Biography of famous people in the World

Hopefully these famous people can be an inspiration for us, most of them start from zero up to be a great person, that whatever we dream of, we can surely realize it, never give up and keep moving on to optimize our abilities.

Biography of famous people in the World

Hopefully these famous people can be an inspiration for us, most of them start from zero up to be a great person, that whatever we dream of, we can surely realize it, never give up and keep moving on to optimize our abilities.

Biography of famous people in the World

Hopefully these famous people can be an inspiration for us, most of them start from zero up to be a great person, that whatever we dream of, we can surely realize it, never give up and keep moving on to optimize our abilities.

Biography of famous people in the World

Hopefully these famous people can be an inspiration for us, most of them start from zero up to be a great person, that whatever we dream of, we can surely realize it, never give up and keep moving on to optimize our abilities.

Biography of famous people in the World

Hopefully these famous people can be an inspiration for us, most of them start from zero up to be a great person, that whatever we dream of, we can surely realize it, never give up and keep moving on to optimize our abilities.

Biography of famous people in the World

Hopefully these famous people can be an inspiration for us, most of them start from zero up to be a great person, that whatever we dream of, we can surely realize it, never give up and keep moving on to optimize our abilities.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

>> Biography of Nicole Kidman


Nicole Mary Kidman (born 20 June 1967) is an Australian actress and film producer.
 Kidman's breakthrough film role was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. After appearing in several films in the early 1990s, she came to worldwide recognition for her performances in the auto racing film Days of Thunder (1990), the romance Far and Away (1992), and the superhero film Batman Forever (1995). Other successful films followed in the late 1990s. Her performance in the musical Moulin Rouge! (2001) earned her a second Golden Globe Award and first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Kidman's performance as Virginia Woolf in the drama film The Hours (2002) received critical acclaim and earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Kidman's other notable films include the crime comedy-drama To Die For (1995), the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut (1999), the horror-thriller The Others (2001), the epic war drama film Cold Mountain (2003), the drama Dogville (2003), the political thriller The Interpreter (2005), and the epic historical romantic drama Australia (2008). Her performances in the drama Birth (2004) and the thriller The Paperboy (2012) earned her Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress and Supporting Actress respectively. Her performance in the 2010 drama Rabbit Hole—which she also produced—earned Kidman further accolades, including a third Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2012, she earned her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her role in the biopic Hemingway & Gellhorn.

Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1994. and for UNIFEM since 2006. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, and was the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry in that year. As a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship in Australia and the United States. Kidman founded and owns the production company Blossom Films. In 2015 Kidman became the brand ambassador for Etihad Airways.

Early life 
Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her parents were temporarily in the United States on educational visas. Her father was Antony David Kidman (1938–2014), a biochemist, clinical psychologist, and author who died of a heart attack when he was in Singapore at the age of 75. Her mother, Janelle Ann (née Glenny), is a nursing instructor who edited her husband's books and was a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby. Kidman's ancestry includes Irish, Scottish, and English heritage.

At the time of Kidman's birth, her father was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He soon became a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. Opposed to the war in Vietnam, which was causing social unrest in both Australia and the United States, Kidman's parents participated in anti-war protests while they were living in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four and her mother now lives on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia Kidman, a journalist and TV presenter.

Kidman attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls' High School. She was enrolled in ballet at three and showed her natural talent for acting in her primary and high school years. She says that she was first inspired to become an actress upon seeing Margaret Hamilton's performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Kidman has revealed that she was timid as a child, saying, "I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don't like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don't like going to a party by myself."

In 1984, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which caused Kidman to temporarily halt her education and help provide for the family by working as a massage therapist at age seventeen. She studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Victoria, and at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney, with actress and friend Naomi Watts who had attended the same high school. This was followed by attending the Australian Theatre for Young People. Here she took up drama, mime and performing in her teens, finding acting to be a refuge. Due to her fair skin and naturally red hair, the Australian sun forced the young Kidman to rehearse in halls of the theatre. A regular at the Phillip Street Theatre, she received both encouragement and praise to pursue acting full-time.

Career 
1983–1994: Career beginnings 
In 1983, aged 16, Kidman made her film debut in a remake of the Australian holiday season favourite Bush Christmas. By the end of 1983, she had a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and began gaining popularity in the mid-1980s after appearing in several film roles, including BMX Bandits, Watch the Shadows Dance, and the romantic comedy Windrider (1986), which earned Kidman attention due to her racy scenes. Also during the decade, she appeared in several Australian productions, including the soap opera A Country Practice and the miniseries Vietnam (1986). She also made guest appearances on Australian television programs and TV movies. She also appeared in Sesame Street.

In 1988, Kidman appeared in Emerald City, based on the play of the same name. The Australian film earned her an Australian Film Institute for Best Supporting Actress. Kidman next starred with Sam Neill in Dead Calm (1989) as Rae Ingram, playing the wife of a naval officer. The thriller brought Kidman to international recognition; Variety commented: "Throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the character of Rae real tenacity and energy." Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together." She followed that up with the Australian miniseries Bangkok Hilton. She next moved on to star alongside her then-boyfriend and future husband, Tom Cruise, in the 1990 auto racing film Days of Thunder, playing a young doctor who falls in love with a NASCAR driver. This was Kidman's American debut and was among the highest-grossing films of the year.

In 1991, she co-starred with former classmate and friend Naomi Watts and Thandie Newton in the Australian independent film Flirting. Kidman and Watts portrayed two high school girls in this coming of age story, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film. That same year, her work in the film Billy Bathgate earned Kidman her first Golden Globe Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. The New York Times, in its film review, called her "a beauty with, it seems, a sense of humor". The following year, she and Cruise re-teamed for Ron Howard's Irish epic Far and Away (1992), which was a modest critical and commercial success. In 1993, she starred in the thriller Malice opposite Alec Baldwin and the drama My Life opposite Michael Keaton.

1995–2003: Worldwide recognition 
In 1995, Kidman appeared in her highest-grossing live-action film (as of 2011), playing Dr. Chase Meridian, the damsel in distress, in the superhero film Batman Forever, opposite Val Kilmer as the film's title character. The same year Kidman appeared in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed To Die For, earning praise, including winning her first Golden Globe for her portrayal of murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto. Kidman next appeared in The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the novel the same name, alongside Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker. The following year she appeared in the action-thriller The Peacemaker (1997) as White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly, opposite George Clooney. The film grossed $110,000,000 worldwide. The same year she appeared opposite Sandra Bullock in the poorly received fantasy Practical Magic as a modern-day witch. Kidman returned to her work on stage the same year in the David Hare play The Blue Room, which opened in London.

In 1999, Kidman reunited with then husband, Tom Cruise, to portray a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut, the final film of Stanley Kubrick. The film was subject to censorship controversies due to the explicit nature of its sex scenes. The film received further attention following Kubrick's death shortly before its release. After brief hiatus and a highly publicized divorce from Cruise, idman returned to the screen to play a mail-order bride in the British-American drama Birthday Girl. In 2001, Kidman played the cabaret actress and courtesan Satine in Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge!, opposite Ewan McGregor. Subsequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award, for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, as well as other acting awards. She also received her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress. Also in 2001, she had a starring role in Alejandro Amenábar's Spanish horror film The Others as Grace Stewart. Grossing over $210,947,037 worldwide, the film also earned several Goya Awards award nominations, including a Best Actress nomination for Kidman. She received her second BAFTA and fifth Golden Globe nominations. Kidman was named the World's Most Beautiful Person by People magzine

In 2003, Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, which also featured Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. Kidman wore prosthetics that were applied to her nose making her almost unrecognisable playing the author during her time in 1920s England, and her bouts with depression and mental illness while trying to write her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The film earned positive notices and several nominations, including for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The New York Times wrote that, "Kidman tunnels like a ferret into the soul of a woman besieged by excruciating bouts of mental illness. As you watch her wrestle with the demon of depression, it is as if its torment has never been shown on the screen before. Directing her desperate, furious stare into the void, her eyes not really focusing, Ms. Kidman, in a performance of astounding bravery, evokes the savage inner war waged by a brilliant mind against a system of faulty wiring that transmits a searing, crazy static into her brain".

Kidman won numerous critics' awards, including her first BAFTA, third Golden Globe, and the Academy Award for Best Actress. As the first Australian actress to win an Academy Award, Kidman made a teary acceptance speech about the importance of art, even during times of war, saying, "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honour that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld." Following her Oscar win, Kidman appeared in three very different films in 2003. The first, a leading role in Dogville, by Danish director Lars von Trier, was an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. The second was an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain, opposite Anthony Hopkins. Her third film was Anthony Minghella's war drama Cold Mountain. Kidman appeared opposite Jude Law and Renée Zellweger, playing Southerner Ada Monroe, who is in love with Law's character and separated by the Civil War. TIME magazine wrote, "Kidman takes strength from Ada's plight and grows steadily, literally luminous. Her sculptural pallor gives way to warm radiance in the firelight". The film garnered several award nominations and wins for its actors; Kidman received her sixth Golden Globe nomination at the 61st Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress.

Kidman at the 83rd Academy Awards


2004–2009: Continued success 
In 2004 she appeared in the film, Birth, which received controversy over a scene in which Kidman shares a bath with her co-star, 10-year-old Cameron Bright. At a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, Kidman addressed the controversy saying, "It wasn't that I wanted to make a film where I kiss a 10-year-old boy. I wanted to make a film where you understand love". Kidman earned her seventh Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress – Motion Picture. That same year she appeared in the black comedy-science-fiction film The Stepford Wives, a remake of the 1975 film of the same name. Kidman appeared in the lead role as Joanna Eberhart, a successful producer. The film, directed by Frank Oz, was critically panned and a commercial failure. The following year, Kidman appeared opposite Sean Penn in the Sydney Pollack thriller The Interpreter, playing UN translator Silvia Broome. Also that year, she starred in Bewitched, based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name, opposite Will Ferrell. Both Kidman and Ferrell earned that year's Razzie Award for "Worst Screen Couple". Neither film fared well in the United States, with box office sales falling well short of the production costs, but both films performed well internationally.

In conjunction with her success in the film industry, Kidman became the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume brand. She starred in a campaign of television and print ads with Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann, to promote the fragrance during the holiday seasons of 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned US$12million for the three-minute advert. During this time, Kidman was also listed as the 45th Most Powerful Celebrity on the 2005 Forbes Celebrity 100 List.

She made a reported US$14.5 million in 2004–2005. On People magazine's list of 2005's highest paid actresses, Kidman was second behind Julia Roberts, with US$16–17 million per-film price tag. Nintendo in 2007 announced that Kidman would be the new face of Nintendo's advertising campaign for the Nintendo DS game More Brain Training in its European market.

Kidman portrayed photographer Diane Arbus in the biography Fur (2006), opposite Robert Downey, Jr.. Both Kidman and Downey Jr. received praise for their performances. She also lent her voice to the animated film Happy Feet (2006), which grossed over US$384 million worldwide. In 2007, she starred in the science-fiction movie The Invasion directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, a remake of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers that proved a critical and commercial failure. She also played opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding, which earned Kidman a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy. She then starred in the fantasy-adventure, The Golden Compass (2007), playing the villainous Marisa Coulter.

In 2008, she reunited with Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann in the Australian period film Australia, set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II. Kidman played opposite Hugh Jackman as an Englishwoman feeling overwhelmed by the continent. The acting was praised and the movie was a box office success worldwide. Kidman was originally set to star in the post-World War II German drama, The Reader, working with previous collaborators Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, but due to her pregnancy prior to filming she had to back out. The role went to Kate Winslet, who ultimately won the Oscar for Best Actress, which Kidman presented to her during the 81st Academy Awards. Kidman appeared in the 2009 Rob Marshall musical Nine, portraying the Federico Fellini-like character's muse, Claudia Jenssen. She was featured alongside fellow Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz and Sophia Loren. Kidman's, whose screen time was brief compared to the other actresses, performed the musical number "Unusual Way" alongside Day-Lewis. The film received several Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and earned Kidman a fourth Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as part of the Outstanding Cast.

2010–present 
In 2010, she starred with Aaron Eckhart in the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole, for which she vacated her role in the Woody Allen picture You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Her work on Rabbit Hole earned her critical acclaim, and received nominations for the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards, Kidman also produced this film. She lent her voice to a promotional video that Australia used to support its bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. TV Guide reported in 2008 that Kidman will star in The Danish Girl, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name, playing Lili Elbe, the world's first postoperative transsexual. Screen Daily reported that shooting would begin in Germany in July 2011. However the project has been delayed following the exit of the director, Lasse Hallström and Kidman's co-star Rachel Weisz. In 2009, Variety said that she would produce and star in a film adaptation of the Chris Cleave novel Little Bee, in association with BBC Films.

In June 2010, TV Guide announced that Kidman and Clive Owen will star in an HBO film about Ernest Hemingway and his relationship with Martha Gellhorn. entitled Hemingway & Gellhorn. The film, directed by Philip Kaufman, began shooting in March 2011, with an air date scheduled for 2012. She also starred alongside Nicolas Cage in director Joel Schumacher's action-thriller Trespass, with the stars playing a married couple taken hostage. On 17 September 2010, ContactMusic. com said Kidman would return to Broadway to portray Alexandra Del Lago in David Cromer's revival of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, with Scott Rudin producing. On 30 August 2011, Cromer spoke to The New York Times and explained that the production would not meet its original fall 2011 revival date but that it remains an active project.

In June 2011, Kidman was cast in Lee Daniels' adaptation of the Pete Dexter novel, The Paperboy; she began filming on the thriller on 1 August 2011, and The Paperboy was released in 2012. In the film, she portrayed death row groupie Charlotte Bless, and performed sex scenes that she claims not to have remembered until seeing the finished film. "I was like okay, so that's what I did," she said. The film competed in the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and Kidman's performance drew critical acclaim and among nominations for the SAG and the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, gave Kidman her second Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress and her tenth nomination overall. In 2012, Kidman's audiobook recording of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse was released at Audible.com. Kidman also co-starred in Park Chan-wook's Stoker (2013) to positive critical response and a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In April 2013 she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2014, Kidman starred in the biopic, Grace of Monaco in the title role that chronicles the 1962 crisis, in which Charles de Gaulle blockaded the tiny principality, angered by Monaco's status as a tax haven for wealthy French subjects and Kelly's contemplating a Hollywood return to star in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie. Opening out of competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the film received largely negative reviews. Kidman also starred in two films with Colin Firth, the first, the British-Australian historical drama, The Railway Man in which Kidman played officer's wife Patti Lomax received positive critical reviews. Katherine Monk of the Montreal Gazette said of Kidman's performance, "It's a truly masterful piece of acting that transcends Teplitzky's store-bought framing, but it's Kidman who delivers the biggest surprise: For the first time since her eyebrows turned into solid marble arches, the Australian Oscar winner is truly terrific". The second, the British thriller film Before I Go To Sleep drew positive critical response of Kidman's performance, as Christine Lucas, a car crash survivor with brain damage. Kidman also appeared in the family film Paddington (2014) as a villain.

Upcoming films include the Australian-Irish drama-thriller, Strangerland, which opened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival to a 'rapturous' audience response to Kidman's performance and the Jason Bateman-directed The Family Fang, produced by Kidman's production company, Blossom Films. Other projects include the biographical drama, Queen of the Desert, with Kidman portraying the lead role of traveller, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political officer Gertrude Bell and Genius alongside Colin Firth and Guy Pearce.

Singing 
Her collaboration with Ewan McGregor on "Come What May" peaked at No. 27 in the UK Singles Chart. Later she collaborated with Robbie Williams on "Somethin' Stupid", a cover version for Williams' swing covers album Swing When You're Winning. It peaked at No. 8 in the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart, and at No. 1 for three weeks in the UK. In 2006, while voicing a role in the animated movie Happy Feet, she provided vocals for Norma Jean's "heartsong", a slightly altered version of "Kiss" by Prince. Kidman sang in Rob Marshall's movie musical Nine.

Kidman with husband Keith Urban at the 70th Golden Globe Awards


Personal life 
Kidman has been married twice: previously to actor Tom Cruise, and currently to country singer Keith Urban. She has an adopted son and daughter with Cruise as well as two biological daughters with Urban. Kidman met Cruise in November 1989, while filming Days of Thunder, they were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado. The couple adopted a daughter, Isabella Jane (born 1992), and a son, Connor Anthony (born 1995). On 5 February 2001, the couple's spokesperson announced their separation. Cruise filed for divorce two days later, and the marriage was dissolved in August of that year, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences. In her 2007 interview with Marie Claire, Kidman noted the incorrect reporting of the ectopic pregnancy early in her marriage. "It was wrongly reported as miscarriage, by everyone who picked up the story." "So it's huge news, and it didn't happen." In the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, she said she still loved Cruise: "He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me and I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she has expressed shock about their divorce.

Prior to marrying Cruise, Kidman lived with Australian stage actor Marcus Graham in the late 1980s. In the mid-1980s, she dated her Windrider co-star Tom Burlinson,  whom she lived with on and off for three years, according to biographer Andrew Morton. Kidman met her second husband, New Zealand-Australian country singer Keith Urban, at G'Day LA, an event honouring Australians, in January 2005. They married on 25 June 2006, at Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney. They maintain homes in Sydney, Sutton Forest (New South Wales, Australia), Los Angeles, and Nashville (Tennessee, USA). The couple's first daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, was born in 2008, in Nashville. Kidman's father said the daughter's middle name was after Urban's late grandmother, Rose. In 2010, Kidman and Urban had their second daughter, Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, via surrogacy at Nashville's Centennial Women's Hospital. Faith's middle name is after Kidman's late grandmother.

Wealth, philanthropy and honours 
In 2002, Kidman first appeared on the Australian rich list published annually in the Business Review Weekly with an estimated net worth of A$122 million. In the 2011 published list, Kidman's wealth was estimated at A$304 million, down from A$329 million in 2010. Kidman has raised money for, and drawn attention to, disadvantaged children around the world. In 1994, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and in 2004, she was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the United Nations. Kidman joined the Little Tee Campaign for breast cancer care to design T-shirts or vests to raise money to fight the disease; motivated by her mother's own battle with breast cancer in 1984.

In the 2006 Australia Day Honours, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for "service to the performing arts as an acclaimed motion picture performer, to health care through contributions to improve medical treatment for women and children and advocacy for cancer research, to youth as a principal supporter of young performing artists, and to humanitarian causes in Australia and internationally." However, due to film commitments and her wedding to Urban, it was 13 April 2007 that she was presented with the honour. It was presented by the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Michael Jeffery, in a ceremony at Government House, Canberra. Kidman was appointed goodwill ambassador of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in 2006. In this capacity, Kidman has addressed international audiences at UN events, raised awareness through the media and testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs to support the International Violence against Women Act. Kidman visited Kosovo in 2006 to learn about women's experiences of conflict and UNIFEM's support efforts. She is the international spokesperson for UNIFEM's Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women initiative. Kidman and the UNIFEM executive director presented over five million signatures collected during the first phase of this to the UN Secretary-General on 25 November 2008.

In the beginning of 2009, Kidman appeared in a series of postage stamps featuring Australian actors. She, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett each appear twice in the series: once as themselves and once as their Academy Award-winning character. On 8 January 2010, alongside Nancy Pelosi, Joan Chen and Joe Torre, Kidman attended the ceremony to help Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new international center located in the Presidio of San Francisco.

Kidman's star on the Swedish Walk of Fame in Trollhättan.


Awards 
In 2003, Kidman received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition to her 2003 Academy Award for Best Actress, Kidman has received Best Actress awards from the following critics' groups or award-granting organisations: the Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globes), the Australian Film Institute, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Empire Awards, Golden Satellite Awards, Hollywood Film Festival, London Critics Circle, Russian Guild of Film Critics, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association. In 2003, Kidman was given the American Cinematheque Award. She also received recognition from the National Association of Theatre Owners at the ShoWest Convention in 1992 as the Female Star of Tomorrow and in 2002 for a Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film.

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Monica Bellucci


Monica Bellucci ( born 30 September 1964  is an Italian actress and fashion model. Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy as the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci, and she grew up in San Giustino.

Career 
Modeling 
Monica Bellucci began modelling at age 13 by posing for a local photo enthusiast. In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centres, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French Elle, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire's feature on Desire featured Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim. Men's Health also named her one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time", ranking her at No. 21. AskMen named her the number one most desirable woman in 2002.

Bellucci's modelling career is managed by Elite+ in New York City. She is considered an Italian sex symbol. From 2006 to 2010 she was the face of a range of Dior products. Bellucci is signed to D'management group in Milan and also to Storm Model Management in London.

In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter Deva, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws that prevent the use of donor sperm. She posed pregnant and semi-nude again for the magazine's April 2010 issue. In 2012 she became the new face of Dolce & Gabbana.

Acting 
Bellucci's film career began in the early 1990s. She played some minor roles in La Riffa (1991) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). In 1996 she was nominated for a César Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Lisa in The Apartment and strengthened her position as an actress. She became known and popular with worldwide audiences, following her roles in Malèna (2000), Brotherhood of the Wolf, "Under Suspicion",[16] and Irréversible (2002). She has since played in many films from Europe and Hollywood like Tears of the Sun (2003), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Passion of the Christ (2004), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Le Deuxième souffle (2007), Shoot 'Em Up (2007), Don't Look Back (2009), and The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010).

She was supposed to be seen portraying Indian politician Sonia Gandhi in the biopic Sonia, originally planned for release in 2007, but it has been shelved. Bellucci dubbed her own voice for the French and Italian releases of the film Shoot 'Em Up (2007). She also voiced Kaileena in the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and the French voice of Cappy for the French version of the 2005 animated film Robots.

Empire magazine selected her as twenty-first on their list of "The Sexiest 25 Characters in Cinema - The Women" for her role of "Persephone" in the Matrix series.

At 50, she will be the oldest Bond girl ever in the next James Bond movie, playing Lucia Sciarra in Spectre (2015).

Personal life 
Bellucci met French actor Vincent Cassel on the set of their 1996 film The Apartment. They married in 1999, and have two daughters, Deva (born 2004) and Léonie (born 2010). Bellucci and Cassel announced their separation in August 2013.

In the documentary movie The Big Question, about the film The Passion of the Christ, she stated: "I am an agnostic, even though I respect and am interested in all religions. If there's something I believe in, it's a mysterious energy; the one that fills the oceans during tides, the one that unites nature and beings."

In September 2012 at a Toronto International Film Festival press conference for the Iranian movie Rhino Season, Bellucci stated that she can speak four languages: Italian, French, English and (some) Persian.

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Megan Fox


Megan Denise Fox (born May 16, 1986) is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001, with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on the Hope & Faith television sitcom. In 2004, she made her film debut with a role in the teen comedy Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. In 2007, she co-starred as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character, in the blockbuster action film Transformers, which became her breakout role. Fox reprised her role in the 2009 sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Later in 2009, she starred as the eponymous lead in the black comedy horror film Jennifer's Body. Fox is also considered one of the modern female sex symbols and has appeared in magazines such as Maxim, Rolling Stone and FHM.

Early life
Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the daughter of Gloria Darlene (née Cisson) and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She is mostly of English ancestry, with smaller amounts of ancestry from elsewhere in Europe. She was raised "very strictly Pentecostal", but later attended Catholic school for twelve years. Fox's parents divorced when she was young. Fox's mother later remarried, and she and her sister were raised by her mother and her stepfather, Tony Tonachio. She said that the two were "very strict" and that she was not allowed to have a boyfriend or invite friends to her house. She lived with her mother until she made enough money to support herself.

Fox began her training in dance and drama at age five, in Kingston, Tennessee. She attended a dance class at the community center there and was involved in Kingston Elementary School's chorus and the Kingston Clippers swim team. At 10 years of age, after moving to St. Petersburg, Florida, Fox continued her training. When she was 13 years old, Fox began modeling after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school via correspondence in order to move to Los Angeles, California.

Fox has spoken extensively of her time in education; that in middle school she was bullied and picked on and she ate lunch in the bathroom to avoid being "pelted with ketchup packets". She said that the problem was not her looks, but that she had "always gotten along better with boys" and that "rubbed some people the wrong way". Fox also said of high school that she was never popular and that "everyone hated me, and I was a total outcast, my friends were always guys, I have a very aggressive personality, and girls didn’t like me for that. I’ve had only one great girlfriend my whole life". In the same interview, she mentions that she hated school and has never been "a big believer in formal education" and that "the education I was getting seemed irrelevant. So, I was sort of checked out on that part of it".

Career
2001–09: Early career and Transformers
At 15, Fox made her acting debut in the 2001 film Holiday in the Sun, as spoiled heiress Brianna Wallace and rival of Alex Stewart (Ashley Olsen), which was released direct-to-DVD on November 20, 2001. In the next several years she guest-starred on What I Like About You and Two and a Half Men, as well as being an uncredited extra in Bad Boys II (2003). In 2004, she made her film debut in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen co-starring opposite Lindsay Lohan, playing the supporting role of Carla Santini, a rival of Lola (Lohan). Fox was also cast in a regular role on the ABC sitcom Hope & Faith, in which she portrayed Sydney Shanowski, replacing Nicole Paggi. Fox appeared in seasons 2 to 3, until the show was cancelled by ABC in May 2006.


Fox at Jennifer's Body screening at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.
In 2007, Fox won the lead female role of Mikaela Banes in the 2007 live-action film Transformers, based on the toy and cartoon saga of the same name. Fox played the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character Sam Witwicky. Fox was nominated for an MTV Movie Award in the category of "Breakthrough Performance", and was also nominated for three Teen Choice Awards. Fox had signed on for two more Transformers sequels.

Fox reprised her role as Mikaela Banes in the Transformer sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. There was some controversy surrounding Fox's appearance while filming the sequel of Transformers when Michael Bay, the film's director, ordered the actress to gain 10 pounds. The film was released worldwide on June 24, 2009. Fox was to star in the third installment, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but was not included because of her statements comparing working under director Bay to working for Hitler (see below). Bay said in June 2009 that Fox was fired on orders of executive producer Steven Spielberg, who disapproved of her comments about Bay.

In 2009, Fox had her first lead role since the Transformers series; she portrayed the title character in Jennifer's Body, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody. In April 2009, she began filming Jonah Hex, in which she portrayed Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and Jonah Hex's (Josh Brolin) love interest. The film was released on June 18, 2010. Despite receiving top billing, Fox described her role in the film as being a cameo. Jonah Hex was a critical and commercial failure in the U.S., with its international distribution cancelled after its poor performance. The film was named the "worst picture of the year" by the Houston Film Critics Society.

Fox next starred alongside Mickey Rourke in Passion Play. The film's poor reception at the Toronto Film festival led to its conventional theatrical distribution being bypassed for a direct-to-video release, with only two screens briefly showing the film to fulfill contractual obligations. Mickey Rourke remarked that Passion Play was "terrible. Another terrible movie." Fox was the voice of the Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins in the Na Nai'a Legend of the Dolphins, a 3D documentary film. The story is told by a cast including Kate Winslet, Ellen Page, Gerard Butler, James Franco, Julian Lennon, Diego Luna, Cheech Marin, Whoopi Goldberg, Isabella Rossellini and Daryl Hannah.

Fox with Friends with Kids co-stars Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott, and Jon Hamm at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

In March 2009, Variety reported that Fox was set to star as the lead role of Aspen Matthews in the film adaptation of the comic book Fathom which she will also co-produce with Brian Austin Green. Fox appeared with Dominic Monaghan in the music video for Eminem and Rihanna's single "Love the Way You Lie".

In 2012, she appeared briefly in Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy The Dictator and had a featured role in Judd Apatow's comedy This Is 40. She was the voice of Lois Lane in the film Robot Chicken DC Comics Special, an episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, and it aired as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on September 9, 2012.

In January 2013, Fox was featured in a Brazilian television commercial for Brahma beer. n February 2013, Fox set aside her differences with her former director Michael Bay and worked again with him on his reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). In October 2014, Fox was cast as the female lead in James Franco's film adaptation of Zeroville.

Of being a role model, typecast, and the effects of media exposure, Fox stated that she is not a role model for preaching to kids that sex before marriage or cursing is wrong, or about what women should be. "But if you want your girls to feel strong and intelligent and be outspoken and fight for what they think is right, then I want to be that type of role model, yeah." She said being typecast as attractive is not bad and that it can enable her to surprise people when she gives a good performance in a film, but that she is interested in portraying less sexualized characters. She finds media attention difficult, and there have been times when people avoided being around her because they do not want to end up in the media's spotlight. Some of her various magazine covers include Maxim in 2007; Cosmo Girl, Paw Print, ack (ITALY), FHM (UK), and GQ in 2008; and USA Weekend, Esquire, Empire, Maxim, GQ (UK), Entertainment Weekly and ELLE in 2009. She has been featured on "hottest" and "most beautiful woman" lists throughout the years, notably Maxim's Hot 100 lists and when FHM readers voted her the "Sexiest Woman in the World" in 2008.  People named her one of 2012's Most Beautiful at Every Age.

Fox's overexposure in parts of the media caused several men's websites to boycott her in late 2009, with AOL's man-blog Asylum dubbing August 4, 2009 "A Day Without Megan Fox" and promising that they would not mention or feature her on this day; they asked other men's sites to copy this stance, and several, including AskMen, complied. There was sentiment that despite the amount of traffic Fox can bring to a website, it was time to focus attention on another young actress. Other sites, however, refused to boycott Fox, with Asylum's sister site PopEater declaring "we're posting things about Megan Fox that aren't even news, just because we know you want it, whether you'll admit it or not" and Coedmagazine calling the boycott a "publicity stunt" and "hypocritical", saying that they were the home of "The Megan Fox Boycott Boycott". The British newspaper The Sun declared August 4 to be "Megan Fox Day", saying that "She deserves a day dedicated to her". In response to the boycott, Fox told magazine Nylon, in a September 2009 interview, that "the media blitz" for Transformers resulted in an over-extension of her welcome in the media. "I was part of a movie that [the studio] wanted to make sure would make $700 million, so they oversaturated the media with their stars," she said. "I don't want to have people get completely sick of me before I’ve ever even done something legitimate."

On September 11, 2009, an unsigned letter from three crew members of Transformers defending Michael Bay against accusations made by Fox about his on-set behavior, including a comparison with Hitler, impacted public perceptions of Fox. The letter alleges that Fox is unpleasant to work with on set and makes several accusations of ungracious behavior that are at variance with her public persona. Bay defended Fox, stating he does not condone the letter, and that while he also does not condone Fox's "outlandish quotes," it is "her crazy quips" that "are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter [is] I still love working with her, and I know we still get along." Anthony Steinhart, a production assistant who worked on Transformers, also came out in her defense, stating that he had never "...witnessed Ms. Fox being rude or inconsiderate of people’s feelings or the work to be done". By 2010, Fox became much less prominent in the media, after starring in the less commercially successful films Jonah Hex and Passion Play. Before working with Bay again in 2014, reports suggested that it felt like it had "been years since we've heard about [Megan Fox]"; however, her first pregnancy and her role in Friends with Kids brought her some attention in 2012.

Fox, at the Seventh Annual Hollywood Life magazine "Breakthrough of the Year" Awards, December 9, 2007

The media often comparing Fox to actress Angelina Jolie, dubbing her the "next Angelina Jolie," also affected Fox's image. The actresses have been compared partly because they each have a "tattoo collection," status as a "built in sex-symbol" and "share exotic, sultry looks." There were additionally reports that Fox was to replace Jolie in a new Lara Croft film and that Jolie was displeased by this development, but Fox indicated that these were only rumors and said that she did not want to portray the character. Fox commented that the comparisons indicate a lack of creativity on the part of the media, adding, "I am a brunette with tattoos, I curse and I have made mention of sex before. I joked about it which people find outrageous so they want to constantly compare that to her." She said, "I'm sure [Jolie] has no idea who I am. But if I were her, I'd be like, 'Who the fuck is this little bullshit brat who was in Transformers that's going to be the next me?' I don't want to meet her. I'd be embarrassed." Chris Lee of Los Angeles Times stated that Jolie and Fox are partly differentiated because of Jolie's "pronouncements on such subjects as the need to ban land mines in Southeast Asia or repatriate Afghan war refugees", while Zach Johnson of E! Online stated that, given various similarities between Jolie and Fox, the two may be more alike than Fox is willing to acknowledge.

Fox began getting tattoos at age 19, as a form of self-expression, and has eight known tattoos, including her husband's name "Brian" on her lower hip, a picture of Marilyn Monroe's face on her right forearm, which she has been getting removed in a series of laser surgeries that she has called incredibly painful, and a crescent moon overlapping a five-pointed star above her right ankle; this tattoo is the only known colored tattoo that Fox has. Of getting the Monroe tattoo removed, Fox said that she had been warned by others that there would be a day when she did not want her tattoos once she got older. "I was stubborn and thought that I was going to love [the Monroe tattoo] forever, or that it would be like a book of my life, all the things that I loved when I was young. It's not that way at all." Fox stated, "[Monroe] was a negative person, she was disturbed, bipolar. I do not want to attract this kind of negative energy in my life."

Personal life
Fox began dating actor Brian Austin Green in 2004, after meeting on the set of Hope & Faith; she was 18 years old, while he was 30. They became engaged in November 2006. In February 2009, it was reported that they had ended their engagement,  before becoming engaged again on June 1, 2010. Fox later denied these reports, stating that they had been continuously engaged since 2006. The couple married on June 24, 2010 in a private ceremony at the Four Seasons Resort on Maui. They have two sons: Noah Shannon Green (born September 27, 2012) and Bodhi Ransom Green (born February 12, 2014). Through her marriage, Fox is also a stepmother to Green's son Kassius (born March 2002), from his past relationship with actress Vanessa Marcil. In 2009, Fox was targeted by a group of fashion-motivated criminals known as "The Bling Ring", who robbed Green's home because she was living with him.

Fox has been open about her feelings on men and socializing, stating that although she has more in common with men in their thirties, she has a general distrust and dislike of "all boys-slash-men," and that, despite the public perceiving her as a "wild and crazy sexpot," she is antisocial and has only been sexually intimate with two men her entire life – "My childhood sweetheart and Brian. I can never have sex with someone that I don't love, ever. The idea makes me sick. I've never even come close to having a one-night stand." She would rather stay at home and play games instead of going out. Fox commented, "My biggest regret is that I've assisted the media in making me into a cartoon character. I don't regret what has happened to me, but I regret the way I have dealt with it."

In September 2008, Fox alluded to being bisexual in an interview with GQ magazine. She said that, when she was 18 years old, she fell in love with and sought to establish a relationship with a female stripper. She used this experience to illustrate her belief that "all humans are born with the ability to be attracted to both sexes". In May 2009, she confirmed her bisexuality, stating: "I have no question in my mind about being bisexual. But I'm also a hypocrite: I would never date a girl who was bisexual, because that means they also sleep with men, and men are so dirty that I'd never want to sleep with a girl who had slept with a man." In the June 2009 issue of Elle, she revealed that she somewhat distorted the events of her relationship with the stripper, saying she has given certain male writers "an amped-up version" of her past – "They're boys; they're easily toyed with. I tell stories and have them eating out of my hand. Not all of it is true. In fact, most of it is bullshit." Fox said, "I never said she was my girlfriend! I just said that I loved her, and I did love her. The real story is more sobering. It's not a sexy, fun-time, fantasy story. But that's not the story you tell GQ."

Fox has a form of brachydactyly called clubbed thumb, and has discussed her obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), insecurities, self-harming, and has acknowledged that she has low self-esteem. She stated of her OCD, "This is a sickness, I have an illness—this is not OK anymore."

Fox told Esquire in January 2013 that her Christian faith is still very important to her. She said that she still speaks in tongues. "I have to feel like I'm in control of my body," she said. "And I know what you're thinking, Then why would I want to go to church and speak in tongues? You have to understand, there I feel safe. I was raised to believe that you're safe in God's hands. But I don't feel safe with myself."

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Liv Tyler


Liv Rundgren Tyler (born Liv Rundgren, July 1, 1977) is an American actress and former child model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and model Bebe Buell. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14 but, after less than a year, she decided to focus on acting. After her film debut Silent Fall (1994), she appeared in supporting roles in Empire Records (1995), Heavy (1996) and That Thing You Do! (1996). Tyler later achieved critical recognition in the leading role in Stealing Beauty (1996). She followed this by appearing in supporting roles including Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and Cookie's Fortune (1999).

Tyler achieved international recognition as a result of her portrayal of Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. She has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy Jersey Girl, the indie film Lonesome Jim (2005), the drama Reign Over Me (2007) and big-budget studio films such as Armageddon (1998), The Strangers (2008) and The Incredible Hulk (2008).

She currently plays Megan Abbott in the 2014 TV sci-fi series The Leftovers.

She has served as a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassador for the United States in 2003, and as a spokesperson for Givenchy's line of perfume and cosmetics.

Early life 
Tyler was born Liv Rundgren at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She is the only daughter of Bebe Buell, a model, singer, and former Playboy Playmate (Miss November 1974), and Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith. Her mother named her after Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, after seeing Ullmann on the cover of the March 5, 1977 issue of TV Guide. She is of Italian, German, Polish, and English ancestry on her father's side[6] and German ancestry on her mother's side. Tyler has three half-siblings: Mia Tyler (born 1978), Chelsea Anna Tallarico (born 1989), and Taj Monroe Tallarico (born 1992). Her maternal grandmother, Dorothea Johnson, founded the Protocol School of Washington.

From 1972 to 1979, Liv’s mother Bebe Buell had a longtime relationship with rock musician Todd Rundgren. During their cohabitation, sometimes they were on-and-off. In 1976, Buell became unexpectedly pregnant from her brief relationship with Steven Tyler. On July 1, 1977, Buell gave birth to Liv. But Buell initially named the daughter Liv Rundgren and claimed that Todd Rundgren was the biological father. Rundgren and Buell ended their romantic relationship shortly after Liv's birth, but Rundgren put his heart and soul into the "white lie". At age eight Liv met Steven Tyler and noticed a resemblance she shared with his other daughter, Mia. When she asked her mother about the similarity, the secret was revealed. The truth about Tyler's paternity did not become public until six years later in 1991, when she changed her name from Rundgren to Tyler, but kept the former as a middle name. Buell's stated reason for the initial decision was that Steven was too heavily addicted to drugs at the time of her birth. Since learning the truth about her paternity, Liv and Steven have developed a close relationship. They also have worked together professionally, once when she appeared in Aerosmith's music video for "Crazy" in 1993, and again when Aerosmith performed many of the songs in the film Armageddon (1998) in which Tyler starred.

According to Tyler "... Todd [Rundgren] basically decided when I was born that I needed a father so he signed my birth certificate. He knew that there was a chance that I might not be his but ...." He paid to put her through private school, and she visited him several times a year.

Tyler maintains a close relationship with Rundgren. "I’m so grateful to him, I have so much love for him. You know, when he holds me it feels like Daddy. And he’s very protective and strong."

Tyler attended the Congressional Schools of Virginia, Breakwater School and Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, before returning to New York City with her mother at age 12. She went to York Preparatory in New York City for junior high and high school after her mother researched the school to accommodate Tyler's ADHD. She graduated in 1995, and left to continue her acting career. When asked about the way she spent her early life, Tyler said: "For me, I didn’t get much of a childhood in my teen years because I’ve been working since I was 14. But that also kept me out of trouble. When everybody was doing acid and partying like crazy, I was at work on a movie in Tuscany ... having my own fun, of course, but it was a different kind of thing. I have no regrets. I love the way my life has gone."

Career 
Early work 
Tyler received her first modeling job at age 14 with the assistance of Paulina Porizkova, who took pictures of her that ended up in Interview magazine. She later starred in television commercials. She, however, became bored with her modeling career less than a year after it started, and decided to go into acting, although she never took acting lessons. Tyler first became known to television audiences when she starred alongside Alicia Silverstone in the music video for Aerosmith's 1993 song "Crazy".

1994–2000 
Tyler made her feature film debut in Silent Fall in 1994, where she played the elder sister of a boy with autism. In 1995, she starred in the comedy drama Empire Records. Tyler has described Empire Records as "one of the best experiences" she has ever had. Soon after, she landed a supporting role in James Mangold's 1996 drama Heavy as Callie, a naive young waitress. The film received favorable reviews; critic Janet Maslin noted: "Ms. Tyler ... gives a charmingly ingenuous performance, betraying no self-consciousness about her lush good looks."

Tyler had her breakthrough role in Stealing Beauty (1996), in which she played Lucy Harmon, an innocent, romantic teenager who travels to Tuscany, Italy, intent on losing her virginity. The film received generally mixed reviews, but Tyler's performance was regarded favorably by the critics. Variety wrote: "Tyler is the perfect accomplice. At times sweetly awkward, at others composed and serene, the actress appears to respond effortlessly and intuitively to the camera, creating a rich sense of what Lucy is about that often is not explicit in the dialogue." Empire noted, "Liv Tyler (here radiantly resembling a ganglier young Ava Gardner) with a rare opportunity to enamour, a break she capitalizes on with composure." The film was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, who chose Tyler for the role after meeting with a number of young girls in Los Angeles, including Tyler's music video co-star Alicia Silverstone. Bertolucci claimed "there was something missing in all of them". He later admitted that what he saw in Tyler was a gravitas he described as "a New York aura". During promotion of the film, Tyler admitted she wanted to separate herself from the character during production; "I tried my damnedest not to think of my own situation. But at one point, after a take, I just started to cry and cry. I remembered when I found out about my dad and how we just stared at each other from head to toe taking in every nook and cranny."

She later appeared in That Thing You Do! (1996), a movie about a fictional one-hit wonder rock band called The Oneders, following their whirlwind rise to the top of the pop charts, and just as quickly, their plunge back to obscurity. The film was written and directed by Tom Hanks.  It grossed over $25 million worldwide, and was met with favorable reviews. The following year, she appeared in Inventing the Abbotts in 1997, in which she played the daughter of Will Patton and Barbara Williams' characters. The movie is based on a short story by Sue Miller. Entertainment Weekly declared Tyler's performance as "lovely and pliant". That same year, Tyler was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People.

Tyler next appeared in Armageddon (1998), where she played the daughter of Bruce Willis' character and love interest of Ben Affleck's character. The film generated mixed reviews, but was a box office success earning $553 million worldwide. The movie included the songs "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and "What Kind of Love Are You On" by Aerosmith. In a 2001 interview with The Guardian, she admitted that she turned down the role in Armageddon; "I really didn't want to do it at first and I turned it down a couple of times, but the biggest reason I changed my mind was because I was scared of it. I wanted to try it for that very reason. I mean, I'm not really in this to do amazing things in my career - I just want it to be special when I make a movie."

She was then cast in the drama Onegin (1999), a film based on the 19th century Russian novel of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, in which she portrayed Tatyana Larina and co-starred with Ralph Fiennes. Tyler was required to master an English accent, though Stephen Holden of the New York Times felt that her approximation of an English accent was "inert". The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. That same year, she appeared in the historical comedy film Plunkett & Macleane.

She later appeared in two films directed by Robert Altman, Cookie's Fortune (1999) and Dr. T & the Women (2000). In Cookie's Fortune, she was part of an ensemble cast that included Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Chris O'Donnell, and Patricia Neal. Her performance well received among critics; Salon.com wrote: "This is the first time in which Tyler's acting is a match for her beauty (she's always been a bit forlorn). Altman helps her find some snap, but a relaxed, silly snap, as in the cartoon sound she makes when she takes a midday swig of bourbon. The lazy geniality of the movie is summed up by the way Emma [Tyler's character] saunters off to take a swim with her cowboy hat and pint of Wild Turkey." Entertainment Weekly also noted that Tyler is "sweetly gruff as the tomboy troublemaker". In the romantic comedy, Dr. T & the Women, she played Marilyn, a gynecological patient of Richard Gere's character, who is the lesbian lover of his daughter, played by Kate Hudson.

2001–2007 
In 2001, Tyler played the object of infatuation for three men (Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser) in the black comedy One Night at McCool's.  In discussion of the role, she said: "This was definitely the first part where I had to be so physically aware and have people so aware of me physically. Maybe it's not hard for anybody else, but it is a bit for me. I mean I love my body and I feel very comfortable in my skin, but this was tough." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: "Tyler, a true beauty, gives the role a valiant try, but her range is too limited to play this amalgam of female perfection."

In 2001, she starred in the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, directed by Peter Jackson. She played the Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel. The film is based on the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The filmmakers approached Tyler after seeing her performance in Plunkett & Macleane. She learned to speak the fictitious Elvish language that was created by Tolkien. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle noted that Tyler's performance was "lovely and earnest".

A year later, Tyler again starred as Arwen in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second installment of the series. The film received favorable reviews. Tyler spent months before filming learning sword fighting, to be used during the concluding battle scenes in The Two Towers, though her scenes from the battle were removed after the script was changed. The film was an enormous box office success, earning over $926 million worldwide, out-grossing its predecessor, which earned over $871 million. In 2003, Tyler featured in the third and last installment of the series, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Following the success of The Lord of the Rings, she appeared opposite her Armageddon co-star Ben Affleck in writer-director Kevin Smith's romantic comedy Jersey Girl (2004), playing a woman who re-opens a widowed father's heart to love, played by Affleck. In an interview with MTV News, Tyler confessed that she felt "scared and vulnerable" while filming Jersey Girl, adding "I was so used to those other elements of the character [Arwen]. On The Lord of the Rings, a lot of things were done in post-production, whereas this was really just about me and Ben sitting there, just shooting off dialogue." However, she reiterated that doing Jersey Girl was what she wanted to do.

In 2005, she appeared in Steve Buscemi's independent drama Lonesome Jim, where she was cast alongside Casey Affleck, as a single mother and nurse who reconnects with an old fling who has returned to their small town of Indiana after a failed run as a novelist in New York. The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Tyler's next appearance in film was in a supporting role as an insightful therapist who tries to help a once-successful dentist (Adam Sandler) cope with the loss of his family during the events of the September 11th attacks in Reign Over Me (2007).

2008-present 
In 2008, she starred in the horror-thriller The Strangers with Scott Speedman, a film about a young couple who are terrorized one night by three masked assailants in their remote country house. Although the film garnered a mixed reception among critics,  it was a box office success. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she noted that The Strangers was the most challenging role of her career. "It was as far as I could push myself in every way: physically, emotionally, mentally."

She appeared in The Incredible Hulk (2008), in which she played Dr. Betty Ross, the love interest of the title character, played by Edward Norton. Tyler was attracted to the love story in the script, and was a fan of the television show. She said filming the part was "very physical, which was fun", and compared her performance to "a deer caught in the headlights". The Incredible Hulk was a box office success, earning over $262 million worldwide. The Washington Post, in review of the film, wrote: "Tyler gives Betty an appropriately angelic nimbus of ethereal gentleness as the one Beauty who can tame the Beast ... during their most pivotal encounters."

Tyler appeared in two films released in 2011: Super and The Ledge. In April 2011, publishing house Rodale announced that Tyler and her grandmother Dorothea Johnson, an etiquette expert, have written a book called Modern Manners. It was released October 29, 2013.

In 2014 she appeared in Space Station 76, a film directed by Jack Plotnick, starring also Matt Bomer and Patrick Wilson.

In June 2014 Tyler began appearing as a regular in the HBO television series The Leftovers.

Personal life 
In 1998, Tyler began dating British musician Royston Langdon of the band Spacehog. She and Langdon became engaged in February 2001, and married in Barbados on March 25, 2003. On December 14, 2004, she gave birth to a son, Milo William Langdon. On May 8, 2008, the couple confirmed through representatives that they would be separating but remain friends. In an interview with the Australian Daily Telegraph, Tyler revealed that her separation from Langdon led her to move to Los Angeles, explaining that it was hard to be in the Manhattan home that they had shared. In June 2010, Tyler stated she was "far too sensitive" for casual dates, adding "I fall in love once in a blue moon." In September 2014, Tyler confirmed she was pregnant with her second child; the father is sports and entertainment manager David Gardner. On February 11, 2015 Tyler welcomed her second son, Sailor Gene Gardner, who was born six weeks early.

Tyler is an active supporter of the charitable United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). She was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United States in 2003. In November 2004, she hosted the lighting of the UNICEF Snowflake in New York City. Tyler also served as spokesperson for the 2004 Givenchy Mother's Day promotion, in support of UNICEF's Maternal & Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) campaign.

Since 2004, she has donated to the Women's Cancer Research Fund to support innovative research, education, and outreach directed at the development of more effective approaches to the early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of all women's cancers. In October 2007, Tyler, along with her mother, Bebe Buell and her grandmother, Dorothea Johnson, helped launch the Emergen-C Pink energy drink, in which the event was in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

She is good friends with designer Stella McCartney, model Helena Christensen and actresses Kate Hudson, Chloë Sevigny and Gwyneth Paltrow. Tyler was formerly a vegan, but has since begun to eat meat. In 2003, she became the spokesperson for Givenchy perfume and cosmetics; in 2005 the brand named a rose after her, which was used in one of its fragrances. In 2009, Tyler signed on for two more years as Givenchy spokesperson. On December 8, 2011, Givenchy announced a collaboration between Givenchy perfumes and Sony Music. In the video released on February 7, 2012, Liv Tyler covered INXS song "Need You Tonight".

Tyler learned Transcendental Meditation in New York City. n December 2012 she participated in a charity gala for the David Lynch Foundation to provide Transcendental Meditation to disadvantaged sections of society. At the event she said, "it helps me make better decisions and be a better mother, and just deal with the daily stress of the modern world that we live in. It helps with everything."

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Katie Holmes


Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress and model who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. She appeared in 1998's Disturbing Behavior, a thriller, which won a MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance for the role. The year 2000 saw Holmes feature in two film roles. The first was in Wonder Boys which got positive attention from many leading critics. She also appeared in The Gift, a Southern Gothic story directed by Sam Raimi and starring Cate Blanchett. Holmes hosted Saturday Night Live on February 24, 2001.

Holmes had a starring role in 2003's Pieces of April, a gritty comedy about a dysfunctional family on Thanksgiving. Many critics and audiences agreed that Holmes had given her best performance in the film as April. In the 2005 film Batman Begins, the most successful film of her career to date, she played Rachel Dawes, an attorney in the Gotham City district attorney's office and the childhood sweetheart of the title character. She also appeared in art house films such as The Ice Storm, horror films such as Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and thrillers including Abandon. She has also played on Broadway in a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons and had numerous guest roles on television programs such as How I Met Your Mother.

Her marriage to actor Tom Cruise (2006-2012) led to a great deal of media attention, with the pair being called a supercouple and given the nickname "TomKat".

Early life 
Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio. She is the youngest of five children born to Kathleen, a homemaker and philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr., an attorney. She has three sisters and one brother: Tamera, Holly Ann, Martin Joseph, Jr., and Nancy Kay. Holmes was baptized a Roman Catholic and attended Christ the King Church in Toledo.

She graduated from the all-female Notre Dame Academy in Toledo (also her mother's alma mater), where she was a 4.0 student. At St. John's Jesuit, a nearby all-male high school, Holmes appeared in school musicals, playing a waitress in Hello, Dolly! and Lola in Damn Yankees. She scored 1310 out of 1600 on her SAT and was accepted to Columbia University (and attended for a summer session)  her father wanted her to become a doctor.

At age 14, she began classes at a modeling school in Toledo run by Margaret O'Brien, who took her to the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Competition held in New York City in 1996. Eventually, Holmes was signed to an agent after performing a monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird. An audition tape was sent to the casting director for the 1997 film The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee. She was cast in the role of Libbets Casey, in the film which starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.

Public image 
Holmes was annually named by both the British and American editions of FHM magazine as one of the sexiest women in the world from 1999 forward. She was named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2003; its sibling Teen People declared her one of the "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" that year; and in 2005, People said she was one of the ten best dressed stars that year. She has appeared in advertisements for Garnier Lumia haircolor, Coach leather goods, and clothing retailer The Gap.

In November 2008, it was confirmed that she would be the new face of the spring 2009 campaign for the high-end fashion line Miu Miu. In 2008, Holmes started a high fashion clothing line called Holmes & Yang with longtime stylist Jeanne Yang. Model Heidi Klum is a fan of the line. In July 2009, Holmes, Nigel Lythgoe, Adam Shankman, and Carrie Ann Inaba announced the launch of a dance scholarship fund called the Dizzy Feet Foundation.

Beginning January 2011, she became the new face of Ann Taylor Spring 11 collection. In April 2011, she ranked 6th in People magazine's annual 100 Most Beautiful issue. Holmes & Yang presented their fashion line at New York Fashion Week for the first time in September 2012. Holmes will act as the face for the Bobbi Brown Cosmetics brand in spring 2013 and Holmes will have her own capsule collection of color cosmetics in fall of that year. In 2013, she also did an ad campaign for IRIS Jewelry. In January 2013, Holmes was announced as the brand ambassador and co-owner of Alterna Haircare.

Personal life 
Holmes dated her Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson early in the show's run. She met actor Chris Klein in 2000. Klein and Holmes were engaged in late 2003, but in early 2005 she and Klein ended their relationship. Klein and Holmes have remained friends of varying degree since the breakup.

Weeks after her relationship with Klein ended, Holmes began dating actor Tom Cruise. Holmes, who was raised a Roman Catholic, began studying Scientology shortly after the couple began dating. They got engaged in June 2005. On November 18, 2006, Holmes and Cruise were married in a Scientologist ceremony at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy. The actors' publicist said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony. The couple's daughter, Suri, was born in 2006. The name has Persian and Hebrew origins.

On June 29, 2012, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise in New York after five years of marriage. Following the announcement, those close to Holmes stated that Holmes believed she had reason to fear that Cruise would abduct Suri, and also feared intimidation by the Church of Scientology. On July 9, 2012, attorneys for the couple announced the couple signed a divorce settlement. This was the first divorce for Holmes and the third for Cruise. Holmes has custody of Suri.

Following her divorce from Cruise, Holmes returned to the Catholic Church and began attending St. Francis Xavier Church.

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Kate Winslet


Kate Elizabeth Winslet, CBE (born 5 October 1975), is an English actress and singer. She is the recipient of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Award and a Grammy Award. She is the youngest person to acquire six Academy Award nominations, and is one of the few actresses to win three of the four major American entertainment awards (EGOT). In addition, she has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and an Honorary César Award in 2012.

Brought up in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received praise. She garnered recognition for her supporting role in Sense and Sensibility (1995) before achieving global stardom with the epic romance Titanic (1997), which was the highest-grossing film of all time at that point. Winslet's performances in Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), and Revolutionary Road (2008) continued to draw praise from film critics; her performance in the last of these prompted the critic David Edelstein to describe her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation".[5] She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader (2008) and the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries for portraying the title role in Mildred Pierce (2011). Winslet's greatest commercial successes have been the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), the animated film Flushed Away (2006), and the science fiction film Divergent (2014).

In addition to acting, Winslet has narrated documentaries and children's books. She was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000 for narrating Listen To the Storyteller. She has also provided her vocals to soundtracks of her films, the most popular of which is the single "What If" from Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001). Divorced from film directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes, Winslet is now married to businessman Ned Rocknroll.

Early life 
Born in Reading, Berkshire, England, Kate Elizabeth Winslet is the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming pool contractor. She has two sisters, Beth and Anna, and one brother, Joss Winslet.

Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl. At the age of 12, Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope for Sugar Puffs cereal. Pope said her naturalism was "there from the start". During her teenage years, Winslet appeared in more than 20 stage productions of London based Starmaker school of drama including lead parts such as Miss Hannigan in Annie, Mother Wolf in The Jungle Book and Lena Marelli in Bugsy Malone.

Personal life
While on the set of the 1991 TV series Dark Season, Winslet met actor and writer Stephen Tredre, with whom she had a four-and-a-half-year relationship. Winslet and Tredre remained close after their separation in 1995. He died of bone cancer during the opening week of Titanic, causing her to miss the film's Los Angeles premiere to attend his funeral in London.

On 22 November 1998, Winslet married film director Jim Threapleton, whom she met while on the set of Hideous Kinky in 1997. They have a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, who was born in October 2000 in London. Winslet and Threapleton divorced on 13 December 2001.

Following her separation from Threapleton, Winslet began a relationship with director Sam Mendes in 2001, and she married him on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla. Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City. Winslet and Mendes announced their separation in March 2010, and divorced in 2011.

In August 2011, a fire broke out at a residence in which Winslet, her children, and her then-boyfriend, model Louis Dowler, were staying on Necker Island, the private resort island of Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. The fire caused significant damage to the home, but no injuries.

During the same August 2011 holiday on Necker Island, Winslet met fellow guest Ned Rocknroll, and they soon began dating. Rocknroll was born Ned Abel Smith, but later legally changed his name. He is a nephew of Richard Branson and works for Virgin Galactic, the space-travel division of his uncle's business. Rocknroll was previously married to Eliza Pearson, daughter of Viscount Cowdray. Winslet and Rocknroll became engaged in the summer of 2012. It was announced in September 2012 that the couple had relocated from New York to live in the UK permanently, moving into a heritage home in South Downs National Park in West Sussex. Winslet and Rocknroll married in a private ceremony in New York in December 2012. The couple's son, Bear Blaze Winslet, was born in the County of Sussex, England, on 7 December 2013 .

Awards and nominations 
Winslet won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader (2008). She won two Golden Globe Awards in the same year; Best Actress (Drama) for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader, becoming the third actress to achieve the feat, after Joan Plowright and Sigourney Weaver. ] She has won two BAFTA Awards: Best Actress for The Reader, and Best Supporting Actress for Sense and Sensibility (1995). She has earned a total of six Academy Award nominations, ten Golden Globe nominations, and seven BAFTA nominations.

She has received numerous awards from other organisations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for Iris (2001) and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Sense and Sensibility and The Reader. Premiere magazine named her portrayal of Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) as the 81st greatest film performance of all time.

In 2007, British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) honoured Winslet with Britannia Award. She received the 2009 Santa Barbara International Film Festival Modern Master (Montecito) Award in recognition of her accomplishments in the film industry. In 2011, Madame Tussauds unveiled a wax statue of her drapped in the Elie Saab dress she wore at Primetime Emmy Awards of the same year.

Winslet was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama. The same year she was honoured with an Honorary César Award.

Winslet was selected for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012. She received the star at 6262 Hollywood Blvd, which was unveiled on 17 March 2014 at Saint Patrick's Day by Winslet with Kathy Bates and James Cameron as guest speakers at the unveiling ceremony.

Reference  Wikipedia

>> Biography of Jessica Alba


Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American actress, model, and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the James Cameron television series Dark Angel (2000–2002) when she was 19 years old.

Alba later appeared in Honey (2003), Sin City (2005), Fantastic Four (2005), Into the Blue (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) and Good Luck Chuck (2007).

Alba has been called a sex symbol. She appears on the "Hot 100" section of Maxim and was voted number one on AskMen.com's list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, as well as "Sexiest Woman in the World" by FHM in 2007. In 2005, TV Guide ranked her # 45 on its "50 Sexiest Stars of All Time" list. The use of her image on the cover of the March 2006 Playboy sparked a lawsuit by her, which was later dropped. She has also won various awards for her acting, including the Choice Actress Teen Choice Award and Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television, and a Golden Globe nomination for her lead role in the television series Dark Angel.

Early life
Alba was born in Pomona, California, to Catherine (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English, and French Canadian ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.

Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from partially collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia four to five times a year, as well as a ruptured appendix and a tonsillar cyst. Alba became isolated from other children at school, because she was in the hospital so often due to her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. Alba has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. She has acknowledged that she has suffered from obsessive–compulsive disorder during her childhood. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16,  and she subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.

Career
Beginnings (1992–1999)
Alba expressed interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, whose grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.

Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.

In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of The Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, and as the female lead in the 1999 comedy-horror film Idle Hands, opposite Devon Sawa.

Breakout (2000–2008)
Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002, earning her critical acclaim as well as a Golden Globe nomination. Alba later admitted to suffering from anorexia while in preparation for Dark Angel.

Alba has been well received in popular culture. She received the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress and Saturn Award for Best Actress for her role in Dark Angel. In 2006, Alba received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance" for Sin City. Her acting has also drawn criticism, however, as she was nominated for a 2007 Razzie Award for Worst Actress for her performances in Awake, Good Luck Chuck, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. She was also nominated for the same award in 2005 for her performances in Fantastic Four and Into the Blue.

Alba's most notable film roles have included an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, and as the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four. She then appeared in its sequel, in Into the Blue later that year, and Good Luck Chuck a few years later.  Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible 3, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by talent agents Patrick Whitesell and Brad Cafarelli.

In 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. Alba won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Also in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in "box office bomb" The Love Guru. Alba was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress. In late 2008, Alba signed on to star as the lead role in An Invisible Sign of My Own. The movie finished filming in November 2008. It premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival and was released to theaters in May 2011.

2010–present
In 2010, Alba starred in five films. She played Joyce Lakeland, a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, film adaption of the book of the same name which co-starred Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film of the year was the hit romantic comedy Valentine's Day, directed by Garry Marshall. She portrayed Ashton Kutcher's girlfriend, Morley Clarkson, in the ensemble film that included Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Garner, among others.  It was released on February 12, 2010. Later in the year, she appeared in action film Machete, in An Invisible Sign of My Own and in Little Fockers, reuniting with Robert De Niro who was also in Machete. In August 2010, it was announced that Alba would appear in Spy Kids 4. The film was released a year later.

In January 2012, Alba and business partner Chris Gavigan launched The Honest Company, a collection of toxin-free household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company is currently valued at $1 billion. In March 2012, Alba announced that she will be releasing a book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book, slated for release in early 2013, will be published by Rodale.

Her 2013 projects include comedy A.C.O.D. and animated film Escape from Planet Earth. Alba reprised her roles, Santana in Machete's sequel Machete Kills, and Nancy Callahan in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, the sequel to 2005's Sin City. Filming for the Sin City sequel started in October 2012 and the film was released in August 2014.

Public image
In 2001, Alba was ranked No. 1 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list. She said that "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to." In 2005, Alba was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star for 2002 in a Hollywood.com poll, No.4 in the Top 10 Sci-Fi Babes, No.6 in FHM's Sexiest Girls for their poll, and ranked at No.12 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World" 2002 edition. In 2005, Alba was ranked at No.5 on the Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list.

On the cover of the March 2006 issue, Playboy magazine named Alba among its 25 Sexiest Celebrities, and the Sex Star of the Year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported.

When reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend, the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.

In 2006, Alba ranked No.3 on E! Television's 101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies. In 2006 readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on 99 Most Desirable Women, while in 2007, Maxim Magazine placed Alba on the number 2 spot of their "Top 100". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers, and in May, after eight million votes, FHM (UK and USA editions) named Alba the winner as "2007's Sexiest Woman in the World". Alba has been regarded as one of the world's most attractive women, being named to Maxim's Hot 100 in 2008. In 2007, Alba was ranked in at No.1 in FHM's Sexiest Girls of 2007 poll, in the magazine's Latvian edition. Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2007. In 2006 and 2007, Alba was voted No.1 as the most sexy woman in the world by the Norwegian FHM. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar featuring photos of Alba posing sexually in swimsuits, and high heels.[66] In 2008, Alba was ranked No.34 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list, was ranked No.2 on Wizard magazine's "Sexiest Women of TV" list, and was named in GQ Magazine one of the 25 Sexiest Women in film of all time. Alba is the only woman who has made the Maxim Magazine Hot 100 list in all the years it was published; from 2000 to 2014. She appeared on Maxim's 2014 Hot 100 list, finishing 8. She was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health. People named her one of 2012 Most Beautiful at Every Age.


Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church after four years because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:

"Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault, and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman".

Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality, and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest-starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.

While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly, which caused controversy due to their 12-year age difference. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her twentieth birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different." Alba had at one time said she envisioned a much older man as her ideal partner, making references to Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and Michael Caine. She said, "I have this thing for older men. They've been around and know so much."

Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. Alba married Warren in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have two daughters: Honor Marie Warren (born 2008) and Haven Garner Warren (born 2011). he first pictures of Honor Marie appeared in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, which reportedly paid $1.5 million.

In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates' genealogy series Finding Your Roots, where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Mayan civilization. The show's research indicated that their Alba surname did not come from a Spaniard since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, Native American in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (Mtdna) showed Sephardi Jewish roots, and DNA testing revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Jessica's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian/Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern/North African, 0.1% South Asian, and 2.4% "No Match".

Alba fears being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her, commenting, "Somehow, I don't think this is happening to Natalie Portman." In the interview, Alba said she wants to be taken seriously as an actress but believes she needs to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hopes to be more selective in her film projects. Alba also maintains a strict no-nudity clause in her contract. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties." In March 2010, she reasserted her position to Scarlet magazine, saying, "I can act sexy and wear sexy clothes but I can’t go naked." For the shower scene in Machete, she was wearing underwear, which was digitally removed afterwards.

Reference Wikipedia