Contemporary Actors
Russell Brand
Russell Brand was born in Grays, Essex in 1975. He began his show business career as a comedian and while he still does stand-up comedy, he is venturing more into film. His made “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, He also starred alongside Adam Sandler in “Bedtime Stories”. His website can be found here.
Patrick Stewart was born in 1940 in Yorkshire. He was a noted classical actor on the British stage when in 1987 he gained huge international exposure with his success as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the “Star Trek” series. After he left the series. he has alternated between movies and the stage with great success. “MailOnline” article on Patrick Stewart here.
TCM Overview:
A Shakespearean performer who exuded an authoritative presence, actor Patrick Stewart spent many years in repertory theater before becoming a star player with the Royal Shakespeare Company. But Stewart’s most recognized success was his commanding, often patriarchal turn as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the sequel series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (syndicated, 1987-1994). Prior to this breakout role, he spent years performing in the Bard’s productions, most notably in “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and an acclaimed Broadway version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1971). Once he made his way to the screen, Stewart ably performed minor roles in “Fall of Eagles” (BBC, 1974) and “I, Claudius” (BBC2, 1976) while eventually making his way to feature films with “Excalibur” (1981) and “Dune” (1985). After his seven-year sojourn on “The Next Generation,” Stewart was fortunate enough to avoid being tied to Picard for life, as seemed to happen with members of the original series. Though he reprised the role for three big screen versions of “Star Trek,” he continued performing on stage while lending his stentorian voice to television commercials and animated features like “The Prince of Egypt” (1998) and “Chicken Little” (2005). In between, Stewart portrayed the wheelchair-bound leader of the mutants, Professor Xavier, for the popular comic-book adaptation “X-Men” (2000), which generated lucrative sequels in 2002, 2006 and beyond, while affording Stewart yet another successful franchise without being typecast for life.
The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
Saoirse Ronan is an Irish actress who was born in 1994. She is best known for her roles in “Atonement” and “Lovely Bones”. She lives in Co. Carlow. “Independent” article on Saoirse Ronan can be accessed here.
Chris Sarandon is a stylish American actor who has some very interesting cult films among his credits. He was born in 1942 in West Virginia. He began appearing on stage and on daytime television in 1965. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in “Dog Day Afternoon” in 1975. He went on to star in “Fright Night” and “The Princess Bride” where he was Prince Humperdiinck. More recently he had a major role in the long-running “ER” and was on the Broadway stage in 2006 in “The Light in the Piazza”. Interview on “Moviefone” with Chris Sarandon can be accessed here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
The handsome, versatile, worldly-looking Chris Sarandon has played everything from vampires to Jesus Christ in magnetic performances that have not only been controversial but hard to miss.
The son of a Greek immigrant and restaurateur, he was born and raised in Beckley, West Virginia, where, as a teen, he appeared on the musical stage and played drums and sang back-up with a local band called The Teen Tones.
Graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1960, his band was so good they found themselves touring and backing up such music legends as Bobby Darin, Gene Vincent and Danny and the Juniors. Chris attended West Virginia University majoring in speech, and appeared in such musical productions as “The Music Man” as Harold Hill.
He went on to attend the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he received his master’s degree in theater and met first wife Susan Sarandon. Touring with improv companies and in regional theater productions, he made his professional debut in “The Rose Tattoo” in 1965 and later joined the Long Wharf Theatre Company for a season. Moving to New York in 1968, the dark and handsome charmer immediately nabbed the role of Dr. Tom Halverson on Guiding Light (1952), a part that would last two years. Throughout the 1970s he would be rewarded with rich theater acting roles. On Broadway he appeared in “The Rothchilds” and replaced Raul Julia in “Two Gentlemen from Verona” while appearing elsewhere in various Shakespeare and Shaw festivals both here and in Canada. He made an auspicious film debut in the huge, career-risking part of Al Pacino‘s tormented, gender-confused lover in Dog Day Afternoon (1975), earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his superior work.
He took other sordid turns too, this time in co-leads, opposite the late Margaux Hemingway in the poorly done exploitative thrillerLipstick (1976) and as a demon in the shocker The Sentinel (1977). To avoid being typed as creepy characters, Chris extended himself brilliantly in the years to come, portraying the title role in The Day Christ Died (1980), a critically heralded TV-movie. He received high marks also for his Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities (1980) and co-starred withGoldie Hawn in the more mainstream Protocol (1984). In the 1980s Chris would endear himself to a younger generation of filmgoers as the undeniably sexy, hypnotic vampire-next-door in the teen horror classic Fright Night (1985), the cruel, evil-plotting prince inRob Reiner‘s The Princess Bride (1987) and as the investigating cop in Child’s Play(1988), the first in the “Chucky” series about a murdering doll. In recent years Chris has continued steadily on stage, film and TV but at a lesser pace and in less flashy, high-profiled roles.
Divorced from Susan Sarandon in 1979, he was married and divorced from model Lisa Ann Cooper during the 1980s. In 1991 he co-starred on Broadway in the short-lived musical “Nick and Nora” with Joanna Gleason, the daughter of Monty Hall(Let’s Make a Deal (1963)). They married in 1994 and reunited on stage in “Thorn & Bloom” in 1998. They have also appeared together in a number of films, includingAmerican Perfekt (1997), Edie & Pen (1996) and Let the Devil Wear Black (1999).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.ne
Richard Cox is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Stuart Richards in the film Cruising and Max Frazier on Ghostwriter. He was nominated for Broadway’s 1979 Tony Award as Best Actor (Featured Role – Musical) for Platinum.
Cox performed on Broadway with Ingrid Bergman in Captain Brassbound’s Conversion before going to Hollywood in 1975 with the national company of Grease.
He appeared with Al Pacino in Cruising (1980) and Looking for Richard (1996). Other film credits include Seizure (1974), Between the Lines (1977), Sanford and Son (1975), King of the Mountain(1981), Hellhole (1985), The Vindicator (1986), Zombie High (1987) and Radio Free Albemuth (2010).
Ben Barnes is probably best known for his performances in “Stardust” as Young Dunston and Caspian in “The Chronicles of Narnia”. He is due to be in the play “Birdsong” on the West End stage in September 2010. A website fpr Ben Barnes can be accessed here.
Ben Barnes is a British actor and singer. He is best known for his roles as Prince Caspian in The Chronicles of Narnia film series, Logan Delos in Westworld, and Billy Russo in The Punisher.
He has also played Tom Ward in the fantasy film Seventh Son, Dorian Gray in Dorian Gray, supporting roles in The Words, and The Big Wedding, and portrayed Samuel Adams in the 2015 miniseries Sons of Liberty.
Barnes was born in London, to Tricia, a relationship therapist, and Thomas Barnes, a professor of psychiatry.
Barnes was educated at two independent schools for boys: Homefield Preparatory Schoolin Sutton and King’s College School in Wimbledon, south-west London (where his classmates included the film actor Khalid Abdalla and comedian Tom Basden),[5] followed by Kingston University in Kingston-upon-Thames, where he studied drama and English literature, and from which he graduated with BA Honours in 2004.
Barnes began his career in musical theatre. As a teenager, he spent a few years as part of the National Youth Music Theatre, whose alumni also include actors Jude Law and Jamie Bell.[8] At fifteen, Barnes landed his first professional job as a drummer in the West End musical adaptation of Bugsy Malone. He was briefly a singer in the pop boy band Hyrise, which was in the running to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004 with the song “Leading Me On”; however, they lost out to James Fox and “Hold Onto Our Love“. Barnes began working in television in 2006, including a guest appearance on the UK series Doctors. That same year, he joined the ensemble cast of a West End production of The History Boys, in which he starred as the sexually provocative Dakin, a role originally played by Dominic Cooper on stage and in the film The History Boys.
Barnes made his feature film debut as Young Dunstan in 2007’s Stardust, directed by Matthew Vaughnand based on the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name. Barnes then starred as a Russian hoodlum named Cobakka in Suzie Halewood’s Bigga Than Ben, which was released in 2008 in the United Kingdom and other European countries.[11]
In February 2007, it was announced that Barnes would play the role of Caspian in the film adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, directed by Andrew Adamson. Adamson said “Caspian is a coming of age and, to some degree, a loss of innocence story, with Caspian starting out quite naïve, then craving revenge and finally letting go of the vengeance.” While many readers interpret Caspian as a child, a passage in the novel mentions his age to be near that of Peter’s, so an older actor was sought to match William Moseley. Barnes had read the novel as a child, and was cast in two-and-a-half weeks after meeting with the filmmakers. He spent two months in New Zealand horse riding and stunt training to prepare for shooting. Barnes says his Mediterranean accent in the movie was inspired in part by Mandy Patinkin‘s performance as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. Adamson did not expect to cast a British actor as Caspian, and said Barnes fitted well into the surrogate family of Adamson and the four actors playing the Pevensies.[16]
In the spring of 2008, Barnes finished filming the role of John Whittaker for Noël Coward‘s romantic comedy, Easy Virtue opposite Jessica Biel. Written and directed by Australian Stephan Elliott,[17] the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2008.[18] The film has screened at the Rio, Rome, Abu Dhabi, London and Adelaide Film Festivals.[19][20] It also screened at the Tribeca Film Festival prior to its U.S. release on 22 May 2009.[21] Easy Virtue is a social comedy in which a glamorous American widow, Larita, impetuously marries a young Englishman, John Whittaker, when they return to England to meet his parents, his mother takes an immediate and strong dislike to the new daughter-in-law.[22] The score contains many Coward and jazz-age songs, some of which are sung by Barnes. In the United States, the film enjoyed some commercial success. Sony Pictures Classics paid an estimated $US1 million to acquire the film’s distribution rights in the United States, Latin America and South Africa.[23]
Barnes next starred in the title role in a film adaptation of Oscar Wilde‘s Dorian Gray, directed by Oliver Parker for Ealing Studios.[24] The film was released on 9 September 2009 in the United Kingdom and had its world premiere that month at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In May 2009, Barnes was nominated for MTV Movie Awards‘ Best Breakthrough Male for his performance in Prince Caspian, which went to Robert Pattinson from Twilight.[25] In June 2009, Barnes filmed the psychological thriller Locked In, directed by Suri Krishnamma, on location in Boston. In the movie (which was originally titled Valediction), Barnes plays an American father named Josh whose daughter seems to be in a coma after being in a car accident.[26]
Barnes appeared as King Caspian in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010), the third installment in the series. Directed by Michael Apted, the movie was filmed from July to November 2009 in Brisbane, Australia. It premiered on 30 November 2010 at a Royal Film Performance in London.[27] and released in December 2010.[28][29] It was released in traditional 2D, RealD 3D, and Digital 3D, and a limited release in 4D.[30] The film was the 12th highest-grossing film of 2010 worldwide.[31]
In January 2010, Barnes began filming Killing Bono,[32] a comedy based on the Neil McCormick memoir Killing Bono: I Was Bono’s Doppelgänger, in which McCormick recounts his youth in Ireland as an aspiring rock star who is overshadowed by his friend Bono, the lead singer of U2. Barnes played McCormick in Killing Bono, which is directed by Nick Hamm. Filming started at the beginning of January in the city of Lisburn. Killing Bono was released on 1 April 2011, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The European premiere was at the Savoy Cinema in Dublin. Sony Music Entertainment released the movie’s soundtrack worldwide.
Barnes returned to the West End stage in London with a starring role as World War I soldier Stephen Wraysford in Birdsong, a drama based on the Sebastian Faulks novel of the same title. The play, directed by Trevor Nunn and adapted for the West End stage by writer Rachel Wagstaff opened on 28 September 2010, running through 15 January 2011. He was then cast alongside Bradley Cooperand Zoe Saldana in The Words (2012).
In 2013 Barnes had one film released, The Big Wedding, a remake of the original 2006 French film Mon frère se marie (My brother is getting married). The movie starred an ensemble cast that included Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Katherine Heigl, Topher Grace, Amanda Seyfried, Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams. The movie released on 26 April 2013.
In December 2012, Barnes began filming the modern day crime drama By the Gun with co-stars Harvey Keitel and Leighton Meester. By the Gun had its world premiere at the 2014 Zurich Film Festival, theatrical premiere in Boston on 2 December 2014, and a limited theatrical release on 5 December 2014. It was released on DVD on 20 January 2015.
Barnes played Tom Ward in the film Seventh Son (2014). Directed by Sergei Bodrov and co-starring Jeff Bridges, Alicia Vikanderand Julianne Moore, it is based on the novel The Spook’s Apprentice (titled The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch in the US) by Joseph Delaney.[49] The presentation was at Comic-Con International 2011. The film was released in France on 17 December 2014, and in Canada and the United States on 6 February 2015.
In 2015, Barnes starred as Sam Adams in the History Channel‘s three-part fictional mini-series Sons of Liberty. Barnes also starred with Katherine Heigl in the romantic drama Jackie & Ryan. On 20 July 2015 it was announced that Barnes would replace Eion Bailey as Logan Delos in HBO‘s science fiction thriller Westworld, the first season of which aired in the fall of 2016.
In September 2016, Barnes was cast as Billy Russo in the Marvel Netflix series The Punisher.[54]
Jason Stakam
Jason Statham is an English actor who is also a martial arts expert. He was born in 1967 in Shirebrook. He is best known for his roles in Guy Ritchie films like “Snatch”. He is currently starring with old pros Sylvester Stallone. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren in “The Expendables” Interview with Statham in “The Guardian” can be accessed here.
He was born on 26 July 1967 in Shirebrook, Derbyshire,[5][6] the son of Eileen (née Yates), a dancer, and Barry Statham, a street seller.[7] His father also worked odd jobs as a house painter, coal miner, and singer in the Canary Islands.[8] He moved to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he initially chose not to follow his father’s career working the local market stalls, instead practising martial arts. He grew up with football player Vinnie Jones, alongside whom he would later act. Jones introduced him to football, and Statham went on to play for the local grammar school (1978–1983), which he had attended since the age of 11, a passion that he shared with diving.[9] He practiced daily in perfecting his diving techniques, and was a member of Britain’s National Swimming Squad for twelve years.[10][11] Statham competed for England at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in the 10 meter, 3 meter, and 1 meter competitions.[12] He said in a 2003 IGN interview that his time with the national squad was “a great experience” and one that “teaches you discipline, focus, and certainly keeps you out of trouble”.[13]
Statham’s life in the media began when he was spotted by the agency Sports Promotions specialising in sports modelling while he was training at London’s Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. He was also signed by Tommy Hilfiger, Griffin, and Levis for various modeling contracts during their 1996 spring/summer collections.[14] In 1997, he became a model for the clothing brand French Connection. A spokesperson for the high street clothing chain said: “we chose Jason because we wanted our model to look like a normal guy. His look is just right for now: very masculine and not too male-modelly.”[6] However, he was still forced to follow in his father’s footsteps as a street seller to make ends meet, selling “fake perfume and jewellery on street corners” according to Statham.[15][8] He made small appearances in a few music videos, including “Comin’ On” by The Shamen in 1993, “Run to the Sun” by Erasure in 1994,[16] and “Dream a Little Dream of Me” by The Beautiful South in 1995.[17][18]
“Ellen Burstyn is probably a terrific actress. She has won a ton of awards. We loved her in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”, as the young widow who wants a life of her own, instead of living only through her men. Her Alice was the most ordinary of women and if you start to call her plucky or humourous, you are still not near. We had not seen this sort of pluck on screen, born of despair, nor this sort of humour, moving from gentle sarcasm to self-mockery to play-acting. It was a big chance and she grabbed it, contributing as much to the end result as any actress since Garbo” – David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The International Years”. (1972).
Ellen Burstyn originally acted under the name Ellen McRae and changed her name in 1970. She was nominated for an Oscar in 1971 for her performance in “The Last Picture Show” and very quickly gained international recognition. In the 1970’s she was nominated many times for Oscars winning for “Alice Dos’nt Live Here Anymore”. Other major films from this period in her career include “The King of Marvin Gardens”, “The Exorcist” and “Same Time, Next Year”. In 2000 she was nominated again for “Requiem for a Dream”. An interview in “The Huffington Post” with Ellen Burstyn can be accessed here.
TCM overview:e
One of the most popular actresses in film and television during the 1970s and 1980s, Ellen Burstyn wowed critics and audiences alike with her enormously skilled and sympathetic performances as strong and complex women who struggle against what seem like insurmountable challenges in such films as “The Last Picture Show” (1971), “The Exorcist” (1973) and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” which earned her an Academy Award in 1974. Despite her considerable talent and skill in both heavy drama and comedies like “Same Time, Next Year” (1978), she found it difficult to find substantial parts in the eighties, so she divided her time between running the Actors Equity Association and roles in TV-movies like “The People vs. Jean Harris” (1981), as well as top-billing her own short-lived sitcom, “The Ellen Burstyn Show” (ABC, 1986-87). The actress gradually returned to feature films in the 1990s, which culminated in a harrowing Academy Award-nominated turn as a woman in the grip of addiction in Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream” (2000).
Now back on every director’s wish list, she followed this with a succession of well-regarded projects, including “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” (2002), “Mitch Alborn’s For One More Day” (2007) and “W” (2008) as Barbara Bush. She also penned a 2007 memoir, Lessons in Becoming Myself, which detailed her difficult upbringing and traumatic relationship with her third husband, actor and writer, Neil Burstyn. Truly an inspiration, Burstyn proved that women of any age could not only land thoughtful, provocative roles, but dominant opposite their similarly aged male counterparts. Born Edna Rae Gillooly in Detroit, MI on Dec. 7, 1932, Burstyn’s parents were divorced when she was young, and she worked a number of day jobs before earning enough money to leave home at the age of 18.
She relocated to Texas to work as a model before moving to Montreal and later New York City, where she was employed as a dancer on “The Jackie Gleason Show” (CBS, 1952-1970). Determined to become an actress, her perseverance paid off with her 1957 debut on Broadway in “Fair Game,” for which she was billed as Ellen McRae. Countless roles in television series followed, including a regular stint on the daytime soap opera “The Doctors” (NBC, 1963-1982). Her feature debut came with a supporting turn in the wan comedy “Goodbye Charlie” (1964) with Tony Curtis. Despite the regular work, Burstyn was dissatisfied with her life and career; twice divorced and the single mother of an adopted son, she strove to improve her craft by studying with acclaimed teacher Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio in New York, but departed to Los Angeles soon after to be with her third husband, actor and writer Neil Burstyn
. In 1970, she gained excellent notices for her portrayal of Henry Miller’s wife Mona in Joseph Strick’s “Tropic of Cancer.” The praise came at a critical point in Burstyn’s acting career, as she had considered quitting the business prior to the film’s release. She followed this with a stunning turn as a former small town glamour girl embittered over the loss of her status to her own daughter (Cybill Shepard) in Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show” (1971), which earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Another magnetic turn as a brittle former beauty in Bob Rafelson’s “The King of Marvin Gardens” (1972) solidified Burstyn’s status as one of the strongest female talents of the early 1970s. She completed the trifecta with “The Exorcist” (1973), William Friedkin’s horrific exploration of modern day demonic possession.
As the desperate mother of the little girl (Linda Blair) under siege from unseen forces, Burstyn netted another pair of Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. During this period, Burstyn divorced Neil Burstyn, who had descended into a spiral of schizophrenia and violence that marred the core of their relationship. He would continue to harass her for over half a decade before committing suicide in 1978. Burstyn soon discovered that with the onset of success also came the reality that her current career path was an exception to the Hollywood rule rather than the norm. She expressed disappointment with the range of roles being offered to her in the wake of her back-to-back Academy Award nominations, noting that the majority of the projects sought to cast her as either sexually provocative women or helpless victims. She eventually found the script for “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974), a drama about a divorced woman who relocates to a small town in an attempt to rebuild her life. Burstyn jumped at the chance to work on the project, and was initially offered a chance to direct the film by its studio, Warner Bros. She turned down the offer, citing her inexperience in that field, but acted as the film’s unofficial executive producer. In that capacity, she was responsible for bringing director Martin Scorsese to the project at the behest of Francis Ford Coppola. Scorsese and Burstyn worked closely on the film – among their joint decisions was to feature as many women on the production team as possible – and the result was a quietly powerful film which offered a wholly realistic look at a woman trying to live her life on her own terms. For her performance, Burstyn was given the Academy Award in 1974.
The film would inspire a comedic take on female empowerment in the form of the CBS sitcom, “Alice” (1976-1985) starring Linda Lavin in the title role. The following year, Burstyn returned to Broadway in Bernard Slade’s romantic comedy “Same Time Next Year,” for which she earned a Tony Award. She also devoted considerable time to her spiritual growth; having begun studying with Sufi mystics, she purchased a home on the Hudson River in New York which doubled as a center for creative and mystical study. In 1975, she becomes a Sheraga, the equivalent of a minister in the Sufi faith, and taught a course that combined acting with spiritual enlightenment. Burstyn remained very active in features during this period, though her projects began to embrace more arthouse tropes than Hollywood-minded material. She appeared in supporting roles in Paul Mazursky’s gentle comedy “Harry and Tonto” (1974) and Alain Renais’ fantastical drama “Providence” (1977).
The film version of “Same Time Next Year” (1978) brought her back to the mainstream and a fourth Oscar nomination. Her next feature, “Resurrection” (1980), cast her as a woman who survives a traumatic accident only to discover that she has the ability to heal people. Though largely ignored during the year of its release, Burstyn netted her fifth Academy Award nomination for her performance. The slight box office returns for “Resurrection” and her next film, “Silence of the North” (1981), seemed to indicate that Burstyn’s film career was on the wane. She wisely shifted her attention to television, where she was able to find more substantial work. “The People vs. Jean Harris” (1981) earned her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations as the heiress and accused murderer of Scarsdale Diet creator Herman Tarnower, while “Surviving” (1985) and “Pack of Lies” (1987) allowed her to explore the lives of average women in the grip of overwhelming circumstances – including a child’s suicide and the possibility that one’s neighbors were involved in illegal activities, respectively.
Burstyn also essayed Mary Todd Lincoln in “Look Away” (1987) and kept an active hand in features like “Twice in a Lifetime” (1985) and “Dying Young” (1991), though none enjoyed the level of exposure as her best work from the early 1970s. In addition to her film and television career, Burstyn returned frequently to the stage; most notably on Broadway in “84 Charing Cross Road” (1982). The death of Lee Strasberg in 1982 added artistic director to her bustling resume when she and Al Pacino assumed the reigns of the Actors Studio. That same year, she was also named the first female president of Actors Equity, which served as a union for stage actors. In 1986, Burstyn tackled a TV situation comedy with “The Ellen Burstyn Show,” which found her playing a successful author who shares her home with her mother (Elaine Stritch) and daughter (Megan Mullaley). The show disappeared from ABC’s lineup after a season, and Burstyn herself would later describe the experience as a failed experiment. She returned to a steady diet of TV-movies, though her feature appearances began to multiply with supporting roles – often as wise and supportive older women – in “The Cemetery Club” (1993), “How to Make an American Quilt” (1995) and “The Spitfire Grill” (1995).
In 2000, Burstyn received her most challenging role since her seventies heyday with Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream.” Based on the harrowing novel by Hubert Selby, Burstyn gave a brave and often terrifying performance as an elderly widow who undergoes the hell of prescription drug addiction while her son (Jared Leto) is experiencing his own turmoil with a heroin problem. The picture served as a powerful reminder of Burstyn’s abilities, and she was richly rewarded with her sixth Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe nod as well. Burstyn’s profile increased substantially after the Oscar nomination for “Requiem” – she starred as the matriarch of a large Italian family on the short-lived drama “That’s Life” (CBS, 2000-02) and reaped excellent reviews for her supporting roles in “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” (2002) and the TV adaptation of Mitch Alborn’s “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” (2004). She also found herself at the center of controversy for her brief appearance in the HBO feature “Mrs. Harris” (2005). Her role, as an ex-lover of Dr. Tarnower’s, consisted of just two lines of dialogue and 14 seconds of screen time, yet she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Public and media outcry over the nomination swirled for days until the ceremony itself, where Kelly McDonald claimed the trophy.
For her part, Burstyn issued brief statements to the press that alternated between bemusement and outright disgust over the negative attention. The incident later served as ammunition for Emmy detractors, who claimed that the nominations were based more on name recognition than actual achievement. Undaunted, Burstyn continued to appear as formidable women in a variety of projects. She was cast in the controversial NBC series “The Book of Daniel” (NBC, 2006) as a bishop involved with the married father of the title character (Aiden Quinn), and later appeared as a sympathetic doctor in “The Fountain” (2007), which reunited her with “Requiem” director Darren Aronofsky. That same year, Burstyn received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her turn in “Mitch Alborn’s For One More Day” (2007) as the ghost of a mother forgotten by her wayward son (Michael Imperioli). The following year, she earned another Emmy nomination for her appearance on “Big Love” (HBO, 2006- ) as the estranged mother of polygamist wife Jeanne Tripplehorn.
In 2007, Burstyn received critical praise for her autobiography, Lessons in Becoming Myself, which recounted the highs and lows of her acting career and personal life, including her late husband Neil Burstyn’s descent into schizophrenia, which resulted in years of physical and emotional abuse, as well as her own spiritual adventures. She returned to the big screen the following year in a big way as yet another strong female – Barbara Bush, mother of the 43rd president, George W. Bush – in Oliver Stone’s controversial biopic “W.” (2008). Theater fans were delighted to see her also return to the New York stage that year in a production of “The Little Flower of East Orange” for director-actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Meanwhile, on the small screen, Burstyn received considerable acclaim for an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (NBC, 1999- ), which earned the actress an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2009.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
This Texan actor came into his own with his part as the Southern lawyer in John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill” with Sandra Bullock. He then went on to make Spielberg’s “Armistad” and two very succesful comedies “The Wedding Planner” and “How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days”. He won the Oscar for Best Actor in 2013. Article on Matthew on “Time” can be accessed here.
IMDB Entry:
Matthew McConaughey was born in Uvalde, Texas. His mother, Mary Kathleen (McCabe), is a substitute school teacher originally from New Jersey. His father, James Donald McConaughey, was a Mississippi-born gas station owner who ran an oil pipe supply business. He is of Scottish, Irish, English, German, and Swedish descent. Matthew grew up in Longview, Texas, where he graduated from the local High School (1988). Showing little interest in his father’s oil business, which his two brothers later joined, Matthew was longing for a change of scenery, and spent a year in Australia, washing dishes and shoveling chicken manure.
Back to the States, he attended the University of Texas in Austin, originally wishing to be a lawyer. But, when he discovered an inspirational Og Mandino book “The Greatest Salesman in the World” before one of his final exams, he suddenly knew he had to change his major from law to film. He began his acting career in 1991, appearing in student films and commercials in Texas and directed short films asChicano Chariots (1992). Once, in his hotel bar in Austin, he met the casting director and producer Don Phillips, who introduced him to director Richard Linklater for his next project. At first, Linklater thought Matthew was too handsome to play the role of a guy chasing high school girls in his coming-of-age drama Dazed and Confused (1993), but cast him after Matthew grew out his hair and mustache. His character was initially in three scenes but the role grew to more than 300 lines as Linklater encouraged him to do some improvisations.
In 1995, he starred in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), playing a mad bloodthirsty sadistic killer, opposite Renée Zellweger. Shortly thereafter moving to L.A., Matthew became a sensation with his performances in two high-profile 1996 films Lone Star (1996), where he portrayed killing suspected sheriff and in the film adaptation of John Grisham‘s novel A Time to Kill (1996), where he played an idealistic young lawyer opposite Sandra Bullock and Kevin Spacey. The actor was soon being hailed as one of the industry’s hottest young leading man inspiring comparisons to actor Paul Newman. His following performances were Robert Zemeckis‘ Contact (1997) with Jodie Foster (the film was finished just before the death of the great astronomer and popularizer of space science Carl Sagan) and Steven Spielberg‘s Amistad (1997), a fact-based 1839 story about the rebellious African slaves. In 1998, he teamed again withRichard Linklater as one of the bank-robbing brothers in The Newton Boys (1998), set in Matthew’s birthplace, Uvalde, Texas. During this time, he also wrote, directed and starred in the 20-minute short The Rebel (1998). Later, in Jonathan Mostow‘s U-571 (2000),
McConaughey portrayed the officer Lt. Tyler in a WW II story of a daring mission of American submariners, trying to capture the Enigma cipher machine. Matthew also took a part in comedies such as The Wedding Planner (2001), opposite Jennifer Lopez and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) in which he co-starred with Kate Hudson. He played a role as Denton Van Zan, an American warrior and dragons hunter in the futuristic thrillerReign of Fire (2002), where he co-starred with another young actor, Christian Bale. Later in 2006 he starred as head coach Jack Lengyel in We Are Marshall (2006) along withMatthew Fox, and in 2008 played treasure hunter Benjamin “Finn” Finnegan in Fool’s Gold(2008) with Kate Hudson. After playing Connor Mead in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) co-starring with Jennifer Garner,
McConaughey took a 2 year hiatus to open different kinds of opportunities in his career. And for many, that change came in 2011 in his first movie after that pause, when he portrayed criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), that operates mostly from the back seat of his Lincoln car. After this performance that was considered one of his best until then, Matthew played other iconic characters as district attorney Danny Buck Davidson in Bernie (2011), the wild private detective “Killer” Joe Cooper in Killer Joe (2011), Mud in Mud (2012), male stripper club owner Dallas in Magic Mike (2012) starring Channing Tatum. McConaughey’s career certainly reached it’s prime, when he played HIV carrier Ron Woodroof in the biographical drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013), that was shot in less than a month.
Matthew won the Best Actor in the 86th Academy Awards for his portrayal of Ron. Meanwhile, he starred in HBO’s True Detective (2014), as detective Rustin Cohle, whose job is to investigate with his partner Martin Hart, played by Woody Harrelson, a gruesome murder that happened in his little town in Louisiana. The series was highly acclaimed by critics winning 4 of the 7 categories it was nominated at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards. Later in 2014, Matthew starred in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi film Interstellar(2014), playing Cooper, a former NASA pilot.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Tzvetislav Samardjiev, tzvetislav@abv.bg and Marcelo Gaia
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.
