Monsters Vs. Aliens 2009 premiere

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Betty Witherspoon, a registered nurse & John Draper Witherspoon, a military surgeon. Reese spent the first 4 years of her life in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, where her father served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserves. Shortly after, the family moved back to the USA & settled in Nashville, Tennessee.

Reese was introduced to the entertainment industry at a very early age. At age 7, she began modeling. This led to appearances on several local television commercials. At age 11, she placed first in a Ten-State Talent Fair.

In 1990, she landed her first major acting role in Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon (1991). Her role as a 14-year old tomboy earned her rave reviews. Roles in bigger films such as Jack the Bear (1993) and A Far Off Place (1993) followed shortly after.

Following high school graduation in 1994 from Harpeth Hall, a Nashville all girls school, Reese decided to put her acting career on hold and attend Stanford University where she would major in English literature. However, her collegiate plans were shortly dashed when she accepted roles to star in two major motion pictures: Fear (1996), alongside Mark Wahlberg, and Freeway (1996) with Kiefer Sutherland. Although neither film was a huge box-office success, they did help to establish Reese as a rising starlet in Hollywood and open the door for bigger and better film roles. Those bigger roles came in movies such as Pleasantville (1998), Election (1999) and Cruel Intentions (1999).

Her breakthrough role came as Elle Woods in the 2001 comedy, Legally Blonde (2001). The movie was huge box-office smash and established Reese as one of the top female draws in Hollywood. The next year, she scored a follow-up hit with Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which went on to gross over $100 million dollars at the box office. In 2006, she took home the best actress Oscar for her role as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line (2005). On the late 2000s and early 2010s, Reese continued to star in more romantic comedies, such as Four Christmases (2008) and How Do You Know (2010). In December 2010, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the year 2014, she produced both Gone Girl (2014) and Wild (2014), for which she got nominated for best actress Oscar again for her role as Cheryl Strayed.

An actor, comedian and writer, Seth Rogen has come a long way from doing stand-up comedy as a teen.

Rogen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Sandy (Belogus), a social worker, and Mark Rogen, who worked for non-profits. His father is American-born and his mother is Canadian. He is of Russian Jewish descent. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School and Point Grey Secondary School (although he dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles) and was known for the stand-up comedy he performed at Camp Miriam, a Habonim Dror camp. At sixteen, Rogen placed second in the 1998 Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest.

Soon after that he landed his first role in Judd Apatow's short-lived but well regarded TV series Freaks and Geeks (1999), taking on the role of Ken Miller. Though the show only lasted one season, it was the launching pad for many careers, including Rogen, Apatow, James Franco, and Jason Segel. This early work sharpened Rogen's keen improvisational skills, which he's used on many projects since.

Following Freaks and Geeks (1999), he participated in a few unsuccessful television projects, and then joined the American television version of Da Ali G Show (2000) as a writer during its second and last season, along with his childhood friend and writing partner Evan Goldberg. The writing team received an Emmy nomination. As a huge fan of the first season, Rogen was thrilled to get the chance to work with Sacha Baron Cohen.

Continuing his work with Apatow, he joined the cast of Apatow's debut film The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and is credited as co-producer. After that he took the lead in Knocked Up (2007), Apatow's second movie and a huge success. He's since been a frequent collaborator with Apatow, in projects such as Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008) and Funny People (2009). He co-wrote Superbad (2007), with Goldberg; the pair started the project when they were teens. They won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Writing in a Film in 2008. They later wrote Pineapple Express (2008) and The Green Hornet (2011), also starring Rogen.

A talented voice artist, Rogen is in the animated films Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Kung Fu Panda (2008), and Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), and has voiced characters for The Simpsons (1989) and American Dad! (2005).

Rogen was named the Canadian Comedy Person of the Year by the Canadian Comedy Awards in both 2008 and 2009.

Rogen lives in Los Angeles with Lauren Miller Rogen, whom he met in 2004. They became engaged in September 2010 and married in October 2011.

Will Arnett is a Canadian-American actor, voice actor, and comedian. He is most famous for playing George Oscar "Gob" Bluth II in the Fox series Arrested Development (2003). He also appeared in films such as The Lego Movie (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and The Lego Batman Movie (2017). Arnett also voices the title character of Netflix's original animated series BoJack Horseman (2014). He has been the voice heard in the GMC commercials since 1998.

Hugh was born in Oxford, England in 1959, to Patricia (Laidlaw) and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie. He was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University. He met Emma Thompson at Cambridge in 1978 when both joined the Cambridge Footlights comedy troupe and was introduced to life long friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry by Emma in 1980. He is a well acclaimed actor, comedian, writer, and blues musician. Hugh is married to Jo Laurie (née Green) with whom he has three children. They live in London, England.

Rainn Wilson lives in Los Angeles with his wife, fiction writer Holiday Reinhorn (Big Cats), and his son, Walter McKenzie Wilson who was born in 2004. He grew up in Seattle, Washington but graduated from New Trier H.S. in Winnetka, Illinois. After attending both Tufts University and the University of Washington, Rainn studied acting at NYU's graduate acting program and spent years doing theater both on and off-Broadway, on tours with the Acting Company and in region theatre including The Guthrie and Arena Stage.

Rainn co-created and directed The New Bozena, a sketch comedy and post-modern clown show which performed in New York and ended up doing a pilot presentation at Fox TV. He made his directorial debut with The New Bozena (2005), a short film based on the show.

After many years of working in TV and film, his breakthrough role happened, as Arthur, the odd love interest to the much older Frances Conroy on Six Feet Under (2001). His favorite role to date, however, is Bill Harris in the film, Baadasssss! (2003).

Rainn is a member of the Baha'i Faith.

Kiefer Sutherland was born in London, England, UK, to Canadian actors Shirley Douglas and Donald Sutherland, who moved to California shortly after his birth. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas, was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who was a Premier of Saskatchewan for over 17 years and led the national NDP party for almost 10.

Kiefer got his first film role in the comedy drama Max Dugan Returns (1983). Sutherland's first major role was in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy (1984), which earned Sutherland and director Daniel Petrie, Genie award nominations for best actor and best director, respectively. Following his success in The Bay Boy, Sutherland eventually moved to Los Angeles and landed television appearances in "The Mission", an episode of Amazing Stories (1985) and in the telefilm Trapped in Silence (1986) with Marsha Mason.

In 1992, Sutherland starred opposite Ray Liotta and Forest Whitaker in Article 99 (1992) and in the military drama A Few Good Men (1992) also starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. Later, in 1994, he starred with Jeff Bridges and Nancy Travis in the American version of The Vanishing (1993) for 20th Century Fox. In 1997, he co-starred with William Hurt and Rufus Sewell in Dark City (1998), directed by Alex Proyas, which was a special presentation at the Cannes Film Festival. Sutherland also added his second directorial credit and starred in Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997) alongside Kevin Pollak, Mykelti Williamson, Rod Steiger and Martin Sheen. He stars in the Fox drama series 24 (2001) as Jack Bauer for which he has earned a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Most recently, he has been seen in the movie Phone Booth (2002) as a man who calls up someone at a phone booth and threatens to kill them if they hang up.

Paul Stephen Rudd was born in Passaic, New Jersey. His parents, Michael and Gloria, both from Jewish families, were born in the London area, U.K. He has one sister, who is three years younger than he is. Paul traveled with his family during his early years, because of his father's airline job at TWA. His family eventually settled in Overland Park, Kansas, where his mother worked as a sales manager for TV station KSMO-TV. Paul attended Broadmoor Junior High and Shawnee Mission West High School, from which he graduated in 1987, and where he was Student Body President. He then enrolled at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, majoring in theater. He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-West in Los Angeles and participated in a three-month intensive workshop under the guidance of Michael Kahn at the British Drama Academy at Oxford University in Britain. Rudd helped to produce the Globe Theater's production of Howard Brenton's "Bloody Poetry," which starred Rudd as Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Amy Meredith Poehler was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to high school teachers Eileen Frances (Milmore) and William Grinstead Poehler. Her brother is comedian Greg Poehler. She is of Irish (from her mother) and English, Irish, German, and Portuguese (from her father) descent. Amy was first involved with sketch comedy when she joined the group My Mother's Flea Bag when she was attending Boston College. In 1993, she went to Chicago where she studied at Second City and Improv Olympics. There, she met Del Close, who later became the voice of the UCB opening scene. In 1996, she joined the Upright Citizen's Brigade with Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. Later on, the group moved to New York and became a Comedy Central show. The show went on only for three seasons. However, the group stayed together at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. Today, the theater is one of the leading centers for improv and sketch shows.

After the Upright Citizens Brigade (1998) sketch show came and went, Amy joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975) in 2001. By the end of Christmas break of that year, she became a regularly featured performer. She has brought a slew of great performances on every show, such as impersonations of celebrities such as Kelly Ripa or Sharon Osbourne. When Jimmy Fallon left at the end of the 2003-04 season, Amy joined Tina Fey as a co-anchor for Weekend Update. Her Hollywood star is also growing bright, as she has done several feature films, including Blades of Glory (2007) with her then-real-life husband and Arrested Development (2003) star Will Arnett; and the Farrelly brothers-directed remake of The Heartbreak Kid (1993), in which she stars alongside another Arrested Development (2003) star, Jason Bateman.

Among her 2010s film starring roles are Sisters (2015), with Tina Fey, and The House (2017), with Will Ferrell. Having played one of her first roles in the indie Wet Hot American Summer (2001), she reprised her role in the television mini-series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015) and Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017).

Amy was married to Canadian actor and comedian Will Arnett from 2003 to 2016. The couple have two children.

Conrad Vernon is an American voice actor, storyboard artist, writer and director from Texas. He provided the voices of the Gingerbread Man in the Shrek franchise and Mason from the Madagascar franchise. He would direct Shrek 2, Sausage Party, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, Monsters vs. Aliens and The Addams Family film series.

Rob Letterman is known for Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), Goosebumps (2023) and Shark Tale (2004).

Lisa Stewart is known for Singles (1992), The X-Files (1993) and The Simpsons (1989).

Latifa Ouaou is known for Puss in Boots (2011), Shrek 2 (2004) and Shrek the Third (2007).

Jill Hopper Desmarchelier is known for Lifeforce (1985), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) and How to Train Your Dragon (2010).

Susan Rogers is known for Purple Rain (1984), Sign 'o' the Times (1987) and Prince and the Revolution LIVE! (1985).

Jason Bateman is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Michael Bluth on the television sitcom Arrested Development (2003), as well as his role on Valerie (1986).

He was born in Rye, New York. His father, Kent Bateman, from a Utah-based family, is a film and television director and producer, and founder of a Hollywood repertory stage company. His mother, Victoria Bateman, was born in Shropshire, England, and worked as a flight attendant. His sister is actress Justine Bateman. In 1981, at the age of 12, young Bateman made his debut on television as James Cooper Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974): Uncle Jed, appearing in 18 more episodes in one season. Jason also appeared in the original Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff for the season three episode "Lost Knight" (aired Dec 1984) playing the character "Doug" who befriends Kitt when he loses his memory. In the mid-1980s, he became the DGA's youngest-ever director when he directed three episodes of Valerie (1986) at age 18. During the 2000s, Bateman's film career has been on soaring trajectory. In 2005, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy, for Arrested Development (2003), and received other awards and nominations.

Bateman has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife, actress Amanda Anka (daughter of singer Paul Anka), with whom he has two children. The Batemans reside in Los Angeles, California.

Will.i.am was born on 15 March 1975 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Rio (2011) and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008).

Andy Richter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the second of four children of Glenda (Palmer), a kitchen cabinet designer, and Laurence R. Richter, who taught Russian at Indiana University. He was raised in Yorkville, Illinois. His parents divorced when he was four. Richter attended the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign and then moved to Chicago's Columbia College to study film. Richter played in several Chicago improvisation groups before catching his role with Conan O'Brien.

Breckin Meyer was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Dorothy, a travel agent, and Christopher Meyer, a management consultant. He was raised in Los Angeles, went to grade school with Drew Barrymore, and attended Beverly Hills High School with Joshua John Miller and Branden Williams. It was Barrymore who introduced Breckin to her agent, after which he started doing commercials and the game show Child's Play (1982).

After being accepted to California State University at Northridge, Breckin decided to put school on hold and pursue acting. He has always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher and may still do that in the future. Breckin was the drummer in the Streetwalking Cheetahs with his brother, Frank, which recorded a demo in 1995. He was the lead vocal on two songs, "Carnival" and "Dave". During 1995-1996, the band played about 10 gigs around Los Angeles. The Streetwalking Cheetahs' second album, "Overdrive" and their new album, "Live on KXLU", feature songs written when Breckin was still in the band. These songs include "None of Your Business", "All I Want", "Peppermint", "Thought that Crosses My Mind" and "Turn Me Down". After the Streetwalking Cheetahs, he started his own band, Bellyroom, with Seth Green and Alexander Martin, Dean Martin's grandson. They played a few gigs around Los Angeles in 1996.

Breckin's friends include Ryan Phillippe, Josh Holland (USA High (1997)) and Seth Green. His best friend is Ryan Phillippe, with whom he starred in 54 (1998). Breckin was married to Deborah Kaplan, who wrote and directed Can't Hardly Wait (1998), in which Breckin had a cameo.

Breckin's hobbies include playing drums, video games and sometimes sports. He's a big fan of Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Richard Dreyfuss.

English film actor, director and author Andy Serkis is known for his performance capture roles comprising motion capture acting, animation and voice work for such computer-generated characters as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001-2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), the eponymous King Kong in the 2005 film, Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Captain Haddock / Sir Francis Haddock in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). Serkis earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of serial killer Ian Brady in the British television film Longford (2006), and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his portrayal of new wave and punk rock musician Ian Dury in the biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010). In 2015, he had a small role in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Serkis has his own motion capture workshop, The Imaginarium Studios in London, which he will use for his directorial debut, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018).

Andrew Clement G. Serkis was born April 20, 1964, in Ruislip Manor, West London, England. He has three sisters and a brother. His father, Clement Serkis, an ethnic Armenian whose original family surname was Serkissian, was a medical doctor working abroad, in Iraq; the Serkis family spent time around the Middle East, and for the first ten years of his life, Andy traveled between Baghdad and London. His mother, Lylie (Weech), who is British-born, was busy working as a special education teacher of handicapped children, so Andy and his four siblings were raised with au pairs in the house. Young Serkis wanted to be an artist; he was fond of painting and drawing, and visualized himself working behind the scenes. He attended St. Benedict's School, a Roman Catholic School for boys at the Benedictine Abbey in London. Serkis studied visual arts at Lancaster University in the north-west of England. There, he became involved in mechanical aspects of the theatre and did stage design and set building for theatrical productions. Then, Serkis was asked to play a role in a student production, and made his stage debut in Barrie Keeffe's play, "Gotcha"; thereafter, he switched from stage design to acting, which was a real calling that transformed his life.

Instead of going to an acting college, Serkis, in 1985, began his professional acting career at the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster, where he was given an Equity card and performed in fourteen plays, one after another, as an apprentice of Jonathan Petherbridge. After that, he worked in touring theatre companies, doing it for no money, fueled by a sense of enthusiasm, moving to a new town every week. He has thus appeared in a host of popular plays and on almost every renowned British stage. In 1989, he appeared in a stage production of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", so beginning his long association with the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, where he would return many times, to appear in "She Stoops to Conquer", "Your Home in the West" and the "True Nature of Love", among other plays. In the 1990s, Serkis began to make his mark on the London stage, appearing at the Royal Court Theatre as "The Fool" in "King Lear", making his interpretation of "The Fool" as the woman that "Lear", a widower, could relate to - a man, in drag, as a Victorian musician. He also appeared as "Potts" in the hit play, "Mojo", playing in front of full houses and earning huge critical success. In 1987, Serkis made his debut on television, and he acted in several major British TV miniseries throughout the 1990s.

In 1999, Andy Serkis landed the prize role of "Gollum" in Peter Jackson's epic film trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's saga, "The Lord of the Rings". He spent four years in the part and received awards and nominations for his performance as "Gollum", a computer-generated character in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), which won 11 Oscars. "Gollum" was the collaborative team's effort around Serkis's work in performance capture - an art form based on CGI-assisted acting. Serkis's work was an interactive performance in a skin-tight CGI suit with markers allowing cameras to track and register 3D position for each marker. Serkis' every nuance was picked up by several cameras positioned at precisely calculated angles to allow for the software to see enough information to process the image. The images of Serkis' performances were translated into the digital format by animators at Weta Digital studio in New Zealand. There, his image was key-frame animated and then edited into the movie, Serkis did have one scene in "The Return of the King" showing how he originally had the ring, killing another hobbit to posses it after they found it during a fishing trip. He drew from his three cats clearing fur balls out of their throats to develop the constricted voice he produced for "Gollum" and "Sméagol", and it was also enhanced by sound editing in post-production.

Serkis spent almost two years in New Zealand and away from his family, and much of 2002 and 2003 in post-production studios for large periods of time, due to complexity of the creative process of bringing the character of "Gollum" to the screen. Serkis had to shoot two versions for every scene; one version was with him on camera, acting with (chiefly) Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, which served both to show Wood and Astin the moves so that they could precisely interact with the movements of "Gollum", and to provide the CGI artists the subtleties of Gollum's physical movements and facial expressions for their manual finishing of the animated images. In the other version, he'd go the voice off-camera, as Wood and Astin repeated their movements as though "Gollum" were there with them; that take would be the basis for inserting the CGI Gollum used in the released movie. In post-production, Serkis was doing motion-capture wearing a skintight motion capture suit with CGI gear while acting as a virtual puppeteer redoing every single scene in the studio. Additional CGI rotomation was done by animators using the human eye instead of the computer to capture the subtleties of Serkis' performance. Serkis also used this art form in his performance as "Kong" in King Kong (2005), which won him a Toronto Film Critics Association Award (2005) for his unprecedented work helping to realize the main character in "King Kong", and a Visual Effects Society Award (2006) for Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture.

Apart from his line of CGI-driven characters, Serkis continued with traditional acting in several leading and supporting roles, such as his appearances as "Richard Kneeland" opposite Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30 (2004), and "Alley" opposite David Bowie in The Prestige (2006), among other film performances. On television, he starred as 'Vincent Van Gogh' in the sixth episode of Simon Schama's Power of Art (2006), the BBC2 series about artists. Serkis is billed as "Capricorn" in the upcoming adventure film, Inkheart (2008). At the same time, he continued the development of performance capture while expanding his career into computer games. He starred as "King Bothan" in the martial arts drama, Heavenly Sword (2007), a Playstation 3 title, for which he provided a basis for his in-game face and also acts as a dramatic director on the project.

Andy Serkis married actress and singer Lorraine Ashbourne, and the couple have three children: daughter Ruby Serkis (born in 1998), and two sons Sonny Serkis (born in 2000) and Louis Ashbourne Serkis (born on 19 June 2004), who is now also a movie star. Away from acting, Andy Serkis is an accomplished amateur painter. Since his school years at Lancaster, being so close to the Lake District, Serkis developed his other passion in life: mountaineering. He is a pescetarian. Serkis has been active in charitable causes, such as The Hope Foundation, which provides essential life-saving medical aid for children suffering from Leukemia and children from countries devastated by war. In October 2006, he was a presenter at the first annual British Academy Video Games Awards at the Roundhouse, London. Andy Serkis lives with his family in North London, England.

Jennette McCurdy is a writer/director who specializes in character-driven pieces that explore serious subject matter in a funny, offbeat way. Her favorite themes to explore are family dysfunction, childhood, and disillusionment. She has directed several short films which has been recognized by several film festivals including the Oscar-Qualifying Florida Film Festival.

Milly Rosso was born on 6 July 1994 in England, UK. She is an actress, known for Legally Blondes (2009), The Suite Life on Deck (2008) and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005).

Becky Rosso was born on 6 July 1994 in England, UK. She is an actress, known for Legally Blondes (2009), The Suite Life on Deck (2008) and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005).

Moretz is best known for her work in the sci-fi thriller series The Peripheral, created by Scott B. Smith; the Mattson Tomlin-directed sci-fi thriller Mother/Android; Neil Jordan's thriller Greta; Roseanne Liang's Shadow in the Cloud, which claimed the Midnight Madness People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2020; The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which won both critical acclaim and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2018; Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, which went on to claim the Independent Spirit Awards' Robert Altman Award after world premiering in Venice; MGM's The Amityville Horror; Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer; the Kick-Ass franchise; Matt Reeves' English-language remake of Let Me In; Martin Scorsese's Oscar winner Hugo; Warner Bros' If I Stay and Dark Shadows; Kimberly Peirce's remake of the Stephen King classic Carrie; and Sony's The Equalizer with Denzel Washington. She also exec produced the Snapchat Discover series Coming Out, which premiered in 2021.

Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black was born on August 28, 1969 in Santa Monica, California and raised in Hermosa Beach, California to Judith Love Cohen & Thomas William Black, both satellite engineers. He is of Russian Jewish & British-German ancestry. Black attended the University of California at Los Angeles. While at UCLA, he was a member of Tim Robbins' acting troupe & it was through this collaboration that led to his 1992 film debut in Bob Roberts (1992). Although he was just a background voice in his first film, Jack's appearances in such television shows as The X-Files (1993), his breakthrough performance in High Fidelity (2000) & his rock-comedy band, Tenacious D have created an ever-growing cult following.

Viacom Chairman Sumner Murray Redstone was the multi-billionaire who was the leading shareholder of media conglomerate Viacom and CBS Corp.

He was born Sumner Murray Rothstein on May 27, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Michael Rothstein, created National Amusements, a chain of three drive-in theaters, in 1936, after starting out with one drive-in in Valley Stream, New York. In 1940, his family changed their surname to "Redstone," the English translation ("red stone") of the Yiddish Rothstein. Sumner attended Harvard College after graduating at the top of his class from the elite Boston Latin School, completing his bachelor of arts degree in three years during World War II, when college years were accelerated so that graduates could serve in the military. Redstone served in the army during World War II, working at the Pentagon decoding Japanese messages. After being demobilized, he remained in Washington and matriculated at Georgetown University Law School before transferring to Harvard Law. After graduating from Harvard Law with an LL.B, he returned to Washington, DC.

After working for the U.S. Department of Justice in San Francisco, Redstone went into private practice for several years before eventually returning to his father's National Amusements, which he turned into a major motion picture exhibitor in New England. He first made National Amusements one of the premier drive-in circuits in the country before turning to indoor exhibition. In 1964 National Amusements started building multi-screen theaters, originally called "twin theaters." These developed into the "multiplexes" and "megaplexes" that made National Amusements one of the top indoor exhibitors in the country, a great repositioning of the company, and a fortuitous one as the drive-in circuit faded away.

Redstone branched out of exhibition, as he believed that controlling the content was the way of the future--though distribution channels constantly change (from movie theaters, to TV, to cable, to videotape, to DVD), content remains constant. With this philosophy he began investing in motion picture production companies, turning a profit on buying, holding and selling shares.

In 1987 Redstone engineered a hostile takeover of Viacom International by National Amusements. Viacom began as a subsidiary of CBS, syndicating programs for the network. However, when the FCC in 1971 established its now rescinded "fin-syn" rule (that television networks could not syndicate programs they produced), Viacom was spun off from CBS. As a separate company Viacom continued to syndicate most of CBS' TV programs but was free to syndicate programs for others. After syndicating programs for cable TV channels, Viacom itself moved into cable and acquired MTV Networks in 1985. It represented a good platform from which to develop a content-distribution behemoth.

After winning voting control of Viacom, Redstone engaged in a series of acquisitions to make Viacom one of the top players in the modern media industry. During the 1990s Viacom eventually would own Columbia Pictures, Twentieth-Century Fox, Orion Pictures and Paramount Pictures, making huge profits from the sale of all but Paramount, which would become the motion picture arm of the conglomerate.

Paramount Communications, parent of Paramount Pictures, was acquired in 1993. Although criticized initially for paying too much for the company, Redstone helped pay for the acquisition by selling off some of its assets, including Madison Square Garden and its cable TV properties, and Simon & Schuster's educational publishing units. The sale of Paramount Communications' assets made the acquisition substantially profitable.

Redstone then acquired Blockbuster Entertainment, which gave Viacom Aaron Spelling's TV production company and a huge library of films, most of which were absorbed into Paramount Pictures' own library. Blockbuster eventually was spun off into its own independent entity. In 2000 Viacom pulled off arguably its most important acquisition when it acquired its former corporate parent, CBS Corp. In December of 2005 Paramount acquired Dreamworks SKG for an estimated $1.6 billion.

Under Redstone's management, Viacom has assembled one of the largest and most diversified media conglomerates, covering TV broadcasting, cable TV, radio broadcasting (Infinity Broadcasting), outdoor advertising, music publishing, motion pictures, television production, and its original business of TV syndication (King World Productions, which syndicates The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986)).

In 2005 Viacom International was split into two companies, Viacom and CBS Corp. Redstone was chairman of both the new Viacom and of CBS, controlling a majority of both firms. At one point, controlled over 70% of the voting stock of Viacom, which is a subsidiary of National Amusements, his private family-owned company.

National Amusements, whose president is Sumner's daughter (and probable successor) Shari E. Redstone, also owns a controlling interest (70%) of video-game maker Midway Games. In addition to its controlling interests in Viacom and CBS Corp., National Amusements is an international chain of movie theaters with 1,500 screens operated by the chains Showcase Cinemas, Multiplex Cinemas, KinoStar and Cinema de Lux banners in the U.S., the U.K., South America and Russia. It additionally operates IMAX theaters in the U.S. and Argentina. The firm is also a partner with AMC Theatres in the on-line ticketing firm "movietickets.com."

Redstone's autobiography, "A Passion To Win" (co-written by Peter Knobler), was published in 2001 by Viacom's Simon & Schuster subsidiary. In 2006, he was ranked #63 on Forbes magazine's list of the 100 richest people in the world, with an estimated worth of $7.7 billion.

He died on August 11, 2020, in Los Angeles, at the age of 97.