Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts
Actress, King Kong

Born: September 28, 1968 (age 46), Shoreham, United Kingdom
Height: 1.64 m
Partner: Liev Schreiber (2005–)
Children: Samuel Kai Schreiber, Alexander Pete Schreiber
Parents: Peter Watts, Myfanwy Edwards Roberts

Naomi Watts was born in Shoreham, England on September 28, 1968 to Peter and Miv Watts. Peter Watts, the road manager to Pink Floyd, died when Naomi was seven and she began to follow her mother and her brother around England until they settled in Australia when she was fourteen. She coaxed her mother into letting her take acting class when they arrived. After bit parts in commercials, she landed her first role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi met her best friend, Nicole Kidman, when they both auditioned for a bikini commercial and they shared a taxi ride home. In 1991, Naomi starred along Kidman in the

sleeper-hit Flirting (1991) directed by John Duigan. Naomi continued her career by starring in the Australian “Brides of Christ” (1991) co-starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Brenda Fricker. In 1993, she worked with John Duigan again in Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and director George Miller in Gross Misconduct (1993). Tank Girl (1995), in 1995, an adaptation of the comic book was a cult hit, starred Naomi as “Jet Girl”, but it didn’t fare well at the box-office and didn’t do much for her career as a whole. Watts continued to take insignificant parts in movies including the much forgotten film Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996) (V). It wasn’t until David Lynch cast her in the critically acclaimed film Mulholland Dr. (2001) that she began to become noticed. Her part as an aspiring actress showed her strong acting ability and wide range and earned her much respect, as much as to say by some that she was overlooked for a Oscar nomination that year. Stardom finally came to Naomi in the surprise hit The Ring (2002), which grossed over $100,000,000 at the box-office and starred Watts as a investigative reporter hunting down the truth behind several mysterious deaths seemingly caused by a video tape. While the

movie did not fare well with the critics, it launched her into the spotlight. In 2003, she starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003) which earned her – what some say is a much overdue Oscar nomination and brought others to call her one of the best in her generation of actors. The same year, she was nominated for 21 Grams (2003), Naomi was chosen to play “Ann Darrow” in director Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) which took her to New Zealand for a five month shoot. Watts completed her first comedy in I Heart Huckabees (2004) for director David O. Russell, playing a superficial spokes model – a break from her usual intense and dramatic roles she is known for. In 2005, she reprized her role as the protective-mother-reporter “Rachel Keller” in The Ring Two (2005). The movie, released in March, opened to $35,000,000 at the box office in the first weekend and established her as a box-office draw. Also in 2005, it was decided that her independent movie Ellie Parker (2001) would be re-released in late 2005 after its success at resurfacing at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, which Naomi also produced, features her in the title role and is a bit biographical, but yet exaggerated take of the life of a struggling actress as she comes to Hollywood and encounters nightmares of the profession (it also features Watts’ own beat-up Honda which she travels around in). In 2006, she starred with Edward Norton in The Painted Veil (2006). In July of 2007, Naomi gave birth to a boy, Alexander Pete in Los Angeles with Liev Schreiber. Since then her career choices have gathered even more critical acclaim with starring roles roles in German director Michael Haneke’s American remake of his thriller Funny Games (2007), David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises (2007), and the action-thriller, The International (2009/I), released in February 2009. In mid-2008, Watts announced she was expecting her second child with Schreiber and gave birth to another boy, Samuel Kai in New York on December 13.

Julianne Moore

Julianne Moore
Actress, Magnolia

Born: December 3, 1960 (age 53), Fort Bragg, North Carolina, United States
Height: 5' 3" (1.60 m)
Spouse: Bart Freundlich (m. 2003), John Gould Rubin (m. 1986–1995)
Children: Caleb Freundlich, Liv Freundlich
TV shows: Game Change, As the World Turns, I'll Take Manhattan

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.