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- Actor
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Harrison Cosmo Krikoryan Jarvis is an American actor, musician and filmmaker. Born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA to an Armenian-American mother and English father. He moved to England with his parents as a baby, growing up in Totnes, Devon, England with his mother and younger brother. In 2015, he auditioned and was cast to portray the character of Sebastian in William Oldroyd's debut feature film 'Lady Macbeth' (2016).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress, who also holds German citizenship. She was born on April 30, 1982 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to parents Inez (née Rupprecht), who owned an art gallery, and Klaus Dunst, a medical services executive. She has a younger brother named Christian Dunst, born in 1987. Her father is German, from Hamburg, and her mother, who is American, is of German and Swedish descent.
Her career began at the age of 3 when she started modeling and appearing in commercials. She made her feature film debut with an uncredited role at age 6 in the 'Oedipus Wrecks' segment of Woody Allen's 1989 film New York Stories (1989). She received her first film credit in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). Her family moved to Los Angeles in 1993, where her film career took off.
In 1994, she made her breakthrough performance in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), alongside such stars as Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination, the MTV Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and the Saturn Award for Best Young Actress. In 1995, she was named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. Over the next few years, she made a string of hit movies including Little Women (1994), Jumanji (1995) and Small Soldiers (1998).
In 2000, she received rave reviews for her role as "Lux Lisbon" in Sofia Coppola's independent film, The Virgin Suicides (1999) and proved her status as a leading actress in the comedy hit, Bring It On (2000). She also graduated from Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles in June of that year.
In 2002, she landed one of her best known roles as Peter Parker's love interest, Mary Jane Watson, in Spider-Man (2002). She continued her role in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007).
She went on to land roles in such films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the romantic comedy Wimbledon (2004), and in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown (2005). She also played the title character in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006).
Dunst won the Best Actress Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival for her performance as Justine in Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011). In 2012, she appeared in Walter Salles' film adaptation of On the Road (2012) and the independent comedy Bachelorette (2012). She also has several films in production, including The Two Faces of January (2014).
Her charity work includes designing a necklace to raise funds for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation as well as supporting various cancer charities.- Tom was born and raised in New Jersey. He began acting in high school thanks to a great teacher, and after attending FPAC at Howell High he received a BFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers he also studied Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre in London, England.
In spite of his theater background, Tom's first job was on the long running CBS daytime drama, Guiding Light. While there he won multiple Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Jonathan Randall, the charming and volatile son of the show's leading lady. Tom left the show and spent the next few years working on some independent films and television, but primarily in theater. He was the co-founder and artistic director of the Apothecary Theater Company. They produced the world premier of "In God's Hat", which opened to rave reviews and sold out the rest of its run. The NY Times called the play "terrific" and praised all involved. Pelphrey made his Broadway debut as Micky Deans in "End of the Rainbow", a play about the final days of Judy Garland that was nominated for multiple Tony Awards. He also appeared on Broadway in "Fool for Love" alongside Sam Rockwell and Nina Arianda, meeting and working with Sam Shepard.
Tom played Kurt Bunker, a troubled former Neo-Nazi seeking redemption, on the cult-hit action show "Banshee". He was then cast as the wise-ass, drug addicted billionaire Ward Meachum in Marvel's "Iron Fist". Recently, Pelphrey received rave reviews and a lot of attention for his portrayal of Ben Davis on "Ozark"- the bi-polar brother of Wendy (Laura Linney). He was cast as Joseph Mankiewicz in David Fincher's "Mank", brother to Gary Oldman's Herman Mankiewicz. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, the most of any film in 2021. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Kerry Lynne Bishé is a New Zealand-born American actress, known for her lead role as Donna Clark in the AMC television series Halt and Catch Fire (2014). Bishé played the lead/narrator role on the final season of ABC's medical sitcom Scrubs (2001) and starred in the critically acclaimed drama film Argo (2012). Bishé was born in New Zealand, and shortly afterward, she and her family moved to Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She graduated from Montclair Kimberley Academy (where her father, Kenneth Bishé, taught social studies) in 2002, and then studied at Northwestern University. Bishé toured professionally with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks during the summer of 2004, performing the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. She also appeared in a 2006 production of Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape and in the Roundabout revival of Shaw's Pygmalion. Bishé made her screen debut in 2007, when she portrayed Sarah Rosen in The Half Life of Mason Lake (2007), a low-budget production. After appearances as an extra in the film adaptation of Sex and the City (2008) and The Lucky Ones (2008), and a small role in The Understudy (2008), Bishé was cast in Night Life (2008), a TV movie directed by Scrubs star Zach Braff. The production did not make Bishé well-known, but did introduce her to Zach Braff, with whom she later worked on Scrubs (2001). Bishé was busy in 2009 with television roles, appearing in an episode of the US version of Life on Mars (2008), an episode of cable TV series Royal Pains (2009), and a lead role in the TV movie made from the failed pilot of the proposed sci-fi series Virtuality (2009). In December 2009, Bishé assumed the lead role on ABC medical sitcom Scrubs (2001), that of Lucy Bennett, the show's new narrator, taking over from Zach Braff. ABC cancelled the show on May 14, 2010. Bishé co-starred in the independent movie, Nice Guy Johnny (2010), with Edward Burns and Matt Bush. She also played a supporting role in Kevin Smith's horror film Red State (2011) and Ben Affleck's drama film Scoot McNairy. Bishé co-starred in the independent movie, Grand Piano (2013), with Elijah Wood. From 2014 to 2017, Bishé starred as Donna Clark in the acclaimed AMC television drama series, Halt and Catch Fire (2014). By coincidence, her character's husband in Halt and Catch Fire (2014) is portrayed by actor Scoot McNairy, who also played her spouse in Argo (2012). In season three of the Netflix Original series, Narcos (2015), she portrays the recurring role of Cristina Jurado, the American wife of the Cali Cartel's Harvard-educated money launderer Franklin Jurado.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rachel Zegler is a singer and songwriter, raised in New Jersey by her American father and Colombian mother. Having been one of 30,000 people to audition, she was selected to play the role of Maria in Steven Spielberg's remake of the classic West Side Story (2021), opposite Ansel Elgort as Tony. She first played the role in a Performing Arts School presentation at Bergen Performing Arts Center. She reached a large audience with her cover of Lady Gaga's song "Shallow", known from the movie A Star Is Born (2018).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Vera Farmiga is an American actress who has received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Up in the Air (2009) and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in Bates Motel (2013) and When They See Us (2019).
She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, the second of seven children, on August 6, 1973, in Clifton, New Jersey, USA, to Ukrainian parents. She did not speak English until the age of six, and was raised in the Ukrainian Catholic home of her mother, Luba (Spas), a schoolteacher, and her father, Michael Farmiga, a computer systems analyst. Her younger sister is actress Taissa Farmiga, who is 21 years her junior. Young Vera was a shy, nearsighted girl, who played piano and folk danced with a Ukrainian touring company in her teens.
In 1991, she graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School. Farmiga initially dreamed of becoming an optometrist, but she later changed her mind and studied acting at Syracuse University's School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1995. The following year, she began her professional acting career, making her Broadway debut as an understudy in the play "Taking Sides". Her stage credits included performances in "The Tempest", "Good", "The Seagull", and in a well-reviewed off-Broadway production of "Second-Hand Smoke" (1997). That same year, she made her television debut as the female lead, opposite a then-unknown Heath Ledger, in Fox's adventure series Roar (1997).
In 1998, Farmiga made her big screen debut in the drama Return to Paradise (1998), then played the daughters of Christopher Walken in The Opportunists (1999) and Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (2000). She starred as a working-class mother struggling to keep her life and marriage together while hiding her drug addiction in Down to the Bone (2004), for which she was awarded Best Actress from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Farmiga's acting talent shone in a range of characters, from her role as a senator's daughter in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), the wife of a mobster in Running Scared (2006), a humorous prostitute in Breaking and Entering (2006), and a police psychiatrist in The Departed (2006).
In 2010, Farmiga received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Up in the Air (2009). In 2011, she made her directorial debut with the drama Higher Ground (2011), in which she also appeared in the leading role. Although the film had a limited release, Farmiga's direction and performance received attention at several festivals. In 2013, she began starring in the drama thriller series Bates Motel (2013), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in the first season. In 2019, she received a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie category, for her role in the drama miniseries When They See Us (2019).
Farmiga was formerly married to actor Sebastian Roché, whom she met during production of Roar (1997). The two eloped to the Bahamas after the series ended in 1997. They separated and subsequently divorced in 2004. On September 13, 2008, she married musician Renn Hawkey, with whom she has two children, son Fynn McDonnell (b. 2009) and daughter Gytta Lubov Hawkey (b. 2010). Farmiga lives with her family in Hudson Valley, New York. Her other activities, outside her acting profession, include reading, playing piano, boxing, jujitsu, and spending time with her pet angora goats.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Mj Rodriguez is an actress, best known for her work in Nurse Jackie (2011), Carrie Diaries (2013), Dear Pauline (2014), new internet series [Blank] My Life (2016) and Netflix show Luke Cage (2016). She is also known for her Musical Theater credit as Angel Dumont Schunard in the Original Off-Broadway Revival of Rent in 2011.- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Hunter Schafer is an actress and artist best known for playing 'Jules Vaughn' in HBO's Emmy-Award Winning series EUPHORIA. Hunter was just seen in Francis Lawrence's THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES, starring alongside Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Tom Blyth, and Rachel Zegler for Lionsgate. Next up, Hunter will be seen starring in the Neon thriller CUCKOO opposite Dan Stevens and which is directed by Tilman Singer. Most recently, Hunter wrapped production on David Lowery's next feature, MOTHER MARY, in which she'll star alongside Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel for A24. Earlier this year, Hunter wrapped a cameo in Yorgos Lanthimos' upcoming feature AND, opposite Emma Stone for Searchlight. Before landing EUPHORIA, Schafer worked as a fashion model for popular brands such as 'Calvin Klein,' 'Dior,' 'Helmut Lang,' 'Maison Margiela,' 'Marc Jacobs,' 'Miu Miu,' 'Vera Wang,' 'Versace,' and 'Rick Owens.' Schafer has appeared on the cover page of many popular magazines, including 'Harper's Bazaar,' 'Allure,' 'Teen Vogue,' 'V,' and 'Paper.' Teen Vogue Nominated Hunter for its 2017 '21 Under 21' list.- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
John Joseph Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, one of six children of Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) and Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His father owned a tire repair shop called Travolta Tires in Hillsdale, NJ. Travolta started acting appearing in a local production of "Who'll Save the Plowboy?". His mother, herself an actress and dancer, enrolled him in a drama school in New York, where he studied voice, dancing and acting. He decided to combine all three of these skills and become a musical comedy performer. At 16 he landed his first professional job in a summer stock production of the musical "Bye Bye Birdie". He quit school at 16 and moved to New York, and worked regularly in summer stock and on television commercials. When work became scarce in New York, he went to Hollywood and appeared in minor roles in several series. A role in the national touring company of the hit 1950s musical "Grease" brought him back to New York. An opening in the New York production of "Grease" gave him his first Broadway role at age 18. After "Grease", he became a member of the company of the Broadway show "Over Here", which starred The Andrews Sisters. After ten months in "Over Here", he decided to try Hollywood once again. Once back in Hollywood, he had little trouble getting roles in numerous television shows. He was seen on The Rookies (1972), Emergency! (1972) and Medical Center (1969) and also made a movie, The Devil's Rain (1975), which was shot in New Mexico. The day he returned to Hollywood from New Mexico, he was called to an audition for a new situation comedy series ABC was planning to produce called Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). He got the part of Vinnie Barbarino and the series went on the air during the 1975 fall season.
He starred in a number of monumental films, earning his first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever (1977), which launched the disco phenomenon in the 1970s. He went on to star in the big-screen version of the long-running musical Grease (1978) and the wildly successful Urban Cowboy (1980), which also influenced trends in popular culture. Additional film credits include the Brian De Palma thrillers Carrie (1976) and Blow Out (1981), as well as Amy Heckerling's hit comedy Look Who's Talking (1989) and Nora Ephron's comic hit Michael (1996). Travolta starred in Phenomenon (1996) and took an equally distinctive turn as an action star in John Woo's top-grossing Broken Arrow (1996). He also starred in the classic Face/Off (1997) opposite Nicolas Cage, and The General's Daughter (1999), co-starring Madeleine Stowe. In 2005, Travolta reprised the role of ultra cool Chili Palmer in the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005). In addition, he starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in the critically-acclaimed independent feature film A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where both Travolta and the films won rave reviews. In February 2011, John was honored by Europe's leading weekly program magazine HORZU, with the prestigious Golden Camera Award for "Best Actor International" in Berlin, Germany. Other recent feature film credits include box-office hit-comedy "Wild Hogs", the action-thriller Ladder 49 (2004), the movie version of the successful comic book The Punisher (2004), the drama Basic (2003), the psychological thriller Domestic Disturbance (2001), the hit action picture Swordfish (2001), the infamous sci-fi movie Battlefield Earth (2000), based upon the best-selling novel by L. Ron Hubbard, and Lonely Hearts (2006).
Travolta has been honored twice with Academy Award nominations, the latest for his riveting portrayal of a philosophical hit-man in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for this highly-acclaimed role and was named Best Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, among other distinguished awards. Travolta garnered further praise as a Mafioso-turned-movie producer in the comedy sensation Get Shorty (1995), winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. In 1998, Travolta was honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts with the Britanna Award: and in that same year he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Film Festival. Travolta also won the prestigious Alan J. Pakula Award from the US Broadcast Critics Association for his performance in A Civil Action (1998), based on the best-selling book and directed by Steven Zaillian. He was nominated again for a Golden Globe for his performance in Primary Colors (1998), directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Emma Thompson and Billy Bob Thornton, and in 2008, he received his sixth Golden Globe nomination for his role as "Edna Turnblad" in the big-screen, box-office hit, Hairspray (2007). As a result of this performance, the Chicago Film Critics and the Santa Barbara Film Festival decided to recognize Travolta with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his role.
In addition, Travolta starred opposite Denzel Washington in Tony Scott's remake The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), and he provided the voice of the lead character in Walt Disney Pictures' animated hit Bolt (2008), which was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and a Golden Globe for Best Animated Film, in addition to Best Song for John and Miley Cyrus' duet titled, "I Thought I Lost You".
Next, Travolta starred in Walt Disney Pictures' Old Dogs (2009), along with Robin Williams, Kelly Preston and Ella Bleu Travolta, followed by the action thriller From Paris with Love (2010), starring opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2012, John starred alongside Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demián Bichir in Oliver Stone's, Savages (2012). The film was based on Don Winslow's best-selling crime novel that was named one of The New York Times' Top 10 Books of 2010. John was most recently seen in Killing Season (2013), co-starring Robert De Niro, and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. John recently completed production on the Boston-based film, The Forger (2014), alongside Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer and Critic's Choice nominee Tye Sheridan. John plays a second-generation petty thief who arranges to get out of prison to spend time with his ailing son (Sheridan) by taking on a job with his father (Plummer) to pay back the syndicate that arranged his release. John has received 2 prestigious aviation awards: in 2003, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation Award for Excellence for his efforts to promote commercial flying, and, in 2007, The Living Legends Ambassador of Aviation award.
John holds 11 jet licenses: 747, 707, Gulfstream II, Lear 24, Hawker 1251A, Eclipse Jet, Vampire Jet, Canadair CL-141 Jet, Soko Jet, Citation ISP and Challenger. Travolta is the Qantas Airways Global Goodwill "Ambassador-at-Large" and piloted the original Qantas 707 during "Spirit of Friendship" global tour in July/August 2002. John is also a business aircraft brand ambassador for Learjet, Challenger and Global jets for the world's leading business aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier. John flew the 707 to New Orleans after the 2005 hurricane disaster bringing food and medical supplies, and in 2010, again flew the 707, this time to Haiti after the earthquake, carrying supplies, doctors and volunteers.
John, along with his late wife, actress Kelly Preston (1962-2020), were very involved in their charity, The Jett Travolta Foundation, which raises money for children with educational needs.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Madeline Kathryn Brewer was born on May 1, 1992 in Pitman, New Jersey. She is a graduate of American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, graduating in 2012. Her TV debut is Orange Is the New Black (2013). Prior to "Orange is the New Black", she stated that she had no prior professional acting experience. As of 2013, she resides in New York City.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Patrick Warburton is known to many for the role of "Puddy" in the hit NBC comedy "Seinfeld," the laconic, enigmatic, quirky Saab salesman and Elaine's boyfriend. Warburton starred for 7 seasons on the hit CBS comedy "Rules of Engagement" with David Spade, Oliver Hudson, and Megyn Price about two couples and their single friend, all at different stages in their relationships dealing with the complications of dating, commitment, and marriage. He is now set to star in NBC's newest sitcom series entitled "Crowded," premiering Sunday, March 20th, about an empty nest couple (Warburton & Carrie Preston) who find out their adult daughters want to move back home with them. Patrick also played "Guy" in the international blockbuster comedy Ted and recently completed shooting the highly anticipated sequel Ted 2 where he reprises his role. Warburton starred on the ABC hit comedy "Less than Perfect," as "Jeb Denton," an opinionated network anchorman; and on the hit show "NewsRadio" as "Johnny Johnson" the unscrupulous business rival who takes over the station. Warburton starred in Disney's major motion picture, live action comedy Underdog, as the archenemy "Cad," based on the 1964 cartoon television series. He is also perhaps the busiest voiceover artist in Hollywood for his many characters including the role of the paraplegic and over-zealous cop, "Joe Swanson," on the hit comedy "Family Guy."
Warburton was the lead in the independent film The Civilization of Maxwell Bright, in which he stared as a vicious and self-destructive anti-hero who desperately needs to save his soul. The film won numerous festival awards in which Warburton captured Best Actor at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, New York VisionFest, and the Boulder International Film Festival. The film's other honors include Viewer's Choice at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, the Special Jury Award at WorldFest Houston and at the Florida Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize at the Florida Film Festival, and the Vision Award for David Beaird at WorldFest Houston. This festival favorite is essentially a modern re-telling of "Beauty and the Beast" that explores what happens when a modern Neanderthal is locked in close proximity with a kind and loving woman. Written and directed by David Beaird, The Civilization of Maxwell Bright co-stars Jennifer Tilly, Marie Matiko, Simon Callow and Eric Roberts. In addition, Warburton starred in the independent feature film I'll Believe You alongside Fred Willard, Thomas Gibson, and Chris Elliott, a comedy for young adults/teens about a hunt for an alleged alien living in a small town after a mysterious phone call is received on a radio broadcast. The film was released in April of 2007 to 1,500 theaters nationwide, quite the accomplishment for a small independent film.
To complement his animated films, Warburton voiced the hit cartoon series "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated" and the animated feature Bee Movie with Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey. He played the character "Rip Smashenburn" in the UPN animated series "Game Over," the voice of "Brock Samson" in the animated adult series "The Venture Brothers," and the voice of "Mr. Barkin" on the Disney Channel's "Disney's Kim Possible." He plays the character of Ian, "the ultimate alpha-male," in the Sony animated film Open Season opposite Ashton Kutcher and Martin Lawrence. Playing in both regular theaters and Imax 3-D, it was a box office smash on its opening week as #1 and held top spots following its debut. Warburton's voice can also be heard alongside that of Sarah Michelle Geller, Sigourney Weaver, George Carlin, Andy Dick, and Freddie Prinze Jr. in the animated feature film Happily N'ever After, from the producers of Shrek, where he plays the voice of "Prince Humperdink." As the voice of the "Savior of the Universe" in Disney's animated Saturday morning TV series "Buzz Lightyear," Warburton's voice graced the big screen in the Disney animated film The Emperor's New Groove, Kronks New Groove and "The Emperor's New School."
Warburton started his television career appearing regularly on the CBS sitcom "Dave's World," with Harry Anderson and Mesach Taylor and originally guest-starred on "Seinfeld" as the painted-faced New Jersey Devils' fan and Jerry's mechanic, only to become one of the show's funniest fixtures. He also did commercial spots for American Express (as the voice of "Superman" alongside Seinfeld), Cadillac, and M&Ms. Warburton starred in The Woman Chaser, which received critical acclaim at the prestigious New York Film Festival and The Sundance Film Festival, as well as opposite Sam Neill in The Dish, an Australian production about the first man on the moon. Barry Sonnenfeld directed Warburton in the Columbia Tri Star half-hour comedy "The Tick," which continues to have a huge cult following since its release on DVD. The show gained its popularity with audiences due to its relaxed, adult-friendly comedy. "The Tick", in addition to the DVD, has released action figures, t-shirts, and Quaker Oat Life cereal boxes with "The Tick" character adorning the cover. He also paired up with Tim Allen in Sonnenfeld's feature films Big Trouble and Joe Somebody, and also appeared in Scream 3 and Men in Black 2.
A native Californian, Patrick grew up in Huntington Beach and resides in Ventura County with his wife Cathy and four children Talon, Alexandra (Lexie), Shane, and Gabriel. When talking about his children, Patrick's face lights up as he describes them as the ultimate joy and love of his life. With what little spare time he has, Patrick gets in a game of golf or tennis, does activities with his children, and spends time in his cabin on the Rogue River in Oregon with his family. Warburton also hosts the annual charity golf tournament The Warburton a Celebrity Tournament to benefit St. Jude Children's Hospital each year in Palm Springs, CA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Molly Price was born on 15 December 1966 in North Plainfield, New Jersey, USA. She is an actress, known for How Do You Know (2010), Third Watch (1999) and Sweet and Lowdown (1999). She has been married to Derek Kelly since 13 October 2001. They have one child.- Brandon Sklenar was born and raised in northern New Jersey. His father a carpenter and his mother a hair dresser. With an intense passion for both film and music, at a young age he decided to pursue a career as an actor and filmmaker.
In 2018 Brandon worked with revered international filmmaker Amir Naderi (99 Homes), on his next directorial effort, Magic Lantern. He filmed a supporting role in the highly acclaimed Dick Cheney biopic VICE, with Academy Award Winners Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell and writer/director Adam McKay. Brandon also starred opposite Matt Smith (The Crown) as real life artist Edward Mapplethorpe, in the film Mapplethorpe, about the life and death of controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, which premiered in competition at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
In 2019 Brandon filmed Lead roles in three feature films. He starred as Texas moonshiner, Deke Jones in the dark comedy, Jonesin'. He starred opposite Rosie Day (Outlander) as a concert violinist in Jaclyn Bethany's relationship drama, Indigo Valley. He played West Virginia oil man, Junior Lawford, in the western, London Calling, opposite Nick Braun (Succession) and Ron Perlman. As well as a supporting role portraying real life Torpedo Bomber and World War 2 hero, George Gay, in Roland Emmerich's upcoming World War 2 epic Midway. - Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Jon Bon Jovi, was born John Francis Bongiovi, Jr. On March 2, 1962, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey to parents John Francis Bongiovi, Sr. and Carol Sharkey.
Family: Jon's mother, Carol Sharkey, was a former model and one of the first Playboy Bunnies. She met Bon Jovi's father after she enlisted in the United States Marines. John was already in the Marines when they met.
Bon Jovi has two brothers, Anthony and Matthew. Bon Jovi has four children, and is married to Dorothea Hurley (1989-present).
Known best as a singer-songwriter, in 1983 he was the founder and frontman of a band that bears his name. Bon Jovi is also known as a record producer, actor and philanthropist.
Music Career: Bon Jovi's music career started in June of 1982 after he was turned down by several record labels, including Atlantic Records and Mercury (Polygram) for the song "Runaway" which he recorded with a studio band named "The Allstars."
After being turned down he visited New York City's major market rock station WAPP, also known as "The Apple" at 103.5FM. WAPP included the song on a compilation of local talent and it became in instant hit.
In 1983 he signed with Mercury Records to promote "Runaway" and had to form a new band. Jon Bon Jovi became David Bryan, Alec John Such, bassist, Tico Torres, drummer, and his neighbor, Dave Sabo at lead guitar. Sabo played only a few local shows before he left to form the group Skid Row with Rachel Bolan. Sabo was soon replaced with Richie Sambora.
After "Runaway" became a worldwide hit, Bon Jovi wanted a name for the band. He wanted to call themselves Johnny Electric. But Richard Fischer, employed then by Doc McGhee, suggested that Bon Jovi follow the norm where many bands were naming their groups by the lead or frontman' name, such as, Van Halen, Dokken, Bryan Adams, Alice Cooper (70's), so Bon Jovi became the name of the band.
The band's breakout album, "Slippery When Wet," was their third studio album released in 1986. It became the band's best-selling album, selling more than 28 million worldwide, according to a Jan. 29, 2008 issue of the Daily Telegraph.
Bon Jovi's next album, "New Jersey," not only shared the same success as "Slippery When Wet," the album had five top-10 hits on Billboard's Hot-100. No other album or artist ever produced as many top-10 hits, and as of this writing (September 4, 2016) this record still stands. And two of the top-10 hits, "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There For You" topped the charts at number one, according to Bon Jovi's Biography on the Billboard website.
The band then went on an 18-month international tour, and when they finished, the band went on a hiatus.
Hiatus and Young Guns II: During the hiatus, Bon Jovi was hired to write the soundtrack for the movie "Young Guns II." During this time actor Emilio Estevez approached Bon Jovi and asked if he could use "Wanted, Dead or Alive" as the title song for the movie.
Bon Jovi balked at the idea, saying he didn't think that song was the proper song, so he quickly wrote "Blaze of Glory."
As the story goes, Kiefer Sutherland in an interview for UNCUT magazine said; "When Jon (Bon Jovi) joined the team for Young Guns II, we were all eating hamburgers in a diner and Jon was scribbling on this napkin for, say, six minutes. He declared he'd written 'Blaze of Glory', which of course then went through the roof in the States. He later gave Emilio Estevez the napkin. We were munching burgers while he wrote a No. 1 song... Made us feel stupid."
Afterwards, Bon Jovi played the song in a New Mexico desert for Estevez and John Fusco. This was the first time Bon Jovi played the song and heard by anyone. When the co-producers heard the song in a trailer, it was a no-brainer. It became the theme song for "Young Guns II."
"Young Guns II," which was released in 1990 named which Bon Jovi made into his next album "Blaze of Glory." This was Bon Jovi's first solo album as the other band members were off doing other things during the hiatus.
The movie's budget was $20 million and went on to earn $44 million. Two hits came from this album, "Blaze of Glory" and Miracle." Bon Jovi earned several Grammy and Oscar nominations.
While he wrote a song or two for a couple of shows before this, this was his first and only project where he wrote every song for a movie's soundtrack. He did go on to write songs for other movies, and many of the group's songs were used in a variety of TV series.
Back Together (Kind Of): During the years from their first hit "Runaway" in 1982, the group has released 12 studio albums and Bon Jovi recorded two solo albums and a number of singles. Worldwide, his band has sold more than 130 albums, ranking them among the top of the best sellers.
But the band isn't sitting around and resting. In 2015 there were rumors of a planned new album to be released sometime in 2016.
Rumors used to spread like wildfires, but today, the Internet allows them to travel at the speed of light. Talk about a new album for 2016 was confirmed by a consultant, and another world tour would follow.
On September 30, 2015, Bon Jovi said during a press conference confirming the new album, its title will be "This House Is Not For Sale." He further said that the album is about the group's integrity.
"Integrity matters and we're at a place in our career where we don't have anything left to prove," Bon Jovi said.
However, the new album is the first one without creative input from Richie Sambora, who left the group in 2013.
On Bon Jovi's Facebook page, a post announced that the new album, "This House Is Not For Sale" was released on August 27, 2016
Acting Career: He started acting in the 1990's starring in minor roles in movies such as "U-571," and "Moonlight and Valentino," and as Helen Hunt's husband in the movie "Pay It Forward" starring Kevin Spacey. He also appeared on several TV shows such as "Sex and the City" and "Ally McBeal."
Accolades: In 2009, Bon Jovi was inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Bon Jovi has also made appearances on some prestigious lists:- In 1996, he was named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People In The World" By People Magazine.
- In 2000, the same magazine named him the "Sexiest Rock Star."
- Also in 2000 VH1 placed him on its "100 Sexiest Artists."
- In 2012 was ranked 50th in Billboard's magazine's "Power 100," a ranking of "The Most Powerful and Influential People In The Music Business."
Philanthropy: In addition, Bon Jovi was the one of the founders and majority owners of the Arena Football League team Philadelphia Soul. He is the founder of The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation which was founded in 2006 and exists to combat issues that force families and individuals into economic despair. He also campaigned for Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election, John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, and Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election. In 2010, President Barack Obama named Bon Jovi to the White House Council for Community Solutions. He was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Monmouth University in 2001.- Actor
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Michael Cristofer was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and an Antoinette Perry "Tony" Award for the Broadway production of his play, The Shadow Box. Other plays include Breaking Up (Primary Stages), ICE, (Manhattan Theatre Club); Black Angel, (Circle Repertory Company); The Lady and the Clarinet starring Stockard Channing, Amazing Grace starring Marsha Mason and Man in the Ring, the story of prize fighter Emile Griffith, which received the American Theater Critics Award for best American play in 2017.
Mr. Cristofer's film work includes the screenplays for The Shadow Box (1980) directed by Paul Newman (Golden Globe Award, Emmy nomination), Falling in Love (1984), with Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro, The Witches of Eastwick (1987) with Jack Nicholson, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) directed by Brian De Palma, Breaking Up (1997) starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009) (Writers Guild Award) with Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons, Casanova (2005) starring Heath Ledger, and Chuck (2016) starring Liev Schreiber. His directing credits include Gia (1998), for HBO Pictures starring Angelina Jolie, Mercedes Ruehl, and Faye Dunaway, which was nominated for 5 Emmys and for which he won a Director's Guild Award. He next directed Body Shots (1999) for New Line Cinema and Original Sin (2001) starring Antonio Banderas.
For eight years he worked as co-artistic director of River Arts Repertory in Woodstock, N.Y., where he wrote stage adaptations of the films Love Me Or Leave Me and the legendary Casablanca, directed Joanne Woodward in his own adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts and produced the American premier of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women - a production which later moved to Off-Broadway. His most recent works for the theater are in workshop at the Actor's Studio where he is a member. After a fifteen year hiatus, Mr. Cristofer has returned to his acting career appearing in Romeo and Juliet (NY Shakespeare Festival), Trumpery by Peter Parnell, Three Sisters (Williamstown Theater), Body of Water with Christine Lahti, and the acclaimed Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge with Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson.
His film work includes The Girl in the Book (2015), The Other Woman (2009) with Natalie Portman and Michel Franco's Chronic with Tim Roth. He created the role of Gus in Tony Kushner's The Intelligent Homosexual... at the Public Theater and starred in Stephen Belber's Don't Go Gentle at MCC Theater. He appeared as the infamous Truxton Spangler in the AMC series Rubicon (2010) and was recently seen in the NBC series, Smash (2012), American Horror Story (2011), Showtime's Ray Donovan (2013). On the USA Network series, Mr. Robot (2015), he plays Evil Corp CEO, Philip Price.- Actress
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Zoe Saldana was born on June 19, 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey, to Asalia Nazario and Aridio Saldaña. Her father was Dominican and her mother is Puerto Rican. She was raised in Queens, New York. When she was 10 years old, she and her family moved to the Dominican Republic, where they would live for the next seven years. While living there, Zoe discovered a keen interest in performance dance and began her training at the prestigious ECOS Espacio de Danza Dance Academy where she learned ballet as well as other dance forms. Not only did her training provide an excellent outlet for the enthusiastic and energetic youngster, it would also prove to be a fortunate precursor for the start of her professional acting career. At age 17, Zoe and her family moved back to the United States where her love for dance followed and an interest in theater performance became stronger.
She began performing with the Faces theater troupe which put on plays geared to provide positive messages for teens with themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and sex. These performances not only gave her valuable experience but also a source of great pride knowing that she was making a difference in the lives of young people like herself. While performing with the Faces troupe and also the New York Youth Theater, Zoe was recruited for a talent agency and her dance training years before coupled with her acting experience greatly helped her land her first big screen role as Eva Rodriguez, the talented and headstrong ballet dancer in the film Center Stage (2000). Since her professional career began several years ago, Zoe's talent and determination have allowed her to be involved in blockbuster films and act with major actors, actresses and industry insiders at a pace that very few young professionals have experienced.
Zoe has not only held her own in major motion picture productions but gained the respect and praise from industry insiders such as Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg and actors/actresses such as Tom Hanks, Bernie Mac, Keira Knightley, Ashton Kutcher, Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom. According to many of her co-stars, producers and directors, the sky is no limit for this young star who has incredible range, intense concentration, and a steely determination to be involved with projects that challenge her professionally with wide-ranging subject matters and characters. Just to ask practically anyone who she has worked for or with about her, glowing comments abound and earned friendships and respect are readily revealed. A star has been born, and growing every day.- Actor
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A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated to peace and human welfare, democracy, gun control advocacy, support of the arts and support of nuclear disarmament. In 1998, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Douglas as a Messenger of Peace for his commitment on disarmament issues, including nuclear non-proliferation and halting the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.
Since his earliest acting work on Hail, Hero! (1969) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972) Douglas has played some of the most memorable and enigmatic American anti-heroes of the last half century. He is most known for his iconic screen roles, like his Academy Award-winning turn as Gordon Gekko Wall Street (1987) as well as the critically and commercially acclaimed films Fatal Attraction (1987), The American President (1995), Basic Instinct (1992), Traffic (2000) and Romancing the Stone (1984). He is also a prolific producer with credits on politically relevant and socially influential motion pictures like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The China Syndrome (1979), Traffic (2000) the television series: The Kominsky Method (2018) and an upcoming limited series where Douglas portrays Benjamin Franklin (2024) during his nine years in France lobbying for French aid for the American Revolution.
With a passion for complex protagonists and darkly humorous undercurrents, Douglas has received numerous accolades for his work, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, two French César Awards for Career Achievement and, most recently, the Palme d'or d'honneur for lifetime achievement at the 76th Annual Festival de Cannes as well as the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema at the Goa Film Festival in India.
Michael Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to actors Diana Douglas (Diana Love Dill) and Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch). His paternal grandparents were Belarusian Jewish immigrants, while his mother was born in Bermuda, the daughter of a local Attorney General, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill; Diana's family had long been established in both Bermuda and the United States. Douglas's parents divorced when he was six, and he went to live with his mother and her new husband. Only seeing Kirk on holidays, Michael attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he was about a year younger than all of his classmates.
Douglas attended the elite preparatory Choate School and spent his summers with his father on movie sets. Although accepted at Yale, Douglas attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Deciding he wanted to be an actor in his teenage years, Michael often asked his father about getting a "foot in the door" Kirk was strongly opposed to Michael pursuing an acting career, saying that it was an industry with many downs and few ups, and that he wanted all four of his sons to stay out of it. Michael, however, was persistent, and made his film debut in his father's film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).
After receiving his B.A. degree in 1968, Douglas moved to New York City to continue his dramatic training, studying at the American Place Theatre with Wynn Handman, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he appeared in workshop productions of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1976) and Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey (1963). A few months after he arrived in New York, Douglas got his first big break, when he was cast in the pivotal role of the free-spirited scientist who compromises his liberal views to accept a lucrative job with a high-tech chemical corporation in the CBS Playhouse production of Ellen M. Violett's drama, The Experiment, which was televised nationwide on February 25, 1969.
Douglas' convincing portrayal won him the leading role in the adaptation of John Weston's controversial novel, Hail, Hero! (1969), which was the initial project of CBS's newly organized theatrical film production company, Cinema Center Films. Douglas starred as a well-meaning, almost saintly young pacifist determined not only to justify his beliefs to his conservative parents but also to test them under fire in the jungles of Indochina. His second feature, Adam at Six A.M. (1970) concerned a young man's search for his roots. Douglas next appeared in the film version of Ron Cowen's play Summertree (1971), produced by 'Kirk Douglas'' Bryna Company, and then Napoleon and Samantha (1972), a sentimental children's melodrama from the Walt Disney studio.
In between film assignments, he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway productions, among them "City Scenes," Frank Gagliano's surrealistic vignettes of contemporary life in New York, John Patrick Shanley's short-lived romance "Love is a Time of Day" and George Tabori's "Pinkville," in which he played a young innocent brutalized by his military training. He also appeared in the made-for-television thriller, "When Michael Calls," broadcast by ABC-TV on February 5, 1972 and in episodes of the popular series "Medical Center" and "The F.B.I."
Impressed by Douglas' performance in a segment of The F.B.I. (1965), producer 'Quinn Martin' signed the actor for the part of Karl Malden's sidekick in the police series "The Streets of San Francisco", which premiered in September 1972 and became one of ABC's highest-rated prime-time programs in the mid-1970s. Douglas earned three successive Emmy Award nominations for his performance and he directed two episodes of the series.
During the annual breaks in the shooting schedule for The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Douglas devoted most of his time to his film production company, Big Stick Productions, Ltd., which produced several short subjects in the early 1970s. Long interested in producing a film version of Ken Kesey's grimly humorous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Douglas purchased the movie rights from his father and began looking for financial backing. After a number of major motion picture studios turned him down, Douglas formed a partnership with Saul Zaentz, a record industry executive, and the two set about recruiting the cast and crew. Douglas still had a year to go on his contract for "The Streets of San Francisco," but the producers agreed to write his character out of the story so that he could concentrate on filming "Cuckoo's Nest."
A critical and commercial success, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress, and went on to gross more than $180 million at the box office. Douglas suddenly found himself in demand as an independent producer. One of the many scripts submitted to him for consideration was Mike Gray's chilling account of the attempted cover-up of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Attracted by the combination of social relevance and suspense, Douglas immediately bought the property. Deemed not commercial by most investors, Douglas teamed up with Jane Fonda and her own motion picture production company, IPC Films.
A Michael Douglas-IPC Films co-production, The China Syndrome (1979) starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas and received Academy Award nominations for Lemmon and Fonda, as well as for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review named the film one of the best films of the year.
Despite his success as a producer, Douglas resumed his acting career in the late 1970s, starring in Michael Crichton's medical thriller Coma (1978) with Genevieve Bujold, Claudia Weill's feminist comedy It's My Turn (1980) starring Jill Clayburgh, and Peter Hyams' gripping tale of modern-day vigilante justice, "The Star Chamber" (1983). Douglas also starred in Running (1979), as a compulsive quitter who sacrifices everything to take one last shot at the Olympics, and as Zach the dictatorial director/choreographer in Richard Attenborough's screen version of the Broadway's longest running musical A Chorus Line (1985).
Douglas' career as an actor/producer came together again in 1984 with the release of the tongue-in-cheek romantic fantasy "Romancing the Stone." Douglas had begun developing the project several years earlier, and with Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, the dowdy writer of gothic romances, Danny DeVito as the feisty comic foil Ralphie and Douglas as Jack Colton, the reluctant soldier of fortune. "Romancing the Stone" was a resounding hit and grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Douglas was named Producer of the Year in 1984 by the National Association of Theater Owners. Douglas, Turner and DeVito teamed up in 1985 for the successful sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985).
It took Douglas nearly two years to convince Columbia Pictures executives to approve the production of Starman (1984), an unlikely tale of romance between an extraterrestrial, played by Jeff Bridges, and a young widow, played by Karen Allen. Starman (1984) was the sleeper hit of the 1984 Christmas season and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Jeff Bridges. In 1986 Douglas created a television series based on the film for ABC which starred Robert Hays.
After a lengthy break from acting, Douglas returned to the screen in 1987 appearing in two of the year's biggest hits. He starred opposite Glenn Close in the phenomenally successful psychological thriller, "Fatal Attraction," which was followed by his performance as ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Douglas next starred in Ridley Scott's thriller Black Rain (1989) and then teamed up again with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito in the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).
In 1988, Douglas formed Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced Flatliners (1990), directed by Joel Schumacher and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin and Radio Flyer (1992) starring Lorraine Bracco and directed by Richard Donner. Douglas followed with David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Isaacs' best-selling novel, "Shining Through," opposite Melanie Griffith. In 1992 he starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic thriller from Paul Verhoeven Basic Instinct (1992), one of the year's top grossing films.
Douglas gave one of his most powerful performances opposite Robert Duvall in Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993). That year he also produced the hit comedy "Made in America" starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson and Will Smith. In 1994-95 he starred with Demi Moore in Barry Levinson's "Disclosure," based on the best seller by Michael Crichton. In 1995, Douglas portrayed the title role in Rob Reiner's romantic comedy The American President (1995) opposite Annette Bening, and in 1997, starred in The Game (1997) directed by David Fincher and co-starring Sean Penn.
Douglas formed Douglas/Reuther Productions with partner Steven Reuther in May 1994. The company, under the banner of Constellation Films, produced The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), starring Douglas and Val Kilmer, and John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997), based on John Grisham's best selling novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Matt Damon,Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen, Andrew Shue, Teresa Wright, Johnny Whitworth and Randy Travis.
Michael Douglas and Steve Reuther also produced John Woo's action thriller Face/Off (1997) starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, which proved to be one of '97's major hits.
In 1998, Michael Douglas starred with Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen in the mystery thriller A Perfect Murder (1998), and formed a new production company, Furthur Films. 2000 was a milestone year for Douglas. "Wonder Boys" opened in February 2000 to much critical acclaim. Directed by Curtis Hanson and co-starring Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, Douglas starred in the film as troubled college professor Grady Tripp. Michael was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Film Award for his performance.
"Traffic" was released by USA Films on December 22, 2000 in New York and Los Angeles and went nationwide in January 2001. Douglas played the role of Robert Wakefield, a newly appointed drug czar confronted by the drug war both at home and abroad. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-starring Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Amy Irving, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones, "Traffic" was named Best Picture by New York Film Critics, won Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, won four Academy Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro) and has been recognized on more than 175 top ten lists.
In 2001, Douglas produced and played a small role in USA Films' outrageous comedy "One Night at McCool's" starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser and directed by Harald Zwart. "McCool's" was the first film by Douglas' company Furthur Films. Also in 2001, Douglas starred in "Don't Say A Word" for 20th Century Fox. The psychological thriller, directed by Gary Fleder, also starred Sean Bean, Famke Janseen and Brittany Murphy.
In 2002, Douglas appeared in a guest role on the hit NBC comedy "Will & Grace," and received an Emmy Nomination for his performance.
Douglas starred in two films in 2003. MGM/BVI released the family drama "It Runs in the Family," which Douglas produced and starred with his father Kirk Douglas, his mother Diana Douglas his son Cameron Douglas, Rory Culkin and Bernadette Peters. He also starred in the Warner Bros. comedy "The-In Laws," with Albert Brooks, Candice Bergen and Ryan Reynolds.
In 2004, Douglas, along with his father Kirk, filmed the intimate HBO documentary "A Father, A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lee Grant, the documentary examines the professional and personal lives of both men, and the impacts they each made on the motion picture industry.
In 2005, Douglas produced and starred in "The Sentinel", which was released by 20th Century Fox in April 2006. Based on the Gerald Petievich novel and directed by Clark Johnson, "The Sentinel" is a political thriller set in the intriguing world of the Secret Service. Douglas stars with Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Bassinger. Douglas then filmed "You, Me & Dupree," starring with Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon. The comedy, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, was released by Universal Pictures during the summer of 2006. In 2007 Douglas made "King of California," co-starring Evan Rachel Wood and is written and directed by Michael Cahill, and produced by Alexander Payne and Michael London.
Michael had two films released in early 2009, "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" directed by Peter Hyams and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and directed by Mark Waters. He followed with the drama "Solitary Man" directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-starring Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary Louise-Parker, and Jenna Fischer, produced by Paul Schiff and Steven Soderbergh. In 2010, Douglas reprised his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," earning a Golden Globe for his performance. Again directed by Oliver Stone, he co-starred with Shia Labeouf, Cary Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon.
In 2011, Douglas had a cameo role in Steven Soderbergh's action thriller "Haywire."
"Behind the Candelabra," based on the life of '70's/80's musical icon Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson, directed by Steven Soderbergh and costarring Matt Damon, premiered on HBO in May 2013. Douglas won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor in a television movie or mini series for his performance as the famed entertainer. He followed with the buddy comedy "Last Vegas," directed by John Turtletaub co-starring Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline and the romantic comedy "And So It Goes," co-starring Diane Keaton directed by Rob Reiner.
Douglas recently starred in and produced the thriller "Beyond The Reach," directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti and costarring Jeremy Irvine. He and portrayed Dr. Hank Pym in Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) opposite Paul Rudd. The franchise was his first venture into the realm of comic book action adventure.
In 2017, he starred in the spy thriller "Unlocked" starring with Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich and directed by Michael Apted.
In 1998 Douglas was made a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan. His main concentrations are nuclear non-proliferation and the control of small arms. He is on the Board of Ploughshares Foundation and The Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Michael Douglas was recipient of the 2009 AFI Lifetime Achievement as well as the Producers Guild Award that year. In Spring '10 he received the New York Film Society's Charlie Chaplin Award.
Douglas has hosted 11 years of "Michael Douglas and Friends" Celebrity Golf Event which has raised over $6 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Douglas is very passionate about the organization, and each year he asks his fellow actors and to come out and show that "we are an industry that takes care of own".
Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple has one son, Dylan, and one daughter, Carys. Douglas also has one son, Cameron, from a previous marriage.- Actor
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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.- Actress
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Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Her father was of German and Swiss-German descent, and her mother had English, Irish, and German ancestry.
Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances over the next decade in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the executive producer for the moving ...First Do No Harm (1997). A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..."- Actor
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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 the '00s.
Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey. He was raised believing that his grandmother was his mother, and that his mother, June Frances Nicholson, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in 1975 from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him. His real father is believed to have been either Donald Furcillo, an Italian American showman, or Eddie King (Edgar Kirschfeld), born in Latvia and also in show business. Jack's mother's ancestry was Irish, and smaller amounts of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh.
Nicholson made his film debut in a B-movie titled The Cry Baby Killer (1958). His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971). Before that, he wrote the screenplay for The Trip (1967), and co-wrote Head (1968), a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider (1969) and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination. Nicholson's film career took off in the 1970s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski's noir masterpiece Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar.
The 1980s kicked off with another career-defining role for Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining (1980). A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment (1983), which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; Prizzi's Honor (1985), and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). He portrayed another renowned villain, The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). In the 1990s, he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men (1992), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks! (1996).
Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed (2006), the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), for which he won his third Oscar. Shades of this persona are apparent in About Schmidt (2002), Something's Gotta Give (2003), and The Bucket List (2007). In addition to his Academy Awards and Oscar nominations, Nicholson has seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in 1994.
Nicholson has six children by five different women: Jennifer Nicholson (b. 1963) from his only marriage to Sandra Knight, which ended in 1966; Caleb Goddard (b. 1970) with Five Easy Pieces (1970) co-star Susan Anspach, who was automatically adopted by Anspach's then-husband Mark Goddard; Honey Hollman (b. 1982) with Danish supermodel Winnie Hollman; Lorraine Nicholson (b. 1990) and Ray Nicholson (b. 1992) with minor actress Rebecca Broussard; and Tessa Gourin (b. 1994) with real estate agent Jennine Marie Gourin. Nicholson's longest relationship was the 17 nonmonogamous years he spent with Anjelica Huston; this ended when Broussard announced she was pregnant with his child.- Actor
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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 the early 1990s that culminated in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995), and an Academy Award for Best Actor for midlife crisis-themed drama American Beauty (1999).
His other starring roles have included the comedy-drama film Swimming with Sharks (1994), psychological thriller Seven (1995), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the drama Pay It Forward (2000), the science fiction-mystery film K-PAX (2001)
In Broadway theatre, Spacey won a Tony Award for his role in Lost in Yonkers. He was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. His work in House of Cards earned him Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations for Best Actor.
As enigmatic as he is talented, Kevin Spacey for years kept the details of his private life closely guarded. As he explained in a 1998 interview with the London Evening Standard, "the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen. It allows an audience to come into a movie theatre and believe I am that person". In October 2017, he ended many years of media speculation about his personal life by confirming that he had had sexual relations with both men and women but now identified as gay.
There are, however, certain biographical facts to be had - for starters, Kevin Spacey Fowler was the youngest of three children born to Kathleen Ann (Knutson) and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, in South Orange, New Jersey. His ancestry includes Swedish (from his maternal grandfather) and English. His middle name, "Spacey," which he uses as his stage name, is from his paternal grandmother. His mother was a personal secretary, his father a technical writer whose irregular job prospects led the family all over the country. The family eventually settled in southern California, where young Kevin developed into quite a little hellion - after he set his sister's tree house on fire, he was shipped off to the Northridge Military Academy, only to be thrown out a few months later for pinging a classmate on the head with a tire. Spacey then found his way to Chatsworth High School in the San Fernando Valley, where he managed to channel his dramatic tendencies into a successful amateur acting career. In his senior year, he played "Captain von Trapp" opposite classmate Mare Winningham's "Maria" in "The Sound of Music" (the pair later graduated as co-valedictorians). Spacey claims that his interest in acting - and his nearly encyclopedic accumulation of film knowledge - began at an early age, when he would sneak downstairs to watch the late late show on TV. Later, in high school, he and his friends cut class to catch revival films at the NuArt Theater. The adolescent Spacey worked up celebrity impersonations (James Stewart and Johnny Carson were two of his favorites) to try out on the amateur comedy club circuit.
He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, then left (on the advice of another Chatsworth classmate, Val Kilmer) to join the drama program at Juilliard. After two years of training he was anxious to work, so he quit Juilliard sans diploma and signed up with the New York Shakespeare Festival. His first professional stage appearance was as a messenger in the 1981 production of "Henry VI".
Festival head Joseph Papp ushered the young actor out into the "real world" of theater, and the next year Spacey made his Broadway debut in Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts". He quickly proved himself as an energetic and versatile performer (at one point, he rotated through all the parts in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly"). In 1986, he had the chance to work with his idol and future mentor, Jack Lemmon, on a production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night". While his interest soon turned to film, Spacey would remain active in the theater community - in 1991, he won a Tony Award for his turn as "Uncle Louie" in Neil Simon's Broadway hit "Lost in Yonkers" and, in 1999, he returned to the boards for a revival of O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh".
Spacey's film career began modestly, with a small part as a subway thief in Heartburn (1986). Deemed more of a "character actor" than a "leading man", he stayed on the periphery in his next few films, but attracted attention for his turn as beady-eyed villain "Mel Profitt" on the TV series Wiseguy (1987). Profitt was the first in a long line of dark, manipulative characters that would eventually make Kevin Spacey a household name: he went on to play a sinister office manager in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a sadistic Hollywood exec in Swimming with Sharks (1994), and, most famously, creepy, smooth-talking eyewitness Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects (1995).
The "Suspects" role earned Spacey an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and catapulted him into the limelight. That same year, he turned in another complex, eerie performance in David Fincher's thriller Se7en (1995) (Spacey refused billing on the film, fearing that it might compromise the ending if audiences were waiting for him to appear). By now, the scripts were pouring in. After appearing in Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996), Spacey made his own directorial debut with Albino Alligator (1996), a low-key but well received hostage drama. He then jumped back into acting, winning critical accolades for his turns as flashy detective Jack Vincennes in L.A. Confidential (1997) and genteel, closeted murder suspect Jim Williams in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). In October 1999, just four days after the dark suburban comedy American Beauty (1999) opened in US theaters, Spacey received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Little did organizers know that his role in Beauty would turn out to be his biggest success yet - as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged corporate cog on the brink of psychological meltdown, he tapped into a funny, savage character that captured audiences' imaginations and earned him a Best Actor Oscar.
No longer relegated to offbeat supporting parts, Spacey seems poised to redefine himself as a Hollywood headliner. He says he's finished exploring the dark side - but, given his attraction to complex characters, that mischievous twinkle will never be too far from his eyes.
In February 2003 Spacey made a major move back to the theatre. He was appointed Artistic Director of the new company set up to save the famous Old Vic theatre, The Old Vic Theatre Company. Although he did not undertake to stop appearing in movies altogether, he undertook to remain in this leading post for ten years, and to act in as well as to direct plays during that time. His first production, of which he was the director, was the September 2004 British premiere of the play Cloaca by Maria Goos (made into a film, Cloaca (2003)). Spacey made his UK Shakespearean debut in the title role in Richard II in 2005. In 2006 he got movie director Robert Altman to direct for the stage the little-known Arthur Miller play Resurrection Blues, but that was a dismal failure. However Spacey remained optimistic, and insisted that a few mistakes are part of the learning process. He starred thereafter with great success in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten along with Colm Meaney and Eve Best, and in 2007 that show transferred to Broadway. In February 2008 Spacey put on a revival of the David Mamet 1988 play Speed-the-Plow in which he took one of the three roles, the others being taken by Jeff Goldblum and Laura Michelle Kelly.
In 2013, Spacey took on the lead role in an original Netflix series, House of Cards (2013). Based upon a British show of the same name, House of Cards is an American political drama. The show's first season received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination to include Outstanding lead actor in a drama series. In 2017, he played a memorable role as a villain in the action thriller Baby Driver (2017).- Actor
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Jimmi Simpson is an American actor. He was born in Hackettstown, New Jersey, the youngest of three brothers. After graduating from Bloomsburg University with a Bachelor of Arts in theater, he acted for four seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.
Simpson made his film debut in the teen comedy Loser (2000).
He is best known for his television work, which includes roles in Netflix political drama series House of Cards (2013), and the HBO television series Westworld (2016).- Actress
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Born in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Ali began modeling at age thirteen, and traveled the world before moving to Los Angeles to study acting. Her first professional acting job was a role on the television series Chicago Sons (1997). She received her breakthrough in the high school football drama Varsity Blues (1999) which included her infamous whipped cream bikini scene. Roles in the horror films House on Haunted Hill (1999) and Final Destination (2000) further transitioned her career as an actress.
Acting alongside Colin Farrell, Larter starred in the Western comedy, American Outlaws (2001) which performed poorly at the box office. That year, she also starred as "Brooke Taylor Windham" in the comedy Legally Blonde (2001) with Reese Witherspoon.
Not happy with how things were going, Larter moved to New York in 2002 to reassess her life and career. She reprized her role as "Clear Rivers" in the sequel Final Destination 2 (2003) for which she received star billing. A year later, she made a cameo appearance as herself on the pilot to the HBO comedy drama Entourage (2004) and starred in Three Way (2004) as "Isobel Delano". She had a role in A Lot Like Love (2005) as "Gina."
Larter moved back to Los Angeles in 2006 where she auditioned for a role in the NBC sci-fi drama Heroes (2006). The pilot premiered on September 25, 2006 to successful ratings and many critics declaring it "the new Lost (2004)". The series ran for a total of 77 episodes in 4 Seasons when it was canceled due to diminishing ratings and high production costs. There has been interest in a mini-series or a movie to wrap up story lines.
During her time on Heroes (2006), Larter made several appearances on film. The first was the Bollywood film Marigold (2007) where she received a seven-figure salary. The movie was met with primarily negative reviews. She also starred in Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), part 3 of the popular film franchise based on the Capcom video games. She played "Claire Redfield", based on the video game character of the same name. The movie was a box office success tripling its production budget, albeit being a critical flop. Larter also appeared in the caveman comedy Homo Erectus (2007) which was released direct-to-DVD. The film co-starred Hayes MacArthur, an actor whom she was engaged to marry in December 2007.
In 2009, Larter starred opposite Beyoncé and Idris Elba in the thriller Obsessed (2009). The film opened at number one at the box office but was met with negative reviews, with some critics comparing it to Fatal Attraction (1987). It was also this year that Larter and MacArthur married in a small ceremony in Maine, among the guests was Larter's close friend, Amy Smart. The couple has two children.
She reprised her role as Claire Redfield in Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.- Actor
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In both career and in real life, Bobby Cannavale tends to choose the unconventional way of doing things. In the beginning, his decisions may have cost the dark, swarthily good-looking actor some acting roles and/or good-paying parts but, in the end, his strong work ethic and sense of self, despite a lack of formal training, allowed him to take a successful path off the crowded acting trail. From character goofball and cut-up, he has broken into the leading man ranks with his recent starring role as a reincarnated matchmaker in the TV series Cupid (2009).
Born Roberto M. Cannavale on May 3, 1971, in Union City, New Jersey, to an Italian-American father, Sal, and a Cuban mother, Isabel, he was involved in various activities at his Union City Catholic school, St. Michaels, while growing up. An altar boy, choir boy and lector, he also appeared in the church school's various musicals including his very first, "Guys and Dolls", in which he showed up as one of the gangsters, and "The Music Man", appearing as the lisping, scene-stealing tyke, "Winthrop".
Bobby's parents divorced when he was five years old and his mother moved the family to Puerto Rico for a couple of years. Eventually, they returned to the States and settled in Coconut Creek, Florida, where he attended high school. Restless and uncomfortable in any sort of regimented setting, he often got suspended for playing the class clown. Graduating in the late 1980s, and bitten by the acting bug, Bobby chose to return to the New York/New Jersey area in order to jump start an acting career. Working in bars to support himself, he again avoided the confines of an acting school and, instead, gained experience as a "reader" on occasion with the Naked Angels theatre company. During this time (1994), he met and married Jenny Lumet, the actress-daughter of director Sidney Lumet. They had son, Jake, the following year. The couple divorced in 2003.
Spotted by playwright Lanford Wilson while performing in an East Village production of Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart", Bobby was invited to join Wilson's prestigious Circle Repertory Theatre. As a "reader" for the company, he eventually earned stage parts in "Chilean Holidays" (1996) and in Wilson's "Virgil Is Still the Frog Boy." He also went on to serve as understudy to Mark Linn-Baker in a 1998 production of "A Flea in Her Ear" and later replaced him. A noticeable role in the company's play, "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told" by Paul Rudnick led to Bobby's being cast in the recurring role of a tugboat operator in the TV series Trinity (1998). Having only appeared in bit parts thus far in such movies as Night Falls on Manhattan (1996), directed by Lumet, and I'm Not Rappaport (1996), it was "Trinity" creator John Wells who caught Bobby's stage performance and handed him this career-making break on camera.
Bobby's "nice-guy" aura and blue-collar charm proved invaluable, if a bit restrictive. Once the "Trinity" series ended, Wells cast the 6'3" lug with the trademark caterpillar brows and crooked smile as lovelorn paramedic "Bobby Caffey" in his series Third Watch (1999). The character became quite popular but Bobby, again feeling restricted and wishing to broaden his horizon as an actor, asked to be released from the show -- but "in a big way". Creator Wells obliged and had the paramedic fatally shot in the chest and then experience a "beyond the grave" union with his character's deceased, ne'er-do-well dad.
Bobby next joined the cast of father-in-law Sidney Lumet's acclaimed TV courtroom drama 100 Centre Street (2001), starring Alan Arkin, cast against type as a brazenly opportunistic prosecutor. He subsequently earned recurring roles on Ally McBeal (1997) (in 2002) and Six Feet Under (2001) (in 2004). As for films, Bobby was featured in Gloria (1999), The Bone Collector (1999), Washington Heights (2002) and The Guru (2002) by the time he scored as the gregarious food truck driver in the critically-hailed indie film The Station Agent (2003), which paired him intriguingly opposite the diminutive actor Peter Dinklage.
Unwilling to shirk away from more controversial roles such as his gay drug dealer who has the hots for a fellow prisoner in the acclaimed series Oz (1997) or his closeted dancing neophyte in the film comedy Shall We Dance? (2004) starring Richard Gere, Bobby continued to elevate his status seesawing between film (Shortcut to Happiness (2003), Happy Endings (2005), Romance & Cigarettes (2005)) and TV assignments (the miniseries Kingpin (2003)). He earned big viewer points and an Emmy Award for his recurring portrayal of Will's dour cop/boyfriend on the hit sitcom Will & Grace (1998) in 2004. Elsewhere, on stage, he merited attention in such productions as "Hurlyburly" and earned a Tony Award nomination for his 2007 Broadway debut in "Mauritius."
After five consecutive failed pilots, Bobby has come front-and-center with his quirky starring role in the ABC series Cupid (2009), plus recurring roles in Cold Case (2003) and Nurse Jackie (2009), and his second Emmy-winning part in Boardwalk Empire (2010). He continues to rake up credits on the big screen with (The Merry Gentleman (2008), Diminished Capacity (2008), The Take (2007), 100 Feet (2008), Roadie (2011), Blue Jasmine (2013), link=tt2883512], Ant-Man (2015), I, Tonya (2017), Boundaries (2018) and The Irishman (2019), and with fascinating continuing/regular roles on such TV series as Cupid (2009), Cold Case (2003), Boardwalk Empire (2010), Nurse Jackie (2009), Vinyl (2016), Mr. Robot (2015) and Homecoming (2018), this dark, brutish character has plenty of staying power in both comedy and drama.- Actress
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Jane Krakowski was born in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, to Barbara (Benoit), a college theater instructor, and Edward Krajkowski, a chemical engineer. Her father was of Polish descent and her mother has French-Canadian and Scottish ancestry.
Jane was the winner of the 2003 Tony Award for her stunning and sultry portrayal of "Carla", in the Broadway musical "Nine", opposite Antonio Banderas. Her performance also earned her the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critic's Award. Krakowski also stars in Alfie (2004), the remake of the famous 1966 film, alongside Jude Law. Krakowski recently filmed Pretty Persuasion (2005) starring Evan Rachel Wood and James Woods. Other recent film credits include When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (2003), Go (1999), The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000) as "Betty Rubble", Dance with Me (1998), Mrs. Winterbourne (1996), Stepping Out (1991), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Vacation (1983). For television, Jane received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her portrayal of "Elaine Vassal" on Ally McBeal (1997).
She also stars in NBC's remake of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol: The Musical (2004), opposite Kelsey Grammer. Other recent television credits include: Law & Order (1990), Everwood (2002), the ABC family movie Just a Walk in the Park (2002), and the miniseries, Queen (1993) (aka Alex Haley's "Queen"). Other Broadway credits include "Grand Hotel" (Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominee), "Company", "Once Upon a Mattress", "Tartuffe" and "Starlight Express". In Los Angeles, California, she starred at the Mark Taper Forum in "Henceforward", for which she won the LA Drama Critics Award and the Dramalogue Awards, and played "Mabel" in the Reprise production of "Mack and Mabel". In addition to singing on several original Broadway cast recordings of shows in which she appeared, and the Ally McBeal (1997) Christmas episode compilation CDs, Krakowski also recorded the hit single track "You" with A/C hitman Jim Brickman on his recent album "Lovesongs and Lullabies".- Actress
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Melissa Fumero is an American actress. From the age of ten, she aspired to become an actress and attended New York University, from which she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama. She made her professional debut in 2004, recurring as Adriana Cramer in the soap opera One Life to Live. Following several minor roles, Fumero had her first main role in the Fox (later NBC) comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Amy Santiago, a role she played from 2013 to 2021. Since this breakthrough, Fumero has voiced Melissa Tarleton in the critically acclaimed animated series M.O.D.O.K. (2021) and is set to star in Netflix's upcoming series Blockbuster. She is married to actor and former model David Fumero, with whom she has two sons.- Actor
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Dulé Hill can currently be seen starring as the patriarch Bill Williams in ABC's re-imagining of "The Wonder Years". Inspired by the beloved award-winning series of the same name, the Peabody Award winning, "The Wonder Years" is a coming-of-age story set in the late 1960s that takes a nostalgic look at a black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama.
Dulé was most recently seen in the Netflix film "Hypnotic" and opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway in the HBO Max heist film "Locked Down". Previously, Dulé portrayed the role of Alex Williams in the USA Network drama "Suits," recurred in the second of the SHOWTIME series "Black Monday" with Don Cheadle and Regina Hall, appeared in the HBO series "Ballers" with Dwayne Johnson and starred in J.D. Dillard's drama "Sleight"
Theatrically, Dulé starred in the People's Light production of "Lights Out: Nat 'King' Cole" by Colman Domingo and Patricia McGregor. Hill reprised his role of Nat "King" Cole in the West Coast premiere production at the Geffen Playhouse. For eight seasons Dulé portrayed the role of Burton 'Gus' Guster in the USA Network comedy "Psych" and served as a producer of the series. He received seven NAACP Image Award nominations for "Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series." Dulé revived his role with the original co-stars in the films "Psych: The Movie," "Psych 2: Lassie Come Home" and the third comedy feature "Psych 3: This Is Gus," which premiered on PEACOCK.
Dulé first came to prominence as The Kid opposite Savion Glover and Jeffrey Wright in "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk" (Public Theatre, Broadway), directed by George C. Wolfe. He also appeared in the Tony nominated musical "After Midnight" and co-starred in the Alicia Keys produced play "Stick Fly" on Broadway. His other stage credits include "Black and Blue" (Broadway), "Shenandoah" (Paper Mill Playhouse), "The Little Rascals" (Goodspeed Opera House) and Amiri Baraka's Obie award winning play "Dutchman" (Cherry Lane Theatre).
Dulé began attending dance school at the Marie Wildey School of Dance in East Orange, New Jersey when he was three and received his first break years later as the understudy to Savion Glover in "The Tap Dance Kid" on Broadway. He went on to perform the lead role in the musical's national tour alongside Harold Nicholas of the legendary Nicholas Brothers.
In 1999, Dulé joined the cast of NBC's acclaimed series "The West Wing," as Charlie Young, personal aide to the President (Martin Sheen) and subsequently, deputy special assistant to the chief of staff (Allison Janney). During his seven seasons on the series, Hill garnered an Emmy Award nomination and four Image Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, as well as receiving two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the ensemble in a drama series.
Some of Dule's previous film credits include David Mamet's "Edmond," opposite William H. Macy, "The Guardian," "Sugar Hill," "She's All That" and the 2003 Disney release "Holes," an adaptation of the award-winning children's novel by Louis Sachar in which he appeared as Sam the Onion Man alongside co-stars Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf and Patricia Arquette.- Actress
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Lauren Cohan is a British-American actress and model, best known for her role as Maggie Greene on The Walking Dead (2010) and recurring roles on The Vampire Diaries (2009), Supernatural (2005), and Chuck (2007). After her film debut on Casanova (2005) as Sister Beatrice, she starred in the sequel to National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj (2006), as Charlotte Higginson. Her next role was in the 2007 film, Float (2008). In February 2010, she was cast in Death Race 2 (2010), with Sean Bean and Danny Trejo, and also the supernatural-horror film The Boy (2016), where Lauren played the main character, Greta Evans. In 2016, Cohan also appeared as Martha Wayne in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).
She was born in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and moved to the United Kingdom as a teen. She graduated from the University of Winchester / King Alfred's College where she studied Drama and English Literature, before touring with a theatre company she co-founded at the University. Lauren then split her time and work between London and Los Angeles, working on several films as well as some non-commercial projects.- Actor
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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. Both of his parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris grew up as the middle child. After graduating high school, he attended New York's Columbia University, where he played football. After viewing local theater productions, Harris took a sudden interest in acting. He left Columbia, headed to Oklahoma, where his parents were living, and enrolled in the University of Oklahoma's theater department. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to find work. He started acting in theater and television guest spots. Harris landed his first leading role in a film in cult-favorite George A. Romero's Knightriders (1981). Two years later, he got his first taste of critical acclaim, playing astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff (1983). Also that year, he made his New York stage debut in Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love", a performance that earned him an Obie for Outstanding Actor. Harris' career gathered momentum after that. In 2000, he made his debut as a director in the Oscar-winning film Pollock (2000).- Zach Cherry was born on 1 November 1987 in Trenton, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor, known for Severance (2022), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and Succession (2018).
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Guillermo Diaz was born in 1975 in New Jersey, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Scandal (2012), Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021) and Weeds (2005).- Actor
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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 Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2011.
Peter Hayden Dinklage was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Diane (Hayden), an elementary school teacher, and John Carl Dinklage, an insurance salesman. He is of German, Irish, and English descent. In 1991, he received a degree in drama from Bennington College and began his career. His exquisite theatre work that expresses brilliantly the unique range of his acting qualities, includes remarkable performances full of profoundness, charisma, intelligence, sensation and insights in plays such as "The Killing Act", "Imperfect Love", Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" as well as the title roles in William Shakespeare's "Richard III" and in Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya".
Peter Dinklage received acclaim for his first film, Living in Oblivion (1995), where he played an actor frustrated with the limited and caricatured roles offered to actors who have dwarfism. In 2003, he starred in The Station Agent (2003), written and directed by Tom McCarthy. The movie received critical praise as well as Peter Dinklage's work including nominations such as for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the "Screen Actors Guild" and Best Male Lead at the "Film Independent Spirit Awards". One of his next roles has been the one of Miles Finch, an acclaimed children's book author, in Elf (2003). Find Me Guilty (2006), the original English Death at a Funeral (2007), its American remake Death at a Funeral (2010), Penelope (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) are also included in his brilliant work concerning feature films.
His fine work in television also includes shows such as Entourage (2004), Life as We Know It (2004), Threshold (2005) and Nip/Tuck (2003). In 2011, the primary role of Tyrion Lannister, a man of sharp wit and bright spirit, in Game of Thrones (2011), was incarnated with unique greatness in Dinklage's unparalleled performance. The series is an adaptation of author George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and his work has received widespread praise, also highlighted by his receiving of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards (2011), The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards (2015), The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards (2018) and The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards (2019) as well as of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at [error].
Dinklage, among others, has also voiced Captain Gutt in Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) and The Mighty Eagle in The Angry Birds Movie (2016), starred in the comedy horror film Knights of Badassdom (2013) while his tour-de-force interpretations as a multifarious "chameleon" of substantial mastery and artistic generosity also include film and TV gems such as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Three Christs (2017) and I Think We're Alone Now (2018).- Actress
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Melissa Ivy Rauch was born in Marlboro, New Jersey. She attended Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she received a BFA degree. While going to school, Melissa performed stand-up comedy around Manhattan, and soon made a name for herself on the NYC comedy scene. Her one-woman show, "The Miss Education of Jenna Bush", in which she portrayed Jenna Bush Hager, the former President's daughter, garnered critical acclaim and played to sold-out audiences (Outstanding Solo Show and TheaterMania's Audience Favorite Award--New York International Fringe Festival/HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival).
Melissa resides in Los Angeles, California, with Winston Rauch, her husband and writing partner.- Producer
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Lorene Scafaria was born on 1 May 1978 in Holmdel, New Jersey, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Hustlers (2019), Coherence (2013) and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012).- Dennis Boutsikaris is an American character actor who has won the Obie Award twice. He is also a narrator of audio-books, for which he has won 13 Golden Earphone Awards and 8 Audie Awards. He won Best Audiobook of the Year from Amazon for his reading of American Gods.
Boutsikaris was born in Newark, New Jersey, to a Greek American father and Jewish mother, and grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. He took up acting while a student at Governor Livingston High School, because he felt he was too small to succeed in athletics. A graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, Boutsikaris toured the country with John Houseman's The Acting Company doing classical theatre.
Boutsikaris' film credits include leading roles in *batteries not included, The Dream Team, Crocodile Dundee II, Boys on the Side and In Dreams, among many others. His most recent indie films include Cherry Crush, The Education of Charlie Banks, Calling It Quits," The Bourne Legacy" and "Money Monster". He is Paul Wolfowitz in Oliver Stone's "W." In 2012, he co-starred in The Bourne Legacy, the fourth installment of the successful Bourne franchise.
On television, he had the lead in the series Stat, The Jackie Thomas Show, and Misery Loves Company. He has also had recurring roles on Sidney Lumet's 100 Centre Street, Nurse, Trinity, ER, Law & Order and Showtime's Shameless. Boutsikaris had a leading part in episode twenty of the second season of the hit CBS show Person of Interest which aired in the USA on Thursday, April 26, 2013. He was part of NBC's State of Affairs, the TV series that marks the return to series television of Katherine Heigl. In 2012, he also made an appearance as Jack Quayle in the season 2 episode "Collateral Damage" of the CBS show Blue Bloods. From 2015 to 2022, he played the role of lawyer Rich Schweikart in the first, second, then fourth through sixth seasons of the American series Better Call Saul. In 2017, Boutsikaris was cast in the recurring role of Henry Roarke on the ABC thriller series Quantico.
He has starred in over 20 TV movies, including Chasing the Dragon, And Then There Was One, Three Faces of Karen, Survival on the Mountain, Beyond Betrayal, and as Woody Allen in the miniseries Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (with Patsy Kensit).
On Broadway Boutsikaris became the first American to play Mozart in Amadeus and was directed by Sir Laurence Olivier in Filumena. He starred in the Off-Broadway production of Sight Unseen to great critical acclaim.
He has been seen on Broadway in Bent, Filumena (directed by Sir Laurence Olivier), and Amadeus (as the first American to play Mozart) with Frank Langella. He was seen in the Delacorte Theatre's production of Julius Caesar as Cassius. He was in the original New York productions of The Boys Next Door, A Picasso, and the revival of That Championship Season.
Off-Broadway he is probably best known for playing Jonathan Waxman in the original production of Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club and later at the Orpheum Theatre. He received the Obie Award and a nomination for a Drama Desk Award for this performance. At the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles, he appeared in the premiere of David Mamet's The Old Neighborhood and in 2007 Jane Anderson's The Quality of Life with Laurie Metcalf and Jo Beth Williams. For that performance he received the Backstage West Garland Award for Best Actor and was nominated for Best Actor by the L.A. Critics Drama Circle and by the LA Alliance Ovation Awards.
In 2009 he was in the Broadway revivals of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound again with Laurie Metcalf. The former opened to wide critical acclaim and then closed one week later. The latter never opened.
He continued his association with Laurie Metcalf appearing with her in The Other Place Off-Broadway.
He can be heard in over 160 audio-books and has received eight Audie Awards and two Best Voices of the Year Awards from AudioFile Magazine. He was voted Best Narrator of the Year by Amazon for "THE GENE".
Boutsikaris has received two Obie Awards: one in 1985 for Outstanding Performance in Nest of the Woodgrouse at the New York Shakespeare Festival, directed by Joseph Papp; and one in 1992 for Outstanding Performance in Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club. He also received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Best Actor for Sight Unseen, as well as a Cable ACE nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Chasing the Dragon in 1995. He was nominated for a People's Choice Award as best Newcomer. He received the Best Actor Award at the Staten Island Film Festival and the Long Island Film Festival for his role in Calling It Quits. - Jodi Lyn O'Keefe was born in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey, to Noreen and Jack O'Keefe, a director of labor relations for Merck. She began modeling at the age of 8 after seeing her eldest sister Heather modelling. She modeled for various companies such as Gitano Jeans and DreamPhone. When she reached her teen years she attended Saint John Vianney High School in Holmdel, New Jersey. After her sophomore year Jodi left school to star on the soap Another World (1964), where she played Marguerite Cory. After she left Another World she immediately landed the role of Cassidy Bridges on the hit CBS cop action/drama Nash Bridges (1996). She played Cassidy for all 6 seasons. While she was filming Nash Bridges she made her big screen debut in the 1998 Halloween sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). Jodi then hit the spotlight when she portrayed the snobby, popular and rich Taylor Vaughan in the 1999 hit teen flick She's All That (1999). She then starred in three more movies before she began to keep a lower profile.
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One actor who has deserved much acknowledgment and fame and has had to do without it on a number of occasions is Robert Sean Leonard, known by most as Dr. James Wilson on House (2004). But his career has spanned a number of classic films, alongside such greats as Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington.
Born Robert Lawrence Leonard in Westland, New Jersey, he attended first Fordham University and then Columbia University. Afterwards he was accepted into the Screen Actor's Guild, changing his middle name to 'Sean'. Leonard's first acting role was My Two Loves (1986) where he was cast in a small role. That same year he was also in The Manhattan Project (1986). The film is a suspense thriller starring John Lithgow and is about a science experiment taken too far.
Leonard continued on from these firsts and landed a role in Bluffing It (1987) and then acted in another teen comedy: My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1987). His next role is easily one of his most memorable. He took the second billing in Dead Poets Society (1989) opposite Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke. His character of Neil Perry is a young student whose passion for acting is smothered in fear of his father's wrath and his parents' domination of his life. While Robin Williams earned himself an Oscar nomination, Leonard gave a truly Oscar-worthy performance.
The 20-year old actor was well on his way now, and he proceeded to act in another Oscar-nominated film: Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) starring Paul Newman. Leonard resumed the rebellious youth act from "Dead Poets" as he played one of the children caught between their father's conservative ways and their own ideas. Leonard followed up with the not-so successful Married to It (1991). Two years after that Leonard found massive success in three different films.
Firstly, he acted in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Pulling in 60 million on an 8 million dollar budget, it remains one of the most successful films based off of a play by Shakespeare. Leonard was surrounded by other talents apart in addition to Branagh, such as Brian Blessed, Kate Beckinsale, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, and Emma Thompson. Leonard played the character of Claudio and was sadly criticized by several critics for his acting. However others such as Roger Ebert defended the young lead whose character is deceived into thinking his betrothed is unfaithful.
In the same year, Leonard took the lead in Swing Kids (1993), which also starred Christian Bale, Frank Whaley, Barbara Hershey and Kenneth Branagh who, rather than upstage Leonard, Bale and Whaley, refused any credit in the film. The film, another success for Leonard, told the story of a group of friends in the Hitler Youth attempting to hold onto something they love-- the Lindy hop. Reviews were mixed, but the film has a faithful following to this day.
Also that year Leonard took a smaller role in Martin Scorsese's elaborate and artistic film The Age of Innocence (1993) starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film is about the aristocrat who must choose between two women and risk scandal. The film earned Ryder an Oscar nomination and a win for Best Costume. Leonard himself played the young son of Danny Archer and plays a crucial role at the end of the film.
After these three great films Leonard's career slowed down. Despite acting in three different films in 1996 (the Oliver Stone-produced Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995) starring James Woods, the light-hearted The Boys Next Door (1996), and the romantic I Love You, I Love You Not (1996)) none were as successful as those he made in 1993. Leonard moved onwards to act in (among other things) The Last Days of Disco (1998) and the thriller Ground Control (1998) opposite Kiefer Sutherland, Henry Winkler, and Bruce McGill.
Leonard's work changed as the new millennium began. He turned to television as well as continuing film. He acted in the series The Outer Limits (1995) and Wasteland (1999) as well as making movies such as the dramatic film Tape (2001) by Richard Linklater, A Glimpse of Hell (2001) opposite James Caan, and the box office bomb Driven (2001) starring Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds. After a few more films Leonard was cast in the series that gave him much fame.
House (2004) is a drama series about a cynical, antisocial, crippled doctor who is almost always correct in his solutions to medical problems. Leonard, the first actor to be cast in the series, plays the character of Dr. Wilson, the only person that House considers a friend. Wilson is a much more humane person than House, which leads to many debates between himself and House, though he is plagued by his own problems. It is the best known face that Leonard has ever portrayed in his career, and hopefully he will take on other fantastic roles and obtain the honors he so richly deserves.- Marla Adams was born on 28 August 1938 in Ocean City, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for Gotcha! (1985), The Young and the Restless (1973) and The Golden Girls (1985). She died on 25 April 2024 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor, model and musician. A casting agent, whom Pitt mistook as a police officer attempting to arrest him, noticed him and recommended him for a guest role on the television series Dawson's Creek (1998) (he played Henry Parker in 15 episodes between 1999 and 2000).
Rising through the ranks of indie cinema, Michael starred in dramas like Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), The Dreamers (2003), and Last Days (2005), along with roles in the thrillers Murder by Numbers (2002) and Funny Games (2007). Moving back to television, he played Jimmy Darmody on Boardwalk Empire (2010) and Mason Verger in Hannibal (2013). In 2017, he appears opposite Scarlett Johansson in the science fiction action adaptation Ghost in the Shell (2017).- Actress
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Susan Misner was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1971. She grew up in Pompton Plains where she fell in love with dancing. Her love of the dance led her to New York City where she landed roles in Broadway plays such as Guys and Dolls, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To A Forum, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Dream.
After turning her focus toward acting, Susan appeared on, One Life to Live (1968), as Grace Davidson. She appeared in such films as Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Chicago (2002), Stick It in Detroit (2008), Two Weeks (2006), Somebody's Hero (2012), Cayman Went (2009), and Hope Springs (2012). She can also be seen in music videos by C&C Music Factory and Taylor Dayne.
You can see Susan in CBS's Person of Interest (2011) as Jessica Arndt and in the 2013 Mid-season Thriller The Following (2013) as Jenny Mitchell, who has ties to Kevin Bacon's character.
Susan was just cast in The Americans (2013) as Sandra Beeman and will also play a handful of episodes in ABC's Nashville (2012) as Dr. Stacey Douglas.- Actress
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Cristin Milioti was born and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She has Jewish, Italian, Belgian, Czech, and Irish ancestry, and calls her family "Olive Garden Italian." In middle school, she found her love of acting at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in New York. She attended Cherry Hill High School East, graduating in 2003. She took acting classes at New York University, but dropped out during her freshman year. However, she is listed in the university's advertising.- Actress
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Born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, USA on November 8, 1975. She got her career start at six, when she appeared on a children's game show called Child's Play (1982). Later, she appeared in commercials for Jell-O, McDonald's, and Crayola. She attended the Professional Children's School in New York City. Her classmates included Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jerry O'Connell, Macaulay Culkin, and Ben Taylor. After several career moves, she became known after her role as Bunny, in The Big Lebowski (1998).- Actress
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Courtney Henggeler is an actress, model and singer. As a child she was definitely theatrical. She took acting lessons in LA. Her first audition was for her high school's production of 'Carousel' when she was in 9th grade. She pretended to eat an apple while singing about clams. Her debut was as Susan Beth in the film The Bog Creatures (2003). Though her television debut was in House (2004) (2005), she was popular as Missy Cooper in CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory (2007) in 2008.- Actor
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Ezra Matthew Miller was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, to Marta (Koch), a modern dancer, and Robert S. Miller, who has worked at Workman Publishing and as former senior V.P. for Hyperion Books. Ezra has two older sisters and is of Ashkenazi Jewish (father) and German-Dutch (mother) ancestry. Ezra has described themselves as Jewish and "spiritual".
As a child, Miller sang with the Metropolitan Opera and attended Rockland Country Day School and The Hudson School. Miller's first feature film was the independent Afterschool (2008), with subsequent appearances on the television series Californication (2007), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), and Royal Pains (2009), and in the films City Island (2009), Every Day (2010), Beware the Gonzo (2010), and Another Happy Day (2011).
Miller drew critical praise playing Kevin Khatchadourian, the homicidal son of Tilda Swinton's character, in the dramatic thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). Miller subsequently played Patrick in the well-received teen drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), opposite Logan Lerman and Emma Watson.
Ezra's other roles include the period piece Madame Bovary (2014), Judd Apatow's comedy Trainwreck (2015), and the psychological thriller The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015). Miller has been cast as superhero The Flash in The Flash (2023), scheduled for release in 2022.- Actor
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Danny DeVito has amassed a formidable and versatile body of work as an actor, producer and director that spans the stage, television and film.
Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born on November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey, to Italian-American parents. His mother, Julia (Moccello), was a homemaker. His father, Daniel, Sr., was a small business owner whose ventures included a dry cleaning shop, a dairy outlet, a diner, and a pool hall.
While growing up in Asbury Park, his parents sent him to private schools. He attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel grammar school and Oratory Prep School. Following graduation in 1962, he took a job as a cosmetician at his sister's beauty salon. A year later, he enrolled at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts so he could learn more about cosmetology. While at the academy, he fell in love with acting and decided to further pursue an acting career. During this time, he met another aspiring actor Michael Douglas at the National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. The two would later go on to collaborate on numerous projects. Soon after he also met an actress named Rhea Perlman. The two fell in love and moved in together. They were married in 1982 and had three children together.
In 1968, Danny landed his first part in a movie when he appeared as a thug in the obscure Dreams of Glass (1970). Despite this minor triumph, Danny became discouraged with the film industry and decided to focus on stage productions. He made his Off-Broadway debut in 1969 in "The Man With the Flower in His Mouth." He followed this up with stage roles in "The Shrinking Bride," and "Lady Liberty." In 1975, he was approached by director Milos Forman and Michael Douglas about appearing in the film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which would star Jack Nicholson in the leading role. With box office success almost guaranteed and a chance for national exposure, Danny agreed to the role. The movie became a huge hit, both critically and financially, and still ranks today as one the greatest movies of all time. Unfortunately, the movie did very little to help Danny's career. In the years following, he was relegated to small movie roles and guest appearances on television shows. His big break came in 1978 when he auditioned for a role on an ABC sitcom pilot called Taxi (1978), which centered around taxi cab drivers at a New York City garage. Danny auditioned for the role of dispatcher Louie DePalma. At the audition, the producers told Danny that he needed to show more attitude in order to get the part. He then slammed down the script and yelled, "Who wrote this sh**?" The producers, realizing he was perfect for the part, brought him on board. The show was a huge success, running from 1978 to 1983.
Louie DePalma, played flawlessly by Danny, became one of the most memorable (and reviled) characters in television history. While he was universally hated by TV viewers, he was well-praised by critics, winning an Emmy award and being nominated three other times. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Danny maintained his status as a great character actor with memorable roles in movies like Romancing the Stone (1984), Ruthless People (1986), Throw Momma from the Train (1987) and Twins (1988). He also had a great deal of success behind the camera, directing movies like The War of the Roses (1989) and Hoffa (1992). In 1992, Danny was introduced to a new generation of moviegoers when he was given the role of The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot in Tim Burton's highly successful Batman Returns (1992). This earned him a nomination for Best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards. That same year, along with his wife Rhea Perlman, Danny co-founded Jersey Films, which has produced many popular films and TV shows, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Man on the Moon (1999) and Erin Brockovich (2000). DeVito has many directing credits to his name as well, including Throw Momma from the Train (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Hoffa (1992), Death to Smoochy (2002) and the upcoming St. Sebastian.
In 2006, he returned to series television in the FX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005). With a prominent role in a hit series, Devito's comic talents were now on display for a new generation of television viewers. In 2012, he provided the title voice role in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012).
These days, he continues to work with many of today's top talents as an actor, director and producer.- Actor
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Rarely at a loss for work, Willie Garson appeared in more than 300 episodes of television and more than 70 films. Best known for his long runs on television as Mozzie on White Collar (2009), Stanford Blatch on Sex and the City (1998), and Henry Coffield on NYPD Blue (1993), he also appeared as the grifter with a heart of gold, Gerard Hirsch, on Hawaii Five-0 (2010).
Born in New Jersey, he started training at the Actors Institute In New York, before majoring in psychology and theater at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After graduation, he quickly started landing guest roles on such shows as Cheers (1982), Family Ties (1982), Thirtysomething (1987), L.A. Law (1986), as well as continually recurring in a wide array of shows including The X-Files (1993), Twin Peaks (1990), Two and a Half Men (2003), Stargate SG-1 (1997), Pushing Daisies (2007), The Practice (1997), Ally McBeal (1997), etc., etc., etc. His favorite long-form role on TV was Dr. Kreutz for Steven Spielberg in the acclaimed miniseries Taken (2002). Garson also appeared in many episodes of Boy Meets World (1993) and Girl Meets World (2014).
On the big screen, other than reprising his Sex and the City (1998) role for two features (Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010)), he collaborated with the Farrelly brothers on three films, There's Something About Mary (1998), Kingpin (1996), and Fever Pitch (2005), as well as appearing in Soapdish (1991), Groundhog Day (1993), Mars Attacks! (1996), The Rock (1996), Being John Malkovich (1999), and many others. He was often used by such varied directors as Spike Jonze, Michael Bay, the late great Mike Nichols, and Ron Shelton. Next up is Feed (2017), touching on a subject Garson was very proud to be a part of. Upcoming films include 7 Days to Vegas (2019), and Magic Camp (2020).
As a director, Garson directed episodes of White Collar (2009) and Girl Meets World (2014), and, with Warner Brothers, had TV shows in development as producer/creator.
Garson continued to perform with various bicoastal theater companies such as Naked Angles, Manhattan Theater Club, the Roundabout Theater, and the Geffen. He was also very involved with many charities, including AMFAR, Camp Joslin for Diabetes, Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, and especially the Alliance for Children's Rights, which facilitates adoptions in LA County. This had a special place in the Garson family, as Willie adopted his son Nathan in Los Angeles in 2010, and twice served as national spokesman for National Adoption Day.
Aside from acting, Garson was known as a world-class poker player, nicknamed Evil Willie on the first episode of Celebrity Poker Showdown (2003), and continued to play in tournaments all over the world, both for charity and through the World Poker Tour.- Actress
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Laura San Giacomo was born in West Orange, New Jersey, to MaryJo and John San Giacomo. She was raised in the nearby city of Denville. She went to Morris Knolls High School in Denville, where she got the acting bug and had the lead in several school plays. Laura got a Fine Arts degree, specializing in acting, at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama (Pittsburgh). After graduation, she moved to New York.
During the late 1980s (1987-89) before starting her film career, she appeared on Spenser: For Hire (1985), Crime Story (1986), The Equalizer (1985), All My Children (1970) and Miami Vice (1984). Her breakout film was her first credited role in Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). The movie won the Cannes Film Festival's Grand Prize, the Palme d'Or. Laura received a Los Angeles Film Critics Association's New Generation Award and a Golden Globe nomination for her role. Next, she was Kit De Luca in Pretty Woman (1990) (1990) opposite Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. The film won the People's Choice Awards for Best Comedy and Best Film.
On stage, Laura has appeared in many theater productions. She was on the Los Angeles stage in the Garry Marshall-Lowell Ganz production of "Wrong Turn at Lungfish", in "North Shore Fish" (WPA Theatre), in "Three Sisters" (Princeton/McCarter Theatre, New Jersey, 1992) and in "Beirut" (Off-Broadway, Westside Arts Theatre, New York City, 1987). She also starred in "Italian American Reconciliation" (Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, 1988) and "The Love Talker" (Off-Broadway in 1988). In regional theater, Laura was in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", "As You Like It" and "Romeo and Juliet". She also starred in "Crimes of the Heart".
During the early 1990s, she was busy making movies (Vital Signs (1990), Quigley Down Under (1990), Once Around (1991) (where she played Holly Hunter's sister), Under Suspicion (1991), Where the Day Takes You (1992) and Nina Takes a Lover (1994)). In 1994, she also appeared in Stephen King's television miniseries, The Stand (1994). During the mid 1990s, she also provided her voice to an animated series Gargoyles (1994). Offscreen, Laura got married to Cameron Dye in 1990 (and divorced in 1998). They had a son, Mason, in 1996. Having a child influenced Laura to make the transition to television. She started in the sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997), which also starred George Segal (as her father, Jack), Wendie Malick, Enrico Colantoni and David Spade. Television gave her a more regular work schedule and less traveling. The series lasted for seven seasons and 148 episodes. She appeared in all of them together with the other four regular cast members.
After Just Shoot Me! (1997) was canceled in 2003, Laura appeared infrequently on television and in feature films. She was the narrator for Snapped (2004), a true crime series. In 2005, she appeared in two feature films (Checking Out (2005) and Havoc (2005)). In 2006, she was reunited with her Just Shoot Me! (1997) co-star Enrico Colantoni in Veronica Mars (2004), where she played Harmony Chase for three episodes. In September 2006, she secured a starring role in Saving Grace (2007) as Grace's (Holly Hunter's) best friend, Rhetta Rodriguez. Laura continued to play the role through all three seasons.- Actor
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James Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey, to Santa (Penna), a high school lunchlady, and James Joseph Gandolfini, Sr., a bricklayer and head school janitor. His parents were both of Italian origin. Gandolfini began acting in the New York theater. His Broadway debut was in the 1992 revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin. James' breakthrough role was his portrayal of Virgil the hitman in Tony Scott's True Romance (1993), but the role that brought him worldwide fame and accolades was as complex Mafia boss Tony Soprano in HBO's smash hit series The Sopranos (1999). He died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2013 while vacationing in Italy.- Actor
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Intense was the word for Ray Liotta. He specialized in psychopathic characters who hide behind a cultivated charm. Even in his nice-guy roles in Field of Dreams (1989) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), you get the impression that something is smoldering inside of him. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was adopted by Mary (Edgar), a township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto parts store owner. He studied acting at the University of Miami, where he became friends with Steven Bauer (Scarface (1983), Thief of Hearts (1984)). He spent his first years acting in TV: Another World (1964), a TV movie and several short-lived series. He broke into movies with the black comedy Something Wild (1986), which garnered him rave reviews. Originally unable to get a reading, he was recommended for the part by Melanie Griffith (then married to Bauer).
Following the success Something Wild (1986), he received more offers in the "psycho" vein, but refused them to avoid being typecast. Instead, he made "little movies" like Dominick and Eugene (1988), which earned him standing as an actor's actor, and Field of Dreams (1989), whose success always surprised him. When he heard Martin Scorsese was casting Goodfellas (1990), he lobbied hard for the part of Henry Hill. The film's huge success brought him wide popularity and garnered him star billing in future films such as Article 99 (1992), Unlawful Entry (1992), and Unforgettable (1996).
Liotta died on May 26, 2022, aged 67, in his sleep while filming on location in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.- Writer
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Michael Showalter is a director, writer, and producer who most recently directed the 2017 hit The Big Sick. Previously he directed and co-wrote the 2016 film Hello, My Name Is Doris starring Sally Field. Michael's first film was the The Baxter (2005) starring Michelle Williams and Justin Theroux. Michael is a co-creator of the critically acclaimed television show Search Party on TBS. He also co-created the TV mini-series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later on Netflix.
As a writer and producer, Michael's other film credits include Wet Hot American Summer and They Came Together. Michael is a founding member of the comedy groups The State and Stella. He's also written two books: Mr. Funny Pants and Guys Can Be Cat Ladies Too.