Ben Affleck
Though he was born in California, Ben Affleck and his family moved early on to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where, in keeping with tradition, he soon learned to love the Boston Red Sox while despising the New York Yankees. Affleck’s father, Tim, was an old friend of Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman and a former regular at the Theater Company of Boston, which meant that acting and performance were in his blood.
Anne Hathaway
Early on, Anne Hathaway’s core religious values in Catholicism were guiding her toward a future filled with religious faith rather than Hollywood fame. Though her mother, Kate McCauley, was an actress, and Anne Hathaway enjoyed playing dress-up and imagining herself as various creative characters, her first career ambition was to become a nun. This career path changed abruptly at 15 when she realized that her religious background would put her at odds with her brother, who was atheist. Based on that, Anne Hathaway chose acting instead, and movie audiences would come to be all the better for it.
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Elise Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969, in Melbourne, Australia. With an Aussie mother and a Texan father, she was exposed to a range of cultures. When Cate was merely 10 years old, her father passed away, leaving her mother to take care of not only Cate, but also a younger sister and older brother. Her first taste of acting came when she joined a drama group at her Methodist College, playing small roles in small-time plays.
It’s hard to believe it all started with 21 Jump Street. If Hollywood was a long-jump, then has jumped far beyond the sandpit. Platoon, Donnie Brasco, Pirates, Blow, Sweeney Todd, and now Public Enemies - Johnny Depp can pretty much do anything. John Christopher Depp III was born June 9, 1963, in Owensboro, Kentucky. The son of John Christopher, a city engineer and Betty Sue Palmer, a waitress and homemaker (Johnny Depp has a tattoo of his mother’s name on his left arm), young Johnny relocated to Florida shortly after the death of his grandfather, with whom the future actor was very close, with his three older siblings.
Catherine Zeta-Jones grew up in Swansea, Wales, under the guidance of her seamstress mother, Patricia, and her confectionery-business owner, Dai. Her interest in performing became evident early on as she enrolled in dance classes before her fifth birthday, later joined a troupe at the Hazel Johnson School of Dance and subsequently caught the acting bug through church theater groups. Just when she was ready for a breakthrough, Zeta-Jones suffered a temporary setback when an infection forced her to stay at home and affected her breathing to the point where a tracheotomy was needed.
Born Nicolas Coppola, future star Nicolas Cage gained his earliest acting experiences as a youngster when he would put on performances with his siblings and star in short films filmed by his brother, Christopher. After further dabbling in stage productions and acting lessons, Nicolas Cage pulled the plug on his education at Beverly Hills High School (where he was pals with Crispin Glover) and decided to make acting his full-time pursuit.
Marion Cotillard spent her childhood in Orleans, France, where her acting and artistically-inclined parents continually inspired her to become a performer. Though Cotillard’s actor mom, Niseema Theillaud, and actor-director dad, Jean-Claude Cotillard, were often filming in exotic countries or traveling with their performance group, they would come back from destinations like Asia and South America with inspirational mementos for their daughter.
Orlando Bloom is an extraordinary success story. Has any actor ever been as famous without ever headlining a major picture? And which other actor can boast a US box office average of well in excess of $100 million per movie, even if the calculation includes the films he’s made but not yet released? The man’s rise has been meteoric, to say the least. And, given the projects he has in the pipeline, it can only continue.
