Kristanna Loken

Kristanna Sommer Løken (born October 8, 1979) is an American actress and model.

Early life

She was born in Hudson, New York to Chris Loken (a Norwegian American writer) and Rande Porath (a model). She grew up on her parents’ fruit farm in Upstate New York.

Film career

Loken started her acting career in 1996, when she appeared in several television shows and films. She is probably best known for her performance as the android T-X (Terminatrix) in the 2003 movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Subsequently, she starred as the leading character in the 2006 film version of the video game BloodRayne.

Laura Linney

Laura Linney (born February 5, 1964 in New York City) is an American actress.

She was nominated for a Academy Award for Best Actress in 2000 for her role in You Can Count on Me, and again in 2004 for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Kinsey. Other films she appeared in include Mystic River, The Truman Show, and Primal Fear.

Her important television roles include "Mary Ann Singleton" in the television adaptations of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City books. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2004 for her recurring role as the final love interest of Frasier Crane in Frasier.

Her extensive stage credits on Broadway and elsewhere include Hedda Gabler, Holiday (based on the movie starring Katharine Hepburn), and The Crucible.

Linney was educated at the Northfield Mount Hermon School and Brown University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1986. She also trained at the Juilliard School and the Moscow Art Theatre. Her father is the playwright Romulus Linney and her mother was a nurse.

Selected Filmography

Driving Lessons (2006) as Laura
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) as Erin Bruner
The Squid and the Whale (2005) as Joan Berkman
P.S. (2004) as Louise Harrington
Kinsey (2004) as Clara McMillen
Love Actually (2003) as Sarah
Mystic River (2003) as Annabeth Markum
The Life of David Gale (2003) as Constance Harraway
The Mothman Prophecies (2002) as Connie Mills
The Laramie Project (2002) as Sherry Johnson
The House of Mirth (2000) as Bertha Dorset
You Can Count on Me (2000) as Samantha ‘Sammy’ Prescott
The Truman Show (1998) as Hanna Gill as Meryl Burbank
Absolute Power (1997) as Kate Whitney
Primal Fear (1996) as Janet Venable
Congo (1995) as Dr. Karen Ross
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) as School Teacher
Dave (1993) as Randi
Lorenzo’s Oil (1992) as Young Teacher

Lucy Liu

Lucy Alexis Liu (born December 2, 1968 in New York City, New York) is a Chinese American actress, who starred in the TV series Ally McBeal and in the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels. Her Chinese name is Liú Yùlíng (劉玉玲).

She was raised in Queens, New York by Chinese immigrant parents, and attended New York City’s famous Stuyvesant High School. She attended New York University for one year, transferred to University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and graduated with a degree in Asian languages and cultures.

Liu is widely considered the most prominent Asian-American actress in American media. She had small stints in films and TV roles before landing a break on Ally McBeal. Liu’s role on the series was originally not meant to be a regular, but the enthusiastic audience response to the actress’ feisty Ling Woo secured Lucy as a prominent cast member. She became more famous with her turn as Alex in the Charlie’s Angels movie, starring alongside more established modern Hollywood icons Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz. The sequel to the film, however, opened to poor reviews and box office receipts. Lucy was also paid sixteen million dollars less for her work in Charlie’s Angels than co-star Cameron Diaz.

Liu starred with Antonio Banderas in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, a critical and box-office failure that was remarkable only in its casting of two minorities as the lead roles. Liu had a hit as Princess Pei-Pei in Shanghai Noon.

Lucy is perhaps most famous for her role as O-Ren Ishii in director Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films. The first installment of the Kill Bill films, Volume 1, exposed Lucy as a more serious and physically adept actress than had been evident from her previous roles. She won an MTV Movie Award, further solidifying her fame with young, hip audiences, for "Best Movie Villain".

Lucy recently appeared on several episodes of "Joey" with Matt LeBlanc, who played her love interest in the Charlie’s Angels movies. She also had a small role opposite Keira Knightley in the thriller Domino. Liu is currently in talks to recreate the Charlie Chan series for modern audiences.

Although Liu is not married, rumors in the past have linked her with George Clooney. Recently, there was news that she is engaged to a New York playwright, Zach Helm.

Filmography

Domino (2005)
Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
Chicago (2002)
Cypher (2002)
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)
Futurama (Guest Appearance) (2001)
Charlie’s Angels (2000)
Shanghai Noon (2000)
Play It to the Bone (1999)
The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (1999)
Molly (movie) (1999)
True Crime (1999)
Payback (1999)
Love Kills (1998)
Flypaper (1997)
City of Industry (1997)
Gridlock’d (1997)
Guy (1996)
Jerry Maguire (1996)
Bang (1995)
Protozoa (1993)

Jordana Brewster

Jordana Brewster (born April 26, 1980) is an American actress. Born in Panama City, Panama, to an investment banker and a former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model from Brazil, Brewster studied at the Sacred Heart School in New York and later at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, graduating in 2004. Her grandfather Kingman Brewster, Jr. is a former president of Yale.

She made her debut on the daytime soap opera, All My Children, in a one-time appearance playing Anita Santos. Brewster returned back to daytime on As the World Turns as Nikki Munson from 1995 to 1998. It was her role as Mia Toretto in The Fast and the Furious that has been her most popular role to date.

She dated Mark Wahlberg from 2000 to June 2001 and has also recently dated Derek Jeter and Jay Penske. In 2002 Stuff Magazine named her the 96th hottest women in their "102 Sexiest Women in the World".

Filmography

Annapolis (2006) – Ali
Chasing Fate (2005) (filming)
Nearing Grace (2005) – Grace
D.E.B.S. (2004) – Lucy Diamond
The Fast and the Furious (2001) – Mia Toretto
The Invisible Circus (2001) – Phoebe
The Faculty (1998) – Delilah Profitt

Television

The ’60s (1999) – Sarah Weinstock
As the World Turns (1995-1998) – Nikki Munson
All My Children (1995) – Anita Santos

Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts (born Julie Fiona Roberts on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna, Georgia, USA) is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

She shot to fame during the early 1990s after starring in the romantic comedy Pretty Woman opposite Richard Gere. Since then, Roberts has gone on to become the highest-paid actress in the world with an asking price of over 20 million dollars. Her impressive film career has also given her the title of most bankable actress in Hollywood, with box office receipts well over two billion dollars on the strength of numerous blockbusters such as Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and Ocean’s Eleven. She won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2000 for her critically praised turn as the title character in Erin Brockovich after two previous nominations during the 1990s. She was also placed at the pinnacle of the Ulmer Scale, a comprehensive guide to the global star power of actors and directors in independent and studio films created by James Ulmer, ahead of such other luminaries as Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. This was partly due to her ability to open a film based solely on her name above the title without the support of a male costar, something few other actresses are able to do.

Roberts is the first of three actresses (as of July 2005, the others are Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie) to join the coveted "$20 Million Club", when she signed to do Erin Brockovich for that amount.

Family background

Roberts’ father, Walter Grady Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman, actor and writer of Irish, Scottish, Welsh extraction on behalf of his father, Walter Thomas Roberts, and English-Scottish descent on the part of his mother, Beatrice Beal. Julia’s mother, Betty Lou Bredemus, a church secretary and actress, was born in Minneapolis in 1934, daughter of football player Wendell John Bredemus (whose mother Eleanor Johnson was born in Sweden) and Elizabeth Ellen Billingsley. Her parents divorced when she was five, and her mother remarried. Her father died of cancer when Roberts was nine. Her elder brother Eric Roberts, from whom she is estranged, is also an actor. So is her niece, Emma Roberts, whom she would often take along on sets when she was younger.

Roberts wanted to be a veterinarian as a child, but soon after graduating from Smyrna’s Campbell High School, she headed to New York to join her sister and pursue a career in acting. Once there she signed with Clicks modeling agency and enrolled in acting classes.

Films

Julia Roberts made her film debut playing a supporting role opposite her brother, Eric, in Blood Red, which although completed in 1986 was not released until 1989. Rail-thin, long-legged, and sporting a thick, curly mane of auburn hair, she looked more coltish than elegant in the movie. Here, her large hazel eyes and huge mouth are capable of much expression, sometimes radiance, when she cuts loose with her trademark megawatt smile and a braying laugh.

Roberts first caught the attention of moviegoers with her performance in the film Mystic Pizza in 1988. The following year she was featured in Steel Magnolias as a young bride battling diabetes, garnering her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for her performance. She catapulted to worldwide fame when she co-starred with Richard Gere in the Cinderella story Pretty Woman in 1990. The role also earned her a second Oscar nod, this time as Best Actress. Her next box office success was the thriller Sleeping with the Enemy, playing a battered wife who escapes her demented husband and starts a new life in Iowa. She played Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg’s Hook in 1991, which was followed by a two-year period of no acting roles other than a cameo appearance in Robert Altman’s The Player (1992). In early 1993, she was the subject of a People magazine cover story asking, "What Happened to Julia Roberts?"

Later that year, she co-starred with Denzel Washington in the successful The Pelican Brief, based on the John Grisham novel. For the next few years, she starred in a series of films that were critical and commercial failures, primarily because she was cast in roles that strayed too far from her film persona. She broke her losing streak with the hugely popular comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), and eventually regained her earlier reputation as an actress who could open a movie and guarantee box office success.She also starred with Hugh Grant as Anna Scott, a film actress in the hugely popular 1999 film " Notting Hill ". In 2001, she won critical acclaim and finally received a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich, who helped wage a successful lawsuit against energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric. Julia will appear in a broadway play starting in March 2006. The play is called "Three Days of Rain".

Personal life

Roberts’ personal life has often been in the spotlight, a fact that served as the basis of her (1999) film Notting Hill, a romantic comedy about a famous actress falling for an ordinary guy played by Hugh Grant. Her character, Anna Scott, was said to be closely modeled on Roberts herself. (When asked in one scene how much she was paid to appear in a movie, Scott replies "fifteen million dollars"—precisely the amount Roberts had received to appear in Notting Hill.)

Roberts was engaged to actor Kiefer Sutherland in 1991 but ended the relationship just days before the wedding. Julia ran off to Europe with Jason Patric, and the two were eventually a couple after she and Kiefer broke up. She later eloped with country and western singer Lyle Lovett shortly after meeting him. The ceremony was noted by her being barefoot. They divorced in 1995, ostensibly due to their respective career demands keeping them apart, but they still remain friends. Julia also briefly dated Friends star Matthew Perry and Daniel Day-Lewis. For a time she lived with actor Liam Neeson and dated Benjamin Bratt from 1998 to 2001.

Roberts met her husband, cameraman Danny Moder, on the set of her movie The Mexican in 2000. He was already married to Vera Steimberg Moder, but they eventually divorced. Julia and Danny were married on July 4, 2002, in Taos, New Mexico. They became the parents of oddly-named twins, Hazel Patricia Moder and Phinnaeus Walter Moder on November 28, 2004.

Roberts bought a penthouse in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood. She reportedly loves to shop anonymously, buying her own organic greens on weekends at the market in nearby Union Square. She splits her time between her homes in New York, New York, Venice, California, Malibu, California, and a 50-acre (202,000 m²) retreat in Taos, New Mexico.

She is reportedly a fan of the long-running soap opera Days of our Lives.

Roberts has a production company called Red Om Films ("Moder" spelled backwards; formerly "Shoelace Productions") and has given of her time and resources to UNICEF as well as to other charitable organizations. She has made trips to Haiti, India, and other countries promoting peace, goodwill, and help for others in need.

She has been named one of People magazine’s "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" a record-setting eight times.

Filmography

Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
Closer (2004)
Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Full Frontal (2002)
Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
America’s Sweethearts (2001)
The Mexican (2001)
Erin Brockovich (2000)
Runaway Bride (1999)
Notting Hill (1999)
Stepmom (1998)
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Michael Collins (1996)
Mary Reilly (1996)
Something to Talk About (1995)
Prêt-à-Porter (aka Ready to Wear) (1994)
I Love Trouble (1994)
The Pelican Brief (1993)
The Player (1992)
Hook (1991)
Dying Young (1991)
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Flatliners (1990)
Pretty Woman (1990)
Steel Magnolias (1989)
Blood Red (1988)
Mystic Pizza (1988)
Baja Oklahoma (Made for TV) (1988)
Satisfaction (aka Girls of Summer) (1988)
Firehouse (1987)

Awards won

Best Supporting Actress

1990: Golden Globe for Steel Magnolias

Best Actress

1991: Golden Globe for Pretty Woman
2000: Academy Award for Erin Brockovich
2000: British Academy Awards for Erin Brockovich
2000: Golden Globe for Erin Brockovich (2000)
2000: National Board of Review for Erin Brockovich
2000: Screen Actors Guild for Erin Brockovich

Awards nominated

Best Supporting Actress

1989: Academy Award for Steel Magnolias

Best Actress

1990: Academy Award for Pretty Woman
1990: British Academy Awards for Pretty Woman
1997: Golden Globe for My Best Friend’s Wedding
1999: Golden Globe for Notting Hill

Julia Stiles

Julia O’Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981 in New York City) is an American stage and screen actress. After beginning her theater career in small parts, she has moved on to leading roles in plays by writers as diverse as William Shakespeare and David Mamet; her film career has been both a commercial and critical success, ranging from teen romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) to dark art house pictures such as The Business of Strangers (2001). When Stiles isn’t working, she actively supports a variety of progressive and liberal issues.

Personal

Julia Stiles was born the eldest of the three children (two daughters and a son) of John O’Hara, a teacher and businessman of Irish descent, and Judith Stiles, a potter of English and Italian ancestry. She attended Friends Seminary, Quaker school in Manhattan, and was an English major at Columbia University in New York City, though she had several times interrupted her studies to pursue her film career. She graduated in May 2005, five years after entering college. Stiles is a Democrat who supported John Kerry’s candidacy for President of the United States , and her official site, which her mother helps to maintain, provides a link to Moveon.org.

Stiles has also worked for Habitat for Humanity, building housing in Costa Rica , and has worked with Amnesty International to try and raise awareness of the harsh conditions of immigration detention of unaccompanied juveniles; Marie Claire magazine, in January 2004, featured Stiles’ trip to see conditions at the Berks County Youth Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania ]. Additionally, Stiles serves on the Board of Directors of Amend.org, a New York-based nonprofit that implements childhood injury prevention programs in Africa.

Stiles is also an ex-vegan. When interviewed by Conan O’Brien, she said the word "orgasm" came to mind when she had her first cheeseburger after giving up veganism.

The actress has described herself as a feminist and wrote on the subject in The Guardian :

Ironically, the F word [Feminism] is now pejorative in the mainstream because it is seen to represent a woman’s renunciation of her femininity. It’s an issue many women struggle with today — including female studio executives. After Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, women of my generation have not employed self-censorship, but rather we challenge the notion that being a feminist is in opposition to being feminine.

Stage career

Stiles started acting at age eleven, performing with New York’s La MaMa Theatre Company, securing work by submitting photographs of herself in costume to the company and asking that she be kept in mind for juvenile roles [7]. She graduated to adult roles by performing in Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and, in the summer of 2002, appeared as Viola, the lead role in Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Twelfth Night with Jimmy Smits. Reviewing the production, Ben Brantley of The New York Times saluted Stiles as "the thinking teenagers’ movie goddess" who put him in mind of a "young Jane Fonda". In the spring of 2004, she made her London stage debut opposite Aaron Eckhart in a revival of David Mamet’s play Oleanna at the Garrick Theatre.

Film career

Stiles’ first lead role was in Wicked (1998)Stiles’ first film was a non-speaking part in I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) with Claire Danes and Jude Law. She also had small roles as Harrison Ford’s daughter in Alan J. Pakula’s The Devil’s Own (1997) and in M. Night Shyamalan’s Wide Awake. Her first lead was in Wicked (1998), playing a teenage girl who murders her mother so she can have her father all to herself. Joe Balthai wrote she was "the darling of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival" and Internet movie writer Harry Knowles said she was the "discovery of the fest," but the film was not commercially released in the U.S. and went direct-to-video.

The role that made her a star was Kat Stratford, opposite Heath Ledger, in Gil Junger’s 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew set in a Seattle high school. She won an MTV Movie Award for "Breakthrough Female Performance" for the role, and the Chicago Film Critics voted her the most promising new actress of the year. Foreign critics applauded her work as well. Adina Hoffman praised her as "a young, serious looking Diane Lane" and Martin Hoyle said Stiles played Kat "with bloody-minded independent charm from the beginning with hints of wistfulness beneath the determination."

Her next starring role was in Down to You, which was heavily panned by critics but was a financial success, and earned Stiles and her co-star Freddie Prinze, Jr. a Teen Choice Award nomination for their on-screen chemistry.

She subsequently appeared in two more Shakespearean adaptations. The first was playing the Desdemona role, opposite Mekhi Phifer in the title role, in Tim Blake Nelson’s O (2001), Othello set in a high school. The second was playing Ophelia in Michael Almerayda’s Hamlet (2000), with Ethan Hawke in the lead. Neither was a great success; O had been subjected to many delays and a change of distributors and Hamlet was an art house film shot on a minimal budget.

Her next commercial success was in Save the Last Dance (2001), as an aspiring ballerina forced to leave her small town in downstate Illinois to live with her struggling musician father in Chicago after her mother is killed. At her new, nearly all-black school, she falls in love with the character played by Sean Patrick Thomas, who teaches her hip-hop dance steps that get her into The Juilliard School. The role won her two more MTV awards for "Best Kiss" and "Best Female Performance", and a Teen Choice Award for best fight scene for her battle with Bianca Lawson. Rolling Stone pronounced her "the coolest co-ed", putting her on the cover of its April 12, 2001 issue. She told Rolling Stone that despite rumors, she did all her own dancing in the film, though the way the film was shot and edited made it appear otherwise.

With Matt Damon in The Bourne Supremacy (2004)In David Mamet’s State and Main (2000), about a film shooting on location in a small town in Vermont, she played a teenage girl who seduces a film actor (Alec Baldwin) with a weakness for young girls. Stiles also played opposite Stockard Channing in the dark art house film The Business of Strangers (2001) as a conniving underling who exacts revenge on her cold boss. Channing was impressed by her co-star: "In addition to her talent, she has a quality that is almost feral, something that can make people uneasy. She has an effect on people," said Channing. Stiles also had small roles as a CIA operative in The Bourne Identity (2002) and its sequel The Bourne Supremacy (2004). Aimee Agresti quoted producer Lynda Obst as saying Stiles was turning into the next Meryl Streep.

Her next leading role was in Mona Lisa Smile (2003) as Joan, a student at Wellesley College in 1953, whose art professor (Julia Roberts) encourages her to pursue a career in law rather than becoming a wife and mother. Stephen Holden referred to her as one of the cinema’s "brightest young stars," but the film met with generally unfavorable reviews.

Stiles played a Wisconsin co-ed, with dreams of becoming a doctor, who is swept off her feet by a Danish prince in The Prince and Me (2004), directed by Martha Coolidge. Stiles told Leslie Goober that she was very similar to the character, Paige Morgan, but critic Scott Foundas said while she was, as always, "irrepressibly engaging" the film was a "strange career choice for Stiles." This echoed criticism in reviews of A Guy Thing (2003), a romantic comedy with Jason Lee and Selma Blair; Dennis Harvey wrote that Stiles was "wasted," and Stephen Holden called her "a serious actress from whom comedy does not seem to flow naturally."

Television

Stiles’ work on television has been more limited. After two appearances as the computer punk Erica on the PBS series Ghostwriter in 1993 and 1994, she appeared as a guest star on the medical drama Chicago Hope. She has been seen in two made-for-TV movies. In Before Women Had Wings (1997) on CBS, she played opposite Ellen Burstyn and Oprah Winfrey in an adaptation of the novel by Connie May Fowler. Marcia Ross, the film’s casting director, told Jeffrey Ressner "she projects an intelligent depth, she’s not girlish, and she’ll easily grow into adult roles."

Stiles also played a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant and runs away from her unforgiving father (Bill Smitrovich) in NBC’s miniseries The ’60’s (1999), a film Caryn James dismissed as "conspicuously idiotic." Stiles was the public face of the film, with NBC using her face, painted with a peace sign and the American flag, both in its advertising and on the cover of the soundtrack album.

On March 17, 2001, Stiles hosted Saturday Night Live and eight days later introduced a music nominee at the 73rd Academy Awards. She returned to Saturday Night Live on May 5 in a cameo as President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna. MTV profiled her in its Diary series in 2003, and she was "Punk’d" by Ashton Kutcher at a museum in the spring of 2004.

Filmography

2006 Burns Jean Armour Pre-production
2005 Edmond Glenna Post-production, due December 20, 2005
2005 Going Down Announced
2005 A Little Trip to Heaven Isold Post-production
2004 The Bourne Supremacy Nicky
2004 The Prince and Me Paige Morgan
2003 Mona Lisa Smile Joan Bandwyn
2003 Carolina Carolina Direct-to-video release in 2005
2003 A Guy Thing Becky
2002 The Bourne Identity Nicky
2001 O Desi Brable
2001 The Business of Strangers Paula Murphy
2001 Save the Last Dance Sara Johnson
2000 State and Main Carla
2000 Hamlet Ophelia
2000 Down to You Imogen
1999 10 Things I Hate About You Katarina "Kat" Stratford
1998 Wide Awake Neena Beal
1998 Wicked Ellie Christianson Direct-to-video
1997 The Devil’s Own Bridget O’Meara
1996 I Love You, I Love You Not Young Nana’s Friend Silent role

Kate Beckinsale

Kate Beckinsale (born July 26, 1973 in London, England) is an English actress.

Early life

She is the daughter of Judy Loe (a stage actress) and the late Richard Beckinsale, a well-known television actor who died in 1979, at the age of 31. Kate’s paternal great-grandfather was Burmese.

Beckinsale she won first prizes in several young writing competitions. After finishing school in London, she followed in the footsteps of her parents and began her acting career. Her first role was in One Against the Wind, a television film about World War II that was first aired in 1991. Beckinsale then began studying German, French and Russian at New College, Oxford University, though she did not complete her studies. She felt that a general university background would be better for her than attending a school of performing arts.

Film career

During her first year at Oxford, Beckinsale was offered a part in Kenneth Branagh’s big-screen film, Much Ado About Nothing, adapted from the Shakespeare play. She spent her last year of studies in Paris, after which she decided to quit university and concentrate on her acting career. She subsequently appeared in a few notable but low-profile films, including Cold Comfort Farm (1995) and The Last Days of Disco (1998). She also appeared in television films and in stage roles.

Her first major American film, Brokedown Palace (1999), was a not a commercial success. Soon after, Beckinsale was cast in the 2001 film Pearl Habor, which was one of the highest grossing films of its year. In the years following, she appeared in a series of American films that were high-profile but were given a poor critical reception, including Serendipity (2001), Underworld (2003) and Van Helsing (2004).

Beckinsale was selected by Hello Magazine as England’s #1 Beauty of 2002.

Private life

Beckinsale and Welsh actor Michael Sheen have a daughter, Lily, but they are no longer together. In June 2003, she became engaged to the director of Underworld, Len Wiseman, and the two were wed in May 2004 in Bel-Air, California.

Beckinsale speaks Russian.

Selected Filmography

Beckinsale in UnderworldClick (2006)
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
The Aviator (2004)
Van Helsing (2004)
Underworld (2003)
Laurel Canyon (2003)
Serendipity (2001)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
The Golden Bowl (2001)
Brokedown Palace (1999)
The Last Days of Disco (1998)
Shooting Fish (1998)
Cold Comfort Farm (1995)
Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Katherine Heigl

Katherine Marie Heigl (b. November 24, 1978) is an American actress, best known for her roles on the TV series Roswell and Grey’s Anatomy.

Early life

Heigl was born in Washington, D.C. to parents Nancy and Paul, of Irish and German descent; she was raised a Mormon. The family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut a short time later. Tragedy struck her family when her older brother Jason died in 1986 of brain injuries suffered in a car accident. He had been thrown from the back of a pickup truck, and doctors determined Jason was brain-dead. Despite their grief, the family decided to donate his organs. This has motivated Katherine to become a strong proponent of organ donation.

Career

When she was nine years old, an aunt visiting the family decided to take a number of photographs of the young Heigl. After returning to her home in New York, the aunt sent the photos to a number of modelling agencies, all with the permission of Katherine’s parents. Within a few weeks, Heigl had been signed as a child model.

Almost immediately, a client slated her for use in a magazine advertisement. Television jobs soon followed, the first in a national spot for Cheerios breakfast cereal. It was not long until she landed her first big-screen debut in the 1992 movie That Night. After meeting such fast success and enjoying her new-found career, she realized that acting was her passion.

Heigl then appeared as Christina Sebastian in Steven Soderbergh’s Depression-era drama King of the Hill before landing her first leading role as Nicole in the 1994 comedy My Father The Hero. During this time, Heigl continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her film and modeling work with her academic studies.

She then played opposite Steven Seagal in the role of Sarah Ryback in in 1995 action thriller Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Despite an increased focus on acting, she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as Seventeen. She took the lead role in Disney’s Wish Upon a Star in 1996. It was also in 1996 that Heigl’s parents divorced. After her high school graduation in 1997, she and her mother moved into a 4-bedroom house in Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles. Heigl’s mother then became her manager.

In 1998 she co-starred with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearian play The Tempest, set during the American Civil War. Later in 1998 Heigl was featured in the 1998 films Bug Buster and Bride of Chucky. In 1999, Heigl turned her attention to television when she accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the science fiction TV drama Roswell, a modest role that was expanded in the show’s second and third seasons.

To publicize her role on Roswell, she appeared on the covers of magazines such as TV Guide, Maxim, and Teen as well as appearing in FHM. She later appeared in the FHM and Maxim calendars and FHM’s annual 100 sexiest women in the world. While Roswell was in production, Heigl worked on several films, including, 100 Girls, an independent 2001 film in which she played competitive tomboy Arlene, and Valentine, a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards in which she played medical student Shelley Fisher.

In the spring of 2001, Heigl accepted a role in Ground Zero, a television thriller scheduled to be telecast that fall, which was based on the bestselling novel, The Seventh Power, by James Mills. She co-starred as a brilliant and politically-concerned college student who helps to build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities, but which ends up in the hands of a terrorist following betrayal by a fellow student. After September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, however, the film was shelved when its plot was considered too inappropriate, and it re-emerged in 2003 under the title Critical Assembly. After the terrorist attacks, Heigl recorded a passionate public service announcement for the American Red Cross in an effort to help raise money for victims.

In early 2003, Heigl returned to the horror genre with Evil Never Dies, a modern-day variation on the Frankenstein story co-starring Thomas Gibson. She played the role of Eve, the professor’s assistant whose intentions are unclear. Love Comes Softly, a telefilm for Hallmark Entertainment in 2003, found Heigl starring in the role of Marty Claridge, a young, pregnant newlywed travelling west. In October 2003, Heigl was cast opposite Johnny Knoxville, as the leading lady in The Ringer, a Farrelly brothers comedy that was later released in December 2005. Heigl was then cast as Isabella Linton in MTV’s modern revamp of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights.

Heigl was cast in the role of Romy in the 2005 movie Romy and Michele: In The Beginning, a prequel to the 1997 movie, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. Heigl is currently starring in Grey’s Anatomy, a medical drama on ABC.

Personal life

Heigl had dated her former Roswell co-star, Jason Behr, for several years. However, in interviews such as in the November 2004 FHM, she indicated that the relationship had come to an end. She also told FHM she did not lose her virginity until she was 22.

Credits

Grey’s Anatomy (TV) 2005
Romy & Michele: In The Beginning (TV) 2005
Love’s Enduring Promise (TV) 2004
Wuthering Heights (TV) 2003
Evil Never Dies (TV) 2003
Descendant 2003
Love Comes Softly (TV) 2003
The Twilight Zone (TV) 2002
Critical Assembly (Ground Zero) (TV) 2001
Valentine 2001
100 Girls 2000
Roswell (TV) 1999
The Tempest (TV) 1998
Bride Of Chucky 1998
Bug Buster 1998
Stand-Ins 1997
Prince Valiant 1997
Wish Upon A Star 1996
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory 1995
My Father The Hero 1994
King Of The Hill 1993
That Night 1992

Katie Holmes

Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress from Ohio best known for her role as Joey Potter, the tomboy down the titular waterway on The WB television drama Dawson’s Creek. Only her second role, Dawson’s Creek made Holmes a star, praised by critics and adored by fans. Holmes’ movie roles have ranged from art house films such as Pieces of April to thrillers such as Abandon, but she has not found the same success in films as she did on television.

In June 2005, she became engaged to the actor Tom Cruise, which made her the center of international press attention, much of it negative, claiming firstly the relationship was a publicity stunt and later speculating Cruise had brainwashed the actress into marriage and joining the Church of Scientology.

Early life and career

Holmes, born in Toledo, Ohio, is the youngest of the five children (four daughters, one son) of Martin J. Holmes, Sr., an attorney, and Kathleen Holmes. She lived in Sylvania Township and attended Catholic schools in Toledo, attending high school at the all-female Notre Dame Academy. While in high school, she went with her mother to Los Angeles to audition for pilots for television shows. She did not land a television role, but was cast as the character Libbets Casey in the film The Ice Storm (1997), directed by Ang Lee and starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.

She returned to Toledo but her audition tapes continued to circulate. One reached the producers of a new show created by Kevin Williamson for Columbia Tri-Star Television: Dawson’s Creek. Her appointment to read for it was unknowingly set by the producers for the same day as her high school production of Damn Yankees (she was playing Lola), but they permitted her to send a videotape rather than make her miss the show. Holmes read for the part of Joey, the tomboyish best friend of the title character, while her mother read Dawson’s lines, including dialogue about sex and masturbation. Holmes won the part. Williamson said "She had those eyes, those eyes just stained with loneliness."

Dawson’s Creek

Katie Holmes as Joey Potter in the TV series Dawsons Creek."Im a lot like Joey," she said. "I think they saw that. I come from a small town. I was a tomboy. Joey tries to be articulate and deny that she doesnt have a lot of experience in life. Her life parallels mine, which is all about new everything–relationships, personnel, perceptions—and about being guarded." Dawsons Creek filmed its first season in the spring and summer of 1997. Holmes moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where the show filmed, and for a time lived with creator Williamson.

At 59" (some sources say 57"), the tall brunette enchanted the press. "The Audrey Hepburn of her generation," was one typical comment. Variety, reviewing the pilot, said Holmes "is a confident young performer who delivers her lines with slyness and conviction." So good was Holmes that The New York Times Magazine would claim everyone in Hollywood was looking for the "Katie Holmes type" when casting shows. "The Katie Holmes type," the reporter claimed, "is a throwback to the 1950s: she is a smart girl next door (as opposed to the babe-o-rama blondes)"–the sort represented by her Dawsons Creek co-star Michelle Williams. But her "type" was no less attractive, Arena magazine declaring her "the most coquettishly sexy woman on television. Anywhere."

Dawsons Creek ran from 1998 to 2003 and Holmes was the only actor to appear in all 128 episodes. "It was very difficult for me to leave Wilmington, to have my little glass bubble burst and move on. I hate change. On the other hand it was refreshing to play someone else," she said in 2004. Holmes confirmed that, as is often the case on soaps, the character is a caricature of the actor:

I miss her spirit, and her spunk, and I miss her anxiety. She always had these long speeches about her fears and her future and love. It was a great tool for me personally because I got to get it all out. I was able to psychoanalyze all of it everyday with her and then I wouldnt have to do it on my own. So much of me is in Joey and it really felt like I grew up on television.

Film career

Holmes in 2005 characterized her film career as being a string of "bombs". "Usually Im not even in the top ten," she said, the highest grossing film of her career at that time being Phone Booth.

Her big break came when she had a role in the movie The Ice Storm (1997) she starred in a part opposite Tobey Maguire. Her first leading role came in Disturbing Behavior (1998), a Stepford Wives-goes-to-high school thriller where she was a loner from the wrong side of the tracks. Holmes won a MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance for the role, though Holmes said the film was "just horrible". Next she was a disaffected supermarket clerk in Doug Limans stylish ensemble piece Go (1999). She had an uncredited cameo with Dawsons Creek co-star Joshua Jackson in Muppets From Space (1999), which was also filmed in Wilmington. Kevin Williamsons disaffection for his own high school days spawned Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), which he wrote and directed. Holmes played a straight-A student whose vindictive teacher (Helen Mirren) threatens to keep her from a desperately needed scholarship.

Katie Holmes on the Pieces of April DVD cover.In the academic world of Wonder Boys (2000), the witty and intelligent film version of the Michael Chabon novel, she had only a small role (six and one-half minutes of screen time). Even so, she attracted the attention of numerous film critics with her performance as Hannah Green, the talented creative writing student of pot-puffing Pittsburgh professor and one-hit novelist Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas). Hannah, who is smitten with Grady, is a boarder in his house. In a memorable scene, she offers a critique of his huge, unwieldy 2,611-page second novel, commenting, "Even though your book is really beautiful, its… very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyones horses, and the dental records, and so on. I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didnt make any choices." For Holmes, this role was the right choice, since it became a turning point in her career, demonstrating she could create a film character with depth and dimension when given a sophisticated screenplay.

In The Gift (2000), a Southern Gothic story directed by Sam Raimi and starring Cate Blanchett, she played the antithesis of Joey Potter: a slutty rich girl carrying on with everyone in town, from a white trash wife-beater (Keanu Reeves) to the district attorney (Gary Cole), and who winds up dead for her trouble. Holmes did her first nude scene for the film, baring her breasts in a scene where her character was about to be murdered. Of the scene, she said, "I just hope there arent a lot of pauses on DVD players." Her appearance deshabille was lamented by Varietys Steven Kloter: "It seems the only time we see a naked woman on screen is when someone like Katie Holmes needs to break with her sanitized WB past and march brazenly into a new future."

In Abandon (2002), written by Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, Holmes was a delusional and homicidal college student named "Katie." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times commended Holmes performance and the films intelligence, but other critics and audiences savaged it[1]. Holmes was the mistress of the public relations flack played by Colin Farrell in Phone Booth (2002) and Robert Downey, Jr.s nurse in The Singing Detective (2003). Her next starring role was in Pieces of April (2003), a gritty comedy about a dysfunctional family on Thanksgiving. Variety said it was "one of her best film performances."

Holmes played the Presidents daughter in First Daughter, which was originally to be released in January 2004 on the same day as Chasing Liberty, the Mandy Moore film about a presidential daughter, but was ultimately released in September 2004 to dismal reviews and ticket sales. First Daughter, directed by Forest Whitaker, also starred Michael Keaton as Holmes father and Marc Blucas as her love interest. The Hollywood Reporters Kirk Honeycutt called Holmes character, Samantha Mackenzie, "a startling example of how a studio film can dumb down and neutralize the comic abilities of a lively young star."

In 2005, Holmes played Rachel Dawes, the love interest of the title character in Batman Begins.

Forthcoming roles

Entertainment Weekly reported in its December 17, 2004 issue that Holmes was to play the murdered wife of Spade Cooley in a biopic written and directed by Dennis Quaid, who is to play Cooley. Also forthcoming is an adaptation of Christopher Buckleys satirical novel Thank You For Smoking about a tobacco lobbyist played by Aaron Eckhart. The film is directed by Jason Reitman and Holmes plays a Washington reporter who seduces Eckhart.

Guest appearances and endorsements

Katie Holmes in an advertisement for The Gap.Holmes hosted Saturday Night Live on February 24, 2001, participating in a send-up of Dawsons Creek where she falls madly in love with Chris Kattans Mr. Peepers character and singing "Hey, Big Spender" from Sweet Charity. Holmes was annually named by FHM magazine as one of the sexiest women in the world from 1999 forward and was named one of Peoples "50 Most Beautiful People" in its May 12, 2003 issue. Teen People declared her one of the "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" in its June/July 2003 issue. She has appeared in advertisements for Garnier Lumia shampoos and The Gap.

Personal life

Holmes dated her Dawsons Creek co-star Joshua Jackson for several months, the relationship ending amicably. Holmes met actor Chris Klein in 2000. A Midwesterner like Holmes, Klein and Holmes were engaged in 2004, but in early 2005 Holmes and Klein broke off their engagement. Press accounts cited the distance imposed by their careers as a factor. In April 2005, about two months after her relationship with Klein ended, Holmes began dating actor Tom Cruise. They revealed their relationship at the Venice Film Festival. Holmes, a Catholic, joined the Church of Scientology as a result of Cruise, a longtime and vocal member. After weeks of dating, Cruise proposed to Holmes in the early morning of June 17, 2005 atop Pariss Eiffel Tower and she accepted. Holmess father has been quoted in the press saying favorable things about Cruise while admitting he had not met the actor.

Speculation was rampant in the press that the very public affair and engagement were merely designed to promote their upcoming movies, War of the Worlds and Batman Begins. A poll in People found that 62 per cent of readers believed the Cruise-Holmes affair was merely a publicity stunt. Even the staid New York Times expressed doubts, publishing an article headlined "I Love You With All My Hype." Articles doubting the actors sincerity noted that Cruise has been extremely private about his personal life and the flaunting of his new relationship was a marked contrast from his past behavior. The weak box office performance of Cruises most recent films and the series of "bombs" (her word) Holmes has appeared in was also cited.

Concern has also been voiced about Holmes and her relationship to Scientology. Roger Friedman of the Fox News Channel claimed that Katie Holmes disappeared for sixteen days in April when even her own family did not know where she was. Allegedly, the last time she had been seen, Holmes had flown to meet with Tom Cruise for a possible role in Mission Impossible 3. When she re-appeared, Holmes stated she was in love with Tom Cruise and studying Scientology. The actress then fired her long-time manager and agent and acquired a new "best friend," Jessica Feshbach, a prominent member of the Church of Scientology described as part of its "royalty". Feshbach has been referred to as Holmes Scientology "minder" as she follows the actress everywhere (including the bathroom) and openly tells Holmes what to say during interviews . The reports have led to claims Holmes has been coerced or brainwashed into marrying Cruise and promoting Scientology. Fans of the actress have established a web-site, Free Katie, promoting this theory, the site claiming to be "devoted to rescuing sweet Katie from the clutches of the mad scientologist Tom Cruise!"

On October 5, 2005, People magazine broke the news Holmes is pregnant, quoting Cruises sister and publicist. The child will be Holmess first and Cruises first biological child. (He has two adopted children, Connor, 10, and Isabella, 12, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.) Holmes had previously claimed she would remain a virgin until she wed.

Filmography

2005 Thank You For Smoking Heather Holloway Awaiting release
2005 Batman Begins Rachel Dawes
2004 First Daughter Samantha Mackenzie
2003 Pieces of April April Burns
2003 The Singing Detective Nurse Mills
2003 Phone Booth Pamela McFadden
2002 Abandon Katie Burke
2000 The Gift Jessica King
2000 Wonder Boys Hannah Green
1999 Teaching Mrs. Tingle Leigh Ann Watson First starring role
1999 Muppets From Space Joey Potter Uncredited cameo
1999 Go Claire Montgomery
1998 Disturbing Behavior Rachel Wagner
1997 The Ice Storm Libbets Casey First professional role

Kate Hudson

Kate Garry Hudson (born April 19, 1979) is an American actress. Born in Los Angeles, California of Italian and Jewish descent, she is the daughter of actress Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson, and sister of actor Oliver Hudson. Her breakthrough role was as Penny Lane in Cameron Crowes Almost Famous (2000), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She is married to Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson. On January 7, 2004, she gave birth to their son, Ryder Russell Robinson. Kate is left handed.

Selected Filmography

Can You Keep a Secret? (2006)
Sleight of Mind (2006)
You, Me and Dupree (2006)
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Raising Helen (2004)
Le Divorce (2003)
Alex and Emma
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
The Four Feathers (2002)
Almost Famous (2000)
About Adam (2000)
200 Cigarettes (1999)