My top 30 Actresses!
by wee_nicol2 | created - 30 May 2011 | updated - 30 May 2011 | PublicList is in no particular order.
1. Meryl Streep
Actress | Out of Africa
Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William ...
2. Kate Winslet
Actress | Titanic
Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut...
3. Natalie Portman
Actress | Black Swan
Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an ...
4. Audrey Tautou
Actress | Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
Audrey Justine Tautou was born on August 9, 1976 in Beaumont, France, to Evelyne Marie Laure (Nuret), a teacher, and Bernard Tautou, a dental surgeon. Audrey showed an interest for comedy at an early age and started her acting lessons at 'Cours Florent'. In 1998 she won the best young actress award...
5. Toni Collette
Actress | The Sixth Sense
Toni Collette is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress, best known for her roles in The Sixth Sense (1999) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
Collette was born Toni Collett (she later added an "e") on November 1, 1972, in Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is the first of three...
6. Julie Walters
Actress | Billy Elliot
For decades, British actress and comedienne Dame Julie Walters has served as a sturdy representation of the working class with her passionate, earthy portrayals on England's stage, screen and television. A bona fide talent, her infectious spirit and self-deprecating sense of humor eventually ...
7. Cate Blanchett
Actress | Carol
Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...
8. Miranda Otto
Actress | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. Otto is a daughter of actors Barry Otto and Lindsay Otto, and half-sister of actress Gracie Otto. She began her acting career at age 18 in 1986, and has appeared in a variety of independent and major studio films. Otto made her major film debut in Emma's War (...
9. Judi Dench
Actress | Skyfall
Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...
10. Marion Cotillard
Actress | La Môme
Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she ...
11. Anjelica Huston
Actress | The Grifters
Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951 to director and actor John Huston and Russian prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma. Huston spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1968 first dipped her toe into the world of show business, taking on the lead role of her father's ...
12. Alexandra Maria Lara
Actress | Der Untergang
Born on 12 November 1978 in Bucharest, Romania, Alexandra Maria Lara fled to Germany with her parents when she was four and half years old. After graduating at the French High School, she studied acting at the Theaterwerkstatt Charlottenburg from 1997 and 2000, but had already played leading ...
13. Jennifer Connelly
Actress | A Beautiful Mind
Jennifer Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Ilene (Schuman), a dealer of antiques, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father had Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish immigrant family. Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across ...
14. Abigail Breslin
Actress | Little Miss Sunshine
Academy Award-nominated actress Abigail Breslin is one of the most sought-after actors of her generation. Her unique and charismatic talents have contributed to her versatile roles in both comedy and drama.
Recently, Breslin headlined the first season of the horror-comedy series, Scream Queens (2015)...
15. Elliot Page
Actor | Juno
Elliot Page was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. Page wanted to start acting at an early age and attended the Neptune Theater School. They began their career at the age of 10 on the award-winning television series Pit Pony (1999), for...
16. Carrie-Anne Moss
Actress | The Matrix
Carrie-Anne Moss was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. At age 20, after studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she moved to Europe to pursue a career in modeling. While in Spain she was cast in the TV show Dark Justice which was produced in Barcelona for its first season and Los ...
17. Juliette Binoche
Actress | The English Patient
Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, France, to Monique Yvette Stalens, a director, teacher, and actress, and Jean-Marie Binoche, a sculptor, director, and actor. Her mother was born in Czestochowa, Poland, of French, Walloon Belgian, and Polish descent, while her father is French. Juliette was only...
18. Juliette Lewis
Actress | Natural Born Killers
Juliette Lewis has been recognized as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors of her generation since she first stunned audiences and critics alike with her Oscar-nominated performance as "Danielle Bowden" in Cape Fear (1991). To date, she has worked with some of the most revered ...
19. Ivana Baquero
Actress | El laberinto del fauno
Ivana was born in Barcelona, Spain. She graduated High School at The American School of Barcelona.
She got her big break in 2006 when Guillermo Del Toro cast her as the lead in his critically acclaimed fantasy thriller "Pan's Labyrinth." The role of Ofelia was originally intended for an ...
20. Dakota Fanning
Actress | War of the Worlds
Hannah Dakota Fanning was born on the 23rd of February 1994, in Conyers, Georgia, USA, to Heather Joy (Arrington) and Steven Fanning. Her mother played professional tennis, and her father, now an electronics salesman, played minor league baseball. She is of German, Irish, English, French, and ...
21. Charlize Theron
Producer | Monster
Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...
22. Laura Linney
Actress | The Big C
Laura Leggett Linney was born in New York City on February 5, 1964, into a theatre family. Her father was prominent playwright Romulus Linney, whose own great-grandfather was a congressman from North Carolina. Her mother, Miriam Anderson (Leggett), is a nurse. Although she did not live in her ...
23. Zooey Deschanel
Actress | New Girl
Zooey Deschanel was born in 1980 into a showbiz family. Her father, Caleb Deschanel, is an Academy Award-nominated cinematographer (perhaps most notably for The Passion of the Christ (2004)) and her mother, Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir), is an actress who appeared in Twin Peaks (1990). Her paternal ...
24. Lena Olin
Actress | The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Swedish-born Lena Olin already had a successful career as an actress before she came to Hollywood. She acted at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and was directed by Ingmar Bergman. She was born in Stockholm, to actors Britta Holmberg and Stig Olin, who appeared in six of Bergman's films. Lena also ...
25. Isabella Rossellini
Actress | Blue Velvet
Isabella Rossellini, the Italian actress and model who has made her home in America since 1979 and holds dual Italian and American citizenship, was born cinema royalty when she made her debut on June 18, 1952 in Rome. She is the daughter of two legends, three-time Oscar-winning Swedish-born actress ...
26. Brittany Murphy
Actress | Clueless
Brittany Murphy was born Brittany Anne Bertolotti on November 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her father's ancestry is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Slovak descent. Her father moved the family back to Edison, New Jersey as a native New...
27. Joan Allen
Actress | Room
Joan Allen was born on August 20, 1956 in Rochelle, Illinois, the youngest of four children. She is the daughter of homemaker Dorothea Marie (Wirth) and gas station owner James Jefferson Allen. Her mother's family was German, and her father had English, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. She ...
28. Clea DuVall
Actress | The Faculty
Clea DuVall was born in Los Angeles on September 25, 1977, to Rosemary (Hatch) and actor Steph DuVall. DuVall's teenage years presented her with many challenges. Her parents divorced when she was twelve, and, when her mother remarried, DuVall moved out because she did not feel at home in the ...
29. Franka Potente
Actress | Lola rennt
Franka Potente was born on 22 July 1974 in the German city of Münster, to Hildegard, a medical assistant, and Dieter Potente, a teacher, and raised in the nearby town of Dülmen. After her graduation in 1994, she went to the Otto-Falckenberg-Schule, a drama school in Munich, but soon broke off to ...
30. Famke Janssen
Actress | X-Men: The Last Stand
Famke Janssen was born November 5, 1964, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, and has two other siblings. Moving to America in the 1980s, she modeled for Chanel in New York. Later, taking a break from modeling, she attended Columbia University, majoring in literature.
This model-turned-actress broke into...
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