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 Jennifer Lawrence


Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress. Her first major role was as a lead cast member on the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007–09). She appeared in the independent dramas The Burning Plain (2008) and Winter's Bone (2010), for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination. Her first commercial success came with the superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011).

Lawrence gained international fame for playing heroine Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games film series (2012–15), which established her as the highest-grossing action heroine as of 2015. She starred in David O. Russell's romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012), for which she won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award, becoming the second-youngest Best Actress Oscar winner. For her supporting role in Russell's comedy-drama American Hustle (2013), she received a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a third Academy Award nomination.

Early life
Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the daughter of Karen (née Koch b.1956) a children's camp manager, and Gary Lawrence, a construction worker. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine. By the age of 14, she had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School in Louisville. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9/4.0 average, aiming at a career in acting. While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as what she described as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her parents ran.

Career
2006–11: Career beginnings and breakthrough
Lawrence began her acting career in the TBS comedy series The Bill Engvall Show, playing Lauren Pearson, the oldest daughter. The series premiered in September 2007 and ran for three seasons. Actors on the show, including Lawrence, won a Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Performers in a TV Series, and Lawrence was nominated for Best Performance in a TV Series (Comedy or Drama).

In 2008, Lawrence made her film debut with a minor role in Garden Party, followed by a starring role in Lori Petty's family drama The Poker House, portraying a young victim of abuse. She was awarded the Los Angeles Film Festival Award for Outstanding Performance for her role in the latter film. She next appeared in Guillermo Arriaga's directorial feature debut The Burning Plain (2008), opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Her performance earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She also appeared in the music video for the song "The Mess I Made" by Parachute.

Lawrence's lead role in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone (2010), which won Best Picture at the Sundance Film Festival, is often cited as her breakout performance. She portrays a 17-year-old in the Ozark Mountains who cares for her mentally ill mother and younger siblings while searching for her missing father. Her performance was highly acclaimed by film critics. David Denby of The New Yorker said the film "would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic playing Ree." Peter Travers from Rolling Stone opined that "her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm. Lawrence's eyes are a roadmap to what's tearing Ree apart." Lawrence was awarded the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 2011, Lawrence co-starred in the independent film Like Crazy, which premiered at the 27th Sundance Film Festival, and she appeared in The Beaver, a dark comedy starring Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson. The latter film was completed in 2009 but was stalled due to controversy concerning Gibson. She also starred alongside James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in X-Men: First Class (2011), a prequel to the previously released X-Men film series. She portrayed the shape-shifting villain Mystique, played by Rebecca Romijn in earlier X-Men films. First Class was a commercial success, earning $353.6 million at the international box office. Lawrence joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that year.

2012–present: International success
In 2012, Lawrence starred as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Despite being a fan of the books, Lawrence took three days to accept the role because she was initially intimidated by the size of the film and how it might affect her career. She underwent extensive training for the role, including archery, rock and tree climbing, and combat. With international revenues of $691.2 million, The Hunger Games became the first major box office hit ($350 million and up) built around a female action star,  marking Lawrence as the highest-grossing action heroine. Though the film generally received positive reviews, Lawrence's portrayal of Katniss was particularly praised. Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Lawrence embodies Katniss "just as one might imagine her from the novel," and "anchors" the film "with impressive gravity and presence," ultimately calling her "the ideal screen actress." Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert agreed that "Lawrence is strong and convincing in the central role."

Lawrence played a young widow in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (2012), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Matthew Quick, opposite Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. She received critical praise for her performance, with Richard Corliss of Time writing, "Just 21 when the movie was shot, Lawrence is that rare young actress who plays, who is, grown-up. Sullen and sultry, she lends a mature intelligence to any role." Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote that Lawrence "is some kind of miracle. She's rude, dirty, funny, foulmouthed, sloppy, sexy, vibrant, and vulnerable, sometimes all in the same scene, even in the same breath." She won the Golden Globe Award and Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film, becoming the second-youngest Best Actress Oscar winner at age 22. Lawrence also starred alongside Max Thieriot and Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai's thriller House at the End of the Street (2012). She became the face of fashion house Dior in October 2012.

In 2013, Lawrence reprised her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second installment in the Hunger Games series. It was a major commercial success, with box office earnings of $864.9 million. Lawrence's performance earned praise; Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice wrote that Lawrence was "both on fire and in the process of becoming, and it's magnificent to watch." She next took a supporting role in David O. Russell's crime drama American Hustle (2013) as the wife of a con man portrayed by Christian Bale. Based on the FBI's ABSCAM operation, the film is set against the backdrop of political corruption in 1970s New Jersey and also stars Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, and Jeremy Renner. Lawrence received critical acclaim for her performance, which earned her a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, and a third Academy Award nomination, her first for a supporting role, becoming the youngest actress to have three nominations.

Lawrence replaced Angelina Jolie in Susanne Bier's depression-era drama Serena, based on the novel of the same name by Ron Rash. She played the titular character, an unstable woman who learns that she can never have children with her husband, played by Bradley Cooper. Serena was completed in 2012, and was finally released in 2014 to poor reviews. In 2014, Lawrence again played Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which grossed $748.1 million worldwide, and reprised her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, the first half of a two-part adaptation of the final Hunger Games novel. For the musical score of the latter film, she was featured on the song "The Hanging Tree", which reached the top 40 on multiple international singles charts. The film was a box office success, grossing $751.9 million worldwide.

Lawrence's third collaboration with David O. Russell, Joy, is scheduled for a 2015 release. She portrays the titular character, Joy Mangano, the inventor of the Miracle Mop. She is also set to appear in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 and X-Men: Apocalypse.

Personal life
Relationships and photo leaks
Lawrence began dating Nicholas Hoult in 2011 after filming X-Men: First Class, but they ended their relationship in January 2013. They reconnected in July 2013, after filming X-Men: Days of Future Past together. The couple reportedly separated in August 2014, with sources stating different work schedules to be an issue.

On August 31, 2014, nude photographs of Lawrence leaked online, believed to be obtained from her iCloud account by a hacker. Lawrence confirmed that the photographs are real. Emphasizing that the images were never meant to be public, she called the leak a "sex crime" and a "sexual violation", telling Vanity Fair in October 2014, "Anybody who looked at those pictures, you're perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame." She said she feels similarly regarding people she knows and loves, adding, "I don't want to get mad, but at the same time I'm thinking, I didn't tell you that you could look at my naked body."

Philanthrophy
Lawrence is active in charities such as the World Food Programme, Feeding America, and The Thirst Project. She organized an early screening of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire to benefit Saint Mary's Center, a special disabilities organization located in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and raised more than $40,000 for the cause. Lawrence is an official ambassador of the Special Olympics, the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Lawrence has created the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation, which supports charities such as the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, Special Olympics, and Do Something, a non-profit organization with the goal of motivating young people to take action around social changes. She also held a fundraising contest for the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles as part of the LA premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

Achievements
Lawrence won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook (2012). She won two Golden Globe Awards, Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for Silver Linings Playbook and Best Supporting Actress for American Hustle (2013). She has won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for American Hustle.

She has also received numerous awards from other organizations, including the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for Silver Linings Playbook, the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for American Hustle. She received four Critics' Choice Movie Awards for her work in Silver Linings Playbook, The Hunger Games, and American Hustle.

Lawrence was recognized as the highest-grossing action heroine in the 2015 edition of the Guinness World Records for the role of Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games franchise.

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Charlize Theron


Charlize Theron ( born 7 August 1975 ) is a South African and American actress, producer, and fashion model. She starred in early films in the late 1990s, such as The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998) and The Cider House Rules (1999). Theron received critical acclaim for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003), for which she won the Academy Award, Silver Bear, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress among several other accolades, becoming the first South African to win an Academy Award in a major acting category. She received further Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for her performance in the sexual harassment-themed drama North Country in 2005 and a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in Jason Reitman's 2011 comedy-drama Young Adult.

Theron became a U.S. citizen in 2007, while retaining her South African citizenship. In the late 2000s, she moved into the field of producing, both in television and film. In 2006, she produced the documentary East of Havana. In 2008, she starred in The Burning Plain and served as an executive producer. In 2014, she produced and starred in Dark Places. In 2012, she played Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman and Meredith Vickers in Prometheus, both of which were box office successes.

Early life 
Theron was born in Benoni, in the then-Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta (née Maritz) and Charles Jacobus Theron (born 27 November 1947). econd Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle. Her ancestry includes French, German, and Dutch persons; her French forebears were early Huguenot settlers in South Africa. "Theron" is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as [tɜːron], although she has said that the way she pronounces it in South Africa is [θron]. She changed the pronunciation when she moved to the U.S. to give it a more "American" sound.

She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. On 21 June 1991, Theron's father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother and threatened both her mother and her while drunk; Theron's mother then shot and killed him. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence and her mother faced no charges.

Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein), a period she later characterised as not "fitting in". At 13, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. Although Theron is fluent in English, her first language is Afrikaans.

Early work 
Although seeing herself as a dancer, Theron at 16 won a one-year modeling contract at a local competition in Salerno and with her mother moved to Milan, Italy. After Theron spent a year modeling throughout Europe, she and her mother moved to New York City and Miami, Florida. In New York, she attended the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer until a knee injury closed this career path.  As Theron recalled in 2008,

I went to New York for three days to model, and then I spent a winter in New York in a friend's windowless basement apartment. I was broke, I was taking class at the Joffrey Ballet, and my knees gave out. I realized I couldn't dance anymore, and I went into a major depression. My mom came over from South Africa and said, "Either you figure out what to do next or you come home, because you can sulk in South Africa."

At 19, Theron flew to Los Angeles, on a one-way ticket her mother bought her, intending now to work in the film industry. During her early months there, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a check her mother had sent her to help with the rent. When the teller refused to cash it, Theron engaged in a shouting match with him. Upon seeing this, talent agent John Crosby, in line behind her, handed her his business card and subsequently introduced her to casting agents and also an acting school. She later fired him as her manager after he kept sending her scripts for films similar to Showgirls and Species. After several months in the city, she made her film debut with a non-speaking role in the horror film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995). Her first speaking role was a supporting but significant and attention-garnering part as a hitwoman in 2 Days in the Valley (1996). Larger roles in widely released Hollywood films followed, and her career expanded in the late 1990s with box-office successes like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). She was on the cover of the January 1999 issue of Vanity Fair as the "White Hot Venus". She also appeared on the cover of the May 1999 issue of Playboy magazine. However, the nude photos inside the issue had been taken several years earlier before she became famous and Theron unsuccessfully sued the magazine for publishing the photos without her consent.

Success and hiatus 
She starred in four films in 2000: Reindeer Games, The Yards, The Legend of Bagger Vance and Men of Honor, and was briefly considered a new "It girl". Theron has said of this period in her career that, "I kept finding myself in a place where directors would back me but studios didn't. [I began] a love affair with directors, the ones I really, truly admired. I found myself making really bad movies, too. Reindeer Games was not a good movie, but I did it because I loved John Frankenheimer."


Theron at the premiere of North Country at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005
After appearing in other films, Theron starred as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003). Film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema". For her role, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe Award. She is the first South African to win an Oscar for Best Actress. The Oscar win pushed her to The Hollywood Reporter's 2006 list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood; earning US$10 million for both her subsequent films, North Country and Aeon Flux, she ranked seventh, behind Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman. AskMen also named her the number one most desirable woman of 2003.

In 2005, Theron portrayed Rita, Michael Bluth's (Jason Bateman) love interest, on the third season of Fox's critically acclaimed television series Arrested Development. She also received Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her role of Britt Ekland in the 2004 HBO film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. On 30 September, Theron received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the same year, she starred in the financially unsuccessful science fiction thriller Aeon Flux. She also received the 2005 Spike Video Game Award for Best Performance by a Human Female for her voiceover work in the Aeon Flux video game.

Theron received Best Actress Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for her lead performance in the drama North Country. Ms. magazine also honoured her for this performance with a feature article in its Fall 2005 issue. She was supposed to star in the screen adaption of the short story The Ice at the Bottom of the World by Mark Richard, and it was to be directed by Kimberly Peirce and produced by Theron's company Denver and Delilah Films (Theron's two dog's names). Theron has owned the rights for many years. She was also supposed to star in a movie adaption of the graphic novel Jinx, but neither project has been produced yet.

In 2008, Theron was named the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year. That year she also starred with Will Smith in the superhero film Hancock, and in late 2008 she was asked to be a UN Messenger of Peace by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

In October 2009, Theron was cast to star in a sequel to the Mad Max films, titled Mad Max: Fury Road.

On 4 December 2009, Theron co-presented the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, accompanied by several other celebrities of South African nationality or ancestry. During rehearsals she drew an Ireland ball instead of France as a joke at the expense of FIFA, referring to Thierry Henry's handball controversy in the play-off match between France and Ireland. The stunt alarmed FIFA enough for it to fear she might do it again in front of a live global audience. 

Recent work 
Following a three-year hiatus from the big screen, Theron returned to the spotlight in 2011 with Young Adult. Directed by Jason Reitman, the film earned critical acclaim especially for Theron's performance. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and several other high profile awards. Theron played the Wicked Queen in the film Snow White & the Huntsman, which began production in 2011 and was released in 2012.

In 2011, she described her process for becoming the characters in her film:

When I'm figuring out a character, for me it's easy, since once I say yes to something, I become super-obsessed about it – and I have an obsessive nature in general. How I want to play it starts at that moment. It's a very lonely, internal experience. I think about [the character] all the time – I observe things, I see things and file things [in my head], everything geared to what I'm going to do. I'm obsessed with the human condition. You read the script and become obsessed with [a character's] nature, her habits. When the camera rolls, it's time to do my job, to do the honest truth. You can't do that part of the [character-creation] work when you're [in the middle of] making the film. At least I can't.

In 2012, she starred in Ridley Scott's science fiction film Prometheus. On 7 February 2013 it was announced that Theron was cast as Libby Day, the lead character in the film adaptation of the Gillian Flynn novel Dark Places. The film is to be directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, and Theron will also have a producer credit.

In 2013, Vulture/NYMag named her the 68th Most Valuable Star in Hollywood saying: "We’re just happy that Theron can stay on the list in a year when she didn’t come out with anything ... any actress who’s got that kind of skill, beauty, and ferocity ought to have a permanent place in Hollywood."

Personal life 
Theron has a son, Jackson, whose adoption was announced in March 2012. She lives in Los Angeles. Theron became a naturalised citizen of the United States in May 2007, while retaining her South African citizenship.

In the mid-1990s, Theron had a two-year relationship with actor Craig Bierko.  From 1997 to 2001, she dated Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins. Theron then began a relationship with Irish actor Stuart Townsend, with whom she starred in Trapped (2002) and Head in the Clouds (2004). Theron and Townsend separated in January 2010 after nearly nine years together. Since early 2014, she has been dating actor Sean Penn.

Reference  Wikipedia


>> Biography of Cameron Diaz



Cameron Michelle Diaz (born August 30, 1972) is an American actress. She rose to stardom in the 1990s with roles in The Mask (1994), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) and There's Something About Mary (1998). Other high-profile credits include Charlie's Angels (2000) and its sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), voicing the character of Princess Fiona in the Shrek series (2001–10), The Holiday (2006), Knight and Day (2010), The Green Hornet (2011), Bad Teacher (2011), and The Other Woman (2014).

Diaz has received four Golden Globe Award nominations for her performances in Being John Malkovich (1999), Vanilla Sky (2001), Gangs of New York (2002), and There's Something About Mary (1998) for which she also won the New York Film Critics Best Lead Actress Award. In 2013, Diaz was named the highest-paid actress over 40 in Hollywood.

Early life 
Diaz was born in San Diego, California. Her mother, Billie Early,[6] was an import-export agent, and her father, Emilio Diaz, worked for the California oil company UNOCAL as a foreman. Diaz has an older sister, Chimene. Her father's family was Cuban, and settled in Tampa's Ybor City, later moving to California, where Emilio was born (Diaz's ancestors had originally moved from Spain to Cuba). Her mother has English, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. Diaz grew up in Long Beach, California, and attended Los Cerritos Elementary School, in Los Cerritos, California, and Long Beach Polytechnic High School.

Career 
Early work 
She began her career as a fashion model at age 16, and contracted with a modeling agency, Elite Model Management. For the next few years she worked all over the world on contracts for companies such as Calvin Klein and Levi's. When she was age 17, she was featured on the front cover of the July 1990 issue of Seventeen. Diaz also modeled for 2–3 months in Australia and shot a commercial for Coca-Cola in Sydney in 1991.

At age 21, Diaz auditioned for The Mask, based on the recommendation of an agent for Elite, who met the film's producers while they were searching for the main actress. Having no previous acting experience, she started acting lessons after being cast. The Mask became one of the top ten highest grossing films of 1994. and launched Diaz as a sex symbol.

1995–2004 
Preferring to feel her way effectively into the industry, Diaz avoided large studio films for the next three years and took roles in the independent films The Last Supper (1996), Feeling Minnesota (1996), She's the One (1996), and Head Above Water (1996). She was scheduled to perform in the film Mortal Kombat, but had to resign after breaking her hand while training for the role. Diaz returned to mainstream films with My Best Friend's Wedding and A Life Less Ordinary, both released in 1997. The following year, she played the title role in the smash hit There's Something About Mary (1998), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the category of Best Actress – Musical or Comedy.

She received critical acclaim for her performance in Being John Malkovich (1999), which earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations at the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and SAG Awards. Between 1998 and 2000, Diaz was featured in many movies, such as Very Bad Things, Any Given Sunday, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, and the successful adaptation of Charlie's Angels. In 2001, she won nominations for Best Supporting Actress for the Golden Globe Awards, the SAG Awards, the Critics' Choice Awards, and the American Film Institute Awards for Vanilla Sky, and also voiced Princess Fiona in the movie Shrek, for which she earned $10 million. In 2003 she starred in Gangs of New York.

2005–2009 
In 2005, Diaz played opposite Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine in In Her Shoes (2005), a comedy-drama film based on the novel of the same name by Jennifer Weiner, which focuses on the relationship between two sisters and their grandmother. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and Diaz garnered acclaim for her performance of a dyslexic wild child engaged in a love-hate struggle with her plain, sensible sister (Collette), with USA Today calling it "her best work" then. She followed In Her Shoes with a role in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy The Holiday, also starring Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black. In it she played Amanda, an American movie trailer producer who temporarily exchanges homes with a British woman (Winslet). Released to a mixed reception by critics, the film became one of the biggest commercial successes of the year, grossing more than $205 million worldwide.

Diaz's only film of 2007 was Shrek the Third, the third installment in the Shrek franchise. Although the film was met with mixed reviews from critics, in contrast to the critical acclaim achieved by the previous films,  it grossed $798 million worldwide. The same year, Diaz also voiced Princess Fiona in a thirty-minute Christmas special, directed by Gary Trousdale. Diaz reportedly earned $50 million during the period of a year ending June 2008, for her roles in the Shrek sequel and her next film What Happens in Vegas opposite Ashton Kutcher. A romantic comedy by Tom Vaughan, Diaz and Kutcher portrayed two strangers who awaken together to discover they've gotten married following a night in which they won a huge jackpot after playing the other's quarter. While audiences reacted positively to the movie, reviews for the film were negative.

In 2009, she starred in My Sister's Keeper and The Box. Based on Jodi Picoult's novel of the same name, My Sister's Keeper was released to mixed reviews in June 2009. n the drama, Diaz plays a former lawyer and mother of two, one of who is dying of leukemia. A moderate commercial success, it grossed $95 million worldwide, mostly from its domestic run. Set in 1976, The Box, written and directed by Richard Kelly, stars Diaz and James Marsden as a couple who receive a box from a mysterious man who offers them one million dollars if they press the button sealed within the dome on top of a box, knowing that someone, somewhere, will die from it. Critical response towards the psychological horror film was mixed, and, though having grossed its budget back, was considered a financial disappointment.

2010–present 
In 2010, business magazine Forbes ranked Diaz as the richest Hispanic female celebrity, ranking number 60 among the wealthiest 100. Also that year, Diaz reprised her voice role of Princess Fiona in Shrek Forever After, the fourth installment in the Shrek series. Although the film opened to mixed reviews from critics, it grossed a worldwide total of over $752 million and became the fifth top grossing films released that year. Also in 2010, Diaz reunited with her Vanilla Sky co-star Tom Cruise in the action comedy film Knight and Day. In it, Diaz plays a classic car restorer who unwittingly gets caught up with the eccentric secret agent Roy Miller, played by Cruise, who is on the run from the Secret Service. Knight and Day received generally mixed reviews, and while the comedy performed poorly at the box office in its debut, it became a sleeper hit at the box office at a worldwide gross of $262 million.

In 2011, she played Lenore Case, a journalist, in the remake of the 1940s film The Green Hornet. Directed by Michel Gondry, Diaz starred alongside Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, and Christoph Waltz in the superhero action comedy film. Released to mixed to negative reviews form critics, who called it an "overblown, interminable and unfunny update", the film ended its theatrical run on April 21, 2011, with a worldwide gross total of $228 million. The same year, she played opposite Justin Timberlake and Jason Segel in Jake Kasdan's adult comedy Bad Teacher. In the film, Diaz plays an immoral, gold-digging Chicago-area middle school teacher at the fictional John Adams Middle School who curses at her students, drinks heavily, and smokes marijuana. Again, it received mostly negative reviews from critics who felt that "in spite of a promising concept and a charmingly brazen performance from Diaz, Bad Teacher is never as funny as it should be." A commercial hit however, the R-rated comedy grossed $216 million worldwide. Also in 2011, Diaz was listed among CEOWORLD magazine's Top Accomplished Women Entertainers.


Diaz at the 2012 premiere What to Expect When You're Expecting in New York
In 2012, Diaz was cast in What to Expect When You're Expecting, directed by Kirk Jones and based on the pregnancy guide of the same name. Diaz, who filmed her scenes in a two-week period, portrays Jules Baxer, a contestant on a celebrity dance show and a host to a weight-loss fitness show, who becomes pregnant with her dance partner's baby. Upon release, the ensemble comedy received mostly negative reviews, but became a moderate commercial success with a worldwide gross of $84.4 million. Diaz's other film that year was Gambit, a remake of the 1966 film of the same name directed by Michael Hoffman and scripted by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, and performed poorly at the box office, grossing only $10 million internationally. Diaz also voiced Sigmund Freud in A Liar's Autobiography (2012), a 2012 British animated comedy film that is a completely inaccurate portrayal of the life of Monty Python alumnus Graham Chapman.

In Ridley Scott's The Counselor, Diaz's only film project of 2013, a thriller film about greed, death, the primal instincts of humans and their consequences, she starred along with Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Brad Pitt. Diaz plays a pathological liar and a sociopath, an immigrant who is now living the high-life after escaping a sordid past as an exotic dancer. While Diaz earned positive reviews for her performance, the film was largely panned by critics.

Diaz's first film of 2014 was the romantic revenge comedy The Other Woman opposite Leslie Mann and Kate Upton. Primarily filmed in Downtown Manhattan, New York City, it depicts Diaz as a successful, strong-minded lawyer, who discovers her boyfriend is married only to bond with his wife and another woman she discovers he has been cheating with. While The Other Woman received mostly negative reviews from critics, who felt that it settled for cheap laughs, it opened atop the US weekend box office with earnings of $24.7 million across the three days. Also in 2014, Diaz starred in the comedy Sex Tape, with Jason Segel, and co-starred in another adaptation of the musical, Annie, playing Miss Hannigan.

In late 2013, she published a health book, The Body Book: Feed, Move, Understand and Love Your Amazing Body, co-written with Sandra Bark. It was Number 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list in March 2014.

Personal life 
Diaz has had long-term relationships with video producer Carlos de la Torre, actor Matt Dillon, actor/singer Jared Leto, singer/actor Justin Timberlake, and New York Yankees baseball star Alex Rodriguez. She married musician Benji Madden at her home in Beverly Hills, California, on January 5, 2015, after a 17-day engagement,  having been introduced seven months earlier by her close friend and now co-sister-in-law, Nicole Richie. The marriage came as a surprising reversal for Diaz, who had previously referred to the custom as a "dying institution" that doesn't "suit our world any longer".

Diaz received substantial defamation damages from suing American Media Incorporated, after The National Enquirer posted an article and pictures with the headline “Cameron Caught Cheating” on their website in May 2005. The photos claimed to have shown Diaz cheating on her boyfriend of the time, Justin Timberlake, with the married MTV producer of her show Trippin, Shane Nickerson. After Diaz complained, the article and pictures were removed from the web and the hard copy did not contain any of the content. The magazine apologized to Diaz, Timberlake, Nickerson and his wife for the distress caused and said the story was untrue and the picture showed no more than a goodbye hug between friends.

She endorsed Al Gore publicly during 2000. Known for her environmental activism, she is an early adopter of the Prius electric car and worked to promote Gore's Live Earth campaign, raising awareness of climate change. Diaz wore a T-shirt that read "I won't vote for a son of a Bush!" while making publicity visits for Charlie's Angels.

Diaz has also been involved with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the first and largest nonprofit organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has spoken as an advocate for military families. Although she was quoted by a 1997 Time magazine article as saying she was germophobic, in 2009, Diaz specifically stated that a small comment she made 12 years earlier regarding public-bathroom doorknobs was distorted.

On April 15, 2008, Diaz's father, Emilio Diaz, died at the age of 58 from pneumonia.

In February 2015, she publicly spoke about the transformative impact that practicing Transcendental Meditation has had on her life, saying of her practice, "To have that tool now and to be able to go into the deepest part of myself and to access that and to recharge my battery internally, within myself. I feel so badass. I really do. I think it's so awesome. I feel so empowered that I actually possess that."

Reference Wikipedia

Monday, March 23, 2015

>> Biography of Kate Beckinsale


Kathrin Romary "Kate" Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. After some minor television roles, she made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing (1993) while still a student at Oxford University. She then appeared in British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996), and The Golden Bowl (2000), in addition to various stage and radio productions. She began to seek film work in the United States in the late 1990s and, after appearing in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Brokedown Palace (1999), she had a break-out year in 2001 with starring roles in the war film Pearl Harbor and the romantic comedy Serendipity. She built on this success with appearances in the biopic The Aviator (2004) and the comedy Click (2006).

Beckinsale appeared in 2003's Underworld and has since starred in many action movies including Van Helsing (2004), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Whiteout (2009), as well as Contraband, Underworld: Awakening, and Total Recall (all in 2012). She also makes occasional appearances in smaller dramatic projects such as Snow Angels (2007), Winged Creatures (2008), Nothing but the Truth (for which she earned a Critic's Choice Award nomination in 2008), and Everybody's Fine (2009).

Early life 
Kathrin Romary Beckinsale was born in London, England. She is the only child of actor Richard Beckinsale and actress Judy Loe. Her father was of one-quarter Burmese descent. She made her first television appearance at the age of four, in an episode of This is Your Life dedicated to her father. When she was five years old, her 31-year-old father died suddenly of a heart attack. Beckinsale was deeply traumatised by the loss and "started expecting bad things to happen". While she has seen her father "more on television than I have in life", "there are certainly enough memories for me not to feel that it's somebody I didn't know." Her widowed mother moved in with director Roy Battersby when Beckinsale was nine and she was brought up alongside his four sons and daughter. She has a close relationship with her step-father: "I couldn't have knitted a better one ... He wasn't pushy, he let me come to him." She has a paternal half-sister, actress Samantha Beckinsale, but they have not had regular contact. Beckinsale was educated at the fee-paying Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith, West London[9] and was involved with the Orange Tree Youth Theatre. She was a two-time winner of the WH Smith Young Writers Award for both fiction and poetry. She has described herself as a "late bloomer": "All of my friends were kissing boys and drinking cider way before me. I found it really depressing that we weren't making camp fires and everyone was doing grown-up stuff." "I loathed being a teenager." She had a nervous breakdown and developed anorexia at the age of 15 and underwent Freudian psychoanalysis for four years.

Beckinsale read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford, and was later described by a contemporary, journalist Victoria Coren, as "whip-clever, slightly nuts, and very charming". She was involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, most notably being directed by fellow student Tom Hooper in a production of A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse. She spent her third year in Paris as part of her compulsory year abroad as a Modern Languages student, after which she decided to quit university to concentrate on her burgeoning acting career: "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high pressure. I was burning out and I knew I had to make a decision."

Personal life
Beckinsale had an eight-year relationship with actor Michael Sheen from 1995 until 2003. They met when cast in a touring production of The Seagull in early 1995 and moved in together shortly afterwards. She has said it was "love at first sight"[174] and that he saved her from "a hospital for the criminally insane". In 1997, they appeared in a radio production of Romeo and Juliet. Their daughter, Lily Mo Sheen, was born in London in 1999. The actress has said she was "embarrassed" that Sheen never proposed but felt as though she were married: "If you keep a library book out long enough, you feel it's yours."

Their relationship ended in early 2003, after the filming of Underworld.  Beckinsale had persuaded director Len Wiseman to cast Sheen in the film, but, while on set, she and Wiseman (who was married) began a relationship. All parties, aside from Wiseman's first wife, have maintained that there was no infidelity. Wiseman married Beckinsale on May 9, 2004 in Bel-Air, California. They live in Los Angeles. Beckinsale and Wiseman both remain friends with Sheen.

Charity work 
The British Heart Foundation has been Beckinsale's charity of choice "ever since I was six years old". She has also donated film memorabilia to the Epidermolysis Bullosa Medical Research Foundation,[188] MediCinema Habitat For Humanity  and the Entertainment Industry Foundation. In 2008 she hosted the 4th Annual Pink Party to raise funds for the Women’s Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and organised a screening of All About Eve for FilmAid International. In 2012 Beckinsale joined Nestlé's Share the Joy of Reading Programme to raise awareness about the importance of children's literacy.


>>Complete  Biography of Kate Beckinsale 

>> Biography of Natalie Portman


Natalie Portman (born June 9, 1981) is an Israeli-born American (with dual citizenship) actress, producer, and director. Her first role was in the 1994 action thriller Léon: The Professional, opposite Jean Reno, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005). In 1999, she enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology while still working as an actress. She completed her bachelor's degree in 2003.

In 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. In 2005, Portman won a Golden Globe Award and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Closer. She won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). In May 2008, she served as the youngest member of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival jury. Portman's directorial debut, Eve, opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival's shorts competition in 2008. Portman directed a segment of the collective film New York, I Love You. Portman is also known for her portrayal as Jane Foster, the love interest of Marvel superhero Thor, in the film adaptation Thor (2011), and its sequel, Thor: The Dark World (2013).

In 2010, Portman starred in the psychological horror film Black Swan. Her performance received widespread critical acclaim and she earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress, her second Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award, the BAFTA Award and the BFCA Award in 2011.

Early life
Portman was born in Jerusalem. She is the only child of Shelley (née Stevens), an American homemaker who works as Portman's agent, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli citizen who is a fertility specialist and gynecologist. Her maternal grandparents, Bernice (née Hurwitz; 1925-2014) and Arthur Stevens (whose family surname was originally "Edelstein"), were from Jewish immigrant families from Austria and Russia. Her paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants to Israel. Natalie's paternal grandmother, Mania, from Romania, had the maiden name "Portman"; Natalie's paternal grandfather, Zvi Yehuda Hershlag, was born in Poland in 1914, and in 1938 moved to then British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel, where he was an economics professor; Zvi's parents died at Auschwitz. Natalie's Romanian-born great-grandmother was a spy for British Intelligence during World War II. Her original Hebrew first name is "Neta-Lee".

Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where her mother was selling tickets. They corresponded after her father returned to Israel and were married when her mother visited a few years later. In 1984, when Portman was three years old, the family moved to the United States, where her father received his medical training. Portman, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."

Portman and her family first lived in Washington, D.C., but relocated to Connecticut in 1988 and then lived in Jericho, New York, on Long Island, in 1990.

Education
In Washington, D.C., Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. Portman learned to speak Hebrew[28] and while living on Long Island attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County in Jericho, New York. She graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island in 1999. She studied ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop in New Hyde Park, New York, and attended the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts in Wheatley Heights, both on Long Island. Portman skipped the premiere of her film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, so she could study for her high school final exams.

In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star." At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant. While attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House  and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an essay critical of Israeli actions toward Palestinians.

Portman returned to Israel and took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004. In March 2006, she was a guest lecturer at a Columbia University course in terrorism and counterterrorism, where she spoke about her film V for Vendetta. Portman has professed an interest in foreign languages since childhood and has studied French, Japanese, German, and Arabic.

As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper, "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar," co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search. In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy" during her psychology studies at Harvard.

Personal life
In 2006, she commented that she felt more Jewish in Israel and that she would like to raise her children Jewish: "A priority for me is definitely that I'd like to raise my kids Jewish, but the ultimate thing is to have someone who is a good person and who is a partner."

After starring in the video for his song "Carmensita", she began a relationship with American folk singer Devendra Banhart, which ended in September 2008.

Portman began dating ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied in 2009. The couple met while she was filming Black Swan, for which he was the choreographer. In December 2010, Portman announced their engagement and confirmed her pregnancy. Portman gave birth to their son Aleph Portman-Millepied in June 2011. In February 2012, Portman and Millepied were photographed wearing wedding rings at the Academy Awards ceremony, but representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the couple's marital status. On August 4, 2012, Portman and Millepied married in an intimate Jewish ceremony in Big Sur, California.

In January 2013, the Paris Opera Ballet announced that Millepied had accepted the position of director of dance, beginning September 2014. The couple plan to relocate to Paris when Millepied's new job starts in fall 2014. Portman has said she would like to become a French citizen when they move. In January 2014, Millepied said he was in the process of converting to Judaism.

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Mila Kunis


Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis ( born August 14, 1983)  is an American actress. In 1991, at the age of seven, she moved from the USSR to Los Angeles with her family. After being enrolled in acting classes as an after-school activity, she was soon discovered by an agent. She appeared in several television series and commercials, before acquiring her first significant role prior to her 15th birthday, playing Jackie Burkhart on the television series That '70s Show. In September 1999, she began voicing Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy.

Her breakout film role came in 2008, playing Rachel Jansen in the romantic comedy-drama Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Subsequent film roles included Mona Sax in the neo-noir action film Max Payne (2008), Solara in the post-apocalyptic neo-Western and action film The Book of Eli (2010), Jamie in the romantic comedy Friends with Benefits (2011), Lori in the comedy Ted (2012), and the Wicked Witch of the West, Theodora, in the fantasy adventure film Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Her performance as Lily in the psychological horror film Black Swan (2010) gained her worldwide accolades, including receiving the Premio Marcello Mastroianni for Best Young Actor or Actress at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, and nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

Early life and education
Kunis was born in Chernivtsi, in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine). Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher who runs a pharmacy, and her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer who works as a cab driver. Kunis has an elder brother named Michael (born c. 1976). She stated in 2011 that her parents had "amazing jobs", and that the family was "very lucky" and "not poor"; they had decided to leave the USSR because they saw "no future" there for Kunis and her brother. In 1991, when she was seven years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, California, with $250. "That was all we were allowed to take with us. My parents had given up good jobs and degrees, which were not transferable. We arrived in New York on a Wednesday and by Friday morning my brother and I were at school in LA."

Kunis comes from a Jewish family and has cited antisemitism in the former Soviet Union as one of several reasons for her family's move to the United States. She has stated that her parents "raised [her] Jewish as much as they could," although religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union. On her second day in Los Angeles, Kunis was enrolled at Rosewood Elementary School, not knowing a word of English. She later recalled: "I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand the people. I didn't understand the language. My first sentence of my essay to get into college was like, 'Imagine being blind and deaf at age seven.' And that's kind of what it felt like moving to the States."

In Los Angeles, she attended Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle School. She used an on-set tutor for most of her high school years while filming That '70s Show. She briefly attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES), but when that school proved to be insufficiently flexible about her acting commitments, she transferred to Fairfax High School, from which she graduated in 2001. She briefly attended UCLA and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Personal life
On September 14, 2011, the FBI announced it was investigating the alleged hacking of Kunis's cellphone and email accounts, along with those of other celebrities. Christopher Chaney from Jacksonville, Florida, later pleaded guilty in federal court to nine counts of computer hacking.

In November 2011, Kunis was escorted by Sgt. Scott Moore to a United States Marine Corps Ball in Greenville, North Carolina. Kunis had accepted Moore's invitation in July after he posted it as a YouTube video while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The event celebrated the Marine Corps' 236th anniversary.

Kunis supports the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. In a 2012 interview, she criticized the Republican Party, saying: "The way that Republicans attack women is so offensive to me. And the way they talk about religion is offensive. I may not be a practicing Jew, but why we gotta talk about Jesus all the time?"

Relationships
Kunis began dating actor Macaulay Culkin in 2002. During their relationship, there were rumors of the couple getting married, but Kunis denied them. In an interview with BlackBook magazine, Kunis stated that marriage is "not something that's important to me". Kunis said she tried her best to protect her and Culkin's privacy, noting that "We don't talk about it to the press. It's already more high profile than I want it to be." When asked if it was difficult to stay out of the tabloids and press, Kunis responded: "I keep my personal life as personal as I physically, mentally, possibly can." Asked if that is difficult she said, "I don't care. I will go to my grave trying. It is hard, but I'll end up going to a bar that's a hole in the wall. I won't go to the 'it's-happening' place." On January 3, 2011, Kunis' publicist confirmed reports that Kunis and Culkin had ended their relationship, saying "The split was amicable, and they remain close friends."

Kunis began dating her former That '70s Show co-star Ashton Kutcher in April 2012, and they became engaged in February 2014. She gave birth to their daughter, Wyatt Isabelle, on October 1, 2014.

Reference Wikipedia

>> Biography of Angelina Jolie


Angelina Jolie ( born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975 ) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and has been cited as Hollywood's highest-paid actress. Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin' to Get Out (1982). Her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in a major film, Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Jolie's starring role as the video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) established her as a leading Hollywood actress. She continued her successful action-star career with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), and Salt (2010), and received critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Beginning in the 2010s, she expanded her career by directing and producing the wartime dramas In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011) and Unbroken (2014). Her biggest commercial success came with the Disney fantasy Maleficent (2014).

In addition to her film career, Jolie is noted for her humanitarian efforts, for which she has received a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and an honorary damehood of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG), among other honors. She promotes various causes, including conservation, education, and women's rights, and is most noted for her advocacy on behalf of refugees as a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). As a public figure, Jolie has been cited as one of the most influential and powerful people in the American entertainment industry, as well as the world's most beautiful woman, by various media outlets. Her personal life is the subject of wide publicity: divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, she is now married to actor Brad Pitt. They have six children together, three of whom were adopted internationally.

>> Complete Biography of Angelina Jolie