Power Actors *male*
by benedam-1 | created - 14 Oct 2015 | updated - 26 Oct 2015 | PublicFor me, power actors are actors, that draw my attention to everything they make on screen, that make a movie if not watchable than at least not regrettable, that enlighten at least *my* screen. Some of them are among my favourite actors, some I just love to watch. Since i watched thousands of movies in my life and watched tenthousands of actors do what they do best - act -, my list of favourite actors centainly exceeds those "tiny" lists of 120. Those two lists are more about charisma and personal favour than acting skills.
1. Alan Arkin
Actor | Argo
Alan Arkin was an Academy Award-winning American actor who was also an acclaimed director, producer, author, singer and composer.
He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to...
2. Christian Bale
Actor | The Dark Knight
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries ...
3. Eric Bana
Actor | Dirty John
Eric Bana was born Eric Banadinovic on August 9, 1968, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He is the younger of two brothers. His father, named Ivan Banadinovic, came from Zagreb, Croatia, and worked as a manager for Caterpillar Inc. His mother, named Eleanor Banadinovic, came from a German family ...
4. Javier Bardem
Actor | Skyfall
Javier Bardem belongs to a family of actors that have been working on films since the early days of Spanish cinema.
He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, to actress Pilar Bardem (María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz) and businessman José Carlos Encinas Doussinague. His maternal grandparents were...
5. Gabriel Byrne
Actor | The Usual Suspects
Byrne was the eldest of six children born to a family in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a cooper and his mother a hospital worker. He was raised Catholic and educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. He spent five years of his childhood in a seminary training to be a Catholic priest. He later said...
6. Michael Caine
Actor | The Dark Knight
Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of ...
7. Jim Carrey
Actor | Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Jim Carrey, Canadian-born and a U.S. citizen since 2004, is an actor and producer famous for his rubbery body movements and flexible facial expressions. The two-time Golden Globe-winner rose to fame as a cast member of the Fox sketch comedy In Living Color (1990) but leading roles in Ace Ventura: ...
8. Vincent Cassel
Actor | Black Swan
Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles, eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema. First in La haine (1995), the young actor, ...
9. Don Cheadle
Actor | Crash
Donald Frank Cheadle was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 29, 1964. His childhood found him moving from city to city with his family: mother Bettye (née North), a teacher; father Donald Frank Cheadle Sr., a clinical psychologist; sister Cindy; and brother Colin. After graduating from high...
10. George Clooney
Actor | The Ides of March
George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney ...
11. Gary Cole
Actor | Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Gary Michael Cole is an American television, film and voice actor. Cole began his professional acting career on stage at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1985. On television, he has had starring roles in the TV series Midnight Caller, American Gothic, The West Wing, Crusade, The Good Wife, ...
12. Sean Connery
Actor | The Rock
The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he ...
13. Paddy Considine
Actor | Dead Man's Shoes
Paddy (Patrick) Considine was born on September 5, 1973 in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire in the U.K. As a teenager, Considine studied a drama course at Burton College where he met with now friend and director Shane Meadows, who cast Considine in his first role in a feature film as the disturbed ...
14. Bradley Cooper
Actor | A Star Is Born
Bradley Charles Cooper was born on January 5, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Gloria (Campano), is of Italian descent, and worked for a local NBC station. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Immediately after Bradley graduated from the ...
15. Chris Cooper
Actor | Adaptation.
Christopher Walton Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Mary Ann (Walton), a homemaker, and Charles Sherwood Cooper, a cattleman and internist who served as a doctor in the US Air Force. His parents were from Texas, where Cooper was raised.
Educated at the University of Missouri school of ...
16. Kevin Costner
Actor | The Postman
Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955 in Lynwood, California, the third child of Bill Costner, a ditch digger and ultimately an electric line servicer for Southern California Edison, and Sharon Costner (née Tedrick), a welfare worker. His older brother, Dan, was born in 1950. A middle ...
17. James Cromwell
Actor | L.A. Confidential
Born in Los Angeles but raised in Manhattan and educated at Middlebury College and Carnegie-Mellon University, James Cromwell is the son of film director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson. He studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon, and went into the theatre (like his parents) doing everything from ...
18. Russell Crowe
Actor | Les Misérables
Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Jocelyn Yvonne (Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom catered movie sets. His maternal grandfather, Stanley Wemyss, was a cinematographer. Crowe's recent ancestry includes Welsh (where his paternal grandfather was born, in Wrexham),...
19. Tom Cruise
Actor | Top Gun
In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. ...
20. John Cusack
Actor | Grosse Pointe Blank
John Cusack is, like most of his characters, an unconventional hero. Wary of fame and repelled by formulaic Hollywood fare, he has built a successful career playing underdogs and odd men out--all the while avoiding the media spotlight. John was born in Evanston, Illinois, to an Irish-American ...
21. Matt Damon
Actor | Good Will Hunting
Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Kent Damon, a stockbroker, realtor and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. Matt has an older brother, Kyle, a sculptor. His father was of English and ...
22. Nigel Davenport
Actor | A Man for All Seasons
Nigel Davenport was born on May 23, 1928 in Shelford, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for A Man for All Seasons (1966), Chariots of Fire (1981) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). He was married to Maria Aitken and Helena Margaret White. He died on October 25, 2013 ...
23. Bruce Davison
Actor | X-Men
The award-worthy actor, now enjoying an over five decade career, has a resume that includes everything from Shakespeare to Seinfeld -- from the villainous Senator on Ozark to the wise judge on Lincoln Lawyer.
Born on June 28, 1946, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Clair, an architect and ...
24. Daniel Day-Lewis
Actor | There Will Be Blood
Born in London, England, Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the U.K., and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema and head of the famous Ealing ...
25. Benicio Del Toro
Actor | Sicario
Benicio Del Toro emerged in the mid-1990s as one of the most watchable and charismatic character actors to come along in years. A favorite of film buffs, Del Toro gained mainstream public attention as the conflicted but basically honest Mexican policeman in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000).
...
26. Robert De Niro
Actor | Cape Fear
One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained ...
27. Gérard Depardieu
Actor | Cyrano de Bergerac
Gérard Depardieu was born in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to Anne Jeanne Josèphe (Marillier) and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu, who was a metal worker and fireman. Young delinquent and wanderer in the past, Depardieu started his acting career at the small traveling theatre "Café de la Gare", along ...
28. Johnny Depp
Actor | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one ...
29. Bruce Dern
Actor | Nebraska
Two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern's tremendous career is made up of playing both modern day heroes and legendary villains. Through decades of lauded performances, Dern has acquired the reputation of being one of the most talented and prolific actors of his generation.
Dern currently appears opposite...
30. William Devane
Actor | Knots Landing
William Devane, the movie and television actor, was born in Albany, New York, the son of Joseph Devane, who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's chauffeur when he was Governor of New York. After graduating from New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he appeared on-stage. He finally made ...
31. Leonardo DiCaprio
Actor | Inception
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s,...
32. Michael Douglas
Actor | Wall Street
A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated...
33. Robert Downey Jr.
Actor | Iron Man
Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the son of writer, director and ...
34. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took ...
35. Jeff Fahey
Actor | Lost
Jeff Fahey was born in Olean, New York, one of 13 children of Jane (Gallagher) and Francis Thomas Fahey, who worked in a clothing store. He is of Irish descent. His family moved to Buffalo when he was 10, where he attended Father Baker's High School. After graduation in 1972 he traveled around the ...
36. Michael Fassbender
Actor | Shame
Michael Fassbender is an Irish actor who was born in Heidelberg, Germany, to a German father, Josef, and an Irish mother, Adele (originally from Larne, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland). Michael was raised in the town of Killarney, Co. Kerry, in south-west Ireland, where his family moved to when ...
37. Heino Ferch
Actor | Der Untergang
During his school years he was enthusiastic about artistry and gymnastics. His athletic skills helped him land a role in the musical "Can Can" in 1978, which also sparked his interest in acting. After finishing school, Heino Ferch devoted himself to his acting training at the Salzburg Mozarteum. In...
38. Ralph Fiennes
Actor | The Constant Gardener
Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus ...
39. Errol Flynn
Actor | The Adventures of Robin Hood
Errol Flynn was born to parents Theodore Flynn, a respected biologist, and Marrelle Young, an adventurous young woman. Young Flynn was a rambunctious child who could be counted on to find trouble. Errol managed to have himself thrown out of every school in which he was enrolled. In his late teens ...
40. Harrison Ford
Actor | Raiders of the Lost Ark
Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (Nidelman), a radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an actor turned advertising executive. His father was of Irish and German ancestry, while his maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Minsk, ...
41. Morgan Freeman
Actor | Driving Miss Daisy
With an authoritative voice and calm demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman...
42. Victor Garber
Actor | Argo
Victor Garber has been in some of the most memorable projects of the past four decades. Victor has recently appeared in The Slap (2015), The Flash (2014), Motive (2013) and Web Therapy (2011). He is currently staring in Greg Berlanti's new DC Comics Superhero series "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" for ...
43. Richard Gere
Actor | Chicago
Humanitarian and actor Richard Gere was born on August 31, 1949, in Philadelphia, the second of five children of Doris Anna (Tiffany), a homemaker, and Homer George Gere, an insurance salesman, both Mayflower descendants. Richard started early as a musician, playing a number of instruments in high ...
44. Ryan Gosling
Actor | Blue Valentine
Born Ryan Thomas Gosling on November 12, 1980, in London, Ontario, Canada, he is the son of Donna (Wilson), a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman. Ryan was the second of their two children, with an older sister, Mandi. His ancestry is French-Canadian, as well as English, ...
45. Clark Gregg
Actor | The Avengers
Clark Gregg is an American actor, writer and director from Boston who is known for portraying Phil Coulson in various Marvel movies, shows and video games. He also acted in Mr. Popper's Penguins, The West Wing, 500 Days of Summer, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Labor Day and Live by Night.
46. Bob Gunton
Actor | The Shawshank Redemption
Bob Gunton is an American actor, primarily known for portraying strict and authoritarian characters in popular films. His better known roles include Chief George Earle in "Demolition Man" (1993), Prison Warden Samuel Norton in "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), medical school dean Dr. Walcott in "...
47. Jake Gyllenhaal
Actor | Nightcrawler
Jake Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980 in Los Angeles, California as Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal, the son of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and ...
48. Gene Hackman
Actor | The French Connection
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Anna Lyda Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After ...
49. Philip Baker Hall
Actor | Magnolia
Philip Baker Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Berdene (McDonald) and William Alexander Hall, a factory worker who was originally from Montgomery, Alabama. He did not start acting until he was 30 years old. Known to film fans for his turn as Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's one-man show film Secret...
50. Tom Hanks
Producer | Cast Away
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has ...
51. Woody Harrelson
Actor | True Detective
Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor Woodrow Tracy Harrelson was born on July 23, 1961 in Midland, Texas, to Diane Lou (Oswald) and Charles Harrelson. He grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, where his mother was from. After receiving degrees in theater arts and English from Hanover College, he...
52. Ed Harris
Actor | Appaloosa
By transforming into his characters and pulling the audience in, Ed Harris has earned a reputation as one of the most talented actors of our time.
Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, to Margaret (Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert Lee Harris, a bookstore worker who also sang professionally. ...
53. Dustin Hoffman
Actor | Tootsie
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Lillian (Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who was a furniture salesman and prop supervisor for Columbia Pictures. He was raised in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania). Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955, ...
54. Philip Seymour Hoffman
Actor | The Master
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in ...
55. Anthony Hopkins
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...
56. John Hurt
Actor | Nineteen Eighty-Four
One of stage, screen and TV's finest transatlantic talents, slight, gravel-voiced, pasty-looking John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Shirebrook, a coal mining village, in Derbyshire, England. The youngest child of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Reverend ...
57. Jeremy Irons
Actor | Dead Ringers
British actor Jeremy Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England. He is the son of Barbara Anne Brereton (Sharpe) and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant. Young Jeremy didn't prove very fond of figures. He visited mainland England only once a year. He wound up ...
58. Gregory Itzin
Actor | 24
Gregory Itzin, accomplished stage, film and television actor, was perhaps best known for his Emmy Award-nominated performance for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series as Pres. Charles Logan on 24. Born in Washington, D.C. to parents Evelyn Loretta Itzin and Martin Joseph Itzin, he and his...
59. Derek Jacobi
Actor | Gosford Park
Preeminent British classical actor of the first post-Olivier generation, Derek Jacobi was knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre, and, in fact, is only the second to enjoy the honor of holding TWO knighthoods, Danish and English (Olivier was the other). Modest and unassuming in nature, ...
60. Richard Jenkins
Actor | The Shape of Water
Richard Jenkins was born on May 4, 1947 in DeKalb, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Shape of Water (2017), The Visitor (2007) and Step Brothers (2008). He has been married to Sharon R. Friedrick since August 23, 1969. They have two children.
61. Tommy Lee Jones
Actor | The Fugitive
Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school ...
62. Stacy Keach
Actor | Escape from L.A.
Stacy Keach has played to grand success a constellation of the classic and contemporary stage's greatest roles, and he is considered a pre-eminent American interpreter of Shakespeare. His SRO run as "King Lear" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. received the best reviews any ...
63. Michael Keaton
Actor | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Quirky, inventive and handsome American actor Michael Keaton first achieved major fame with his door-busting performance as fast-talking ideas man Bill Blazejowski, alongside a nerdish morgue attendant (Henry Winkler), in Night Shift (1982). He played further comedic roles in Mr. Mom (1983), Johnny...
64. Ben Kingsley
Actor | Sexy Beast
Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji on December 31, 1943 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was a Kenyan-born medical doctor, of Gujarati Indian descent, and his mother, Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), was an English actress. Ben began to act in stage plays during ...
65. Greg Kinnear
Actor | As Good as It Gets
Greg Kinnear was born on June 17, 1963, in Logansport, Indiana, USA to Edward Kinnear, a career diplomat with the US State Department, and Suzanne (nee Buck) Kinnear, a homemaker. He has two brothers -- James, vice president-investments at Wachovia Securities in Arizona who was born in 1957, and ...
66. Terry Kinney
Actor | Billions
Terry Kinney, the stage, film and television actor, was born in Lincoln, Illinois and attended Illinois State University. While at university, his friend, the aspiring actor Jeff Perry, took Kinney to Chicago to see a production of "Grease" in which his best friend, Gary Sinise, was appearing. The ...
67. Takeshi Kitano
Actor | Zatôichi
Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...
68. Sebastian Koch
Actor | Das Leben der Anderen
Sebastian Koch is one of the most internationally sought-after German actors of his generation. After stage engagements in Berlin, Bochum and Darmstadt, the Karlsruhe native was twice awarded the "Grimme Prize" in 2002 for the title role in Peter Keglevic's "Der Tanz mit dem Teufel - Die Entführung...
69. Matthias Koeberlin
Actor | Tornado - Der Zorn des Himmels
Matthias Koeberlin was born on March 28, 1974 in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. He is an actor, known for Tornado (2006), Fugitives (2011) and Lutter (2007). He is married to Diana Koeberlin. They have one child.
70. Joachim Król
Actor | Der bewegte Mann
Joachim Król was born on June 17, 1957 in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is an actor, known for Maybe... Maybe Not (1994), Tatort (1970) and Run Lola Run (1998).
71. Jude Law
Actor | The Talented Mr. Ripley
Jude Law is an English actor. Law has been nominated for two Academy Awards and continues to build a prolific body of work that spans from early successes such as Gattaca (1997) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) to more recent turns as Dr. John Watson in Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes:...
72. Heath Ledger
Actor | Brokeback Mountain
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised ...
73. Ted Levine
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Born in May 1957 in Bellaire, Ohio, he was among the last graduating class of the Windsor Mountain School in Lenox, Massachusetts. Attended Marlboro College in Vermont. Performed in summer stock and regional theaters in Vermont, Michigan and West Virginia before settling in Chicago and joining The ...
74. William H. Macy
Actor | Fargo
William Hall Macy Jr. is an American actor. His film career has been built on appearances in small, independent films, though he has also appeared in mainstream films. Macy has won two Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, while his performance in Fargo earned a nomination for the ...
75. John Malkovich
Actor | Being John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, to Joe Anne (Choisser), who owned a local newspaper, and Daniel Leon Malkovich, a state conservation director. His paternal grandparents were Croatian. In 1976, Malkovich joined Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, newly founded by his friend Gary ...
76. Ian McKellen
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery ...
77. Julian McMahon
Actor | Fantastic Four
Julian Dana William McMahon was born in Sydney, Australia, the second of three children of Lady Sonia McMahon (née Sonia Rachel Hopkins) and Sir Billy McMahon, the longest continuously serving government minister in Australian history, serving over 21 years as a government minister before serving ...
78. David Morse
Actor | The Green Mile
David Morse, a 6' 4" tall blue-eyed blond who performed on stage for 10 years before breaking into film, has become established as a respected supporting, character actor and second lead.
He was born the first of four children of Charles, a sales manager, and Jacquelyn Morse, a schoolteacher, on ...
79. Ulrich Mühe
Actor | Das Leben der Anderen
Ulrich Mühe was born on June 20, 1953 in Grimma, East Germany. He was an actor and director, known for The Lives of Others (2006), Funny Games (1997) and Der letzte Zeuge (1998). He was married to Susanne Lothar, Jenny Gröllmann and Annegret Hahn. He died on July 22, 2007 in Walbeck, Saxony-Anhalt,...
80. Liam Neeson
Actor | Kinsey
Liam Neeson was born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. He was raised in a Catholic household. During his early years, Liam worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, a truck driver, an assistant architect and an ...
81. Jack Nicholson
Actor | Chinatown
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...
82. Nick Nolte
Actor | Warrior
Nick Nolte was born in Omaha, Nebraska and began his career on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse and in regional theatre productions. His breakthrough role was in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), playing the role of "Tom/Tommy Jordache". Nick Nolte said that when he played a young man in ...
83. Edward Norton
Actor | Fight Club
American actor, filmmaker and activist Edward Harrison Norton was born on August 18, 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Columbia, Maryland.
His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (Rouse), was a foundation executive and teacher of English, and a daughter of famed real estate developer ...
84. Gary Oldman
Actor | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), ...
85. Terry O'Quinn
Actor | Lost
Terrance Quinn (born July 15, 1952), known professionally as Terry O'Quinn, is an American actor. He played John Locke on the TV series Lost (2004), the title role in The Stepfather (1987) and Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy (1989), and Peter Watts in Millennium (1996), which ran for three ...
86. Al Pacino
Actor | Serpico
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi)...
87. Sean Penn
Actor | Mystic River
Sean Penn is a powerhouse film performer capable of intensely moving work, who has gone from strength to strength during a colourful film career, and who has drawn much media attention for his stormy private life and political viewpoints.
Sean Justin Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the ...
88. Joaquin Phoenix
Actor | Walk the Line
Joaquin Phoenix was born Joaquin Rafael Bottom in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Arlyn (Dunetz) and John Bottom, and is the middle child in a brood of five. His parents, from the continental United States, were then serving as Children of God missionaries. His mother is from a Jewish family from New ...
89. River Phoenix
Actor | My Own Private Idaho
River Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally ...
90. Brad Pitt
Actor | Fight Club
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student ...
91. Christopher Plummer
Actor | Beginners
Legendary actor Christopher Plummer, perhaps Canada's greatest thespian, delivered outstanding performances as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree (1979), the chilling villain in The Silent Partner (1978), the iconoclastic Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), the empathetic psychiatrist in A ...
92. Sidney Poitier
Actor | In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal ...
93. Robert Redford
Actor | The Natural
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of ...
94. Keanu Reeves
Actor | The Matrix
Keanu Charles Reeves, whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, was born September 2, 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the son of Patric Reeves, a showgirl and costume designer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. Keanu's father was born in Hawaii, of British, Portuguese...
95. John C. Reilly
Actor | Chicago
Character actor, dramatic leading man, or hilarious comic foil? With an astonishing range of roles already under his belt, John C. Reilly has played an eclectic host of rich characters to great effect over the years, from seedy ne'er-do-wells, to lovable, good-natured schlepps.
The fifth of six ...
96. Jean Reno
Actor | Léon
Jean Reno was born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez in Casablanca, Morocco, to Spanish parents (from Andalucía) who moved to North Africa to seek work. His father was a linotypist. Reno settled in France at 17. He began studying drama and has credits in French television and theater as well as films. ...
97. Ryan Reynolds
Actor | Deadpool 2
Ryan Rodney Reynolds was born on October 23, 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the youngest of four children. His father, James Chester Reynolds, was a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tamara Lee "Tammy" (Stewart), worked as a retail-store saleswoman. He has Irish and Scottish ancestry. ...
98. Alan Rickman
Actor | Die Hard
Alan Rickman was born on a council estate in Acton, West London, to Margaret Doreen Rose (Bartlett), of English and Welsh descent, and Bernard Rickman, of Irish descent, who worked at a factory. Alan Rickman had an older brother (David), a younger brother (Michael), and a younger sister (Sheila). ...
99. Tim Robbins
Actor | Mystic River
Born in West Covina, California, but raised in New York City, Tim Robbins is the son of former The Highwaymen singer Gil Robbins and actress Mary Robbins (née Bledsoe). Robbins studied drama at UCLA, where he graduated with honors in 1981. That same year, he formed the Actors' Gang theater group, ...
100. Sam Rockwell
Actor | Moon
Sam Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in San Mateo, California, the only child of two actors, Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess. The family moved to New York when he was two years old, living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan. When Sam was five years old, his parents separated, at which ...
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