Saturday, March 27, 2010

Hugh Grant (United Kingdom)



Born Hugh John Grant
9 September 1960 (1960-09-09) (age 49)
Hammersmith, London, England, UK
Occupation Actor/Film producer
Years active 1982–present
Domestic partner(s) Elizabeth Hurley (1987-2000)
Jemima Khan (2004-2007)

Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His movies have also earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide.[1]

Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's sleeper hit Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).[2] He used this breakthrough role as a frequent cinematic persona during the 1990s to deliver comic performances in mainstream films like Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) and Notting Hill (1999). By the turn of the century, he had established himself as a leading man skilled with a satirical comic talent.[3] In recent years, Grant has expanded his oeuvre with critically acclaimed turns as a cad in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), About A Boy (2002), and American Dreamz (2006).[4]

He has been criticised by students of cinema for putting emphasis on nuanced mannerisms, for the predictability of his movies, and for his unwillingness to stretch as an actor .[5] Within the film industry, he is cited as a anti-movie star who approaches his roles like a character actor, with the ability to make acting look trivial and effortless.[6] Hallmarks of his comic skills include a nonchalant touch of irony/sarcasm and studied physical mannerisms as well as his precisely-timed dialogue delivery and facial expressions.

Widespread media speculation about Grant's reportedly very strong personality, being a major movie star and life off the big screen has often overshadowed his work as a thespian.[7][8] He is very vocal about his disrespect for the profession of acting and his disdain towards the culture of celebrity.[9] He is equally infamous for his hostilities with the media, and diminished respect for the film industry.[9][10] In a career spanning 20 years, Grant has repeatedly claimed that acting is not a true calling but just a job he fell into.[11]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Ancestry and early life
o 1.1 Education
o 1.2 Young earner
* 2 Movie career
o 2.1 Filmmaker
o 2.2 Attitude toward acting
o 2.3 Critical and peer review
o 2.4 Work ethic
* 3 Celebrity and media relations
o 3.1 Libel lawsuits
o 3.2 Personality
* 4 Personal life
o 4.1 Public scandals
o 4.2 Sports
* 5 Filmography
* 6 Awards and honours
* 7 References
* 8 External links

[edit] Ancestry and early life

Grant was born at Hammersmith Hospital in London, England, the son of Fynvola Susan (née MacLean) and Captain James Murray Grant.[12] Genealogist Antony Adolph described Grant's family history as "a colourful Anglo-Scottish tapestry of warriors, empire-builders and aristocracy."[13] Grant is from a long line of Scots military men, doctors and explorers, including William Drummond and Dr. James Stewart.[13][14][15] John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl, Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, Rt Hon. Sir Evan Nepean, and former British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval are a few of his notable maternal antecedents.[16] Grant's grandfather, Major James Murray Grant, DSO, a native of Inverness in Scotland, was decorated for bravery and leadership at Dunkirk during WWII.[17]

Grant's father, Capt. Grant, was trained at Sandhurst and served with the Seaforth Highlanders for eight years in Malaya, Germany and Scotland.[18] He ran a carpet firm, pursued hobbies such as golf and watercolouring, and raised his family in Chiswick, West London, where the Grants lived next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane.[19][20] In September 2006, a collection of Capt. Grant's paintings was hosted by the John Martin Gallery in a charity exhibition, organised by his famous son, called "James Grant: 30 Years of Watercolours."[21] His mother, Fynvola Grant, was the great-granddaughter of Sir Evan Colville Nepean (CB), whose father, Rev. Canon Evan Nepean, served as the Canon of Westminster and was Chaplain In Ordinary to Queen Victoria.[22] She worked as a schoolteacher and taught Latin, French and music for more than 30 years in the state schools of West London.[23] She died in Hounslow, London, at the age of 65,[24] in July 2001, after an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer.[25]

Grant's famous RP accent is an inheritance from his mother and, on Inside the Actors Studio in 2002, he credited her with "any acting genes that [he] might have."[20] Both his parents were children of military families,[26] and, despite his parents' posh upbringings and backgrounds, Grant has stated that his family was not always affluent while he was growing up.[27] Grant's childhood passions included shooting and hunting, especially with his grandfather in Scotland.[19] Grant's elder brother, James "Jamie" Grant, is a successful banker as Managing Director, Head of Healthcare, Consumer, & Retail Investment Banking Coverage, at JPMorgan Chase in New York.[28]
[edit] Education

Grant started his education at Hogarth Primary School in Chiswick. From 1969 to 1978, he attended Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith on a scholarship and played 1st XV rugby, cricket and football for the school.[29][30] He also represented Latymer on the popular quiz show, Top of the Form, an academic competition between two teams of fourand secondary school students each.[31] Chris Hammond, his form teacher in 1975 and later the assistant head of Latymer, told People magazine that Grant was "a clever boy among clever boys."[30][32] In 1979, he won the Galsworthy scholarship to New College, Oxford where he studied English literature and graduated with 2:1 honours.[33] Grant was apparently memorable at Oxford: actress Anna Chancellor has recalled, "I first met Hugh at a party at Oxford Zoo. There was something magical about him. He was a star even then, without having done anything."[34] Viewing acting as nothing more than a creative outlet,[35] he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society and starred in a successful touring production of Twelfth Night.[36]
[edit] Young earner

After making his debut as Hughie Grant in the Oxford-financed Privileged (1982), Grant dabbled in a variety of jobs: he wrote book reviews,[37] worked as assistant groundsman at Fulham Football Club,[38] tried his hand at tutoring, wrote comedy sketches for TV shows,[39] and was hired by Talkback Productions to write and produce radio commercials for products such as Mighty White bread and Red Stripe lager.[40] To obtain his Equity (UK) card, he joined the repertory theatre Nottingham Playhouse and lived for a year at Park Terrace in The Park Estate, Nottingham.[41] Bored with small acting parts, he created his own comedy revue called The Jockeys of Norfolk with friends Chris Lang and Andy Taylor. The group toured London’s pub comedy circuit with stops at The George IV in Chiswick, Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Venice and The King's Head in Islington.[42] Starting on a low note, The Jockeys of Norfolk eventually proved a hit at the Edinburgh Festival after their sketch on the Nativity, told as an Ealing comedy, garnered them a spot on the BBC2 TV show called Edinburgh Nights.[43] During this time, Grant also appeared in theatre productions of plays such as An Inspector Calls, Lady Windermere's Fan, and Coriolanus.
[edit] Movie career

Grant's first leading role came in Merchant-Ivory's 1987 Edwardian drama, Maurice, adapted from E.M. Forster's novel of the same name. He and co-star James Wilby shared the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival for their portrayals of Cantabrigian collegians Clive Durham and Maurice Hall, respectively. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Grant balanced small roles on television with rare film work, which included a supporting role in The Dawning (1988), opposite Anthony Hopkins and a turn as Lord Byron in a Goya Award-winning Spanish production called Remando Al Viento (1988). He also portrayed some another real life figures during in his early career such as Charles Heidsieck in Champagne Charlie and as Hugh Cholmondeley in BAFTA Award-nominated White Mischief.

In 1990, he made cameo appearance in the sport/crime drama The Big Man, opposite Liam Neeson, and in which Grant assumed a Scottish accent. The film explores the life of an Scottish miner (Neeson) who becomes unemployed during a union strike. In 1991, he played Julie Andrews' gay son in the ABC made-for-TV movie Our Sons.

In 1992, he appeared in Roman Polanski's film Bitter Moon, portraying a fastidious and proper British tourist who is married, but finds himself enticed by the sexual hedonism of a seductive French woman and her embittered, paraplegic American husband. The film was called an "anti-romantic opus of sexual obsession and cruelty" by the Washington Post.[44] His other work in period pieces such as Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm (1988), award-winning Merchant-Ivory drama The Remains of the Day (1993) and (as Frédéric Chopin in) Impromptu (1991) was largely unnoticed. He later called this phase of his career "hilarious," referring to his early movies as "Europuddings, where you would have a French script, a Spanish director, and English actors. The script would usually be written by a foreigner, badly translated into English. And then they'd get English actors in, because they thought that was the way to sell it to America."[45]

At 32, Grant claimed to be on the brink of giving up the acting profession but was surprised by the script of Four Weddings and a Funeral (FWAAF).[3] "If you read as many bad scripts as I did, you'd know how grateful you are when you come across one where the guy actually is funny," he later recalled.[2] Released in 1994, FWAAF became the highest-grossing British film to date with a worldwide box office in excess of $244 million,[46] making Grant an overnight international star. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, and among numerous awards won by its cast and crew, it earned Grant his first and only Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. It also temporarily typecast him as the lead character, Charles, a bohemian and debonair bachelor. Grant and Curtis saw it as an inside joke that the star, due to the parts he played, was assumed to have the personality of the screenwriter, who is known for writing about himself and his own life.[45][47] Grant later expressed:
Grant in his breakthrough performance as Richard Curtis's alter ego, Charles, in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
“ Although I owe whatever success I've had to 'Four Weddings and a Funeral,' it did become frustrating after a bit that people made two assumptions: One was that I was that character - when in fact nothing could be further from the truth, as I'm sure Richard would tell you - and the other frustrating thing was that they thought that's all I could do. I suppose, because those films happened to be successful, no one, perhaps understandably, ... bothered to rent all the other films I'd done.[3] ”

1995 saw the release of Grant's first studio-financed Hollywood project, Chris Columbus's comedy Nine Months. Though a hit at the box office, it was almost universally panned by critics. The Washington Post called it a "grotesquely pandering caper" and singled out Grant's performance, as a child psychiatrist reacting unfavourably to his girlfriend's unexpected pregnancy, for his "insufferable muggings."[48] The same year, he played supporting parts as Emma Thompson's suitor in Ang Lee’s Academy Award-winning adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and as a cartographer in 1917 Wales in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. In the same year he also performed his talent in Academy Award-winning Restoration.

Grant then reunited with the director of FWAAF, Mike Newell, for the tragicomedy An Awfully Big Adventure that was labeled a "determinedly offbeat film" by the New York Times.[49] Grant portrayed a bitchy, supercilious director of a repertory company in post-World War II Liverpool. Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "It shows that he has range as an actor,"[50] but the San Francisco Chronicle disapproved on grounds that the film "plays like a vanity production for Grant."[51] Janet Maslin, praising Grant as "superb" and "a dashing cad under any circumstances," commented, "For him this film represents the road not taken. Made before Four Weddings and a Funeral was released, it captures Mr. Grant as the clever, versatile character actor he was then becoming, rather than the international dreamboat he is today."[49]

Grant made his debut as a film producer with the 1996 thriller Extreme Measures, a commercial and critical failure. After a three year hiatus, in 1999, he paired with Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, which was brought to theatres by much of the same team that was responsible for FWAAF. This new Working Title production displaced FWAAF as the biggest British hit in the history of cinema, with earnings equalling $363 million worldwide.[46] As it became exemplary of modern romantic comedies in mainstream culture, the film was also received well by critics. CNN reviewer Paul Clinton said, "Notting Hill stands alone as another funny and heartwarming story about love against all odds."[52] Reactions to Grant's Golden Globe-nominated performance were varied, with Salon's Stephanie Zacharek criticizing that, "Grant's performance stands as an emblem of what's wrong with Notting Hill. What's maddening about Grant is that he just never cuts the crap. He's become one of those actors who's all shambling self-caricature, from his twinkly crow's feet to the time-lapsed half century it takes him to actually get one of his lines out."[53] The movie provided both its stars a chance to satirize the woes of international notoriety, most noted of which was Grant's turn as a faux-journalist who sits through a dull press junket with, what the New York Times called, "a delightfully funny deadpan."[54] Grant also released his second production output, a fish-out-of-water mob comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, that year. It was dismissed by critics, performed modestly at the box office, and garnered its actor-producer mixed reviews for his starring role. Roger Ebert thought, "Hugh Grant is wrong for the role [and] strikes one wrong note and then another,"[55] whereas Kenneth Turan, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said, "If he'd been on the Titanic, fewer lives would have been lost. If he'd accompanied Robert Scott to the South Pole, the explorer would have lived to be 100. That's how good Hugh Grant is at rescuing doomed ventures."[56]

While promoting Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks on NBC’s The Today Show in 2000, Grant told host Matt Lauer, “It's my millennium of bastards.”[57]
Giving his most critically acclaimed performance to date, Grant plays Snooker as Will Freeman in About a Boy.

Small Time Crooks starred Grant, in the words of film critic Andrew Sarris, as "a petty, petulant, faux-Pygmalion art dealer, David, [who] is one of the sleaziest and most unsympathetic characters Mr. Allen has ever created."[58] In a role devoid of his comic attributes, the New York Times wrote: "Mr. Grant deftly imbues his character with exactly a perfect blend of charm and nasty calculation."[59] A year later, his turn as a charming but womanising book publisher Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) was proclaimed by Variety to be "as sly an overthrow of a star's polished posh - and nice - poster image as any comic turn in memory."[60] The movie, adapted from Helen Fielding's novel of the same name, was an international hit, earning $281 million worldwide.[46] Grant was, according to the Washington Post, fitting as "a cruel, manipulative cad, hiding behind the male god's countenance that he knows all too well."[61]

Grant's "immaculate comic performance" (BBC) as the trust-funded womaniser, Will Freeman, in the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's best-selling novel About a Boy received raves from critics.[62] Almost universally praised, with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, About a Boy (2002) was determined by the Washington Post to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishized coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings."[63] Rolling Stone wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs,"[64] while Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource."[65] Released a day after the blockbuster Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, About a Boy was a more modest box office grosser than other successful Grant films, making all of $129 million globally.[46] The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle named Grant its Best British Actor and GQ honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2002.[66] "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness."[63] The New York Observer concluded: "[The film] gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanizing and simply being too handsome for words-and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance."[67] About a Boy also marked a notable change in Grant's boyish look. Gone were the floppy locks that had become his trademark, with Grant now sporting a cropped haircut. He has retained this look since.
Billy Bob Thornton (right) and Grant hold a press conference in Love Actually.

Grant was also paired with Sandra Bullock in Warner Bros.'s Two Weeks Notice, which made $199 million internationally but was judged poorly by professional reviewers.[46] The Village Voice concluded that Grant's creation of a spoiled billionaire fronting a real estate business was "little more than a Britishism machine."[68]

Two Weeks Notice was followed by the 2003 ensemble comedy, Love Actually, headlined by Grant as the British Prime Minister. A Christmas release by Working Title Films, the movie was promoted as "the ultimate romantic comedy" and accumulated $246 million at the international box office.[46] It marked the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, who told the New York Times that Grant adamantly tempered the characterization of the role to make his character more authoritative and less haplessly charming than earlier Curtis incarnations.[69] Roger Ebert claimed that "Grant has flowered into an absolutely splendid romantic comedian" and has "so much self-confidence that he plays the British prime minister as if he took the role to be a good sport."[70] Film critic Rex Reed, on the contrary, called Grant's performance "an oversexed bachelor spin on Tony Blair" as the star "flirted with himself in the paroxysm of self-love that has become his acting style."[71]

A speech delivered by Grant in Love Actually - where he extols the virtues of Great Britain and refuses to cave to the pressure of its longstanding ally, the United States - was etched in the transatlantic memory as a satirical, wishful statement on the concurrent Bush-Blair relationship.[72] Tony Blair responded by saying, "I know there's a bit of us that would like me to do a Hugh Grant in Love Actually and tell America where to get off. But the difference between a good film and real life is that in real life there's the next day, the next year, the next lifetime to contemplate the ruinous consequences of easy applause."[73]
Grant as the gratuitously nasty TV personality, Martin Tweed, in American Dreamz.

In 2004, Grant reprised his role as Daniel Cleaver for a small part in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which, like its predecessor, made more than $262 million commercially.[46] Gone from the screen for two years, Grant next reteamed with Paul Weitz (About a Boy) for the black comedy American Dreamz (2006). Grant starred as the acerbic host of an American Idol-like reality show where, according to Caryn James of the New York Times, "nothing is real ... except the black hole at the centre of the host's heart, as Mr. Grant takes Mr. Cowell's villainous act to its limit."[74] American Dreamz failed financially but Grant was generously praised. He played his self-aggrandizing character, an amalgam of Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest, with smarmy self-loathing. The Boston Globe proposed that this "just may be the great comic role that has always eluded Hugh Grant,"[75] and critic Carina Chocano said, "He is twice as enjoyable as the preening bad guy as he was as the bumbling good guy."[76]

In 2007, Grant starred opposite Drew Barrymore in a parody of pop culture and the music industry called Music and Lyrics. The Associated Press described it as "a weird little hybrid of a romantic comedy that's simultaneously too fluffy and not whimsical enough."[77] Though he neither listens to music nor owns any CDs,[26] Grant learned to sing, play the piano, dance (a few mannered steps) and studied the mannerisms of prominent musicians to prepare for his role as a has-been pop singer, based loosely on Andrew Ridgeley.[9] The Star-Ledger dismissed the performance, writing that "paper dolls have more depth."[78] The movie, with its revenues totalling $145 million, allowed Grant to mock disposable pop stardom and fleeting celebrity through its washed-up lead character. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Grant strikes precisely the right note with regard to Alex's career: He's too intelligent not to be a little embarrassed, but he's far too brazen to feel anything like shame."[79] In 2009, Grant starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans?, which was a commercial as well as a critical failure.[80]
[edit] Filmmaker

In July 1994, Grant signed a two-year production deal with Castle Rock Entertainment and by October, he became founder and director of the UK-based Simian Films Limited.[81] He appointed his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, as the head of development to look for prospective projects. Simian Films produced two Grant vehicles in the 1990s and lost a bid to produce About a Boy to Robert De Niro's TriBeCa Productions.[82] The company closed its U.S. office in 2002 and Grant resigned as director in December 2005.[83] He has since said that his primary interest remains in filmmaking because: "Acting is at best an interpretative thing. It's like being a musician and playing someone else's music. I've always wanted to write the music."[9] In 2000, Grant joined the Supervisory Board of IM Internationalmedia AG, the powerful Munich-based film and media company.[84] He has also served on the advisory board of Mark Milln and Kami Naghdi's U.K. Production company, Hogarth Pictures.[85]
[edit] Attitude toward acting

Grant has called being a successful actor a mistake and has repeatedly talked of his hope that film stardom would just be "a phase" in his life, lasting no more than ten years.[45] A self-confessed "committed and passionate" perfectionist on a film set,[11] Grant has constantly opted to describe himself as a reluctant actor, who chooses to be neutral about his career and works mostly with friends from previous collaborations.[86] Telling the New York Times that he must truly love something before he can do it, he revealed that he chooses projects based on how well they are written and whether the character he is being asked to play constitutes a comic angle to his personality.[87]

A majority of Grant's popular movies follow a similar plot that captures an optimistic, cocky bachelor experiencing a series of embarrassing incidences to find true love, often with an American woman. In earlier films, Grant was adept at plugging into the stereotype of a repressed Englishman for humorous effects, allowing him to gently satirize his characters as he summed them up and played against the type simultaneously.[41] His screen persona of later films gradually developed into a cynical, self-loathing cad.[88] Using his facial contortions and an affected stammer for varied comic purposes,[89] Grant once admitted his inability to cry on cue, even with the help of menthol.[90] His preference for levity over dramatic range has been a controversial topic in establishment circles, prompting him to say:
“ I've never been tempted to do the part where I cry or get AIDS or save some people from a concentration camp just to get good reviews. I genuinely believe that comedy acting, light comedy acting, is as hard as, if not harder than serious acting, and it genuinely doesn’t bother me that all the prizes and the good reviews automatically by knee-jerk reaction go to the deepest, darkest, most serious performances and parts. It makes me laugh.[91] ”

In interviews, Grant has pinned his extensively published lack of interest in acting on two different thoughts: first, that he drifted into the job as a temporary joke at age 23 and finds it an immature way for a grown man to spend his time;[92] and secondly, because he believes to have already given the one remarkable comic performance he had hoped to create on screen.[91] Calling most scripts lame, Grant has stated that, unlike him, most actors really love acting and that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which, he says, it very often is.[11] He told Vanity Fair in 2003 that being an actor at a certain age is akin to being a "char-lady," making it unworthy of an adult’s time.[45]
[edit] Critical and peer review

Grant is recognized as a divisive movie star in both critical reviews and popular media profiles.[8] He has stuck to the genre of comedy, especially the romantic comedy, for the entirety of his mainstream movie career and never ventures to play characters who are not British. While some film critics, such as the respected Roger Ebert, have defended the limited variety of his performances, others have dismissed him as a one-trick pony. Eric Fellner, co-owner of Working Title Films and a long-time collaborator of Grant said, "His range hasn't been fully tested, but each performance is unique."[93] A majority, though, tend to change their opinion of Grant from film to film, especially differentiating between his roles as Richard Curtis' alter ego and the cynical, smart and sometimes sleazy rogue of several films released in the new millennium.

In the 1990s, Grant's performances were deemed overbearing, in the words of Washington Post's Rita Kempley, due to his "comic overreactions—the mugging, the stuttering, the fluttering eyelids." She added: "He's got more tics than Benny Hill."[94] Grant's penchant for conveying his characters' feelings with mannerisms, rather than direct emotions, has been one of the foremost objections raised against his acting style. Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post once stated that, to be effective as a comic performer, he must get "his jiving and shucking under control."[95] Film historian David Thompson wrote in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film about how it is merely itchy mannerisms that Grant equates with screen acting. In the new millennium, Claudia Puig of USA Today celebrated the observation that finally "gone [were] the self-conscious 'Aren't I adorable' mannerisms that seemed endearing at the start of [Grant's] film career but have grown cloying in more recent movies."[96]

Repeated accusations, which have only subsided in recent years, have targeted what the critics contend is Grant's inclination to make his characters likable rather than complex. In 1999, Stephanie Zacharek stated that "by the time of Four Weddings and a Funeral, he'd switched to a more straightforward, dull, crumpled-corduroy acting style," perhaps because, she chided, "Why bother to play a character when you can just ape a stereotype?"[53] According to Carina Chocano, amongst film critics, the two tropes most commonly associated with Grant are that he reinvented his screen persona in Bridget Jones's Diary and About a Boy and dreads the possibility of becoming a parody of himself.[97] Echoing a widely-accepted assessment that Grant plays the same part over and again since he came to international fame in 1994, The Observer's Philip French has said: "His range is as narrow as a cigarette paper."[93]

Grant's colleagues, though, have often defended his skills. Emma Thompson, working with him in Sense and Sensibility, wrote in The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries that Grant "is as great an actor as I've always thought. So light and yet very much felt."[98] Colin Firth, who worked with him on more than one occasion, has suggested that very few can create Grant's relaxed sense of irony on screen.[93] Scottish actress Sharon Small, a co-star of Grant in About a Boy, discovered that "he is ... a really versatile actor. People tend to put him in a box and say, 'That's all he does', but when we were filming I watched him closely and he was very subtle and very different in every single take."[7]
[edit] Work ethic

A 2007 Vogue profile of Grant referred to him as a man with a "professionally misanthropic mystique."[9] The observation followed published facts such as that Grant picks his own movies,[91] conducts his interviews alone (without any publicists),[99] is known for politically incorrect and outrageous riffs in public,[9] and derides focus groups, market research and overriding emphasis on the opening weekend.[87] Grant decided to let go of his agent in 2006, ending a 10-year relationship with CAA.[100] Besides proudly proclaiming in interviews to have never listened to external views on his career, he stated that he does not require the hand-holding an agent provides.[9] A few months before firing his agent, he said, "They've known for years that I have total control. I've never taken any advice on anything."[91]

It has been reported that Grant has a reputation for not always bonding with his fellow cast and crew members.[101] Being a "stern, edgy and intense" presence on film sets, the method behind his performances has been described as the exact reverse of the ease and simplicity he brings to his characters.[102] According to the New York Times, Grant is known in the film industry as a meticulous performer who takes his time to prepare for a role.[6] Having said that the only thing he "fears is fear itself," his working style is apparently predicated on a tendency to take control.[103] Richard Curtis, a frequent collaborator, revealed that Grant is not fluid about the filmmaking process and tends to be unrelaxed while filming because he doesn't feel as though he's in the director's hands and prefers instead to take responsibility of giving a definitive performance.[9]

Grant is noted by co-workers for demanding endless takes until he achieves the desired shot according to his own standard.[104][105] Though known for being inventive on film sets ("The biggest laughs that my characters get in films tend to be improvised lines," he has said[6]), he has talked of finding the work of an actor restrictive because "saying other peoples' lines all the time is - it's always been - diminishing."[103] Media accounts of Grant on film sets present him as an actor who does not abdicate responsibility to his production team but is, instead, usually involved with various aspects of his projects, including script development, choosing the director of photography, the acting, and then the editing and the marketing.[35][45] Journalist David Chater, reviewing a Channel 4 production entitled Brits go to Hollywood, remarked that the Hugh Grant "of popular image is wholly inaccurate. He won a scholarship to Oxford, he is highly articulate, he works non-stop and beats himself up with relentless self-criticism."[106]
[edit] Celebrity and media relations

According to The Boston Globe, Grant has repeatedly spoken about his boredom with playing the celebrity in the press.[107] About the culture of celebrity, he told Vogue, "My theory is that it's like bodybuilders who inject testosterone, which means that their own powers to generate testosterone shut down forever. The fake esteem you get from being in the public eye feels like self-worth, but actually your own powers to produce it shut down. The stuff that really counts is your own. And that's, I think, why people go bonkers."[9]

Having labelled himself "neither a keen actor, nor a keen celebrity,"[108] Grant's prickliness and disdain toward the fourth estate is widely observed and documented.[109] While promoting Mickey Blue Eyes in 1999, Grant exclaimed, "I'm even talking to the British press, which is astounding."[87] Said to be "unwilling to play the game" with the media,[93] he is often described as appearing uninterested and brusque at press junkets to promote his movies. He has injured many paparazzi including hitting one with his car in America.[39]

Journalists interviewing him have expressed exasperation at Grant's habit of stonewalling personal questions.[101] Grant's nonchalance and sarcasm are blamed for interviewers' inability to discriminate between whether he is being serious or playful at any given time.[9] On probing, he has remained incredibly steadfast in "offering a dead bat to any question he feels is not general enough."[110] Jessica Callan, a former gossip columnist for the Daily Mirror, explained to The Times that if you are nice to gossip columnists, they'll generally be nice back, but she said, "Hugh Grant is such a grumpy bugger: you think, God, let’s wind him up."[111]

Another entertainment media figure, Kiki King, who claimed to have met Grant, described him as "the least friendly and most unappealing celebrity I've ever met."[93] Showbiz media personalities in his homeland use him as a referential model for the epitome of a reluctant, unobliging celebrity. Former editor of British tabloid newspapers the News of the World and the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, has written about his advice for Grant to stop making movies if he does not appreciate the spotlight.[112]

Grant's attitude at the London premiere of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), with him reportedly "refusing to chat to journalists or pose with his girlfriend Jemima Khan, and choosing instead to stand around scowling,"[113] was subject to much criticism by the press who had waited long to talk to him.[114][115][116] He decided to ban all British press from the New York launch of his film American Dreamz in 2006.[117] The movie was also denied a London premiere[118] and Grant gave only "a handful of newspaper interviews in connection with Dreamz," a move that was held responsible by exhibitors for the movie's poor box office showing.[119] In February 2007, Grant had a controversial interview on BBC Breakfast where he was irked by the interviewer's inquiry about the status of his relationship with his girlfriend.[120] His response to the host, "I thought this was a classy show. I am ashamed of you," resulted in increased editorial disapproval of his gruff behaviour in England.[121][122][123]
[edit] Libel lawsuits

In 1996, Grant won substantial damages from News (UK) Ltd over what his lawyers called a "highly defamatory" article published in January 1995. The company's now-defunct newspaper, Today, had falsely claimed that Grant verbally abused a young extra with a "foul-mouthed tongue lashing" on the set of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.[124]

On 27 April 2007, Grant accepted undisclosed damages from the Associated Newspapers over claims made about his relationships with his former girlfriends in three separate tabloid articles, which were published in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday on 18, 21 and 24 February. His lawyer stated that all of the articles' "allegations and factual assertions are false."[125] Grant said, in a written statement, that he took the action because: "I was tired of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday papers publishing almost entirely fictional articles about my private life for their own financial gain." He went on to take the opportunity to stress, "I'm also hoping that this statement in court might remind people that the so-called 'close friends' or 'close sources' on which these stories claim to be based almost never exist."[126]

Deriding British newspapers for having become a "little tittle-tattle industry," Grant has, on various occasions, claimed that the tabloids are keen to fabricate scandal on the slightest pretext and his own words are filtered through various media outlets before being misquoted numerous times.[41][110]
[edit] Personality

Grant, once called the "unofficial mayor of London,"[127] is frequently referred in the press with phrases that describe him as a "human straight line"[128] who is "bursting with charisma."[129] He has been portrayed by acquaintances as a complicated man with an anarchic and sharp constitution.[9][41] Grant is noted for his tendency of teasingly insulting everyone, which has earned him the public reputation of someone who can "put you down, put you on and put you off in the same sentence."[101][130] "There is at least as much of Hugh that is charismatic, intellectual, and whose tongue," according to Mike Newell, "is maybe too clever for its own good as there is of him that's gorgeous and kind of woolly and flubsy."[131]

Grant's interview with Oprah Winfrey on 22 October 2004, was highly discussed in the media for his outspoken wit, which produced extemporaneous quips that included his description of Julia Roberts as "very big-mouthed." He said: "Literally, physically, she has a very big mouth. ... when I was kissing her, I was aware of a faint echo." When Winfrey defended Roberts as "one of the nicest people I ever met," Grant deadpanned, "No, well, I wouldn't go that far."[132] Such incidents have been accompanied by stories of Grant's purported insensitivity.[9] Filmmaker Paul Weitz, calling Grant truly funny, observed that "he perceives flaws in himself and other people, and then he cares about their humanity nonetheless."[133]

It is frequently written that Grant employs an impulsive habit of “cocky self-deprecation” in public relations.[9] Grant has also been presented in the press as occasionally being "very disengaged" at social events,[134] with British newspapers regularly referring to him as bad-tempered, arrogant, rude, and grumpy.[115][116][121][122][135] According to his colleagues and public appearances, Grant is not worried about how his grumpiness is publicly perceived, with his moodiness unabashedly on display in televised and published interviews.[136]
[edit] Personal life

Grant is known in popular media for his guarded privacy,[137] as he rarely discusses his life in public and chooses instead to fend off personal questions with humour.[19] Grant is a supporter of Marie Curie Cancer Care, whose Great Daffodil Appeal he promoted in March 2008.[138]

In 1987, while playing Lord Byron in a Spanish production called Remando Al Viento (1988), Grant met little-known actress Elizabeth Hurley, who was cast in a supporting role as Byron's former lover Claire Clairmont.[45] Grant started dating the aspiring model while shooting, and due to his rising fame, the latter half of their relationship was spent in the global media spotlight. After 13 years together, the two made "a mutual and amicable decision" to split in May 2000.[139] With Grant a single man, according to Vogue, "by all accounts the women of London were practically stabbing one another with forks at social events to get close to him."[9] In 2004, he began dating socialite Jemima Khan under the intense scrutiny of British tabloids.[9] Three years later, in February 2007, Grant's publicist announced that the couple had "decided to split amicably."[140] The spokesman added, "Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima."
[edit] Public scandals

On 27 June 1995, Grant was arrested in an L.A. Vice sting operation not far from Sunset Boulevard for misdemeanour lewd conduct in a public place with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown.[141] He pleaded no contest and was fined $1,180, placed on two years' summary probation, and was ordered to complete an AIDS education program.[142][143]

The arrest occurred about two weeks before the release of Grant's first major studio film, Nine Months, which he was scheduled to promote on several American television shows. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week and, as recalled in former employee Don Sweeney's memoirs, "despite his arrest, Hugh Grant kept his appointment to appear on Jay's show."[144] The interview was a career-making hit for Leno and Grant was singled out for not making excuses for the incident.[145][146] He famously said:
“ I think you know in life what's a good thing to do and what's a bad thing, and I did a bad thing. And there you have it.[147] ”

On Larry King Live, Grant declined the host Larry King's repeated invitations to probe his psyche, saying that psychoanalysis was "more of an American syndrome" and he himself was "a bit old fashioned."[148] He told the host: "I don't have excuses."[149] Grant's management of the scandal was deemed unusual for a celebrity. He was appreciated for "his refreshing honesty" as he "faced the music and handled it with tongue [in] cheek."[150] The incident registered strongly in the global cultural conscience and tarnished Grant's wholesome image. In the 2006 CBS TV series Love Monkey, the character called Shooter (Larenz Tate) explained the phenomenon of male discontent as "Grant's Law." Referring to Hugh Grant, he said that the star "had the hottest, sexiest and most beautiful woman waiting for him at home. And what does Hugh do? He picks up a cut-rate whore on Hollywood Boulevard." This, he believed, showed that, "We, as men, can never be satisfied."[151]

In April 2007, Grant was arrested on allegations of assault made by paparazzo Ian Whittaker.[152] Grant made no official statement and did not comment on the incident.[153] Charges were dropped on 1 June by the Crown Prosecution Service on the grounds of "insufficient evidence."[154]
[edit] Sports

Grant's athletic passions have often been profiled by newspapers and television media. A famous "golfing addict",[155] Grant is a scratch golfer and is a regular at pro-am tournaments with membership at the Sunningdale Golf Club. He is also frequently pictured by the paparazzi at the famed Scottish golf courses in St Andrews, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie.[156] Highly competitive,[157] he reportedly plays with a lot of money at stake.[158] As a young boy, Grant was known as "a real killer, very fast, very competitive" on the sports field; he played rugby union on his school's first XV team at centre and played football as an avid fan of Fulham F.C.. He is also a fan of Scottish side Rangers F.C.[159] thanks to his grandfather who was Scottish. He continued to play in a Sunday-morning football league in south-west London after college and remains an "impassioned Fulham supporter."[29] On the set of About a Boy, Nicholas Hoult recalled being taught cricket and snooker by Grant. Hoult said, "when we weren't acting we'd all play cricket. ... We had a big match at the end of filming and Hugh was pretty good."[160] Actress Alicia Witt (Two Weeks Notice) has also described Grant as "a really good tennis player, shockingly good."[161] He used to play football as a child with John Isaacs, Jeremy Isaac's son.

Nicole Kidman (Australia)




Born Nicole Mary Kidman
20 June 1967 (1967-06-20) (age 42)
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
Occupation Actress, singer, model
Years active 1983–present
Spouse(s) Tom Cruise (1990–2001)
Keith Urban (2006–present)

Nicole Mary Kidman, AC (born 20 June 1967) is an American born Australian actress, fashion model, singer and humanitarian. Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Australia since 1994. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civilian honour.[1] In 2006, she was the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry.[2]

Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Her performances in films such as Days Of Thunder (1990), To Die For (1995) and Moulin Rouge! (2001) won her critical acclaim, and her performance in The Hours (2002) was acknowledged with several notable film awards including the Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 2003, Kidman received her star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.

She is also known for her marriage to Tom Cruise and her current marriage to country musician Keith Urban.

As a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship in Australia and the United States.[3]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Early life
* 2 Career
o 2.1 Early career in Australia (1983–89)
o 2.2 Breakthrough (1989–95)
o 2.3 International success (1995–present)
o 2.4 Upcoming 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 honours
* 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.[4][5] 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, 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. She has known actress Naomi Watts since they were in their teens and the two remain best friends today.

Kidman attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls' High School. She studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, and at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney, with Naomi Watts. This was followed by attending the Australian Theatre for Young People.
Career
Early career in Australia (1983–89)

Kidman's first appearance in film came in 1983 at 15, in the Pat Wilson music video for the song "Bop Girl". By the end of the year 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).
Breakthrough (1989–95)

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."[6] Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "...Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together."[7] In 1990, she appeared opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, and again in Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992). In 1995, Kidman featured in the ensemble cast of Batman Forever.
International success (1995–present)

Kidman's second film in 1995, To Die For, was a satirical comedy that earned her critical praise.[8] For her portrayal of the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto, she won a Golden Globe Award and five other best actress awards. 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.[9]

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. Consequently, 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, 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."[10]

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.

Kidman's two movies in 2005 were The Interpreter and Bewitched. The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack, received mixed reviews, while Bewitched, co-starring Will Ferrell and based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name, was generally panned by critics. Neither film fared well in the United States, their box office sales falling well short of the production costs, but both films fared well internationally.[11][12]

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 season in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 perfume made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned US$12million for the 3 minute advert.[13] 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 a US$16 million to US$17 million per-film price tag.[14] She has since passed Roberts as the highest paid actress.

Kidman appeared in the Diane Arbus bio-pic Fur. She also lent her voice to the animated film Happy Feet, which quickly garnered critical and commercial success; the film grossed over US$384 million dollars worldwide. In 2007, she starred in the science fiction movie The Invasion directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel where it was reported that she received $26 million dollars for her performance; although it was a critical and commercial failure Kidman said that she has no control over the success of her films. She also played opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding. She also starred in the film adaptation of the first part of the planned His Dark Materials trilogy of films, playing the villainous Marisa Coulter. However, The Golden Compass''s failure to meet expectations at the North American box office has reduced the likelihood of a sequel.[15]

On 25 June 2007, Nintendo 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.[16]

In 2008, she starred Baz Luhrmann's Australian period film titled Australia, which is set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II. Kidman played opposite Hugh Jackman as an English woman feeling overwhelmed by the continent. The film was a box office success worldwide.[17]

Kidman was originally set to star in The Reader, a post-war Germany drama, but due to her pregnancy she had to back out of the film.[18] Shortly after the news of Kidman's departure, it was announced that Kate Winslet would take over the role.[19] Winslet went on to win the Oscar for Best Actress for the role; Kidman was one of the five previous winners who presented her with the award.[20]

Kidman appears in the 2009 Rob Marshall musical, Nine. She stars with Aaron Eckhart in the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Rabbit Hole, for which she vacated her role in the forthcoming Woody Allen picture, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger.[21]
Upcoming projects

TV Guide reported that Kidman will star in The Danish Girl, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name, playing Einar Wegener, the world's first post-op transsexual,[22] in which she appears opposite Gwyneth Paltrow.[23] She will also produce and star in a film adaptation of the Chris Cleave's novel, Little Bee in association with BBC Films.[24] Filming is projected to begin in late 2010 or early 2011.[25] She has also signed on to the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy Just Go With It.

She recently lent her voice to a promotional video that Australia will use to support their bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The five minute video will be broadcast at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.[26]
Singing

Not a singer before Moulin Rouge!, Kidman had well-received vocal performances in the film. Her collaboration with Ewan McGregor on "Come What May" peaked at #27 in the UK Singles Chart. Later she collaborated with Robbie Williams on "Somethin' Stupid", a cover of Williams' swing covers album Swing When You're Winning. It peaked at #8 in the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart, and at 1 for three weeks in the UK. It was UK Christmas #1 for 2001.

In 2006, she voiced the animated movie Happy Feet, along with vocals for Norma Jean's 'heartsong', a slightly altered version of "Kiss" by Prince. Kidman sang in Rob Marshall's movie musical Nine, alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard.
Personal life

Kidman has been married twice. She became romantically involved with actor Tom Cruise on the set of their 1990 movie, Days of Thunder. Kidman and Cruise 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). They separated just after their 10th wedding anniversary. She was three months pregnant and had a miscarriage.[27] Cruise filed for divorce in February 2001. The marriage was dissolved in 2001, Cruise citing irreconcilable differences.[28] The reasons for dissolution have never been made public. In Marie Claire, Kidman said she had an ectopic pregnancy early in their marriage.[29] In the June 2006 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.[30]
Nicole Kidman in August 2006

The 2003 film Cold Mountain brought rumours that an affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the break-up of his marriage. Both denied the allegations, and Kidman won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story.[31] She gave the money to a Romanian orphanage in the town where the movie was filmed.[32] Robbie Williams confirmed they had a short romance on her yacht in summer 2004. Shortly after her Oscar, there were rumours of a relationship between her and Adrien Brody.[33] She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and dated him into 2004.[34]

Kidman met her second husband, 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, Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee. In March 2008, they bought mansions in Los Angeles[35] and Nashville[36] within days.

After speculation by the press, it was confirmed on 8 January 2008 that Kidman was three months pregnant. The couple had their first child, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, on 7 July 2008, in Nashville, Tennessee.[37] Kidman's father said the daughter's middle name was after Urban's late grandmother, Rose.[38]

Kidman mentioned in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2005 that she is banned from doing one of her favourite hobbies - sky diving - whilst shooting a movie.[39][40] In January 2005, Kidman won interim restraining orders against two Sydney paparazzi who were stalking her.[41]

In the beginning of 2009, Kidman appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps featuring some of Australia's best 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.[42]
Religious and political views

Kidman is a practising Roman Catholic.[43] She attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney. During her marriage to Cruise, she had been an occasional practitioner of Scientology.[44] She has been reluctant to discuss Scientology since her divorce.[45]

Kidman's name was in an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times (17 August 2006) that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.[46] Kidman has donated to U.S. Democratic party candidates and endorsed John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.[47]
Charitable work

Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Australia since 1994. She has raised money for and drawn attention to the disadvantaged children around the world. In 2004, she was honored as a "Citizen of the World" by the United Nations.

On Australia Day 2006, Kidman received Australia's highest civilian honor when she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. She was also nominated goodwill ambassador for UNIFEM.[48]

Kidman joined the 'Little Tee Campaign' for breast cancer care to design T-shirts or vests to raise money for breast cancer.[49] Kidman's mother had breast cancer in 1984.[50]

On 8 January 2010, Kidman attended alongside Nancy Pelosi, Joan Chen and Joe Torre the ceremony to help Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new international center located in the Presidio of San Francisco intended to combat violence against women and children.[51][52]
Filmography

Kidman's movies gross total is more than US$2 billion, with 17 movies making more than $100 million.[53]
Year Film Role Notes
1983 BMX Bandits Judy
Bush Christmas Helen
Five Mile Creek Annie TV series
Skin Deep Sheena Henderson TV movie
Chase Through the Night Petra TV movie
1984 Matthew and Son Bridget Elliot TV movie
Wills & Burke Julia Matthews
A Country Practice Simone Jenkins TV series, 2 episodes (4x43-44)
1985 Archer's Adventure Catherine TV movie
Winners Carol Trig TV series - episode 1
1986 Windrider Jade
1987 Watch the Shadows Dance Amy Gabriel
The Bit Part Mary McAllister
Room to Move Carol Trig TV miniseries
An Australian in Rome Jill TV movie
Vietnam Megan Goddard Australian Film Institute Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini Series
Logie Award for Most Popular Actress in a a Miniseries/Telemovie
1988 Emerald City Helen Nominated — Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1989 Dead Calm Rae Ingram Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
Bangkok Hilton Katrina Stanton Logie Award for Most Popular Actress in a Miniseries/Telemovie
Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress
Nominated — Australian Film Institute Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Telefare
1990 Days of Thunder Dr. Claire Lewicki
1991 Flirting Nicola
Billy Bathgate Drew Preston Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1992 Far and Away Shannon Christie
1993 Malice Tracy Kennsinger
My Life Gail Jones
1995 To Die For Suzanne Stone Maretto Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Empire Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
London Critics Circle Film Award for Actress of the Year
Seattle International Film Festival Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
Batman Forever Dr. Chase Meridian
1996 The Portrait of a Lady Isabel Archer
Shine Woman in bar uncredited cameo
The Leading Man Academy Awards Presenter
1997 The Peacemaker Dr. Julia Kelly Nominated — Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress
1998 Practical Magic Gillian Owens
1999 Eyes Wide Shut Alice Harford Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress
Filmcritica "Bastone Bianco" Award 1999
Nomination — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2001 Moulin Rouge! Satine Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Empire Award for Best Actress
London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance
MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Sequence
Nominated — Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Others Grace Stewart Saturn Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Goya Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Birthday Girl Sophia/Nadia
2002 The Hours Virginia Woolf Academy Award for Best Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Nomination — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2003 Dogville Grace Margaret Mulligan Russian Guild of Film Critics Golden Aries Award for Best Foreign Actress
Nomination — Bodil Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award
The Human Stain Faunia Farley
Cold Mountain Ada Monroe Nomination — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Empire Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nomination — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
2004 The Stepford Wives Joanna Eberhart
Birth Anna Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
2005 The Interpreter Silvia Broome
Bewitched Isabel Bigelow/Samantha
2006 Fur Diane Arbus
Happy Feet Norma Jean voice
2007 The Invasion Dr. Carol Bennell
Margot at the Wedding Margot Nomination — Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast
Nomination — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
The Golden Compass Marisa Coulter Nominated — Australian Film Institute International Award for Best Actress
2008 Australia Lady Sarah Ashley Nominated — Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Drama
2009 Nine Claudia Satellite Award for Best Cast – Motion Picture
Nomination — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2010 Rabbit Hole Becca Corbett Post-production
2011 Just Go With It Rea Ann Devlin Filming
Awards
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Nicole Kidman

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.
Government honours

In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), Australia's highest civilian honour, 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."[54] However, due to film commitments and her wedding to Urban, it was 13 April 2007 that she was presented with the honour.[55] It was presented by Governor-General of Australia, Major General Michael Jeffery in a ceremony at Government House, Canberra.[56]
Discography

* "Come What May" single (Duet with Ewan McGregor – October 2001) AUS #10, UK #27
* "Sparkling Diamonds" (with Caroline O'Connor) - October 2001 (Moulin Rouge! Soundtrack)
* "Hindi Sad Diamonds" -October 2001 (Moulin Rouge! Soundtrack)
* "Somethin' Stupid" single (Duet with Robbie Williams – December 2001) AUS #8, UK #1l
* "Kiss" / "Heartbreak Hotel" – Nicole Kidman / Hugh Jackman - November 2006 (Happy Feet Soundtrack)

Keanu Reeves (Lebanon)




Born Keanu Charles Reeves
September 2, 1964 (1964-09-02) (age 45)
Beirut, Lebanon
Occupation Actor
Years active 1985–present

Keanu Charles Reeves (pronounced /keɪˈɑːnuː/ [kay-AH-noo, often mispronounced as kee-AH-noo]; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayals of a spaced-out metalhead in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (which went on to become a cult classic) and in two action movie projects that were both financial and critical successes: the "ticking time bomb" thriller Speed and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix. He has worked under major directors, such as with Stephen Frears (in the 1988 period drama Dangerous Liaisons); Gus Van Sant (in the gritty 1991 independent film My Own Private Idaho (also written by Van Sant)); and Bernardo Bertolucci (in the 1993 film Little Buddha). His role as a rookie FBI agent in the 1991 surf drama Point Break (opposite Patrick Swayze) was praised by The New York Times critic Janet Maslin, who stated that Reeves "...displays considerable discipline and range."[1]

In addition to his film roles, Reeves has also performed in theatre. His performance in the title role in a Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Hamlet was praised by Roger Lewis, the Sunday Times, who called Reeves "...one of the top three Hamlets I have seen, for a simple reason: he *is* Hamlet." On January 31, 2005, Reeves received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In an ET online survey in 2006, he was included in the "Top Ten of America's Favorite Stars".[citation needed]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Early life
* 2 Career
o 2.1 1980s
o 2.2 1990s
o 2.3 2000s
o 2.4 2010s
* 3 Personal life and other interests
* 4 Filmography
* 5 References
* 6 Further reading
* 7 External links

Early life

Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the son of Patricia Bond (née Taylor), a costume designer/performer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves, Jr., a geologist.[2] Reeves's mother is English, and his father is an American of Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese and English descent.[3] Reeves's mother was working in Beirut when she met his father. Reeves' father worked as an unskilled laborer and earned his GED while imprisoned in Hawaii for selling heroin at Hilo International Airport.[4] He abandoned his wife and family when Reeves was three years old, and Reeves does not currently have any relationship with him.[4] Reeves is named after his uncle, Henry Keanu Reeves. "Keanu" in Hawaiian means the coldness. When Reeves first arrived in Hollywood, his agent thought his first name was too exotic, so during the early days of his film career he was sometimes credited as K.C. Reeves. Reeves has one biological sister named Kim (born 1966 in Australia) who was diagnosed with leukemia in the early 1990s. Additionally, through his mother he has a half-sister named Karina Miller (born 1976 in Toronto) and through his father another half-sister named Emma Rose Reeves (born 1980 in Hawaii).

Reeves moved around the world frequently as a child and he lived with various stepfathers. After his parents divorced in 1966, his mother became a costume designer and moved the family to Australia and then to New York City. There she met and married Paul Aaron, a Broadway and Hollywood director. The couple moved to Toronto but divorced in 1971. Reeves's mother married Robert Miller, a rock promoter, in 1976, but the couple divorced in 1980. She subsequently married her fourth husband, Jack Bond, a hairdresser, a marriage that broke up in 1994. Grandparents and nannies babysat Reeves and his sisters, and Reeves grew up primarily in Toronto. Within a span of five years, he attended four different high schools, including the Etobicoke School of the Arts, from which he was later expelled. Reeves has stated that he was expelled "...because I was greasy and running around a lot. I was just a little too rambunctious and shot my mouth off once too often. I was not generally the most well-oiled machine in the school. I was just getting in their way, I guess."

Reeves excelled more in hockey than in academics, as his educational development was challenged by dyslexia. He was a successful goalie at one of his high schools (De La Salle College "Oaklands"). His team nicknamed him "The Wall," and voted him MVP. While Reeves dreamed of becoming an Olympic hockey player for Canada , an injury ended his hopes for a hockey career. After leaving De La Salle College, he attended a free school (Avondale Alternative), which allowed him to obtain an education while working as an actor; he later dropped out, never obtaining his high school diploma.
Career
1980s

Reeves began his acting career at the age of nine, appearing in a theater production of Damn Yankees. At 15, he played Mercutio in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet at the Leah Posluns Theatre. Reeves made his screen acting debut in a CBC Television comedy series entitled Hangin' In. Throughout the early 1980s, he appeared in commercials (including one for Coca-Cola), short films including the NFB drama One Step Away[5] and stage work such as Brad Fraser's cult hit Wolf Boy in Toronto. In 1984, he was a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV youth program Going Great.[6]

Reeves' first studio movie appearance was in the Rob Lowe ice hockey film Youngblood, in which he played a Québécois goalie. Shortly after the movie's release, Reeves drove to Los Angeles in his 1969 Volvo. His ex-stepfather Paul Aaron, a stage and television director, had convinced Erwin Stoff to be Reeves' manager and agent before he even arrived in Los Angeles. Stoff has remained Reeves' manager, and has coproduced many of his films. After a few minor roles, Reeves received a more sizable role in the 1986 drama film River's Edge, which depicted how a murder affected a group of teens. Following this film's critical success, he spent the late 1980s appearing in a number of movies aimed at teenage audiences, including Permanent Record, and the unexpectedly successful 1989 comedy, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which, along with its 1991 sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, typecast Reeves as a space-out teen. Much of his portrayal in the press and much of the response to his acting in the early 1990s has still referenced his portrayal of the airheaded Ted.
1990s

During the early 1990s, Reeves started to break out of his teen-film period. He appeared in high-budget action films like Point Break, for which he won MTV's "Most Desirable Male" award in 1992. He was also involved in various lower-budget independent films, including the well-received 1991 film, My Own Private Idaho with his close friend, the late River Phoenix. In 1994, Reeves' career reached a new high as a result of his starring role in the action film Speed. His casting in the film was controversial since, except for Point Break, he was primarily known for comedies and indie dramas. He had never been the sole headliner on a film. The summer action film had a fairly large budget and was helmed by novice cinematographer-turned-director Jan de Bont. The unexpected international success of the film made Reeves and co-star Sandra Bullock into A-List stars.

Reeves' career choices after Speed were eclectic: despite his successes, Reeves continued to accept supporting roles and appear in experimental films. He scored a hit with a romantic lead role in A Walk in the Clouds. He made news by refusing to take part in Speed 2: Cruise Control and choosing to play the title role in a 1995 Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Hamlet in Winnipeg, Manitoba.[7] Roger Lewis, the Sunday Times critic, wrote, "He quite embodied the innocence, the splendid fury, the animal grace of the leaps and bounds, the emotional violence, that form the Prince of Denmark...He is one of the top three Hamlets I have seen, for a simple reason: he * is* Hamlet." [8]
Reeves promoting The Day the Earth Stood Still in Mexico in 2008.

Reeves' other choices after A Walk in the Clouds, however, failed with critics and audiences. Big-budget films such as the sci-fi action film Johnny Mnemonic and the action-thriller Chain Reaction were critically panned and failed at the box office, while indie films like Feeling Minnesota were also critical failures. Reeves started to climb out of his career low after starring in the horror/drama The Devil's Advocate alongside Al Pacino and Charlize Theron. Reeves deferred his salary for The Devil's Advocate so that Pacino would be cast, as he would do later for the less successful The Replacements, guaranteeing the casting of Gene Hackman. The Devil's Advocate did well at the box office, received good reviews, and proved that Reeves could play a grown-up with a career, although many critics felt that his poor performance detracted from an otherwise enjoyable movie.[citation needed] The 1999 science fiction-action hit The Matrix, a film in which Reeves had a starring role, was a box office success and attracted positive reviews.
2000s

In between the first Matrix film and its sequels, Reeves received positive reviews for his portrayal of an abusive husband in The Gift. Aside from The Gift, Reeves appeared in several films that received mostly negative reviews and unimpressive box office grosses, including The Watcher, Sweet November and The Replacements. However, the two Matrix sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Something's Gotta Give, and the 2005 horror-action film, Constantine, proved to be box office successes and brought Reeves back into the public spotlight. His appearance in the 2006 film, A Scanner Darkly, based on the dystopian science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick, received favorable reviews, and The Lake House, his romantic outing with Sandra Bullock, did not do well at the box office.[citation needed]

Reeves played the main character in two 2008 films, Street Kings and The Day the Earth Stood Still. In February 2009 The Private Life of Pippa Lee -where Reeves starred alongside Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore, Alan Arkin, Winona Ryder, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Zoe Kazan, Ryan McDonald, Blake Lively, Robin Weigert-, was presented at Berlinale.
2010s

Reeves started filming the surrealist romantic comedy Henry's Crime in December 2009, with filming set to wrap in early 2010. After this he will be starting work as producer and star on the science-fiction space drama Passengers, written by Jon Spaihts.[9]

In January 2009, it was revealed that Reeves will star in the live-action film adaptation of the anime series Cowboy Bebop,[10][11] slated for release in 2011. Other upcoming projects include the samurai film 47 Ronin, Chef - story by Reeves and written by Steven Knight, and a modern retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, scripted by Justin Haythe and titled Jekyll. Nicolas Winding Refn is in negotiations to direct.
Personal life and other interests
Reeves' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

For nearly a decade following his initial rise to stardom, Reeves preferred to live in rented homes and hotels and was a long term resident of the Chateau Marmont. Reeves bought his first house in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles around 2003, and also has an apartment on Central Park West in New York City. Although born in Lebanon, Reeves is not a Lebanese citizen. His citizenships are: U.S. (through his father)[12] and Canadian (by naturalization). Since April 30, 2003, he has also been entitled to British citizenship by having an English-born mother. Reeves grew up as a Canadian and identifies as such. He has never married. In December 1999, Reeves' girlfriend Jennifer Syme gave birth to a stillborn daughter who was named Ava Archer Syme-Reeves. In April 2001, Syme was killed in a car accident.[13] She was buried next to their daughter in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. In 2008 Reeves was sued, unsuccessfully in Los Angeles Superior Court for $711,974[14] by paparazzo Alison Silva for allegedly hitting and injuring him with his Porsche after visiting a relative at a Los Angeles medical facility.[15][16] The paparazzo's lawsuit took a year and a half to make it to trial, with all 12 jurors rejecting the case in just over an hour.[17] Reeves also has musical interests: he played bass guitar in the grunge band Dogstar during the 1990s, and in the 2000s, he has performed with the band Becky.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1985 Letting Go Stereo Teen #1
One Step Away Ron Petrie
1986 Youngblood Heaver
Flying Tommy Wernicke
Young Again Mike Riley, age 17
Under the Influence Eddie Talbot
Act of Vengeance Buddy Martin
River's Edge Matt
Brotherhood of Justice Derek
Babes in Toyland Jack
1988 Permanent Record Chris Townsend
The Prince of Pennsylvania Rupert Marshetta
The Night Before Winston Connelly
Dangerous Liaisons Le Chevalier Raphael Danceny
1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Ted "Theodore" Logan
Parenthood Tod Higgins
1990 I Love You to Death Marlon James
Tune in Tomorrow Martin Loader
1991 Point Break FBI Special Agent John 'Johnny' Utah
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Ted "Theodore" Logan/Evil Ted
My Own Private Idaho Scott Favor
Providence Eric
1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula Jonathan Harker
1993 Much Ado About Nothing Don John
Little Buddha Prince Siddhartha/Lord Buddha
Poetic Justice Homeless Man (Uncredited)
Freaked Ortiz the Dog Boy (Uncredited)
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Julian Gitche
1994 Speed Officer Jack Traven
1995 Johnny Mnemonic Johnny
A Walk in the Clouds Sgt. Paul Sutton
1996 Chain Reaction Eddie Kasalivich
Feeling Minnesota Jjaks Clayton
1997 The Last Time I Committed Suicide Harry
The Devil's Advocate Kevin Lomax
1999 The Matrix Thomas Anderson/Neo Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
Me and Will Himself
2000 The Replacements Shane Falco
The Watcher David Allen Griffin
The Gift Donnie Barksdale
2001 Sweet November Nelson Moss
Hardball Conor O'Neill
2003 The Matrix Reloaded Thomas Anderson/Neo
The Animatrix Thomas Anderson/Neo
The Matrix Revolutions Thomas Anderson/Neo
Something's Gotta Give Dr. Julian Mercer
2005 Constantine John Constantine
Thumbsucker Perry Lyman
Ellie Parker Himself
2006 The Lake House Alex Wyler
A Scanner Darkly Bob Arctor
2008 Street Kings Detective Tom Ludlow
The Day the Earth Stood Still Klaatu
2009 The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Chris Nadeau
2010 Passengers Jim Preston
Cartagena Character Unknown
2011 Jekyll Dr. Jekyll
Cowboy Bebop Spike Spiegel[10][11]
Hanuman Ram[18]