75 Best Performances by Actors 1980-1989
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Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.The Verdict- Actor
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Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Drexl in True Romance (1993), George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017), among many others. For much of his career, he was best-known for playing over-the-top antagonists, such as terrorist Egor Korshunov in the 1997 blockbuster Air Force One (1997), though he has reached a new audience with heroic roles in the Harry Potter and Dark Knight franchises. He is also a filmmaker, musician, and author.
Gary Leonard Oldman was born on March 21, 1958 in New Cross, London, England, to Kathleen (Cheriton), a homemaker, and Leonard Bertram Oldman, a welder. He won a scholarship to Britain's Rose Bruford Drama College, in Sidcup, Kent, where he received a B.A. in theatre arts in 1979. He subsequently studied with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and went on to appear in a number of plays throughout the early '80s, including "The Pope's Wedding," for which he received Time Out's Fringe Award for Best Newcomer of 1985-1986 and the British Theatre Association's Drama Magazine Award as Best Actor for 1985. Before fame, he was employed as a worker in assembly lines and as a porter in an operating theater. He also had jobs selling shoes and beheading pigs while supporting his early acting career.
His film debut was Remembrance (1982), though his most-memorable early role came when he played Sex Pistol Sid Vicious in the biopic Sid and Nancy (1986) picking up the Evening Standard Film Award as Best Newcomer. He then received a Best Actor nomination from BAFTA for his portrayal of '60s playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).
In the 1990s, Oldman brought to life a series of iconic real-world and fictional villains including Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), the title character in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Drexl Spivey in True Romance (1993), Stansfield in Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in The Fifth Element (1997) and Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One (1997). That decade also saw Oldman portraying Ludwig van Beethoven in biopic Immortal Beloved (1994).
Oldman played the coveted role of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), giving him a key part in one of the highest-grossing franchises ever. He reprised that role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). Oldman also took on the iconic role of Detective James Gordon in writer-director Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), a role he played again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Prominent film critic Mark Kermode, in reviewing The Dark Knight, wrote, "the best performance in the film, by a mile, is Gary Oldman's ... it would be lovely to see him get a[n Academy Award] nomination because actually, he's the guy who gets kind of overlooked in all of this."
Oldman co-starred with Jim Carrey in the 2009 version of A Christmas Carol in which Oldman played three roles. He had a starring role in David Goyer's supernatural thriller The Unborn, released in 2009. In 2010, Oldman co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli. He also played a lead role in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood. Oldman voiced the role of villain Lord Shen and was nominated for an Annie Award for his performance in Kung Fu Panda 2.
In 2011, Oldman portrayed master spy George Smiley in the adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and the role scored Oldman his first Academy Award nomination. In 2014, he played one of the lead humans in the science fiction action film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) alongside Jason Clarke and Keri Russell. Also in 2014, Oldman starred alongside Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of RoboCop (2014), as Norton, the scientist who creates RoboCop.
Aside from acting, Oldman tried his hand at writing and directing for Nil by Mouth (1997). The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize at the festival.
Oldman has three children, Alfie, with first wife, actress Lesley Manville, and Gulliver and Charlie with his third wife, Donya Fiorentino. In 2017, he married writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best actor for his work on Darkest Hour (2017).Sid and Nancy- Actor
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Bruno Ganz was an acclaimed Swiss actor who was a prominent figure in German language film and television for over fifty years. He is internationally renowned for portraying Adolf Hitler in the Academy Award-nominated film Downfall (2004).
Ganz was born in Zürich, to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university. He debuted at the theatre in 1961, and gained a reputation as a reflective, charismatic and technically brilliant stage actor. In 1970, he and Peter Stein founded the theatre company 'Schaubühne' in Berlin, Germany. On stage, Ganz portrayed Dr. Heinrich Faust in Peter Stein's staging of Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two in 2000.
In cinema, Ganz became one of the best-known and most acclaimed actors in the German language, collaborating with many of the most respected European actors and directors of his time. He also starred in international features that reached a global audience. His film debut was The Gentleman in the Black Derby (1960). He also starred in Unknown (2011), The Counselor (2013), and The Party (2017).
Ganz died from cancer on 16 February 2019 at his home in the village of Au, in Wädenswil, Switzerland.Wings of Desire- Actor
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Isaach De Bankolé, César Award-winning actor, was born on the Ivory Coast. He was discovered on the streets of Paris while studying to be an airline pilot. He has a degree in acting from Cours Simon and a Masters in Mathematics from the Universite de Paris. Most recently, he has appeared in the films Black Panther (2018) and Shaft (2019).Chocolat- Actor
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Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America's finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901, in Macon, Georgia. His father, Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, a noted concert pianist and composer, was a Latvian Jewish emigrant, from Riga. His mother, Lena Priscilla (Shackelford), from Clark Furnace, Tennessee, was from a family with deep roots in the United States, and the daughter of Col. George Taliaferro Shackelford. Melvyn's father supported his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
He made his Broadway debut in the drama "A Free Soul " at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster (a part that would later make Clark Gable's career when the play was adapted to the screen as A Free Soul (1931) ). "A Free Soul" was a modest success, running for 100 performances. His next three plays were flops: "Back Here" and "Now-a-Days" each lasted one week, while "Recapture" lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, "Tonight or Never," which opened on November 18, 1930, at legendary producer David Belasco's theater. Not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years: his co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.
The movies came a-calling in 1932 and Douglas had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films. He first appeared opposite his future Ninotchka (1939) co-star Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me (1932), proving himself a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema's greatest star. In typical Hollywood fashion, however, this terrific performance in a top-rank film from a major studio was balanced by his appearance in a low-budget horror film for the independent Mayfair studio, The Vampire Bat (1933). However, the leading man won out, and that's how he first came to fame in the 1930s in such films as She Married Her Boss (1935) and Garbo's final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Douglas had shown he could play both straight drama and light comedy.
Douglas was a great liberal and was a pillar of the anti-Nazi Popular Front in the Hollywood of the 1930s. A big supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he and his wife Helen were invited to spend a night at the White House in November 1939. Douglas' leftism would come back to haunt him after the death of FDR.
Well-connected with the Roosevelt White House, Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-Communist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944, the first of three terms.
Returning to films after the war, Douglas' screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, in such films as The Sea of Grass (1947) (Elia Kazan's directorial debut) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he - along with fellow liberals Edward G. Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) - were "gray-listed" (not explicitly blacklisted, they just weren't offered any work).
Then there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, including in a notable 1959 flop, making his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein's "Juno." The musical, based on Sean O'Casey's play "Juno and the Paycock", closed in less than three weeks. Douglas was much luckier in his next trip to the post: he won a Tony for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal.
Douglas' evolution into a premier character actor was completed by the early 1960s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen him, making him richer, and he returned to the big screen a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the graylist, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman's father in Hud (1963). Other films in which he shined were Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964), CBS Playhouse (1967) (a 1967 episode directed by George Schaefer called "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", for which he won a Best Actor Emmy) and The Candidate (1972), in which he played Robert Redford's father. It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman's father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late 1970s, appearing in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Being There (1979) and Ghost Story (1981). He won his second Oscar for "Being There."
Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.Tell Me A Riddle- Actor
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Sean Penn is a powerhouse film performer capable of intensely moving work, who has gone from strength to strength during a colourful film career, and who has drawn much media attention for his stormy private life and political viewpoints.
Sean Justin Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the second son of actress Eileen Ryan (née Annucci) and director, actor, and writer Leo Penn. His brother was actor Chris Penn. His father was from a Lithuanian Jewish/Russian Jewish family, and his mother is of half Italian and half Irish descent.
Penn first appeared in roles as strong-headed or unruly youths such as the military cadet defending his academy against closure in Taps (1981), then as fast-talking surfer stoner Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
Fans and critics were enthused about his obvious talent and he next contributed a stellar performance alongside Timothy Hutton in the Cold War spy thriller The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), followed by a teaming with icy Christopher Walken in the chilling At Close Range (1986). The youthful Sean then paired up with his then wife, pop diva Madonna in the woeful, and painful, Shanghai Surprise (1986), which was savaged by the critics, but Sean bounced back with a great job as a hot-headed young cop in Colors (1988), gave another searing performance as a US soldier in Vietnam committing atrocities in Casualties of War (1989) and appeared alongside Robert De Niro in the uneven comedy We're No Angels (1989). However, the 1990s was the decade in which Sean really got noticed by critics as a mature, versatile and accomplished actor, with a string of dynamic performances in first-class films.
Almost unrecognisable with frizzy hair and thin rimmed glasses, Penn was simply brilliant as corrupt lawyer David Kleinfeld in the Brian De Palma gangster movie Carlito's Way (1993) and he was still in trouble with authority as a Death Row inmate pleading with a caring nun to save his life in Dead Man Walking (1995), for which he received his first Oscar nomination. Sean then played the brother of wealthy Michael Douglas, involving him in a mind-snapping scheme in The Game (1997) and also landed the lead role of Sgt. Eddie Walsh in the star-studded anti-war film The Thin Red Line (1998), before finishing the 1990s playing an offbeat jazz musician (and scoring another Oscar nomination) in Sweet and Lowdown (1999).
The gifted and versatile Sean had also moved into directing, with the quirky but interesting The Indian Runner (1991), about two brothers with vastly opposing views on life, and in 1995 he directed Jack Nicholson in The Crossing Guard (1995). Both films received overall positive reviews from critics. Moving into the new century, Sean remained busy in front of the cameras with even more outstanding work: a mentally disabled father fighting for custody of his seven-year-old daughter (and receiving a third Oscar nomination) for I Am Sam (2001); an anguished father seeking revenge for his daughter's murder in the gut-wrenching Clint Eastwood-directed Mystic River (2003) (for which he won the Oscar as Best Actor); a mortally ill college professor in 21 Grams (2003) and a possessed businessman in The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004).
Certainly Sean Penn is one of Hollywood's most controversial, progressive and gifted actors.Casualties of War- Actor
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Gary Dale Farmer is a character actor with plenty of character. With over 100 Film and TV appearances attached to his resume, and plenty more in the pipeline, Gary has shown he can adapt easily to any genre when necessary. He was born in Ohsweken, Ontario, into the Cayuga nation and Wolf Clan, and studied photography and Film at both the Syracuse University and Ryerson Polytechnic University. He then began a successful career as an actor, first taking small roles in movies such as Police Academy (1984), the John Schlesinger film The Believers (1987) with Martin Sheen, the Matt Dillon vehicle, The Big Town (1987), and Renegades (1989) starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips.
By the early 1990s, Gary was starring in more substantial roles. He portrayed Cowboy Dashee in the Robert Redford- produced thriller, The Dark Wind (1991) - again opposite Lou Diamond Phillips- and starred with Corey Feldman and
Jim Jarmusch re-prised Gary's role as the Native American spiritual guide - Nobody - for his next film, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), and Frank Oz cast him alongside Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro in The Score (2001). Gary continues to work steadily as an actor and has also moved behind the camera - he has directed a few projects, including an episode of the Forever Knight (1992) TV series, episode 'Father Figure' (1992).
Gary formed his own band: 'Gary Farmer and the Troublemakers'. They play the blues and have released two CDs.Powwow Highway- Actor
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Bob Hoskins was described by the director John Mackenzie as "an actor from the British tradition but with an almost American approach, an instinctive approach to acting and knowing how to work with the camera". He was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where his mother was living after being evacuated as a result of the heavy bombings. He is the son of Elsie Lillian (Hopkins), a nursery school teacher and cook, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., who drove a lorry and worked as a bookkeeper. Growing up, Hoskins received only limited education and he left school at 15, but with a passion for language and literature instilled by his former English teacher.
A regular theatre-goer, Hoskins dreamed of starring on stage, but before he could do so he had to work odd jobs for a long time to make ends meet. His acting career started out more by accident than by design, when he accompanied a friend to watch some auditions, only to be confused for one of the people auditioning, getting a script pushed into his hands with the message "You're next". He got the part and acquired an agent. After some stage success, he expanded to television with roles in television series such as Villains (1972) and Thick as Thieves (1974). In the mid-'70s, he started his film career, standing out when he performed alongside Richard Dreyfuss in John Byrum's Inserts (1975) and in a smaller part in Richard Lester's Royal Flash (1975).
Hoskins broke through in 1978 in Dennis Potter's mini TV series, Pennies from Heaven (1978), playing "Arthur Parker", the doomed salesman. After this, a string of high-profile and successful films followed, starting with his true major movie debut in 1980's The Long Good Friday (1980) as the ultimately doomed "Harold Shand". This was followed by such works as The Cotton Club (1984), Mona Lisa (1986), which won him an Oscar nomination as well as a BAFTA award, Cannes Film Festival and Golden Globe), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (Golden Globe nomination), Mermaids (1990), Hook (1991), Nixon (1995), Felicia's Journey (1999) and Enemy at the Gates (2001).
Hoskins always carefully balanced the riches of Hollywood with the labor of independent film, though leaned more towards the latter than the former. He worked at smaller projects such as Shane Meadows' debut TwentyFourSeven (1997), in which he starred as "Allen Darcy". Besides this, he found time to direct, write and star in The Raggedy Rawney (1988), as well as direct and star in Rainbow (1995), and contributing to HBO's Tales from the Crypt (1989) and Tube Tales (1999).
Suffering from Parkinson's disease in later years, Hoskins died of pneumonia at age 71 in a London hospital.Mona Lisa- Actor
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Victor Banerjee Early life Banerjee was born to a Zamindari Bangali Hindu family and is a descendant of The Raja Bahadur of Chanchal and the Raja of Uttarpara. He received his schooling at St. Edmund's School, Shillong, and graduated in English Literature from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta and did Post Graduate studies in Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University. He turned down a scholarship to the Trinity College in Dublin who had offered,through the Irish Christian Brothers, to admit him as an Operatic Tenor. He was the lead tenor in the the "Calcutta Light Opera Group" production of the "Desert Song" and even played "Jesus" in Bombay Theatre's first ever musical production, "Godspell". Career Victor Banerjee (born 15 October 1946) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi, Bengali and English language films. He has worked for prominent directors such as Roman Polanski, James Ivory, Sir David Lean, Jerry London, Ronald Neame, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Satyajit Ray and Ram Gopal Varma. In 1984, he acted as Dr. Aziz Ahmed in David Lean's film A Passage to India, bringing him to the attention of Western audiences. Victor was nominated for BAFTA award for this role in 1986. He won two other awards for this role: Evening Standard British Film Award and NBR Award (National Board of Review, USA). In April 1985, at a special event in Louisiana, where John Travolta and Loretta Swit were also honoured, Banerjee was given the "SHOWARAMA AWARD" by the Motion Pictures Association of America as "New International Star". He acted in Merchant Ivory Productions Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures, Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari and Ghare Baire and in Mrinal Sen's Mahaprithivi. Though in recent years he has been involved with Bollywood, he is affiliated with the Bengali film industry. He also plays 'character actor' roles from time to time in the British cinema. He was also cast in the critically acclaimed role of "Jesus" in the 1988 production of the York Mystery Plays, by director Steven Pimlott. He is the only person in India who has won the "National Award" in three separate categories. As a Cinematographer for his documentary called "Where No Journeys End" which, in competition with 3100 entries from 27 countries, also won the "Gold Award" at the Houston International Film Festival. He won an award for Direction with the best documentary on Tourism called "The Splendour of Garhwal and Roopkund" and he won the "Best Supporting Actor" award for his work in Satyajit Ray's "Ghare Bairey".
Life When not in Calcutta, he is to be found in the hill station of Landour in the Lower Western Himalaya in northern India. He has written short stories and is a regular contributor of articles to magazines, periodicals and newspapers in India, on diverse and eclectic topics. His nonchalance to be politically incorrect and write with a bold and satirical pen, has been respected and admired widely. He has involved himself from time to time in human rights and labor issues. He helped form the Screen Extras Union of India and campaigned for the rights of Garhwali farmers. He also campaigned for the creation of Uttarakhand in a speech entitled "Uttarakhand: A People Denied" and has been credited with starting the movement that eventually led to the creation of the Uttarakhand Solidarity Network. For almost forty years, he has run a Blind School in Upper Assam, called the "Moran Blind School", where over seventy boys and girls from the families of tea garden workers and the poorest of villagers,receive free board and lodging and an education till they leave for junior college. He is the "Brand Ambassador" for the Srimanto Shankardev Movement, that is reviving the culture of neo-Vaishnavites that was first introduced in the 15th Century, in Assam. He is the "Brand Ambassador" for the "Dimasa Tribe" of the Cachar Hills of Northeast India, one of the most cultured peoples of the northeast tracts, one the earliest Sino-Tibetan tribes to inhabit the eastern Himalaya. He is the Brand Ambassador of the "Bird Watchers Association of Uttarakhand". He has for several years been the "Goodwill Ambassador" for "MENTAID" an organization that cares for the mentally challenged in Calcutta.A Passage to India- Actor
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British actor Jeremy Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England. He is the son of Barbara Anne Brereton (Sharpe) and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant. Young Jeremy didn't prove very fond of figures. He visited mainland England only once a year. He wound up being grounded when his family settled down in Hertfordshire. At the age of 13 he enrolled in Sherborne School, Dorset, where he could practice his favorite sport, horse-riding. Before becoming an actor, he had considered a veterinarian surgeon's career.
He trained at the Bristol Old Vic School for two years, then joined Bristol Old Vic repertory company where he gained experience working in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary dramas. He moved to London in 1971 and had a number of jobs before landing the role of "John the Baptist" in the hit musical "Godspell". He went on to have a successful early career in the West End theatre and on TV, and debuted on-screen in Nijinsky (1980). In the early 80s, he gained international attention with his starring role in the Granada Television serial adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel Brideshead Revisited (1981), after which he was much in demand as a romantic leading man. He went on to a steady film career. In 1984, he debuted on Broadway opposite: Glenn Close in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" and, in the mid-80s, he appeared in three lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Once described as 'the thinking woman's pin up', he has made his name in thought provoking films such as David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988), for which he won the New York Critics Best Actor Award. He gained a Golden Globe Award in addition to an Oscar for Best Actor in 1990 for his role as Claus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune (1990) alongside Glenn Close. Among his many achievements, his role as Professor Higgins in Loewe-Lerner's famous musical "My Fair Lady" mustn't be forgotten. It was in London, back in 1987.
He is married to actress Sinéad Cusack, with whom he appeared in Waterland (1992) and in the Royal Shakespeare Company plays. He appeared with his son Samuel Irons and his father-in-law Cyril Cusack in the film Danny the Champion of the World (1989). His son Max Irons is also an actor.Dead Ringers- Actor
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Eric Bogosian was born in Boston and grew up in Woburn, Massachusetts. After graduating from Woburn Memorial High School in 1971, he attended the University of Chicago and graduated from Oberlin College in 1976, whereupon he moved to New York City. In New York he was hired by the Kitchen as an assistant, established a dance series there and after five years left to devote all his energies to his theater work. Between 1976 and 1982, Bogosian wrote, directed and/or starred in over sixteen productions Off-Off-Broadway. In 1982, he toured the Midwest with Fab Five Freddy and the Rock Steady Crew.
In the early 1980's Eric Bogosian became well-known in New York for his intense one-man theater pieces, winning the Obie Award three times as well as the Drama Desk Award. In 1983, after attending one of his one-man shows, Larry Cohen cast Bogosian as the homicidal director in his low-budget film Special Effects (1984). Four years later, Bogosian's Pulitzer-nominated play, (in which he also starred), "Talk Radio" caught the attention of the greater film world. Robert Altman cast Bogosian in his film of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988) while producer Edward R. Pressman obtained the rights to the play and brought it to director Oliver Stone. Stone and Bogosian adapted the play script to film script, Bogosian again played the lead and the film of Talk Radio (1988) opened in December 1988. Bogosian received the prestigious "Silver Bear" at the 1989 Berlin Festival for his work on the film.
After the release of "Talk Radio", Bogosian worked regularly as an actor in film and television while remaining very active in the theater. 1994 was a banner year in which Bogosian co-starred with Steven Seagal in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) as the diabolical "Travis Dane", was featured in Dolores Claiborne (1995), staged another one-man show Off-Broadway and authored the play, "subUrbia" directed by Robert Falls and produced by Lincoln Center Theater, ("subUrbia" was adapted for film by director Richard Linklater). Around this time, Bogosian would also cameo appearances in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997), Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002), Cindy Sherman's Office Killer (1997) and Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996).
In the 1990's Bogosian continued to write for film and TV, adapting his own work as well as receiving assignments from studios. He began to write for television when he was invited to co-create a show for Steven Spielberg: High Incident (1996) in 1996. As an actor, in 2003, he co-starred with Val Kilmer as the notorious Eddie Nash in James Cox's Wonderland (2003). In 2006 he was invited onboard Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) as Captain Danny Ross (where he appeared in over sixty episodes).
In 2010, Bogosian starred on Broadway in Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still" with Laura Linney, Brian d'Arcy James, Alicia Silverstone and Christina Ricci.
In 2013, Bogosian created a website featuring his numerous monologues performed by notable actors. Visit 100monologues.com to view the complete catalog of over 75 monologues.
More recently, Bogosian landed a series of featured television roles on Netflix's The Get Down (2016), Showtime's Billions (2016) and as Senator Gil Eavis on HBO's Succession (2018).
Bogosian has been featured in Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie's Uncut Gems (2019) (starring Adam Sandler).
In addition to his numerous plays, Bogosian is the author of three novels "Mall", "Wasted Beauty" and "Perforated Heart." His non-fiction history, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide was published by Little, Brown in 2015.
He lives in New York City with his wife, director Jo Bonney with whom he has two children; Travis Bogosian and Harry Bogosian.Talk Radio- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Hart Matthew Bochner was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Ruth (Roher), a concert pianist, and Lloyd Bochner, an actor. He is of Russian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish descent. Hart made his feature film debut portraying George C. Scott's son in Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream (1977) and would go on to gain notice for his role in the Academy award-winning, Breaking Away (1979). However, it was his role in Die Hard (1988), opposite Bruce Willis, that would earn him pop culture status. His performance as the obnoxiously sleazy Harry ("Hans, Bubby") Ellis was bestowed the #2 spot on Maxim's "The Greatest Movie Sleazeballs Of All Time" list. Other films also include playing opposite Susan Sarandon in Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here (1999), Break Up (1998) with Bridget Fonda, the cult hit Apartment Zero (1988) opposite Colin Firth, George Cukor's Rich and Famous (1981), with Jacqueline Bisset, and John Schlesinger's The Innocent (1993), opposite Anthony Hopkins.
On television, Bochner starred in the Emmy award-winning epic miniseries, War and Remembrance (1988), Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1984), John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1981), And the Sea Will Tell (1991), Children of the Dust (1995), and Haywire (1980).
He would inevitably transition to behind-the-scenes work as a director, making his debut with the cult comedy, PCU (1994), for Twentieth Century Fox, and High School High (1996) for Columbia Pictures. Just Add Water (2008) for Sony Pictures is his latest directorial effort, which he also wrote, and stars Danny DeVito, Dylan Walsh, Jonah Hill, and Justin Long.
He will next be seen starring in the upcoming Campbell Scott film, Company Retreat (2009), as well as Spread (2009) opposite Ashton Kutcher. Most recently was seen starring as Debra Messing's love interest in the USA Network series, The Starter Wife (2008).
Bochner lives in Los Angeles and is actively involved in several causes, sitting on the board of directors for the Environmental Media Association as well as the DGA-PAC Leadership Council, and L.A.'s Green Ribbon Commission. In 2008, Bochner was named Time Magazine's "Greenest Celebrity in Hollywood".Apartment Zero- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Having made over one hundred films in his legendary career, Willem Dafoe is internationally respected for bringing versatility, boldness, and daring to some of the most iconic films of our time. His artistic curiosity in exploring the human condition leads him to projects all over the world, large and small, Hollywood films as well as Independent cinema.
In 1979, he was given a role in Michael's Cimino's Heaven's Gate, from which he was fired. Since then, he has collaborated with directors who represent a virtual encyclopedia of modern cinema: James Wan, Robert Eggers, Sean Baker, Kenneth Branagh, Kathryn Bigelow, Sam Raimi, Alan Parker, Walter Hill, Mary Harron, Wim Wenders, Anton Corbijn, Zhang Yimou, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Oliver Stone, William Friedkin, Werner Herzog, Lars Von Trier, Abel Ferrara, Spike Lee, David Cronenberg, Paul Schrader, Anthony Minghella, Theo Angelopoulos, Robert Rodriguez, Phillip Noyce, Hector Babenco, John Milius, Paul Weitz, The Spierig Brothers, Andrew Stanton, Josh Boone, Dee Rees and Julian Schnabel.
Dafoe has been recognized with four Academy Award nominations: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Platoon, Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Shadow Of The Vampire, for which he also received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Florida Project, for which he also received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, and most recently, Best Leading Actor for At Eternity's Gate, for which he also received a Golden Globe nomination. Among his other nominations and awards, he has received two Los Angeles Film Critics Awards, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, a National Board of Review Award, two Independent Spirit Awards, Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup, as well as a Berlinale Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement.
Willem was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, to Muriel Isabel (Sprissler), a nurse, and William Alfred Dafoe, a surgeon. He is of mostly German, Irish, Scottish, and English descent. He and his wife, director Giada Colagrande, have made three films together: Padre, A Woman, and Before It Had A Name.
His natural adventurousness is evident in roles as diverse as Marcus, the elite assassin who is mentor to Keanu Reeves in the neo-noir John Wick; in his voice work as Gil the Moorish Idol in Finding Nemo and Ryuk the Death God in Death Note; as Paul Smecker, the obsessed FBI agent in the cult classic The Boondock Saints; and as real life hero Leonhard Seppala, who led the 1925 Alaskan dog sled diphtheria serum run in Ericson Core's Togo. That adventurous spirit continues with upcoming films including Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, Abel Ferrara's Siberia, and Paul Schrader's The Card Counter.
Dafoe is one of the founding members of The Wooster Group, the New York based experimental theatre collective. He created and performed in all of the group's work from 1977 thru 2005, both in the U.S. and internationally. Since then, he worked with Richard Foreman in Idiot Savant at The Public Theatre (NYC), with Robert Wilson on two international productions: The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic and The Old Woman opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov and developed a new theatre piece, directed by Romeo Castellucci, based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil. He recently completed work on Marina Abramovic's opera 7 Deaths of Maria Callas.The Last Temptation of Christ- Actor
- Producer
- Editorial Department
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries throughout Bale's childhood, including England, Portugal, and the United States. Bale acknowledges the constant change was one of the influences on his career choice.
His first acting job was a cereal commercial in 1983; amazingly, the next year, he debuted on the West End stage in "The Nerd". A role in the 1986 NBC mini-series Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) caught Steven Spielberg's eye, leading to Bale's well-documented role in Empire of the Sun (1987). For the range of emotions he displayed as the star of the war epic, he earned a special award by the National Board of Review for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor.
Adjusting to fame and his difficulties with attention (he thought about quitting acting early on), Bale appeared in Kenneth Branagh's 1989 adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V (1989) and starred as Jim Hawkins in a TV movie version of Treasure Island (1990). Bale worked consistently through the 1990s, acting and singing in Newsies (1992), Swing Kids (1993), Little Women (1994), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), The Secret Agent (1996), Metroland (1997), Velvet Goldmine (1998), All the Little Animals (1998), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999). Toward the end of the decade, with the rise of the Internet, Bale found himself becoming one of the most popular online celebrities around, though he, with a couple notable exceptions, maintained a private, tabloid-free mystique.
Bale roared into the next decade with a lead role in American Psycho (2000), director Mary Harron's adaptation of the controversial Bret Easton Ellis novel. In the film, Bale played a murderous Wall Street executive obsessed with his own physicality - a trait for which Bale would become a specialist. Subsequently, the 10th Anniversary issue for "Entertainment Weekly" crowned Bale one of the "Top 8 Most Powerful Cult Figures" of the past decade, citing his cult status on the Internet. EW also called Bale one of the "Most Creative People in Entertainment", and "Premiere" lauded him as one of the "Hottest Leading Men Under 30".
Bale was truly on the Hollywood radar at this time, and he turned in a range of performances in the remake Shaft (2000), Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), the balmy Laurel Canyon (2002), and Reign of Fire (2002), a dragons-and-magic commercial misfire that has its share of defenders.
Two more cult films followed: Equilibrium (2002) and The Machinist (2004), the latter of which gained attention mainly due to Bale's physical transformation - he dropped a reported 60+ pounds for the role of a lathe operator with a secret that causes him to suffer from insomnia for over a year.
Bale's abilities to transform his body and to disappear into a character influenced the decision to cast him in Batman Begins (2005), the first chapter in Christopher Nolan's definitive trilogy that proved a dark-themed narrative could resonate with audiences worldwide. The film also resurrected a character that had been shelved by Warner Bros. after a series of demising returns, capped off by the commercial and critical failure of Batman & Robin (1997). A quiet, personal victory for Bale: he accepted the role after the passing of his father in late 2003, an event that caused him to question whether he would continue performing.
Bale segued into two indie features in the wake of Batman's phenomenal success: The New World (2005) and Harsh Times (2005). He continued working with respected independent directors in 2006's Rescue Dawn (2006), Werner Herzog's feature version of his earlier, Emmy-nominated documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997). Leading up to the second Batman film, Bale starred in The Prestige (2006), the remake of 3:10 to Yuma (2007), and a reunion with director Todd Haynes in the experimental Bob Dylan biography, I'm Not There (2007).
Anticipation for The Dark Knight (2008) was spun into unexpected heights with the tragic passing of Heath Ledger, whose performance as The Joker became the highlight of the sequel. Bale's graceful statements to the press reminded us of the days of the refined Hollywood star as the second installment exceeded the box-office performance of its predecessor.
Bale's next role was the eyebrow-raising decision to take over the role of John Connor in the Schwarzenegger-less Terminator Salvation (2009), followed by a turn as federal agent Melvin Purvis in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009). Both films were hits but not the blockbusters they were expected to be.
For all his acclaim and box-office triumphs, Bale would earn his first Oscar in 2011 in the wake of The Fighter (2010)'s critical and commercial success. Bale earned the Best Supporting Actor award for his portrayal of Dicky Eklund, brother to and trainer of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg. Bale again showed his ability to reshape his body with another gaunt, skeletal transformation.
Bale then turned to another auteur, Yimou Zhang, for the epic The Flowers of War (2011), in which Bale portrayed a priest trapped in the midst of the Rape of Nanking. Bale earned headlines for his attempt to visit with Chinese civil-rights activist Chen Guangcheng, which was blocked by the Chinese government.
Bale capped his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Dark Knight Rises (2012); in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado tragedy, Bale made a quiet pilgrimage to the state to visit with survivors of the attack that left theatergoers dead and injured. He also starred in the thriller Out of the Furnace (2013) with Crazy Heart (2009) writer/director Scott Cooper, and the drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), reuniting with David O. Russell.
Bale will re-team with The New World (2005) director Terrence Malick for two upcoming projects: Knight of Cups (2015) and an as-yet-untitled drama.
In his personal life, he devotes time to charities including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Foundation. He lives with his wife, Sibi Blazic, and their two children.Empire of the Sun- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Highly talented, lightly built American actor who always looks unsettled and jumpy has become a favourite of cult/arthouse film aficionados with his compelling performances in a broad range of cinematic vehicles.
Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian-American parents, Katherine (Incerella), a jazz singer, and Nicholas Turturro, a construction worker and carpenter, who was born in Giovinazzo. His brother, also named Nicholas Turturro, is an actor, and actress Aida Turturro is his cousin.
Turturro has become a regular in the thought provoking films of Spike Lee and the off the wall comedies of Joel Coen & Ethan Coen. His wonderful performances include as the highly agitated "Pino" in Do the Right Thing (1989), as an intellectual playwright in Barton Fink (1991), a pedophile tenpin bowler in The Big Lebowski (1998), a confused boyfriend in Jungle Fever (1991) and as the voice of Harvey the dog in Summer of Sam (1999).
Turturro has continued to appeal to audiences despite his unconventional looks and the often annoying onscreen mannerisms of his characters which he used to great effect in films such as his blue collar tale of warring brothers in the construction business, Mac (1992), as the irate, dumped game show contestant, Herbie Stempel, in Robert Redford's dynamic Quiz Show (1994). One of modern American cinema's gems of acting, Turturro remains in strong demand for his high calibre thespian talents.Five Corners- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Joe Mantegna is an American actor who has made over 200 film and TV appearances. He is also a producer, writer, and director, and is probably best known for his role as Joey Zasa in the Francis Ford Coppola epic The Godfather Part III (1990), in which he stars alongside Al Pacino and Andy Garcia.
Joseph Anthony Mantegna, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Mary Anne (Novelli), a shipping clerk, and Joseph Anthony Mantegna, Sr., an insurance salesman. He is of Italian descent. Having obtained a degree in acting from the Goodman School of Drama and taken to the stage early on in life, it is no surprise that Joe has maintained a strong relationship with the playwright -turned- screenwriter-director David Mamet. They have collaborated on several projects. He also stars as SSA David Rossi on the long running TV drama Criminal Minds. (2005-)House of Games- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Liam Neeson was born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. He was raised in a Catholic household. During his early years, Liam worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, a truck driver, an assistant architect and an amateur boxer. He had originally sought a career as a teacher by attending St. Mary's Teaching College, Newcastle. However, in 1976, Neeson joined the Belfast Lyric Players' Theater and made his professional acting debut in the play "The Risen People". After two years, Neeson moved to Dublin's Abbey Theater where he performed the classics. It was here that he was spotted by director John Boorman and was cast in the film Excalibur (1981) as Sir Gawain, his first high-profile film role.
Through the 1980s Neeson appeared in a handful of films and British TV series - including The Bounty (1984), A Woman of Substance (1984), The Mission (1986), and Duet for One (1986) - but it was not until he moved to Hollywood to pursue larger roles that he began to get noticed. His turn as a mute homeless man in Suspect (1987) garnered good reviews, as did supporting roles in The Good Mother (1988) and High Spirits (1988) - though he also starred in the best-to-be-forgotten Satisfaction (1988), which also featured a then-unknown Julia Roberts - but leading man status eluded him until the cult favorite Darkman (1990), directed by Sam Raimi. From there, Neeson starred in Under Suspicion (1991) and Ethan Frome (1992), was hailed for his performance in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992), and ultimately was picked by Steven Spielberg to play Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List (1993). The starring role in the Oscar-winning Holocaust film brought Neeson Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor.
Also in 1993, he made his Broadway debut with a Tony-nominated performance in "Anna Christie", in which he co-starred with his future wife Natasha Richardson. The next year, the two also starred opposite Jodie Foster in the movie Nell (1994), and were married in July of that year. Leading roles as the 18th century Scottish Highlander Rob Roy (1995) and the Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins (1996) followed, and soon Neeson was solidified as one of Hollywood's top leading men. He starred in the highly-anticipated Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) as Qui-Gon Jinn, received a Golden Globe nomination for Kinsey (2004), played the mysterious Ducard in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), and provided the voice for Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
Neeson found a second surprise career as an action leading man with the release of Taken (2008) in early 2009, an unexpected box office hit about a retired CIA agent attempting to rescue his daughter from being sold into prostitution. However, less than two months after the release of the film, tragedy struck when his wife Natasha Richardson suffered a fatal head injury while skiing and passed away days afterward. Neeson returned to high-profile roles in 2010 with two back-to-back big-budget films, Clash of the Titans (2010) and The A-Team (2010), and returned to the action genre with Unknown (2011), The Grey (2011), Battleship (2012) and Taken 2 (2012), as well as the sequel Wrath of the Titans (2012).
Neeson was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1999 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to drama. He has two sons from his marriage to Richardson: Micheal Richard Antonio Neeson (born June 22, 1995) and Daniel Jack Neeson (born August 27, 1996).The Good Mother- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Antonio Banderas, one of Spain's most famous faces, was a soccer player until breaking his foot at the age of fourteen; he is now an international movie star known for playing Zorro in the eponymous movie series.
He was born José Antonio Domínguez Banderas on August 10, 1960, in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain. His father, Jose Dominguez, was a policeman in the Spanish civil guards. His mother, Doña Ana Banderas Gallego, was a school teacher. Young Banderas was brought up a Roman Catholic. He wanted to play soccer professionally and made much success playing for his school team until the age of 14, albeit his dream ended when he broke his foot. At that time, he developed a passion for theatre after seeing the stage production of "Hair". Banderas began his acting studies at the School of Dramatic Arts in Málaga, and made his acting debut at a small theatre in Málaga. He was arrested by the Spanish police for performance in a play by Bertolt Brecht, because of political censorship under the rule of General Francisco Franco. Banderas spent a whole night at the police station, he had three or four such arrests while he was working with a small theatre troupe that toured all over Spain and was giving performances in small town theatres and on the street.
In 1979, at age 19, he moved to Madrid in pursuit of an acting career. Being a struggling young actor, he also worked as a waiter and took small modeling jobs. At that time, he joined the troupe at the National Theatre of Spain, becoming the youngest member of the company. Banderas' stage performances caught the attention of movie director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his movie debut Labyrinth of Passion (1982). Banderas and Almodovar joined forces in making innovative and sexually provocative movies during the 1980s. In 1984, Banderas made headlines in Spain with his performance as a gay man, making his first male-to-male on-screen kiss in Almodovar's Law of Desire (1987). Banderas' long and fruitful collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar eventually prepared him for international recognition that came with his work in the Academy Award-nominated film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). In 1991, he appeared as an object of Madonna's affection in Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991).
In 1992, Banderas made his Hollywood debut with The Mambo Kings (1992). Because he did not speak English at that time, his dialogue for the movie was taught to him phonetically. Banderas shot to international fame with his sensitive performance as a lover of Tom Hanks' AIDS-infected lawyer in Philadelphia (1993), then played opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). Banderas further established himself as one of Hollywood's leading men after co-starring in Evita (1996) opposite Madonna in the title role. In 1998, he won acclaim for his portrayal of Zorro, opposite Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, in The Mask of Zorro (1998). For the role as Zorro, Banderas took training with the Olympic national fencing team in Spain, and practiced his moves with real steel swords, then he used the lighter aluminum swords in the movie. He also took a month-long course of horse-riding before the filming. He later returned to the role in The Legend of Zorro (2005). In 1999, Banderas made his directorial debut in Crazy in Alabama (1999), starring his wife, Melanie Griffith. He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros opposite Salma Hayek in Frida (2002). He voiced Puss in Boots in the Shrek franchise.
Banderas established himself as internationally known Latin heartthrob with charismatic looks, and was chosen as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People magazine in 1996. He won numerous awards and nominations for his works in film, including three ALMA awards and three Golden Globe nominations, among many other. From 1996 to 2014, Banderas was married to American actress Melanie Griffith and the couple have one daughter, Stella (born 1996). Outside of his acting profession, Banderas has been a passionate soccer fan and a staunch supporter of the Real Madrid Football Club. He shares time between his two residencies, one in the United States, and one in the South of Spain.Law of Desire- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (née Elsie Ann Ford). Robert's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, descent, while Robert's mother was of English, Scottish, German, and Swiss-German ancestry. Robert and his sister, Allyson Downey, were immersed in film and the performing arts from a very young age, leading Downey Jr. to study at the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York, before moving to California with his father following his parents' 1978 divorce. In 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School to pursue acting full time. Downey Sr., himself a drug addict, exposed his son to drugs at a very early age, and Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades.
Downey Jr. made his debut as an actor at the age of five in the film Pound (1970), written and directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr.. He built his film repertoire throughout the 1980s and 1990s with roles in Tuff Turf (1985), Weird Science (1985), True Believer (1989), and Wonder Boys (2000) among many others. In 1992, Downey received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin (1992).
In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), he appeared as an aspiring film make-up artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits a murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. For the comedy Heart and Souls (1993), Downey starred as a young man with a special relationship with four ghosts. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen, directed by Michael Hoffman. Also that year, he starred in Richard III (1995), in which he appears opposite his Restoration (1995) co-star McKellen.
In 1997, Downey was seen in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998), alongside Kenneth Branagh, Daryl Hannah and Embeth Davidtz; in One Night Stand (1997), directed by Mike Figgis and starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski; and in Hugo Pool (1997), directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr. and starring Sean Penn and Patrick Dempsey. In September of 1999, Downey appeared in Black & White (1999), written and directed by James Toback, along with Ben Stiller, Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffmann, Brooke Shields and Claudia Schiffer. In January of 1999, he starred with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn in In Dreams (1999), directed by Neil Jordan.
In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (2000), directed by Curtis Hanson. In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. In 2001, Downey made his prime-time television debut when he joined the cast of the Fox-TV series Ally McBeal (1997) as attorney "Larry Paul". For this role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
The actor's drug-related problems escalated from 1996 to 2001, leading to arrests, rehab visits and incarcerations, and he was eventually fired from Ally McBeal (1997). Emerging clean and sober in 2003, Downey Jr. began to rebuild his career.
He marked his debut into music with his debut album, titled "The Futurist", on the Sony Classics Label on November 23rd, 2004. The album's eight original songs, that Downey wrote, and his two musical numbers debuting as cover songs revealed his sultry singing voice and his musical talents. Downey displayed his versatility in two different films in October 2003: the musical/drama The Singing Detective (2003), a remake of the BBC hit of the same name, and the thriller Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz. Downey starred in powerful yet humbling roles inspired by real-life accounts of some of history's most precious kept secrets, including Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (2006) in 2006 co-starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) co-starring Nicole Kidman, a film inspired by the life of Diane Arbus, the revered photographer whose images captured attention in the early 1960s. These roles exhibited Downey's momentum from the previous year of 2005, in which he starred in the Academy Award®-nominated feature film Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), directed by George Clooney and in Shane Black's action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) co-starring Val Kilmer. In 2007, he co-starred in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s.
In May 2008, Downey achieved critical acclaim and worldwide box office success for his starring role in Iron Man (2008), Jon Favreau's big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero. The film co-starred Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard. In August of 2008, Downey starred with Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), and went on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his, Kirk Lazarus.
In December 2009, Downey starred in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009). The film, directed by Guy Ritchie, co-starred Jude Law and Rachel McAdams and earned Downey a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in January of 2010. In early Summer 2010, Downey re-teamed with director Jon Favreau and reprised his role as "Tony Stark/Iron Man" in the hugely successful sequel to the original film, Iron Man 2 (2010), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Mickey Rourke.
Downey next starred in Due Date (2010), a comedy directed by Todd Phillips, in which he plays the role of an expectant father on a road trip racing to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Due Date (2010), starring The Hangover (2009)'s Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010.
Downey was honored by Time Magazine's "Time 100" in 2008, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His laurels include two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe wins, numerous other award nominations and wins, and tremendous popular and commercial success, particularly in his roles as Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark (the latter of which he has so far played in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). For three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2015, Downey has topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80 million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.
In 2005, Downey Jr. married Susan Downey, with whom he has two children. Downey also has another son, Indio Falconer Downey, born 1993, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer, from whom he was officially divorced in 2004.
Robert has jump-started the Team Downey Production Company with wife Susan Downey.Less Then Zero- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Born Leung Kwok Ng in Hong Kong October 13, 1952, John Lone was spartanly raised by a single mother until the age of 7 when he was sent off to be schooled with the Peking Opera. He never again saw his mother. The Peking Opera could be a brutal and grueling life for a child but he was a diligent and tireless student and he later received sponsorship to continue his education in the United States as a teenager.
He attended Santa Ana Community College, where he met Nina Savino, an Asian American studying drama and art, and they married in 1972. Lone continued his education at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena and New York. They divorced in 1979.
John once said that Ng, Lung and Lone were variants of "dragon" in different dialects of Chinese and that he intended to harness the power of the dragon for his life, which was why he adopted the stage name he would become known by.
A theatrical workaholic, John became part of the East/West Players along with other notable Asian actors such as Mako, Sab Shimono and Soon Tek Oh. He performed in "Pacific Overtures" as the Lion Dancer and his discipline and talent blossomed. He danced, sang, wrote and directed. John signed with the then famous Bessie Loo Agency (most of the Asian talent of the day was represented by them). The early years of his career, consisted of small television roles, local theater and lots of study.
His first real break came with the Di Laurentis remake of "King Kong" as the ships cook. It was followed by perhaps the most brilliant performance of his career - "Iceman" which was poignant and powerfully played without dialogue by Lone. The film opened the doors of his career to Michael Cimino (Year of the Dragon) and Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor) who made him a household name in the United States. Lone directed an acclaimed documentary on the Chinese Railroad workers in America which aired on PBS. He was voted one of the 50 most Beautiful People of the Year by People Magazine in 1990.
The past decade he has spent his time between NY, China and Canada where he continues to act, direct, produce and he has even found time to nurture a singing career.
An intensely private man, it is no wonder so many differing stories about his personal life abound unanswered. Perhaps the mystery of his persona is a large part of his attraction.The Last Emperor- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
The towering presence of Canadian actor Donald Sutherland is often noticed, as are his legendary contributions to cinema. He has appeared in almost 200 different shows and films. He is also the father of renowned actor Kiefer Sutherland, among others.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, to Dorothy Isobel (McNichol) and Frederick McLea Sutherland, who worked in sales and electricity. He has Scottish, as well as German and English, ancestry. Sutherland worked several different jobs - he was a radio DJ in his youth - and was almost set on becoming an engineer after graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in engineering. However, he also graduated with a degree in drama, and he chose to abandon becoming an engineer in favour of an actor.
Sutherland's first roles were bit parts and consisted of such films as the horror film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) which starred Christopher Lee. He was also appearing in episodes of TV shows such as "The Saint" and "Court Martial". Sutherland's break would come soon, though, and it would come in the form of a war film in which he was barely cast.
The reason he was barely cast was because he had been a last-minute replacement for an actor that had dropped out of the film. The role he played was that of the dopey but loyal Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty Dozen (1967). The film also starred Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Telly Savalas. The picture was an instant success as an action/war film, and Sutherland played upon this success by taking another role in a war film: this was, however, a comedy called M*A*S*H (1970) which landed Sutherland the starring role alongside Elliott Gould and Tom Skerritt. This is now considered a classic among film goers, and the 35-year old actor was only getting warmed up.
Sutherland took a number of other roles in between these two films, such as the theatrical adaptation Oedipus the King (1968), the musical Joanna (1968) and the Clint Eastwood-helmed war comedy Kelly's Heroes (1970). It was Kelly's Heroes (1970) that became more well-known, and it reunited Sutherland with Telly Savalas. 1970 and 1971 offered Sutherland a number of other films, the best of them would have to be Klute (1971). The film, which made Jane Fonda a star, is about a prostitute whose friend is mysteriously murdered. Sutherland received no critical acclaim like his co-star Fonda (she won an Oscar) but his career did not fade.
Moving on from Klute (1971), Sutherland landed roles such as the lead in the thriller Lady Ice (1973), and another lead in the western Alien Thunder (1974). These films did not match up to "Klute"'s success, though Sutherland took a supporting role that would become one of his most infamous and most critically acclaimed. He played the role of the murderous fascist leader in the Bernardo Bertolucci Italian epic 1900 (1976). Sutherland also gained another memorable role as a marijuana-smoking university professor in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) among other work that he did in this time.
Another classic role came in the form of the Robert Redford film, Ordinary People (1980). Sutherland portrays an older father figure who must deal with his children in an emotional drama of a film. It won Best Picture, and while both the supporting stars were nominated for Oscars, Sutherland once again did not receive any Academy Award nomination. He moved on to play a Nazi spy in a film based on Ken Follett's book "Eye of the Needle" and he would star alongside Al Pacino in the commercial and critical disaster that was Revolution (1985). While it drove Al Pacino out of films for four years, Sutherland continued to find work. This work led to the dramatic, well-told story of apartheid A Dry White Season (1989) alongside the legendary actor Marlon Brando.
Sutherland's next big success came in the Oliver Stone film JFK (1991) where Sutherland plays the chilling role of Mister X, an anonymous source who gives crucial information about the politics surrounding President Kennedy. Once again, he was passed over at the Oscars, though Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for his performance as Clay Shaw. Sutherland went on to appear in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Shadow of the Wolf (1992), and Disclosure (1994).
The new millennium provided an interesting turn in Sutherland's career: reuniting with such former collaborators as Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones, Sutherland starred in Space Cowboys (2000). He also appeared as the father figure to Nicole Kidman's character in Cold Mountain (2003) and Charlize Theron's character in The Italian Job (2003). He has also made a fascinating, Oscar-worthy performance as the revolutionist Mr. Thorne in Land of the Blind (2006) and also as a judge in Reign Over Me (2007). Recently, he has joined forces with his son Rossif Sutherland and Canadian comic Russell Peters with the new comedy The Con Artist (2010), as well as acting alongside Jamie Bell and Channing Tatum in the sword-and-sandal film The Eagle (2011). Sutherland has also taken a role in the remake of Charles Bronson's film The Mechanic (1972).
Donald Sutherland has made a lasting legacy on Hollywood, whether portraying a chilling and horrifying villain, or playing the older respectable character in his films. A true character actor, Sutherland is one of Canada's most well-known names and will hopefully continue on being so long after his time.A Dry White Season- Actor
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Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Drexl in True Romance (1993), George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017), among many others. For much of his career, he was best-known for playing over-the-top antagonists, such as terrorist Egor Korshunov in the 1997 blockbuster Air Force One (1997), though he has reached a new audience with heroic roles in the Harry Potter and Dark Knight franchises. He is also a filmmaker, musician, and author.
Gary Leonard Oldman was born on March 21, 1958 in New Cross, London, England, to Kathleen (Cheriton), a homemaker, and Leonard Bertram Oldman, a welder. He won a scholarship to Britain's Rose Bruford Drama College, in Sidcup, Kent, where he received a B.A. in theatre arts in 1979. He subsequently studied with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and went on to appear in a number of plays throughout the early '80s, including "The Pope's Wedding," for which he received Time Out's Fringe Award for Best Newcomer of 1985-1986 and the British Theatre Association's Drama Magazine Award as Best Actor for 1985. Before fame, he was employed as a worker in assembly lines and as a porter in an operating theater. He also had jobs selling shoes and beheading pigs while supporting his early acting career.
His film debut was Remembrance (1982), though his most-memorable early role came when he played Sex Pistol Sid Vicious in the biopic Sid and Nancy (1986) picking up the Evening Standard Film Award as Best Newcomer. He then received a Best Actor nomination from BAFTA for his portrayal of '60s playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).
In the 1990s, Oldman brought to life a series of iconic real-world and fictional villains including Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), the title character in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Drexl Spivey in True Romance (1993), Stansfield in Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in The Fifth Element (1997) and Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One (1997). That decade also saw Oldman portraying Ludwig van Beethoven in biopic Immortal Beloved (1994).
Oldman played the coveted role of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), giving him a key part in one of the highest-grossing franchises ever. He reprised that role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). Oldman also took on the iconic role of Detective James Gordon in writer-director Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), a role he played again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Prominent film critic Mark Kermode, in reviewing The Dark Knight, wrote, "the best performance in the film, by a mile, is Gary Oldman's ... it would be lovely to see him get a[n Academy Award] nomination because actually, he's the guy who gets kind of overlooked in all of this."
Oldman co-starred with Jim Carrey in the 2009 version of A Christmas Carol in which Oldman played three roles. He had a starring role in David Goyer's supernatural thriller The Unborn, released in 2009. In 2010, Oldman co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli. He also played a lead role in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood. Oldman voiced the role of villain Lord Shen and was nominated for an Annie Award for his performance in Kung Fu Panda 2.
In 2011, Oldman portrayed master spy George Smiley in the adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and the role scored Oldman his first Academy Award nomination. In 2014, he played one of the lead humans in the science fiction action film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) alongside Jason Clarke and Keri Russell. Also in 2014, Oldman starred alongside Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of RoboCop (2014), as Norton, the scientist who creates RoboCop.
Aside from acting, Oldman tried his hand at writing and directing for Nil by Mouth (1997). The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize at the festival.
Oldman has three children, Alfie, with first wife, actress Lesley Manville, and Gulliver and Charlie with his third wife, Donya Fiorentino. In 2017, he married writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best actor for his work on Darkest Hour (2017).Prick Up Your Ears- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Imposing, barrel-chested and often silver-haired Brian Dennehy was a prolific US actor, well respected on both screen and stage over many decades. He was born in July 1938 in Bridgeport, CT, and attended Columbia University in New York City on a football scholarship. Brian majored in history, before moving on to Yale to study dramatic arts. He first appeared in minor screen roles in such fare as Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Semi-Tough (1977) and Foul Play (1978) and proved popular with casting directors, leading to regular work. However, he really got himself noticed by movie audiences in the box-office hit First Blood (1982) as the bigoted sheriff determined to run Vietnam veteran "John Rambo" (played by Sylvester Stallone) out of his town. Dennehy quickly escalated to stronger supporting or co-starring roles in films including the Cold War thriller Gorky Park (1983), as a benevolent alien in Cocoon (1985), a corrupt sheriff in the western Silverado (1985), a tough but smart cop in F/X (1986) and a cop-turned-writer alongside hit man James Woods in Best Seller (1987). In 1987, Dennehy turned in one of his finest performances as cancer-ridden architect "Stourley Kracklite" in Peter Greenaway's superb The Belly of an Architect (1987), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 1987 Chicago Film Festival. More strong performances followed. He reprised prior roles for Cocoon: The Return (1988) and F/X2 (1991), and turned in gripping performances in three made-for-TV films: a sadistic small-town bully who gets his grisly comeuppance in In Broad Daylight (1991), real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy in the chilling To Catch a Killer (1992) and a corrupt union boss in Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (1992). In 1993, Dennehy appeared in the role of police "Sgt. Jack Reed" in the telemovie Jack Reed: Badge of Honor (1993), and reprised the role in four sequels, which saw him for the first time become involved in co-producing, directing and writing screen productions! Demand for his services showed no signs of abating, and he put in further memorable performances in Romeo + Juliet (1996), as bad-luck-ridden "Willy Loman" in Death of a Salesman (2000) (which earned him a Golden Globe Award), he popped up in the uneven Spike Lee film She Hate Me (2004) and appears in the remake Assault on Precinct 13 (2005). The multi-talented Dennehy also had a rich theatrical career and appeared both in the United States and internationally in dynamic stage productions including "Death of a Salesman" (for which he picked up the 1999 Best Actor Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award), "A Touch of the Poet", "Long Day's Journey into Night" (for which he picked up another Tony Award in 2003) and in Eugene O'Neill's heart-wrenching "The Iceman Cometh."The Belly of the Architect- Actor
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Sensual, ambiguous, ultra sensitive French performer Jean-Hugues Anglade always had a reputation of intense and passionate actor. Any role, any language, Anglade seems to be able to do anything. From appearing integrally naked alongside Beatrice Dalle in "37.2 degrees in the morning", to playing an homosexual role in "The wounded man", from portraying the king of France in "Queen Margot", to playing a Canadian cop alongside Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke in "Taking lives", from playing Anne Parillaud's lover in "Nikita", to showing the 40-years-old-men crisis. Now Anglade is an established actor, a respected artist and man, who overcame the drama of his childhood.Betty Blue- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Lead and supporting actor of the American stage and films, with sandy colored hair, and pale complexion. He won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Deer Hunter (1978), and has been seen in mostly character roles, often portraying psychologically unstable individuals, though that generalization would not do justice to Walken's depth and breadth of performances.
Walken was born in Astoria, Queens, New York. His mother, Rosalie (Russell), was a Scottish emigrant, from Glasgow. His father, Paul Wälken, was a German emigrant, from Horst, who ran Walken's bakery. Christopher learned his stage craft, including dancing, at Hofstra University & ANTA, and picked up a Theatre World award for his performance in the revival of the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo". Walken then first broke through into cinema in 1969 appearing in Me and My Brother (1968), before appearing alongside Sean Connery in the sleeper heist movie The Anderson Tapes (1971). His eclectic work really came to the attention of critics in 1977 with his intense portrayal of Diane Keaton suicidal younger brother in Annie Hall (1977), and then he scooped the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1977 for his role as Nick in the electrifying The Deer Hunter (1978). Walken was lured back by The Deer Hunter (1978) director Michael Cimino for a role in the financially disastrous western Heaven's Gate (1980), before moving onto surprise audiences with his wonderful dance skills in Pennies from Heaven (1981), taking the lead as a school teacher with telepathic abilities in the Stephen King inspired The Dead Zone (1983) and then as billionaire industrialist Max Zorin trying to blow up Silicon Valley in the 007 adventure A View to a Kill (1985). Looking at many of Walken's other captivating screen roles, it is easy to see the diversity of his range and even his droll comedic talents with humorous appearances in Biloxi Blues (1988), Wayne's World 2 (1993), Joe Dirt (2001), Mousehunt (1997) and America's Sweethearts (2001). Most recently, he continued to surprise audiences again with his work as a heart broken and apologetic father to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can (2002).At Close Range