the most recent nomination for his ...
100. Bill Nighy
Actor | Love Actually
Bill Nighy is an award-winning British character actor. He was born William Francis Nighy on December 12, 1949 in Caterham, Surrey, England, to Catherine Josephine (Whittaker), a psychiatric nurse from Glasgow, and Alfred Martin Nighy, who was English-born and managed a garage in Croydon.
At school,...
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