celebrity

Sunday, February 27, 2011

portman award for Best Supporting Actress

Posted by febry on 6:05 PM

Natalie Hershlag born June 9, 1981, better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an Israeli-American actress. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon. During the 1990s, Portman had major roles in films like Beautiful Girls and Anywhere but Here, before being cast for the role as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In 1999, she enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology while she was working on the Star Wars films. 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 received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture for the drama Closer. She shaved her head and learned to speak with a British accent for her starring role in V for Vendetta (2006), for which she won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance, and a Saturn Award for Best Actress. 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.
In 2011, Portman won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Black Swan. As of 2011, she is engaged to ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied, and the couple are expecting their first child.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 College
* 3 Career
o 3.1 Early work
o 3.2 1995–1999
o 3.3 2000–2005
o 3.4 2006–2009
o 3.5 2010–present
* 4 Social and political causes
* 5 Personal life
* 6 Filmography
* 7 Awards
o 7.1 Won
o 7.2 Nominations
* 8 References
* 9 External links
life
Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel. Her father, Avner Hershlag,is a fertility specialist. Her mother, Shelley Hershlag is an American homemaker who works as her agent.Portman's maternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Russia, and her paternal ancestors were Jews who moved to Israel from Poland and Romania. Her paternal grandfather, whose parents died at Auschwitz, was an economics professor in Israel, and her Romanian-born great-grandmother was a spy for British Intelligence during World War II.
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."
The family first lived in Washington, D.C., where Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, but relocated to Connecticut in 1988, and then settled on Long Island, New York, in 1990 Portman learned to speak Hebrew in addition to English and attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Glen Cove, New York. graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island, in 1999. Portman skipped the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I so she could study for her high school final exams.
College
In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard College with a degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post, according to a Fox News article. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star." At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant in a psychology lab. 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 towards Palestinians.
Portman took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004. In March 2006, she appeared as 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 professional 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 which she was named a semifinalist. In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence" during her psychology studies at Harvard.
Due to her scientific publications, Portman is among a very small number of professional actors with a finite Erdős–Bacon number, a concept that reflects the "small world phenomenon" in academia and entertainment by measuring the "collaborative distance" between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős—and the number of links, through roles in films, by which the individual is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon,

portman

Nicole Kidman international success

Posted by febry on 8:28 AM

Nicole Mary Kidman, AC born 20 June 1967 is an Australian actress, spokes model, and humanitarian.
After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Her performances in films such as To Die For (1995), Moulin Rouge! (2001), and Rabbit Hole (2010), received critical acclaim, and her performance in The Hours (2002) brought her an Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award. Her other films include the box office hits Days of Thunder (1990), Batman Forever (1995), The Others (2001), Cold Mountain (2003), The Interpreter (2005) and Australia (2008).
Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNIFEM since 2006. In 2003, Kidman received her star on the Walk of Fame. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civilian honour, and was also the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry. As a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Career
o 2.1 Early career in Australia (1983–89)
o 2.2 Breakthrough in American cinema (1990–94)
o 2.3 International success (1995–present)
o 2.4 Announced projects
o 2.5 Singing
* 3 Personal life
o 3.1 Religious and political views
o 3.2 Charitable work
* 4 Filmography
* 5 Awards
o 5.1 Government honors
* 6 Discography
* 7 References
* 8 Additional reading
* 9 External links
Early life
Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father, Dr. Antony David Kidman, is a biochemist, clinical psychologist, and author, with an office in Lane Cove, Sydney, Australia. Her mother, Janelle Ann (née Glenny), is a nursing instructor who edits her husband's books and was a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby. At the time of Kidman's birth in 1967, her father was a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four and her parents now live on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia Kidman, a journalist and TV presenter. She is of Irish descent through her great-great-great-grandparents, James and Bridget Callachor, who settled in Sydney in 1842.
Kidman attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls' High School. 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 17.She studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, and at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney, with actress Naomi Watts.[citation needed] This was followed by attending the Australian Theatre for Young People.[citation needed]
Career
Early career in Australia (1983–89)
Kidman's first appearance in film came as a teenager in the Pat Wilson music video for the song "Bop Girl". By the end of 1983, she had a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and four film roles, including BMX Bandits and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s, she appeared in several Australian productions, including the soap opera A Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam (1986), Emerald City (1988), and Bangkok Hilton (1989). She also made multiple guest appearances on Australian television programs and TV movies.
In 1989 Kidman starred in Dead Calm as Rae Ingram, the wife of naval officer John Ingram (Sam Neill), held captive on a Pacific yacht trip by the psychotic Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane). The thriller garnered strong reviews; 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."
in American cinema (1990–94)
In 1990 she appeared opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, playing a young doctor who falls in love with a racecar driver. This was Kidman's American debut and was among the highest-grossing films of the year. That same year she auditioned for the role of Molly in the blockbuster film Ghost but lost the role to Demi Moore.
In 1991 she co-starred with Naomi Watts in the independent film Flirting, and received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Billy Bathgate opposite Dustin Hoffman. 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 opposite Michael Keaton in My Life and Alec Baldwin in the thriller Malice, which also featured Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Pullman, and Anne Bancroft. During an interview, Kidman revealed she refused to screen test for the role of Jenny in Forrest Gump (1994), a part that went to Robin Wright Penn.
International success (1995–present)
In 1995 Kidman played Dr. Chase Meridian in Batman Forever opposite Val Kilmer and Jim Carrey. The movie was a blockbuster, and became the second-highest grossing film of the year. As of 2010, it also is the highest-grossing film in which she has appeared Kidman's second film in 1995, To Die For, was a satirical comedy that earned her critical praise. For her portrayal of the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto, she won a Golden Globe Award and five other best actress awards.
Kidman at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
Kidman continued to star in many films such as The Portrait of a Lady (1996) and The Peacemaker (1997) opposite George Clooney. In 1998, she appeared in the film Practical Magic alongside Sandra Bullock, and starred in the stage play The Blue Room, which opened in London. In 1999, Kidman and Cruise portrayed a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut, the final film of Stanley Kubrick. The film opened to generally positive reviews but was subject to censorship controversies due to the explicit nature of its sex scenes.
In 2002 Kidman received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 2001 musical film Moulin Rouge!, in which she played the courtesan Satine opposite Ewan McGregor. Subsequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The same year, she also had a well-received starring role in the horror film The Others. While in Australia filming Moulin Rouge!, Kidman injured her ribs; as a result, Jodie Foster replaced her as leading actress in the film Panic Room. In that film, Kidman's voice appears on the phone as the mistress of the husband of the lead character.
The following year (2003), Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, in which the prosthetics applied to her made her almost unrecognisable. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, along with a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and numerous critics awards. Kidman became the first Australian actress to win an Academy Award. During her Academy Award acceptance speech, Kidman made a teary statement about the importance of art, even during times of war: "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."
In the same year Kidman starred in three very different films. The first film, Dogville, by Danish director Lars von Trier, was an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. In the second film, she co-starred with Anthony Hopkins in the film adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain. The third film, Cold Mountain, a love story of two Southerners separated by the Civil War, garnered her a Golden Globe Award nomination. Kidman's 2004 film Birth was nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Kidman was nominated for another Golden Globe Award.[

nicole kidman

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Scarlett Johansson actress and singer

Posted by febry on 11:24 AM

Scarlett Johansson born November 22, 1984 is an American actress and singer. Johansson made her film debut in the 1994 film North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in 1996's Manny & Lo. Johansson rose to fame with her roles in 1998's The Horse Whisperer and 2001's Ghost World.
She transitioned to adult roles with her performances in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, for which she won a BAFTA Award, and Girl with a Pearl Earring, both of which earned her Golden Globe Award nominations in 2003. A role in A Love Song for Bobby Long earned her a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Following an appearance in The Island, Johansson garnered a fourth Golden Globe nomination, for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Woody Allen's Match Point. She followed that with another Allen film, Scoop, with Hugh Jackman. A role in Brian De Palma's film noir The Black Dahlia was followed by a second role opposite Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, also starring Christian Bale.
On May 20, 2008, Johansson debuted as a vocalist on her first album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, which included cover versions of Tom Waits songs. Her second album, Break Up, with Pete Yorn was released in September 2009.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Acting career
o 2.1 Early roles
o 2.2 Transition to adult roles
o 2.3 2005–07
o 2.4 2008–present
o 2.5 Theatre
* 3 Endorsements
* 4 Music career
* 5 Regarded as sex symbol
* 6 Personal life
o 6.1 Political advocacy
* 7 Filmography
* 8 References
* 9 External links
Early life
Johansson was born in New York City on November 22, 1984. Her father, Karsten Johansson, is a Danish-born architect, and her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was a screenwriter and director. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a producer, comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from the Bronx. Johansson has an older sister, Vanessa, who is an actress; an older brother, Adrian; a twin brother, Hunter (who appeared in the film Manny & Lo with Scarlett); and an older half-brother, Christian, from her father's first marriage.
Johansson grew up in a household with "little money," and with a mother who was a "film buff." She and her brother, Hunter, attended P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village in elementary school.Johansson began her theatrical training by attending and graduating from Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 2002.
Acting career
Early roles
Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions.She made her film debut at nine years old, as John Ritter's daughter in the 1994 fantasy comedy North.Following minor roles in the 1995 film Just Cause, as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw, and If Lucy Fell in 1996, she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female,[1] and positive reviews, one noting, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson",[11] while San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle commentated on her "peaceful aura", and wrote, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress.
After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 in 1997, Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in the 1998 film The Horse Whisperer, directed by Robert Redford. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film. 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig and in 2001 in the neo-noir Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There. Also in 1999, she appeared in the music video for Mandy Moore's single, "Candy". the film was not a box office success,she received praise for her break-out role in the 2001 film, Ghost World. Credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age", Johansson went on to win the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2002, Johansson appeared in the comedy-horror thriller Eight Legged Freaks, starring David Arquette.
Transition to adult roles
Johansson made the transition from teen roles to adult roles, with two such roles in 2003. In the Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation, she played Charlotte, an abandoned young wife, opposite Bill Murray. Roger Ebert wrote that he loved the film and described the performances of Johansson and Murray as "wonderful."Entertainment Weekly wrote of Johansson's "embracing, restful serenity," and the New York Times said, "At 18, the actress gets away with playing a 25-year-old woman by using her husky voice to test the level of acidity in the air ... Ms. Johansson is not nearly as accomplished a performer as Mr. Murray, but Ms. Coppola gets around this by using Charlotte's simplicity and curiosity as keys to her character." Johansson won the BAFTA Award the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She received nominations from a number of film critic organizations, including the Broadcast Film Critics Association, and the Chicago Film Critics Association,
Johansson played Griet in Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring. While noting, "Audiences feel as if they are spying on a moment of artistic inspiration when painter Vermeer creates the title work", USA Today praised her, suggesting, "[She] is having a banner year that Oscar voters should recognize." In his review for the New Yorker, Anthony Lane said, "What keeps Webber’s movie alive is the tenseness of the setup ... and, above all, the presence of Johansson. She is often wordless and close to plain onscreen, but wait for the ardor with which she can summon a closeup and bloom under its gaze; this is her film, not Vermeer’s, all the way." Owen Gleiberman, for Entertainment Weekly, wrote of her "nearly silent performance", observing, "The interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic." She was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She was also nominated by the London Film Critics' Circle, the Phoenix Film Critics Societyand the British Independent Film Awards.
Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in June 2004. In the same year, she voiced a role in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and appeared in an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan entitled A Good Woman, opposite Helen Hunt and Tom Wilkinson. It received a limited U.S. release, and was both a box office and critical. It was described by the New York Times as a "misbegotten Hollywood-minded screen adaptation" with "an excruciating divide between the film's British actors (led by Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Campbell Moore), who are comfortable delivering Wilde's aphorisms ... and its American marquee names, Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson, [who have] little connection to the English language as spoken in the high Wildean style. She also appeared in the critically-panned,, heist film The Perfect Score and in In Good Company, in a supporting role opposite Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid.Her performance in the dark, Southern drama, A Love Song for Bobby Long, earned her a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination.Johansson was involved for a short time with the film Mission: Impossible III, but was not officially cast because of scheduling conflicts, although a falling out with the film's star, Tom Cruise, was reported.

Scarlett Johansson

Avril Lavigne canadian singer

Posted by febry on 11:08 AM

Avril Ramona Lavigne ; born 27 September 1984 is a Canadian singer-songwriter, fashion designer, actress, and philanthropist. She was born in Belleville, Ontario, but spent the majority of her youth in the small town of Napanee. By the age of 15, she had appeared on stage with Shania Twain; by 16, she had signed a two-album recording contract with Arista (now RCA Records) worth more than $2 million. When she was 17 years old, Lavigne broke onto the music scene with her debut album, Let Go, released in 2002.
Let Go made Lavigne the youngest female soloist to reach #1 in the UK, and the album was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. By 2009, over 16 million copies had been sold worldwide. Her breakthrough single, "Complicated", peaked at #1 in many countries around the world, as did the album Let Go. Her second album, Under My Skin, was released in 2004 and was her first album to peak at #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, eventually selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. The Best Damn Thing, Lavigne’s third album, was released in 2007, becoming her third #1 album in the UK Albums Chart and featuring her first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #1 single, "Girlfriend". Lavigne has scored a total of five #1 singles worldwide, including "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi", "I'm With You", "My Happy Ending" and "Girlfriend". With more than 30 million copies of her albums sold worldwide, Lavigne is currently one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA. Her fourth studio album, Goodbye Lullaby, will be released in March 2011
Lavigne branched out from recording music, pursuing careers in feature film acting and designing clothes and perfumes. She voiced a character in the animated film, Over the Hedge, in 2006. That same year, she made her on-screen feature film debut in Fast Food Nation. In 2008, Lavigne introduced her clothing line, Abbey Dawn, and in 2009, she released her first perfume, Black Star, which was followed by her second perfume, Forbidden Rose, in 2010. In July 2006, Lavigne married her boyfriend of two years, Deryck Whibley, lead singer and guitarist for Sum 41. The marriage lasted a little over three years, and in October 2009, Lavigne filed for divorce. Whibley and Lavigne continued to work together, with Whibley producing her upcoming fourth album, as well as Lavigne's single, "Alice", written for Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Music career
o 2.1 2000–03: Let Go
o 2.2 2004–05: Under My Skin
o 2.3 2006–08: The Best Damn Thing
o 2.4 2009–present: Goodbye Lullaby
* 3 Musical style and songwriting
* 4 Other work
o 4.1 Film career
o 4.2 Entrepreneurship
o 4.3 Philanthropy
* 5 Personal life
o 5.1 Public image
o 5.2 Tattoos
o 5.3 Marriage to Deryck Whibley
* 6 Backing band
* 7 Filmography
* 8 Discography
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 External links
Early life
Avril Ramona Lavigne was born in Belleville, Ontario, daughter of a working-class family. Her father, Jean-Claude Lavigne, who is of French Canadian descent, named her Avril after the French word for the month of April. At the age of two, Lavigne began singing church songs along with her mother, Judith-Rosanne "Judy" (née Loshaw). Judy recognized her two year old daughter's talents after hearing her sing "Jesus Loves Me" in church. Lavigne has an older brother, Matthew, and a younger sister, Michelle,both of whom teased Lavigne when she sang. "My brother used to knock on the wall because I used to sing myself to sleep and he thought it was really annoying."
When Lavigne was five years old, the family moved to Napanee, Ontario, a town with an approximate population of 5,000. Although she struggled with paying attention in school, sometimes kicked out of class for misbehaving, her parents were supportive of her singing. Her father bought her a microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, several guitars, and converted their basement into a studio. When Lavigne was 14, her parents would take her to karaoke sessions. Lavigne also performed at country fairs, singing songs by Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, and Shania Twain. She also began writing her own songs. Her first song was called "Can't Stop Thinking About You", about a teenage crush, which she described as "cheesy cute".
“ I’ve known all my life that this is what I was supposed to do.... Visualizing like what it would be like to be famous with my music. And always just dreaming, always daydreaming. ”
—Avril Lavigne, NBC News
In 1998,Lavigne won a radio contest to perform with fellow Canadian singer Shania Twain at the Corel Centre (now Scotiabank Place) in Ottawa, before an audience of 20,000 people.Twain and Lavigne sang "What Made You Say That", and Lavigne told Twain she was going to be "a famous singer". During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folk singer Stephen Medd. He invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his 1999 album, Quinte Spirit. She later sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow-up album, My Window to You, in 2000. In December 1999, Lavigne was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. sent out VHS tapes of Lavigne's home performances to several industry prospects, and Lavigne was visited by several executives. Mark Jowett, co-founder of the Canadian management firm Nettwerk, received a copy of Lavigne's karaoke performances recorded in her parents' basement, and arranged for Lavigne to work with Peter Zizzo in New York during the summer of 2000, where she wrote the song "Why?". It was on a subsequent trip to New York that Lavigne was noticed by Arista Records.
Lavigne would go on to sell more than 30 million copies of her albums worldwide, becoming one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA.In 2009, Billboard named Lavigne the #10 pop artist in the "Best of the 2000s" chart, and she was listed as the 28th overall best act of the decade based on album sales, chart success, and cultural relativity in the U.S