celebrities bio
celebrities - Julia Stiles
Julia Stiles
Julia O'Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981 in New York City) is an American stage and screen actress. After beginning her theater career in small parts, she has moved on to leading roles in plays by writers as diverse as William Shakespeare and David Mamet; her film career has been both a commercial and critical success, ranging from teen romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) to dark art house pictures such as The Business of Strangers (2001). When Stiles isn't working, she actively supports a variety of progressive and liberal issues.
Personal
Julia Stiles was born the eldest of the three children (two daughters and a son) of John O'Hara, a teacher and businessman of Irish descent, and Judith Stiles, a potter of English and Italian ancestry. She attended Friends Seminary, Quaker school in Manhattan, and was an English major at Columbia University in New York City, though she had several times interrupted her studies to pursue her film career. She graduated in May 2005, five years after entering college. Stiles is a Democrat who supported John Kerry's candidacy for President of the United States , and her official site, which her mother helps to maintain, provides a link to Moveon.org.
Stiles has also worked for Habitat for Humanity, building housing in Costa Rica , and has worked with Amnesty International to try and raise awareness of the harsh conditions of immigration detention of unaccompanied juveniles; Marie Claire magazine, in January 2004, featured Stiles' trip to see conditions at the Berks County Youth Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania ]. Additionally, Stiles serves on the Board of Directors of Amend.org, a New York-based nonprofit that implements childhood injury prevention programs in Africa.
Stiles is also an ex-vegan. When interviewed by Conan O'Brien, she said the word "orgasm" came to mind when she had her first cheeseburger after giving up veganism.
The actress has described herself as a feminist and wrote on the subject in The Guardian :
Ironically, the F word [Feminism] is now pejorative in the mainstream because it is seen to represent a woman's renunciation of her femininity. It's an issue many women struggle with today — including female studio executives. After Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, women of my generation have not employed self-censorship, but rather we challenge the notion that being a feminist is in opposition to being feminine.
Stage career
Stiles started acting at age eleven, performing with New York's La MaMa Theatre Company, securing work by submitting photographs of herself in costume to the company and asking that she be kept in mind for juvenile roles [7]. She graduated to adult roles by performing in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues and, in the summer of 2002, appeared as Viola, the lead role in Shakespeare in the Park's production of Twelfth Night with Jimmy Smits. Reviewing the production, Ben Brantley of The New York Times saluted Stiles as "the thinking teenagers' movie goddess" who put him in mind of a "young Jane Fonda". In the spring of 2004, she made her London stage debut opposite Aaron Eckhart in a revival of David Mamet's play Oleanna at the Garrick Theatre.
Film career
Stiles' first lead role was in Wicked (1998)Stiles' first film was a non-speaking part in I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) with Claire Danes and Jude Law. She also had small roles as Harrison Ford's daughter in Alan J. Pakula's The Devil's Own (1997) and in M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake. Her first lead was in Wicked (1998), playing a teenage girl who murders her mother so she can have her father all to herself. Joe Balthai wrote she was "the darling of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival" and Internet movie writer Harry Knowles said she was the "discovery of the fest," but the film was not commercially released in the U.S. and went direct-to-video.
The role that made her a star was Kat Stratford, opposite Heath Ledger, in Gil Junger's 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew set in a Seattle high school. She won an MTV Movie Award for "Breakthrough Female Performance" for the role, and the Chicago Film Critics voted her the most promising new actress of the year. Foreign critics applauded her work as well. Adina Hoffman praised her as "a young, serious looking Diane Lane" and Martin Hoyle said Stiles played Kat "with bloody-minded independent charm from the beginning with hints of wistfulness beneath the determination."
Her next starring role was in Down to You, which was heavily panned by critics but was a financial success, and earned Stiles and her co-star Freddie Prinze, Jr. a Teen Choice Award nomination for their on-screen chemistry.
She subsequently appeared in two more Shakespearean adaptations. The first was playing the Desdemona role, opposite Mekhi Phifer in the title role, in Tim Blake Nelson's O (2001), Othello set in a high school. The second was playing Ophelia in Michael Almerayda's Hamlet (2000), with Ethan Hawke in the lead. Neither was a great success; O had been subjected to many delays and a change of distributors and Hamlet was an art house film shot on a minimal budget.
Her next commercial success was in Save the Last Dance (2001), as an aspiring ballerina forced to leave her small town in downstate Illinois to live with her struggling musician father in Chicago after her mother is killed. At her new, nearly all-black school, she falls in love with the character played by Sean Patrick Thomas, who teaches her hip-hop dance steps that get her into The Juilliard School. The role won her two more MTV awards for "Best Kiss" and "Best Female Performance", and a Teen Choice Award for best fight scene for her battle with Bianca Lawson. Rolling Stone pronounced her "the coolest co-ed", putting her on the cover of its April 12, 2001 issue. She told Rolling Stone that despite rumors, she did all her own dancing in the film, though the way the film was shot and edited made it appear otherwise.
With Matt Damon in The Bourne Supremacy (2004)In David Mamet's State and Main (2000), about a film shooting on location in a small town in Vermont, she played a teenage girl who seduces a film actor (Alec Baldwin) with a weakness for young girls. Stiles also played opposite Stockard Channing in the dark art house film The Business of Strangers (2001) as a conniving underling who exacts revenge on her cold boss. Channing was impressed by her co-star: "In addition to her talent, she has a quality that is almost feral, something that can make people uneasy. She has an effect on people," said Channing. Stiles also had small roles as a CIA operative in The Bourne Identity (2002) and its sequel The Bourne Supremacy (2004). Aimee Agresti quoted producer Lynda Obst as saying Stiles was turning into the next Meryl Streep.
Her next leading role was in Mona Lisa Smile (2003) as Joan, a student at Wellesley College in 1953, whose art professor (Julia Roberts) encourages her to pursue a career in law rather than becoming a wife and mother. Stephen Holden referred to her as one of the cinema's "brightest young stars," but the film met with generally unfavorable reviews.
Stiles played a Wisconsin co-ed, with dreams of becoming a doctor, who is swept off her feet by a Danish prince in The Prince and Me (2004), directed by Martha Coolidge. Stiles told Leslie Goober that she was very similar to the character, Paige Morgan, but critic Scott Foundas said while she was, as always, "irrepressibly engaging" the film was a "strange career choice for Stiles." This echoed criticism in reviews of A Guy Thing (2003), a romantic comedy with Jason Lee and Selma Blair; Dennis Harvey wrote that Stiles was "wasted," and Stephen Holden called her "a serious actress from whom comedy does not seem to flow naturally."
Television
Stiles' work on television has been more limited. After two appearances as the computer punk Erica on the PBS series Ghostwriter in 1993 and 1994, she appeared as a guest star on the medical drama Chicago Hope. She has been seen in two made-for-TV movies. In Before Women Had Wings (1997) on CBS, she played opposite Ellen Burstyn and Oprah Winfrey in an adaptation of the novel by Connie May Fowler. Marcia Ross, the film's casting director, told Jeffrey Ressner "she projects an intelligent depth, she's not girlish, and she'll easily grow into adult roles."
Stiles also played a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant and runs away from her unforgiving father (Bill Smitrovich) in NBC's miniseries The '60's (1999), a film Caryn James dismissed as "conspicuously idiotic." Stiles was the public face of the film, with NBC using her face, painted with a peace sign and the American flag, both in its advertising and on the cover of the soundtrack album.
On March 17, 2001, Stiles hosted Saturday Night Live and eight days later introduced a music nominee at the 73rd Academy Awards. She returned to Saturday Night Live on May 5 in a cameo as President George W. Bush's daughter Jenna. MTV profiled her in its Diary series in 2003, and she was "Punk'd" by Ashton Kutcher at a museum in the spring of 2004.
Filmography
2006 Burns Jean Armour Pre-production
2005 Edmond Glenna Post-production, due December 20, 2005
2005 Going Down Announced
2005 A Little Trip to Heaven Isold Post-production
2004 The Bourne Supremacy Nicky
2004 The Prince and Me Paige Morgan
2003 Mona Lisa Smile Joan Bandwyn
2003 Carolina Carolina Direct-to-video release in 2005
2003 A Guy Thing Becky
2002 The Bourne Identity Nicky
2001 O Desi Brable
2001 The Business of Strangers Paula Murphy
2001 Save the Last Dance Sara Johnson
2000 State and Main Carla
2000 Hamlet Ophelia
2000 Down to You Imogen
1999 10 Things I Hate About You Katarina "Kat" Stratford
1998 Wide Awake Neena Beal
1998 Wicked Ellie Christianson Direct-to-video
1997 The Devil's Own Bridget O'Meara
1996 I Love You, I Love You Not Young Nana's Friend Silent role
celebrities - Kate Beckinsale
Kate Beckinsale
Kate Beckinsale (born July 26, 1973 in London, England) is an English actress.
Early life
She is the daughter of Judy Loe (a stage actress) and the late Richard Beckinsale, a well-known television actor who died in 1979, at the age of 31. Kate's paternal great-grandfather was Burmese.
Beckinsale she won first prizes in several young writing competitions. After finishing school in London, she followed in the footsteps of her parents and began her acting career. Her first role was in One Against the Wind, a television film about World War II that was first aired in 1991. Beckinsale then began studying German, French and Russian at New College, Oxford University, though she did not complete her studies. She felt that a general university background would be better for her than attending a school of performing arts.
Film career
During her first year at Oxford, Beckinsale was offered a part in Kenneth Branagh's big-screen film, Much Ado About Nothing, adapted from the Shakespeare play. She spent her last year of studies in Paris, after which she decided to quit university and concentrate on her acting career. She subsequently appeared in a few notable but low-profile films, including Cold Comfort Farm (1995) and The Last Days of Disco (1998). She also appeared in television films and in stage roles.
Her first major American film, Brokedown Palace (1999), was a not a commercial success. Soon after, Beckinsale was cast in the 2001 film Pearl Habor, which was one of the highest grossing films of its year. In the years following, she appeared in a series of American films that were high-profile but were given a poor critical reception, including Serendipity (2001), Underworld (2003) and Van Helsing (2004).
Beckinsale was selected by Hello Magazine as England's #1 Beauty of 2002.
Private life
Beckinsale and Welsh actor Michael Sheen have a daughter, Lily, but they are no longer together. In June 2003, she became engaged to the director of Underworld, Len Wiseman, and the two were wed in May 2004 in Bel-Air, California.
Beckinsale speaks Russian.
Selected Filmography
Beckinsale in UnderworldClick (2006)
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
The Aviator (2004)
Van Helsing (2004)
Underworld (2003)
Laurel Canyon (2003)
Serendipity (2001)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
The Golden Bowl (2001)
Brokedown Palace (1999)
The Last Days of Disco (1998)
Shooting Fish (1998)
Cold Comfort Farm (1995)
Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
celebrities - Katherine Heigl
Katherine Heigl
Katherine Marie Heigl (b. November 24, 1978) is an American actress, best known for her roles on the TV series Roswell and Grey's Anatomy.
Early life
Heigl was born in Washington, D.C. to parents Nancy and Paul, of Irish and German descent; she was raised a Mormon. The family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut a short time later. Tragedy struck her family when her older brother Jason died in 1986 of brain injuries suffered in a car accident. He had been thrown from the back of a pickup truck, and doctors determined Jason was brain-dead. Despite their grief, the family decided to donate his organs. This has motivated Katherine to become a strong proponent of organ donation.
Career
When she was nine years old, an aunt visiting the family decided to take a number of photographs of the young Heigl. After returning to her home in New York, the aunt sent the photos to a number of modelling agencies, all with the permission of Katherine's parents. Within a few weeks, Heigl had been signed as a child model.
Almost immediately, a client slated her for use in a magazine advertisement. Television jobs soon followed, the first in a national spot for Cheerios breakfast cereal. It was not long until she landed her first big-screen debut in the 1992 movie That Night. After meeting such fast success and enjoying her new-found career, she realized that acting was her passion.
Heigl then appeared as Christina Sebastian in Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama King of the Hill before landing her first leading role as Nicole in the 1994 comedy My Father The Hero. During this time, Heigl continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her film and modeling work with her academic studies.
She then played opposite Steven Seagal in the role of Sarah Ryback in in 1995 action thriller Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Despite an increased focus on acting, she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as Seventeen. She took the lead role in Disney's Wish Upon a Star in 1996. It was also in 1996 that Heigl's parents divorced. After her high school graduation in 1997, she and her mother moved into a 4-bedroom house in Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles. Heigl's mother then became her manager.
In 1998 she co-starred with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearian play The Tempest, set during the American Civil War. Later in 1998 Heigl was featured in the 1998 films Bug Buster and Bride of Chucky. In 1999, Heigl turned her attention to television when she accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the science fiction TV drama Roswell, a modest role that was expanded in the show's second and third seasons.
To publicize her role on Roswell, she appeared on the covers of magazines such as TV Guide, Maxim, and Teen as well as appearing in FHM. She later appeared in the FHM and Maxim calendars and FHM's annual 100 sexiest women in the world. While Roswell was in production, Heigl worked on several films, including, 100 Girls, an independent 2001 film in which she played competitive tomboy Arlene, and Valentine, a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards in which she played medical student Shelley Fisher.
In the spring of 2001, Heigl accepted a role in Ground Zero, a television thriller scheduled to be telecast that fall, which was based on the bestselling novel, The Seventh Power, by James Mills. She co-starred as a brilliant and politically-concerned college student who helps to build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities, but which ends up in the hands of a terrorist following betrayal by a fellow student. After September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, however, the film was shelved when its plot was considered too inappropriate, and it re-emerged in 2003 under the title Critical Assembly. After the terrorist attacks, Heigl recorded a passionate public service announcement for the American Red Cross in an effort to help raise money for victims.
In early 2003, Heigl returned to the horror genre with Evil Never Dies, a modern-day variation on the Frankenstein story co-starring Thomas Gibson. She played the role of Eve, the professor's assistant whose intentions are unclear. Love Comes Softly, a telefilm for Hallmark Entertainment in 2003, found Heigl starring in the role of Marty Claridge, a young, pregnant newlywed travelling west. In October 2003, Heigl was cast opposite Johnny Knoxville, as the leading lady in The Ringer, a Farrelly brothers comedy that was later released in December 2005. Heigl was then cast as Isabella Linton in MTV's modern revamp of Emily Brontë's classic novel Wuthering Heights.
Heigl was cast in the role of Romy in the 2005 movie Romy and Michele: In The Beginning, a prequel to the 1997 movie, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. Heigl is currently starring in Grey's Anatomy, a medical drama on ABC.
Personal life
Heigl had dated her former Roswell co-star, Jason Behr, for several years. However, in interviews such as in the November 2004 FHM, she indicated that the relationship had come to an end. She also told FHM she did not lose her virginity until she was 22.
Credits
Grey's Anatomy (TV) 2005
Romy & Michele: In The Beginning (TV) 2005
Love's Enduring Promise (TV) 2004
Wuthering Heights (TV) 2003
Evil Never Dies (TV) 2003
Descendant 2003
Love Comes Softly (TV) 2003
The Twilight Zone (TV) 2002
Critical Assembly (Ground Zero) (TV) 2001
Valentine 2001
100 Girls 2000
Roswell (TV) 1999
The Tempest (TV) 1998
Bride Of Chucky 1998
Bug Buster 1998
Stand-Ins 1997
Prince Valiant 1997
Wish Upon A Star 1996
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory 1995
My Father The Hero 1994
King Of The Hill 1993
That Night 1992
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