EWB's Top Living Female Actor

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

53 actresses received at least one vote in the competition but TWENTY FIVE received two or more and will make the final countdown list.

That means big names such as Emma Thompson, Halle Berry, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Helena Bonham-Carter didn't make it.

Let's see who did though.....

TWENTY FOUR=

Carla Gugino

(born August 29, 1971)

"Carla was born in Sarasota, Florida. Moved with her mother to Paradise, California, when Carla was just five years old. During her childhood, they moved many times within the state. But she remained a straight-A student throughout high school and graduated as valedictorian. A major modeling agency discovered Carla in San Diego and sent her to New York to begin a new career when she was 15. New York was more than she could handle at that young age, so she returned to LA in the summer, modeling and enrolling in an acting class at the suggestion of her aunt, Carol Merrill, known from "Let's Make a Deal" (1963). During her free time, Carla enjoys yoga, traveling and spending time with her friends in Los Angeles."

2 votes - 8 total points

[TGC]

Great actress. I forgot about her.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

TWENTY FOUR=

Alison Brie

(born December 29, 1982)

"Alison Brie was born in Hollywood, California and grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of South Pasadena. Interested in acting at an early age, she began her career performing in community theater shows at the Jewish Community Center in Los Feliz. Her very first role was "Toto" in the Wizard of Oz. After graduating from South Pasadena High School in 2001; Alison attended California Institute of the Arts where she received her BFA in Acting. While there, she was one of the original cast members in the world premiere of The Peach Blossom Fan, performed as the inaugural theater production at Disney's REDCAT Theater in Downtown LA. During that time, Alison also studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland.

Since graduating, she has continued to work in all forms of media, including film, television, and theater. She has performed in the Blank Theater Company's Young Playwright's festival and in shows at the Odyssey, Write-Act, and Rubicon Theaters, receiving an Indy Award for her haunting performance as "Ophelia" in the Rubicon's production of Hamlet. She had performed guest spots for Comedy Central and Disney's "Hannah Montana" (2006) as well as leading roles in some independent films before landing her role on "Mad Men" (2007). Since then, she has continued to work in film and TV."

2 votes - 8 total points

Coming up....Another tied position. The toast of the late 90s/early 2000s...and more US TV.

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

Sadly couldn't fit Brie onto my list, great to see her make it.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

TWENTY TWO=

Amy Poehler

(born September 16, 1971)

"Amy Poehler was first involved with sketch comedy when she joined the group My Mother's Flea Bag when she was attending Boston College. In 1993, she went to Chicago where she studied at Second City and Improv Olympics. There, she met Del Close, who later became the voice of the UCB opening scene. In 1996, she joined the Upright Citizen's Brigade with Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. Later on, the group moved to New York and became a Comedy Central show. The show went on only for three seasons. However, the group stayed together at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. Today, the theater is one of the leading centers for improv and sketch shows.

After the "Upright Citizens Brigade" (1998) sketch show came and went, cast member Amy Poehler joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" (1975) in 2001. Her star was the brightest during that time and, by the end of Christmas break of that year, she became a regularly featured performer. She has brought a slew of great performances on every show, such as impersonations of celebrities such as Kelly Ripa or Sharon Osbourne. When Jimmy Fallon left at the end of the 2003-04 season, Amy joined Tina Fey as a co-anchor for Weekend Update. Her Hollywood star is also growing bright, as she has done several feature films, including Blades of Glory (2007) with her real-life husband and "Arrested Development" (2003) star Will Arnett; and the Farrelly brothers-directed remake of The Heartbreak Kid (1993), in which she stars alongside another "Arrested Development" (2003) star, Jason Bateman."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdUKUVNBEVE

2 votes - 10 total points

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

TWENTY TWO=

Julianne Moore

(born Julie Anne Smith; December 3, 1960)

"The daughter of a military judge and a Scottish social worker, Julianne Moore was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina on December 3, 1960. She spent the early years of her life in over two dozen locations around the world with her parents before she finally found her place at Boston University, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in acting from the School of the Performing Arts. After graduation (in 1983), Julianne moved to New York and worked extensively in theater, including appearances off-Broadway in two Caryl Churchill plays, Serious Money and Ice Cream With Hot Fudge and as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theatre. But despite her formal training, Julianne fell into the attractive actress' trap of the mid-1980's: TV soaps and miniseries. She appeared briefly in the daytime serial "The Edge of Night" (1956) and from 1985 to 1988 she played two half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina on the soap "As the World Turns" (1956). This performance later led to an Outstanding Ingénue Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Her subsequent appearances were in mostly forgettable TV-movies, such as Money, Power, Murder. (1989) (TV), The Last to Go (1991) (TV) and Cast a Deadly Spell (1991) (TV). She made her entrance into the big screen with 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), where she played the victim of a mummy. Two years later, Julianne appeared in feature films with supporting parts in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the comedy The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992). She kept winning better and more powerful roles as time went on, including a small but memorable role as a nurse who spots Kimble Harrison Ford and attempts to thwart his escape in The Fugitive (1993). (A role that made such an impression on Steven Spielberg that he cast her in the Jurassic Park (1993) sequel without an audition in 1997). In one of Moore's most distinguished performances, she recapitulated her "beguiling Yelena" from Andre Gregory's workshop version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Director Todd Haynes gave Julianne her first opportunity to take on a lead role in Safe (1995). Her portrayal of Carol White, an affluent L.A. housewife who develops an inexplicable allergic reaction to her environment, won critical praise as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Later that year she found her way into romantic comedy, co-starring as Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in Nine Months (1995). Following films included Assassins (1995), where she played an electronics security expert targeted for death (next to Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas) and Surviving Picasso (1996), where she played Dora Maar, one of the numerous lovers of Picasso (portrayed by her hero, Anthony Hopkins). A year later, after co-starring in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), opposite Jeff Goldblum, a young and unknown director, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Julianne to appear in his movie, Boogie Nights (1997). Despite her misgivings, she finally was won over by the script and her decision to play the role of Amber Waves, a loving porn star who acts as a mother figure to a ragtag crew, proved to be a wise one, since she received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Julianne started 1998 by playing an erotic artist in The Big Lebowski (1998), continued with a small role in the social comedy Chicago Cab (1997) and ended with a subtle performance in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1960). 1999 had Moore as busy as an actress can be. She starred in a number of high-profile projects, beginning with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) , in which she was cast as the mentally challenged but adorable sister of a decidedly unhinged Glenn Close. A portrayal of the scheming Mrs. Cheveley followed in Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband (1999) with a number of critics asserting that Moore was the best part of the movie. She then enjoyed another collaboration with director Anderson in Magnolia (1999) and continued with an outstanding performance in The End of the Affair (1999), for which she garnered another Oscar nomination. She ended 1999 with another great performance, that of a grieving mother in A Map of the World (1999), opposite Sigourney Weaver."

2 votes - 10 total points

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

TWENTY ONE

Tilda Swinton

(born 5 November 1960)

"The iconoclastic gifts of the visually striking and fiercely talented Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, who was born on November 5th, 1960, have been appreciated by a more international audience of late. Born into a patrician military family, she was educated at an English and a Scottish boarding school. Tilda subsequently studied Social and Politcal Science at Cambridge University and graduated in 1983 with a degree in English Literature. During her time as a student, she performed countless stage productions and proceeded to work for a season in the Royal Shakespeare Company. A decided rebel when it came to the arts, she left the company after a year as her approach shifted dramatically: With a taste for the unique and bizarre, she found some genuinely interesting gender-bending roles come her way, such as the composer Mozart in Pushkin's "Mozart and Salieri", and as a working class woman impersonating her dead husband during World War II, in Karges' "Screenplay: Man to Man: Another Night of Rubbish on the Telly (#7.5)" (1992). In 1985 the pale-skinned, carrot-topped actress began a professional association with gay experimental director Derek Jarman. She continued to live and work with Jarman for the next nine years, developing seven critically acclaimed films. Their alliance would produce stark turns, such as turner-prize nominated Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1988), The Garden (1990), Edward II (1991), and Wittgenstein (1993). Jarman succumbed to complications from AIDS in 1994. His untimely demise left a devastating void in Tilda's life for quite some time. Her most notable performance of that period however comes from a non-Jarman film: For the title role in Orlando (1992), her nobleman character lives for 400 years while changing sex from man to woman. The film, which Swinton spent years helping writer/director Sally Potter develop and finance, continues to this day to have a worldwide devoted fan following. Over the years she has preferred art to celebrity, opening herself to experimental projects with new and untried directors and mediums, delving into the worlds of installation art and cutting-edge fashion. Consistently off-centered roles in Female Perversions (1996), Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), Teknolust (2002), Young Adam (2003), Broken Flowers (2005) and Béla Tarr's The Man from London (2007) have only added to her mystique. Hollywood too has picked up on this notoriety and, since the birth of her twins in 1997, she has successfully moved between the deep-left-field art-house and quality Hollywood blockbusters. The thriller The Deep End (2001), earned her a number of critic's awards and her first Golden Globe nomination. Such mainstream U.S. pictures as The Beach (2000/I) with Leonardo DiCaprio, fantasy epic Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves, her Oscar-decorated performance in Michael Clayton (2007) alongside George Clooney and of course her iconic White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) have cemented her place as one of cinema's most outstanding women."

2 votes - 12 total points

[Josh]

I'm tempted to talk about each one, quote by quote, but that would get way old for you guys. So, this far in, I'll stick to this:

- Alison Brie is someone I love on screen. Yet so many other choices could and should have been before her.

- AMY POEHLER! JULIANNE MOORE!

- But then I realized that those two are only here because I and one other person voted for them. They should be so much higher!

- My thoughts on the rest: Meh. I suppose that makes sense in a way.

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

Tilda is great, bloody brilliant in The Beach.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

TWENTY

Angelina Jolie

(born June 4, 1975)

"Angelina Jolie is an Oscar-winning actress who has become popular by taking on the title role in the "Lara Croft" series of blockbuster movies. Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.

In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her parents - her father is the Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and her mother is Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. At age 11, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos. Her exotic good looks may derive from her mixed ancestry which is Slovak, French-Canadian, Iroquois and English.

In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997) (TV), and in George Wallace (1997) (TV) which won her a Golden Globe award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998) (TV). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) (TV) again garnered a Golden Globe award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.

Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.

With her new-found prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced and in 2000 she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.

In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The Croft character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the film was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in "Croft", and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.

One of the Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.

Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox and in 2005 adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003/I) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the film was not popular among critics or at the box office.

In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The film became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming "Smith". Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.

Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple continues to pursue movie and humanitarian projects."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhDmqbkhBrk

2 votes - 14 total points

[Josh]

. . .

EDIT: The sarcastic inclusion of a Hackers clip almost makes that shit worth it. Almost.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

NINETEEN

Noomi Rapace

(born 28 December 1979)

"Swedish actress Noomi Rapace is the daughter of actress Nina Norén and Spanish Flamenco singer Rogelio Durán. Her parents did not stay together, and when Rapace was five she moved to Iceland with her mother and stepfather, where she lived for three years. When she was eight, she was cast in a small role in the Icelandic film, 'Í skugga hrafnsins', and this sparked her love of acting. At the age of 15, she left home and joined the Stockholm Theatre School.

Rapace went on to win the recurring role of Lucinda Gonzales in the Swedish TV series "Tre kronor" (1994), and also became a respected stage performer. She won critical acclaim for playing the leading role in 2007's Daisy Diamond (2007). In 2009, Rapace came to the attention of international audiences for her portrayal of Lisabeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). Her performance was widely praised, and she won the Best Actress prize at Sweden's prestigious Guldbagge Awards. She went on to reprise the role in the sequels, The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009).

Rapace made her English language film debut in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), alongside Robert Downey Jr. She was also cast as Elizabeth Shaw in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012)."

2 votes - 16 total points

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

SEVENTEEN=

Dame Margaret Smith

(born 28 December 1934)

"One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her father was a teacher at Oxford University and her mother worked as a secretary. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974. She was married to Cross until his death in 1999. She had two sons with Stephens, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who are also actors.

Maggie Smith's career began at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1950s. She made her film debut in 1956 as one of the party guests in Child in the House (1956). She has since performed in over sixty films and television series with some of the most prominent actors and actresses in the world. These include: Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), California Suite (1978) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, A Room with a View (1985), Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent, Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Cher and Gosford Park (2001) with Kristin Scott Thomas and Clive Owen, directed by Robert Altman. Maggie Smith has also been nominated for an Oscar six times and won twice, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978).

Most recently, Smith has appeared in the very successful 'Harry Potter' franchise as the formidable Professor McGonagall.

Smith is a breast cancer survivor.

Her most recent role has been in Julian Fellowes' ITV drama series, "Downton Abbey" (2010) (2010-2011) as the Dowager Countess of Grantham."

3 votes - 18 total points

[Josh]

I can't really comment on Noomi Rapcace, as I haven't seen her work. Though it does seem a short career to be including, for my taste.

Maggie Smith though? I can't argue with that.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

...The list with the Dragon Tattoo.

SEVENTEEN=

Rooney Mara

(born April 17, 1985)

"Rooney Mara, the young American actress who won an Oscar nomination playing Lisbeth Salander in the English-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), was born into professional football royalty in Bedford, New York in 1985. Christened Patricia Rooney Mara when she made her debut on the world stage, she is one of four children of New York Giants executive Timothy Christopher Mara and Kathleen McNulty, the granddaughter of Art Rooney, Sr., the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise. (Her mother's maiden name is Rooney.) Her paternal grandfather was Giants founder Tim Mara.

Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the former Ambassador to Ireland, is her great-uncle, and she is of Irish descent through both her father and mother. Her maternal grandmother, who was Italian-American, wed Tim Rooney, owner of Yonkers Raceway.

After graduating from Bedford's Fox Lane High school, she enrolled in the Traveling School, which took her to South America to study. She spent a year at George Washington University before transferring to New York University, where she studied international social policy and psychology. She took her degree from NYU in 2010. Her studies focused on non-profit organizations, as her family has a tradition of involvement in philanthropic causes.

She had thought of acting after watching old movies and attending musical theater, but did not think of it as a serious vocation and was afraid she might fail at it. As a result of her reservations, she appeared in only one play while in high school.

She wasn't seriously bitten by the acting bug until she was at New York University, when she appeared in student films. Inspired by her older sister, the actress Kate Mara, she began to pursue the craft, auditioning for acting jobs at the age of 19. She appeared with her sister Kate in the video horror movie Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) (V), billing herself as "Patricia Mara". As "Tricia Mara", she had guest roles on TV and won her first lead in the movie Tanner Hall (2009), which was shot in the fall of 2007.

She originally auditioned for the supporting role of Lucasta in "Tanner Hall", a $3-million independent film, but director Tatiana von Furstenberg was so impressed by the young actress, she had her return to audition for the lead role of Fernanda, which Mara won. Furstenberg was delighted with her nuanced performance, saying, "Still waters run deep".

Continuing to call herself Tricia Mara, it was during the making of "Tanner Hall" that she considered changing her professional name to Rooney Mara, soliciting the advice of the cast and crew. After premiering at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, her performance in "Tanner Hall" brought the rechristened Rooney Mara a "Rising Star" award at the 2009 Hamptons Film Festival and a "Stargazer Award" at the 2010 Gen Art Film Festival.

It was in 2010 that she got her "big break", the lead in the $35 million remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). The movie proved disappointing at the box office, grossing only $63 million domestically and racking up a world-wide gross of just under $116 million. However, that same year, she was noticed by critics in the small but pivotal role of the Boston University undergrad Erica who dumps Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the prestigious art house-mainstream hybrid hit The Social Network (2010). The $40-million movie was a big hit, grossing $225 million worldwide and garnering many awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

"The Social Network " was her first collaboration with director David Fincher, who subsequently cast her as the lead in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) trilogy. The legendary director Terrence Malick picked her for the lead in his upcoming film Lawless (2013), signaling the quickening of what promises to be a long and successful career in A-List pictures.

In the spirit of her family's philanthropic endeavors, Rooney created Faces of Kibera, a charity that provides food, medical care and housing to orphans in Nairobi, Kenya's Kibra district, a small slum that houses a million people. There are many orphans as AIDS is rampant in the slum."

2 votes - 18 total points

TTTTTHSTRIKER!

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

FIFTEEN=

Audrey Tautou

(9 August 1976 or 1978)

"Audrey Justine Tautou (; born 1976 or 1978) is a French film actress, best known for playing the title character in the award-winning 2001 film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Sophie Neveu in the 2006 thriller The Da Vinci Code, Irène in Priceless (2006) and Coco Chanel in Coco avant Chanel. She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in Venus Beauty Institute (1999).

Early life

Tautou was born in Beaumont, in the Puy-de-Dôme département of Auvergne, and was raised in Montluçon in nearby Allier. Her father is an oral surgeon and her mother is a teacher. Tautou showed an interest in acting at an early age and started her acting lessons at the Cours Florent.

In 1998, Tautou participated in a Star Search-like competition sponsored by Canal+ called "Jeunes Premiers" (The Young Debut) and won Best Young Actress at the 9th Béziers Festival of Young Actors. Tonie Marshall gave her a role in the César-winning Venus Beauty Institute (1999, aka Vénus beauté (institut)). In 2000, she won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as her country's most promising young film actress.

In 2001, Tautou rose to international fame for her performance as the eccentric lead in the romantic comedy Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). In June 2004, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

In 2005, Tautou worked in her first full Hollywood production, opposite Tom Hanks, in the film version of Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and released in May 2006. She acted alongside Gad Elmaleh in Pierre Salvadori's Hors de prix (Priceless), released 13 December 2006. The film has been compared to Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Tautou starred with Guillaume Canet in Claude Berri's Ensemble, c'est tout in 2007, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Anna Gavalda.

Tautou played the lead role in the biopic of fashion designer Coco Chanel, titled Coco avant Chanel, and directed by Anne Fontaine. Filming began in Paris in September 2008, and released in France on 22 April 2009. The script is partially based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s book “L’Irrégulière” (”The Non-Conformist”). As part of promoting the film, Tautou was named as the next spokesmodel for Chanel No. 5, replacing Nicole Kidman. She was directed in the advertisement by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with whom she worked on Amélie and A Very Long Engagement. The advertisement was released in 2009 to coincide with the film's release.

She appeared in the video of "I Love Your Smile", a song by British singer-songwriter Charlie Winston.

She has studied at the Institut Catholique de Paris. She was brought up attending church, though she has now stated that she is "not officially" a Catholic.

Tautou says she still considers France her base, and plans to pursue a career predominantly there rather than crossing over to the United States. As she told Stevie Wong of The Straits Times:

After the premiere of the film Amélie she travelled to the jungles of Indonesia to help with the preservation of a monkey sanctuary.

In August 2011, the actress states in 'The Telegraph' that she intends to quit acting very soon, so she can dedicate herself to other activities."

3 votes - 24 total points

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

FIFTEEN=

Amy Adams

(born 20 August 1974)

"Amy Adams was born in Italy to American parents Kathryn and Richard Adams, while her father was a U.S. serviceman. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Adams sang in the school choir at Douglas County High School and was an apprentice dancer at a local dance company, with the ambition of becoming a ballerina. However, she worked as a greeter at The Gap and as a Hooters hostess to support herself before finding work as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse in such productions as "Brigadoon" and "A Chorus Line". It was there that she was spotted by a Minneapolis dinner-theater director who asked her to move to Chanhassen, Minnesota for more regional dinner theater work.

Nursing a pulled muscle that kept her from dancing, she was free to audition for a part in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), which was filming nearby in Minnesota. During the filming, Kirstie Alley encouraged her to move to Los Angeles, where she soon won a part in the Fox television version of the film, Cruel Intentions (1999), in the part played in the film by Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Kathryn Merteuil". Although three episodes were filmed, the troubled series never aired. Instead, parts of the episodes were cobbled together and released as the direct-to-video Cruel Intentions 2 (2000) (V). After more failed television spots, she landed a major role in Catch Me If You Can (2002), playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. But this did not provide the break-through she might have hoped for, with no work being offered for about a year. She eventually returned to television, and joined the short-lived series, "Dr. Vegas" (2004).

Her role in the low-budget independent film Junebug (2005) (which was shot in 21 days) got her real attention, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as well as other awards. The following year, her ability to look like a wide-eyed Disney animated heroine helped her to be chosen from about 300 actresses auditioning for the role of "Giselle" in the animated/live-action feature film, Enchanted (2007), which would prove to be her major break-through role. Her vivacious yet innocent portrayal allowed her to use her singing and dancing talents. Her performance garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Adams next appeared in the major production, Charlie Wilson's War (2007), and went on to act in the independent film, Sunshine Cleaning (2008), which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Her recent role as "Sister James" in Doubt (2008/I) brought her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as well as nominations for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and a British Academy Film award. She appears as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and as a post-9/11 hot line counselor, aspiring writer, amateur cook and blogger in Julie & Julia (2009)."

3 votes - 24 total points

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

THIRTEEN=

Charlize Theron

(born 7 August, 1975)

"Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg-area, South Africa on August 7th, 1975. Her mother, Gerda Theron, is German, while her late father, Charles, was French (she was named after him).

Charlize began her modeling career in 1991 aged 16 when she won a local modeling contest. She started modeling in Europe and came to New York a year later. She didn't like being a model though, and decided to try her luck with ballet, which had been her biggest passion as a child. Unfortunately, a knee injury prevented her from dancing. Her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles in 1994 and Charlize started visiting all of the agents on Hollywood Boulevard but without any luck. She went to the bank to cash a check for $500 she'd got from her mother and became furious when she learned that the bank could not cash her check because it was an out-state check. She made a scene and an agent gave her his card, in exchange that she learn the language, which she did by watching soap operas on TV. Her first role was as a young mother in a park in a B-film in 1995, but it was a non-speaking role with three seconds of screen time. Her next role was as "Helga" in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), which landed her the role of "Tina" in That Thing You Do! (1996). Since then, she has starred in movies like The Devil's Advocate (1997); Mighty Joe Young (1998); The Cider House Rules (1999); The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Italian Job (2003). An important day in her life was February 29th, 2004 when she was awarded with her first Academy Award for her performance in Monster (2003)."

3 votes - 27 total points

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

THIRTEEN=

Chloë Moretz

(born 10 February, 1997)

"Chloe Grace Moretz was born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Chloe's first 2 appearances were as Violet in two episodes of "The Guardian" (2001), on TV. Her first movie role was as Molly in Heart of the Beholder (2005), a story about a family who opened the first video cassette store in 1980. This was followed by a small role in Family Plan (2005) (TV) as Young Charlie.

But after that came Chloe's biggest role, and the role that made her famous. In 2005's remake of The Amityville Horror (2005), Chloe plays Chelsea "Missy" Lutz.

Chloe's career had become even better after her talent was recognized in The Amityville Horror (2005) and her other appearances. She was landed a small role in Today You Die (2005) (V) as the Little girl, and she has recently completed Room 6 (2006) and Big Momma's House 2 (2006).

Chloe has just returned from Bulgaria where she filmed Wicked Little Things (2006), in which she plays Emma Tunney. She is currently filming The Third Nail (2008). Her character is Hailey Deonte.

...and for sake of completion she was also in Kick-Ass, the Let Me In remake and 500 Days of Summer"

3 votes - 27 total points

[GoGo Yubari]

Chloe Moretz is really talented. Also, too high on this list.