Russell Crowe - Biography

Though perhaps best-known internationally for playing tough-guy roles in Romper Stomper (1993), L.A. Confidential (1997), and Gladiator (2000), New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe has proven himself equally capable of playing gentler roles in films such as Proof (1991) and The Sum of Us (1992). No matter what kind of characters he plays, Crowe's weather-beaten handsomeness and gruff charisma combine to make him constantly watchable: his one-time Hollywood mentor Sharon Stone has called him "the sexiest guy working in movies today." Born in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 7, 1964, Crowe was raised in Australia from the age of four. His parents made their living by catering movie shoots, and often brought Crowe with them to work; it was while hanging around the various sets that he developed a passion for acting. After making his professional debut in an episode of the television series Spyforce when he was six, Crowe took a 12-year break from professional acting, netting his next gig when he was 18. In film, he had his first major roles in such dramas as The Crossing (1990) and Jocelyn Moorhouse's widely praised Proof (1991) (for which he won an Australian Film Institute award). He then went on to gain international recognition for his intense, multi-layered portrayal of a Melbourne skinhead in Geoffrey Wright's controversial Romper Stomper (1992), winning another AFI award, as well as an Australian Film Critics award. It was Sharon Stone who helped bring Crowe to Hollywood to play a gunfighter-turned-preacher opposite her in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead (1995). Though the film was not a huge box-office success, it did open Hollywood doors for Crowe, who subsequently split his time between the U.S. and Australia. In 1997, the actor had his largest success to date playing volatile cop Bud White in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential (1997). Following the praise surrounding both the film and his performance in it, Crowe found himself working steadily in Hollywood, starring in two films released in 1999: Mystery, Alaska and The Insider. In the latter, he gave an Oscar-nominated lead performance as Jeffrey Wigand, a real-life tobacco industry employee whose personal life was dragged through the mud when he chose to blow the whistle on his former company's questionable business practices. In 2000, however, Crowe finally crossed over into the public's consciousness with, literally, a tour de force performance in Ridley Scott's glossy Roman epic Gladiator. The Dreamworks/Universal co-production was a major gamble from the outset, devoting more than 100 million dollars to an unfinished script (involving the efforts of at least half a dozen writers), an untested star (stepping into a role originally intended for Mel Gibson), and an all-but-dead genre (the sword-and-sandals adventure). Thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign and mostly positive notices, however, the public turned out in droves the first weekend of the film's release, and kept coming back long into the summer for Gladiator's potent blend of action, grandeur, and melodrama -- all anchored by Crowe's passionate man-of-few-words performance. Anticipation was high, then, for the actor's second 2000 showing, the hostage drama Proof of Life. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the widely publicized affair between Crowe and his co-star Meg Ryan, the film failed to generate much heat during the holiday box-office season, and attention turned once again to the actor's star-making role some six months prior. In an Oscar year devoid of conventionally spectacular epics, Gladiator netted 12 nominations in February 2001, including one for its lead performer. While many wags viewed the film's eventual Best Picture victory as a fluke, the same could not be said for Crowe's Best Actor victory: nudging past such stiff competition as Tom Hanks and Ed Harris, Crowe finally nabbed a statue, affirming for Hollywood the talent that critics had first noticed almost ten years earlier. Crowe's 2001 role as real-life Nobel Prize-winning schizophrenic mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. brought the actor back into the Oscar arena. Directed by Ron Howard and co-starring Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind was criticized for omitting the more sordid and unsightly details of Nash's troubled marriage and decent into mental illness. Still, Crowe's sensitive portrayal, coupled with Howard's assured direction, put the actor back on the mountain of fame that he had previously conquered with Gladiator. A Beautiful Mind quickly vaulted past the 100-million-dollar mark as it took home Golden Globes for Best Picture, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Actor and racked up eight Oscar nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Crowe. Crowe followed up A Beautiful Mind in 2003 by taking to the high-seas in the period-adventure Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. A hit at the box-office, the film also recieved rave reviews and a number of Oscar nods, including one for Best Picture. His career momentum higher than ever, Crowe next starred in 2005's Depression-era boxing drama Cinderella Man. Reteaming him with A Beautiful Mind's director Ron Howard, the picture garnered Crowe more accolades from critics, and had people talking about another Oscar for the actor. While the Oscar nominations didn't end up including his name, he soon followed up his performance with another dramatic role in Ridley Scott's A Good Year. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Robert Pattinson - Biography

London-born Robert Pattinson found his acting niche almost instantly, kicking off his career with a string of fantasy roles. After catching the acting bug through amateur theater, the young thespian made his first film appearance at the age of 18, appearing in 2004's Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, based on a Nordic legend. He followed this up by joining the Harry Potter franchise the following year, playing Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire, as well as the subsequent movies. Having captured the hearts of many young fantasy fans, Pattison then signed on to play the dreamy vampire heartthrob Edward in the film adaptation of the young-adult novel Twilight. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Robert Knepper - Biography

When Robert Knepper initially broke into Hollywood, his unusual appearance -- markedly gaunt, with coal-black hair, olive skin, deep-set eyes, and a frequent goatee -- made him a virtual shoe-in as a character actor. Knepper debuted on a prestigious note, working for producer Tony Adams and director Blake Edwards in the Jack Lemmon/Julie Andrews comedy-drama That's Life! (1986). In terms of quality, subsequent efforts ran the gamut from the okay romance Made in Heaven (1987) to the awful superhero picture Wild Thing (1987) to the well-received post-noir thriller D.O.A. (1988). For better or worse, these were all generally A-list releases; as Knepper's career rolled on, he expanded his workload to include telemovies (Zelda, 1993) and direct-to-video pictures (Mugshot, 1996; Lady in the Box, 2001), with occasional work in Hollywood A-listers (such as Woody Allen's 1996 Everyone Says I Love You). Knepper is best known, however, for his series portrayals of the predatory white-supremacist inmate "T-Bag" (aka Theodore Bagwell) on the popular Fox show Prison Break (starting in 2005) and "roving reporter" Tommy Dolan on the cult HBO supernatural drama Carnivàle (2003-2005). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Robert De Niro - Biography

Considered the best actor of his generation, Robert De Niro has built a durable star career out of his formidable ability to disappear into a character, whether tempering his charisma to become a believable everyman or imbuing his renowned gallery of mobsters and psychopaths with a compelling, frightening authority. After rising to stardom in the 1970s with landmark performances as violent New York brutes in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), and Raging Bull (1980), not to mention his quietly bravura turn in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974), De Niro appeared to falter in the 1980s. Rejuvenated after The Untouchables (1987) and Goodfellas (1990), as well as the founding of the Tribeca Film Center, De Niro picked up his pace in the 1990s, strengthening his fame into the 2000s with his hilarious self-parodies in the blockbuster comedies Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). The son of artists, De Niro was raised in New York's Greenwich Village by his mother after his parents split up when he was two. Nicknamed "Bobby Milk" for his pallor, the youthful De Niro joined a Little Italy street gang, but the direction of his future had already been determined by his stage debut at age ten playing the Cowardly Lion in his school's production of The Wizard of Oz. Along with finding relief from shyness through performing, De Niro was also entranced by the movies, and he quit high school at age 16 to pursue acting. Studying under Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, De Niro espoused the Method tenets that guided the work of such trailblazing 1950s stars as Marlon Brando, learning how to immerse himself in a character emotionally and physically. While he labored in off-off-Broadway productions in the early '60s, De Niro was cast alongside fellow novice Jill Clayburgh in film school graduate Brian De Palma's The Wedding Party (1969). It didn't see the light of theaters, however, until the late '60s. His movie breakthrough seemingly limited to a brief walk-on in Marcel Carné's Trois Chambres à Manhattan (1965), De Niro returned to theater in the mid-'60s. His luck began to change when De Palma asked De Niro to star as one of three friends trying to dodge the Vietnam draft in his low-budget satire Greetings (1968). A small indie success, Greetings spawned a sequel, Hi, Mom! (1970), featuring De Niro as an oddball downtown voyeur-turned-quasi-radical bomber. With another small movie, Sam's Song (1969), to his credit and the backing of friend Shelley Winters, De Niro got a shot at "going Hollywood" late-'60s style with a role as one of the murderous Barker clan in the Bonnie and Clyde (1967) rip-off Bloody Mama (1970), a well-acted Roger Corman special. Though he followed Bloody Mama with three more movies, including playing a taxi driver in drug drama Jennifer on My Mind (1971) and replacing Al Pacino in the ill-conceived farce The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971), De Niro found himself back doing off-Broadway theater by 1972. De Niro's professional life took an auspicious turn, however, when he was re-introduced to former Little Italy acquaintance Martin Scorsese at a party in 1972. Sharing a love of movies as well as their neighborhood background, De Niro and Scorsese hit it off; De Niro was immediately interested when Scorsese asked him about appearing in his new film, Mean Streets. Conceived as a grittier, more authentic portrait of the Mafia as a collection of petty street hoods rather than The Godfather's (1972) wealthy dons, Mean Streets drew on Scorsese's neighborhood experiences in its story of Harvey Keitel's conflicted striver Charlie and his ruinous friendship with De Niro's volatile Johnny Boy. Though he initially didn't want the part, De Niro transformed Johnny Boy into an indelible combination of anarchic energy and violent stupidity, from the moment he blew up a mail box onscreen, through his humorous improvised monologue about Joey Clams to his bloody end. Though Mean Streets failed to catch on outside of cities, its assured style and superb acting turned Scorsese and De Niro into rising artistic stars. De Niro caught the critics' attention again that same year with his completely different performance as a dying, simple-minded catcher in the quiet baseball drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). Though the New York Film Critics' Circle gave De Niro the Best Supporting Actor prize for both roles, the Academy ignored him. Nevertheless, Francis Ford Coppola was impressed enough by Mean Streets to cast De Niro as the young Vito Corleone in the early 1900s portion of The Godfather Pt. II. Closely studying Brando's Oscar-winning performance as Don Corleone in The Godfather, and perfecting his accent for speaking his lines in subtitled Sicilian, De Niro was so effective as the lethally ambitious and lovingly paternal Corleone that he created Oscar history when he took home an acting prize, albeit Best Supporting, for playing Vito. Rather than cash in on his Godfather success, however, De Niro headed to Europe to star in Bernardo Bertolucci's opus 1900 (1976). A sprawling allegory about class struggle in 20th century Italy, 1900's expansive story hinged on the lifelong relationship between De Niro's rich landowner and his proletarian best friend (Gérard Depardieu). Cut down to a mere four hours for its American release in 1977, 1900 impressed critics more with its sumptuous visuals than its content; the restored five-hour, 20-minute version attracted more kudos in 1991. After 1900's equally epic shoot, De Niro returned to the U.S. to collaborate with Scorsese on the far leaner (and meaner) production Taxi Driver. After working for two weeks as a Manhattan cabbie and losing weight, De Niro transformed himself into disturbed "God's lonely man" Travis Bickle. An extreme study in urban alienation, De Niro's Vietnam vet Bickle was painfully awkward with people, whether hanging out with fellow cabbie Peter Boyle, disastrously courting Cybill Shepherd, or trying to verbally save Jodie Foster. Once he began preening in front of the mirror with his weapons and issuing his reflection the signature "You talkin' to me?" challenge, however, Bickle became frighteningly alive before descending into the climactic ultra-violent bloodbath. One of the definitive films of the decade, Taxi Driver earned the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, good box office, and several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and De Niro's first nod for Best Actor. Controversy erupted about the film's violence, however, when would-be Presidential assassin John W. Hinckley cited Taxi Driver as a formative influence in 1981. Seeking a change of pace, De Niro next starred as refined, doomed Irving Thalberg-esque movie producer Monroe Stahr in Elia Kazan's final movie, the adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon (1976). Though the film failed, it was De Niro, along with Scorsese, who faced a potentially hostile audience to present Kazan with his honorary Oscar in 1999. De Niro and Scorsese met with another brand of hostility in 1977 with the release of Scorsese's lavish, underrated musical New York, New York (1977). Though De Niro and co-star Liza Minnelli made an excellent, contentious pair, New York, New York's downbeat take on the genre found little audience favor. De Niro quickly recovered with another risky, ambitious project, Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978). One of the first wave of Vietnam movies, The Deer Hunter starred De Niro as one of three Pennsylvania steel-town friends thrown into the war's inferno, emerging as profoundly changed men. Though the film provoked an uproar over its portrayal of Viet Cong violence as (literally) Russian roulette, The Deer Hunter won several Oscars including Best Picture; De Niro lost Best Actor to Jon Voight's turn as a Vietnam vet in Coming Home (1978). Returning to the realm of more personal violence, De Niro followed The Deer Hunter with his and Scorsese's masterpiece, Raging Bull. Though Scorsese suffered a physical breakdown after New York, New York, De Niro convinced his friend that Raging Bull could be the de facto cure, and the pair reworked Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin's initial adaptation of boxer Jake La Motta's autobiography. With Rocky's (1976) producers backing them, Scorsese and De Niro went to creative extremes to do justice to La Motta's capacity for taking a beating in the ring and living brutally outside it, revealing the blood on the ropes and refusing to gloss over Jake's spousal abuse. Along with his notorious 60-pound weight gain that rendered him unrecognizable as the middle-aged Jake, De Niro also trained so intensely for the outstanding fight scenes that La Motta himself averred that De Niro could have boxed professionally. Along with his physical dedication, De Niro won over critics with his ability to humanize La Motta without softening him; though some were put off by La Motta's repugnance, none could deny that Scorsese and De Niro had created an extraordinary biopic and Raging Bull received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. After Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan the day of the Oscars, De Niro attended the re-scheduled ceremony and pointedly noted at the end of his acceptance speech for his richly deserved Best Actor statuette, "I love everybody." Not coincidentally, De Niro's next film with Scorsese, The King of Comedy (1983), delved into the dark recesses of fandom. Though De Niro was remarkable as creepy comedian wannabe Rupert Pupkin, The King of Comedy's incisive dissection of celebrity and TV proved too bleakly acerbic for audiences; Scorsese and De Niro decided to part creative ways afterwards. De Niro's subsequent mid-'80s movies continued to fall short. Though he was well suited to star in Sergio Leone's epic homage to gangster films, Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Leone's tough, transcendent vision couldn't survive the studio's decision to hack 88 minutes out of the American release version, and it bombed. De Niro's cameo as a militant repairman was also subsumed by the offscreen theatrics attending the production and release of Terry Gilliam's fantasy Brazil (1985). De Niro's attempt at playing a "normal" romantic lead opposite Meryl Streep in Falling in Love (1984) failed to attract an audience; noble subject matter, spectacular visuals, and Cannes' Palme D'Or couldn't turn The Mission (1986) into an American hit. After his turn as the Devil in the controversial disappointment Angel Heart (1987), De Niro took a breather from films to return to the stage, playing a drug dealer in the New York Public Theater production Cuba and His Teddy Bear. During his theater stint, De Palma made De Niro a movie offer he couldn't refuse when he asked him to play a small role in his film version of The Untouchables (1987). As the rotund, charismatic, bat-wielding Al Capone, De Niro was a memorable adversary for Kevin Costner's upstanding Elliot Ness, and The Untouchables became De Niro's first hit in almost a decade. De Niro followed The Untouchables with his first comedy success, Midnight Run (1988). Co-starring as a bounty hunter opposite Charles Grodin's bail-jumping accountant, De Niro finally got to show his lighter side, and the hilarious pair turned Midnight Run into a summer sleeper hit. De Niro's next foray into comedy in We're No Angels (1989), however, was not so appealing. His movie stardom revitalized, De Niro founded Manhattan's Tribeca Film Center in 1989. Housing ascendant indie Miramax as well as De Niro's own Tribeca Productions, the Film Center also included a restaurant co-owned by De Niro and decorated with his father's art. From this base of operations, De Niro launched into the most prolific period of his career. Though he earned an Oscar nomination for his touching performance as a coma patient in Penny Marshall's popular drama Awakenings (1990), movie fans were perhaps more thrilled by De Niro's return to the Scorsese fold, playing cruelly duplicitous Irish mobster Jimmy "The Gent" opposite Ray Liotta's turncoat Henry Hill in the critically lauded Mafia film Goodfellas (1990). Along with appearing onscreen with Scorsese as directors fighting the black list in Guilty by Suspicion (1991), De Niro worked with Scorsese again in the thriller remake Cape Fear (1991). Sporting a hillbilly accent and pumped-up physique, De Niro's vengeful rapist Max Cady was a terrifying creation, particularly in his quietly creepy seduction scene with Juliette Lewis. Despite critics' grumblings that De Niro was perhaps too flamboyant, Cape Fear became Scorsese and De Niro's biggest hit together and earned another Oscar nod for the star. De Niro subsequently co-starred as a geeky cop in the Scorsese-produced Mad Dog and Glory (1993) and reunited with Cape Fear's Jessica Lange for the noir remake Night and the City (1992). De Niro also revealed that he had learned a great deal from his work with Scorsese with his own directorial debut, A Bronx Tale (1993). A well-observed story of a boy torn between his father and the local Mob, A Bronx Tale earned praise, but De Niro opted to stick with acting and producing afterwards. De Niro made his third Scorsese film of the decade when he starred as Vegas kingpin Sam Rothstein in Casino (1995). Though it was staged with Scorsese's customary visual brilliance and paired De Niro with his Raging Bull brother and Goodfellas associate Joe Pesci, Casino received mixed notices and failed to score financially. De Niro passed on another opportunity to collaborate with Scorsese, as well as another co-starring turn with his This Boy's Life (1993) and Marvin's Room (1996) colleague Leonardo Di Caprio, when he dropped out of Gangs of New York (2002). Appearing in as many as three films a year after 1990, including his Scorsese work, De Niro's output garnered as many bad notices as good, but every time he appeared to take a wrong turn, he quickly managed to recover. Any doubts raised by the failed romance Stanley and Iris (1990) and the Hollywood schlock Backdraft (1991) were allayed by Goodfellas and Cape Fear; De Niro's too-psychotic abusive stepfather in This Boy's Life and bizarre eponymous monster in the flop Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) were offset by his polished reserve in Michael Mann's glossy policer Heat (1995). Starring De Niro as a cool bank robber opposite Al Pacino's fervid cop, Heat offered the rare spectacle of De Niro and Pacino sharing the screen, if only in two scenes. After indifferently received turns in The Fan (1996), Sleepers (1996), and Cop Land (1997), De Niro stepped outside his usual gallery of cops and criminals to play a puckish, amoral political strategist in Barry Levinson's sharp satire Wag the Dog (1997). Though co-stars Pam Grier and Robert Forster received more attention, De Niro also rose to the acting occasion as a dangerously dimwitted crook in Quentin Tarantino's laid-back crime story Jackie Brown (1997). John Frankenheimer's smooth Euro-style espionage thriller Ronin (1998) allowed De Niro to headline a topnotch international cast; he took a back seat, however, to the young lovers and the lush green production design in Alfonso Cuarón's contemporary adaptation of Great Expectations (1998). De Niro was front and center once again in the comedy Analyze This (1999). As teary, stressed-out Mafia boss Paul Vitti, De Niro acknowledged and goofed on his esteemed collection of screen mobsters, aided and abetted by a nicely low-key Billy Crystal as his reluctant psychiatrist; the pair's humorous chemistry turned Analyze This into a major hit. De Niro's more serious, "actorly" turns as a homophobic stroke victim in Flawless (1999) and a prejudiced Navy officer in Men of Honor (2000) were further eclipsed by De Niro the new comic star with Meet the Parents (2000). Playing off of De Niro's renowned history of screen menace, Meet the Parents pitted the absurdly stern De Niro as the potential father-in-law from hell against Ben Stiller's increasingly hapless male nurse Greg Focker, and became a blockbuster success. Not surprisingly, both films spawned sequels, Analyze That (2002) and Meet the Fockers (2004). De Niro's comic outing opposite Eddie Murphy in Showtime (2002), however, bombed. Along with the comedies, De Niro still continued to take on his customary dramatic roles. His potentially interesting opportunity to co-star with his Godfather model and youthful inspiration Marlon Brando and his gifted young counterpart Edward Norton in the crime drama The Score (2001), however, was undermined by the ordinariness of the heist plot. Covering familiar territory, De Niro played troubled N.Y. cops in 15 Minutes (2001) and City by the Sea (2002). His daughter, Drena De Niro, from his first marriage to Diahnne Abbott, also appeared in City by the Sea (his second marriage ended in 2002). As a New Yorker and downtown resident, De Niro took time from his packed movie schedule to contribute to the commemoration of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the revitalization of downtown Manhattan. Working closely with Scorsese, De Niro co-organized the first Tribeca Film Festival in May 2002. Reaching the national audience, De Niro also made a rare TV appearance, in footage shot in his Tribeca neighborhood a few blocks from the Trade Center site, to narrate the award-winning CBS documentary 9/11 (2002). As the decade wore on, De Niro continued to take on roles that failed to live up to his acclaimed earlier work. 2004 saw him staying in the comedy vein, parodying himself as the voice of a shark mobster in the animated Shark Tale and starring in the aforementioned Meet the Fockers. Meanwhile, he also served up a pair of critically-maligned thrillers with Godsend and Hide and Seek. All the while, De Niro continued to work on his ambitious and long-planned next foray behind the camera, the CIA drama The Good Shepherd. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Rihanna - Biography

A pop superstar with a beautiful voice and a face to match, Rihanna was discovered in her native Barbados when she was just 15. She'd been singing practically from birth, and the young musician often formed musical groups with other girls at school. Rihanna was harmonizing with some friends when her vocal stylings were overheard by producer Evan Rogers while he was on vacation with his wife. Rogers was positive the girl had star potential, and this soon led the young artist to move to the States, where she recorded a demo with Rogers and soon scored a record deal with Def Jam. She released her debut album, {^Music of the Sun}, in 2005, and soon became a major fixture in the pop music world, with regular rotation on radio and MTV. Her second album, {^A Girl Like Me}, came in 2006, and a third, {^Good Girl Gone Bad}, came in 2007. All proved to be major hits, both critically and commercially, and Rihanna soon found that she'd become a bonafide star and an icon of music, fashion, and media. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Rachel McAdams - Biography

Thin, blonde, and possessing the sort of stylish, model-esque good looks that wouldn't be out of place in the glossy pages of Vogue, actress Rachel McAdams got her start on Canadian television before graduating to Hollywood features. Though McAdams' early screen roles found her specializing in the bitchy teen princess to maximum effect, closer inspection reveals a skilled dramatic actress who no doubt has the talent to move beyond the high-school trappings of such comedies as The Hot Chick and Mean Girls. Born to a truck driver and a nurse in London, Ontario, Canada, McAdams warmed to the spotlight early on by taking up competitive skating at just four years old. Though she would remain on the ice well into her teens, the toll of constant competition eventually frazzled her nerves, and she soon began gravitating toward the stage. Beginning in summer theater camp at the age of 13, the burgeoning actress' smooth handling of Shakespeare eventually led her to enroll in theater studies at York University. In the years that followed, McAdams' comfort on the stage translated exceptionally well to the screen, and a role as a bulimic teen in the popular Disney series The Famous Jett Jackson found the rising starlet making an impressive small-screen debut. Supporting roles in such television series as Shotgun Love Dolls and made-for-TV features such as Guilt by Association were quick to follow. After climbing the credits to make her feature debut in My Name is Tanino, McAdams was nominated for a Genie award (the Canadian equivalent of an Oscar) for her performance in 2002's Perfect Pie. The film, which cast her as a small-town girl whose best friend makes the big time by becoming a celebrated opera singer, provided McAdams with her breakout role, and she soon set her sights on Hollywood. Her bags packed for the trip west and stars shining in her eyes, the talented McAdams soon caught the eyes of studio heavies and was cast as a popular but excruciatingly cruel high-school teen who learns a hard lesson in The Hot Chick. McAdams made a move to weekly television in 2003 with a supporting role in Slings and Arrows before once again returning to torment the unpopular crowd in 2004's Mean Girls. A big-screen adaptation of Rosalind Wiseman's popular book Queen Bees and Wannabes, the film was also notable as the screenwriting debut of Saturday Night Live writer/cast member Tina Fey. Moving away from the cruel halls of high school, McAdams next appeared opposite Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, the feature adaptation of author Nicholas Sparks' top-selling novel. A romantic drama concerning a young couple separated by war, The Notebook found McAdams in a notably more sympathetic role. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Pierce Brosnan - Biography

Moving to London with his family at an early age, Irish-born actor Pierce Brosnan made ends meet as a commercial illustrator and cab driver before turning to acting full-time. After training at the London Drama Centre, Brosnan made his West End stage bow in 1976, and appeared in his first film, The Long Good Friday, four years later. American audiences got their first glimpse of the charismatic, muscular young actor in the 1981 network miniseries The Manions of America. The following year, he was cast as the suave adventurer hero of the weekly TV series Remington Steele. Brosnan's casual panache and his gift for quippery led the producers of the James Bond movies to select him as the new Bond upon the departure of Roger Moore in 1986. However, at the last moment, the canceled Remington Steele was renewed, and Brosnan was contractually obligated to remain with the program, forcing him to relinquish the James Bond role to Timothy Dalton. Insult was later added to injury when it became evident that the renewal of Steele was something of a subterfuge by its producers to keep Brosnan on their leash. This professional setback was further compounded by personal tragedy seven years later when Brosnan's actress wife Cassandra Harris died after a long illness. The actor began to regain his motion picture bankability when he was cast in a choice secondary role in the 1993 comedy megahit Mrs. Doubtfire. In 1995, he finally got his chance to play Agent 007 in GoldenEye, and proved that the producer's instincts were right on target. Brosnan not only provided a much-needed boost for the ailing series, but also cemented his status as a capable leading man in a variety of roles, ranging from the title character in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1996) to a stuffy, love-struck professor who meets a ludicrous fate in Mars Attacks! (1996) to a courageous vulcanologist trying to save a town threatened by a reawakened volcano in Dante's Peak (1997). Brosnan played Bond for the second time in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), essaying the role with great success. Following his turn as the titular thief in the stylish 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the actor went on to his third Bond outing in The World is Not Enough, again proving that saving the world was most convincingly done by those with convincing tans, straight teeth, and plenty of fun gadgets. And the world isn't the only thing Bond saved. While, the next half-decade found Brosnan stumbling with disappointments like The Tailor of Panama and The Laws of Attraction, he found box office success with the Bond franchise yet again 2002 with his final film in the franchise, Die Another Day. He soon followed this with a critically acclaimed comedic performance in the sleeper hit The Matador, before signing on for the highly anticipated film adaptation of the Abba inspired musical Mama Mia!. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide