Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Amanda Peet






Born January 11, 1972
Amanda Peet is an American film and television actress.



Peet's first screen performance was a television commercial for Skittles. Her early roles included a guest role on the television series Law & Order. She made her film debut in Animal Room (1995). Peet maintained a steady acting career in relatively obscure indie movies.

Her first major role was as "Jack" in the 1999 WB network series Jack & Jill (which aired for two seasons). She also appeared in the eighth-season finale of Seinfeld ("The Summer of George") as a waitress whom Jerry Seinfeld meets. Her character is notable for seemingly dating two men at once: Jerry and her apparent roommate ("dude"), Lyle. Peet's first role in a widely-released feature film came in 2000, with The Whole Nine Yards, which, together with the cult film Whipped, helped to elevate her status from supporting actress to lead. That same year, she was voted one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine. Peet was also in the movie Saving Silverman with Jack Black and Steve Zahn. She also starred in Something's Gotta Give in 2003, playing Diane Keaton's daughter, and, at one point, Jack Nicholson's girlfriend.

In 2005, Peet appeared in the play This Is How It Goes, filling in for Marisa Tomei at the last minute after six days of rehearsal. In the same year, she also co-starred in the films Syriana with Matt Damon, and A Lot Like Love, with Ashton Kutcher. In February 2006, she was performing in Neil Simon's Broadway production of Barefoot in the Park.

Peet was a member of the cast of the television series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which premiered on NBC on September 18, 2006. She starred with Matthew Perry, with whom she worked in The Whole Nine Yards and The Whole Ten Yards, and Sarah Paulson, with whom she co-starred in Jack & Jill. In Studio 60, Peet's character Jordan McDeere was the newly-appointed president of the National Broadcasting System (NBS). In 2006, she also starred along with Dermot Mulroney in Griffin and Phoenix, where she played a terminally-ill woman living life to the fullest.

In 2007's The Ex, a comedy co-starring Zach Braff, Peet played an attorney who stays home to raise a new baby. In 2008, Peet went on to play an FBI agent in The X-Files: I Want to Believe. She will next co-star with Hilary Duff, Amanda Seyfried and Amber Tamblyn in Safety Glass, a film set around the Space Shuttle Challenger launch; filming will begin this fall.





Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Salma Hayek

Born on September 2, 1966
Salma Hayek Jiménez is a Mexican-American actress, director, television and film producer. Hayek has appeared in more than thirty films and performed as an actress outside of Hollywood in Mexico and Spain. Hayek's charitable work includes increasing awareness on violence against women and discrimination against immigrants







Hayek is the first Mexican national to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. She is one of the most prominent Mexican figures in Hollywood, since the legendary Dolores del Rio. She is also, after Fernanda Montenegro, the second of four Latin American actresses to achieve a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

In July 2007, The Hollywood Reporter ranked Hayek fourth in their inaugural Latino Power 50, a list of the most powerful members of the Hollywood Latino community. That same month, a poll found Hayek to be the "sexiest celebrity" out of a field of 3,000 celebrities (male and female); according to the poll, "65 percent of the U.S. population would use the term 'sexy' to describe her

At the age of 23, Hayek landed the title role in Teresa (1989), a successful Mexican telenovela that made her a star in Mexico. In 1994, Hayek starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley), which has won more awards than any other movie in the history of Mexican cinema. For her performance, Hayek was nominated for an Ariel Award

Hayek moved to Los Angeles, California in 1991 to study acting under Stella Adler, hoping for a career in Hollywood, despite limited fluency in English, attributed to her suffering from dyslexia. Robert Rodriguez and his producer wife Elizabeth Avellan soon gave Hayek the break she needed, a starring role opposite Antonio Banderas in 1995's Desperado. The movie caught Hollywood's attention, as moviegoers proved to be dazzled by Hayek as Rodriguez had been. Due to Hayek's loyalty to the director, she would later decline playing the role Catherine Zeta-Jones eventually took in The Mask of Zorro after Rodriguez abandoned the project. She has also appeared in the Spy Kids trilogy

Around the year 2000, Hayek founded production company Ventanarosa, through which she produces film and television projects. Her first feature as a producer was 1999's El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba, Mexico's official selection for submission for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars.
She earned a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her performance.This made Hayek, along with Katy Jurado and Adriana Barraza, one of only three Mexican actresses to have been nominated for an Academy Award. The film earned two Oscars

Hayek has been credited as a song performer in three movies. The first was Desperado for the song Quedate Aquí. In Frida she performed with band Los Vega the Mexican folk song La Bruja. She also recorded Siente mi amor, which played during the end credits of Once Upon a Time in Mexico. She also contributed to Happiness is a Warm Gun in "Across the Universe" as the singing nurses

On July 19, 2005 Hayek testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary supporting reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. In February 2006, she donated $25,000 to a Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, shelter for battered women and another $50,000 to Monterrey based anti-domestic violence groups.

Since the birth of her daughter, Hayek has worked to help mothers in developing nations worldwide, teaming up with Pampers and UNICEF to help stop the spread of life-threatening maternal and neonatal tetanus. She is the spokesperson for the Pampers/UNICEF partnership in the U.S. and Canada called: 1 Pack = 1 Vaccine to help raise awareness of this program

Honors

* Recipient of Glamour magazine Woman of the Year Award in October 2001.
* Recipient of Producers Guild of America Celebration of Diversity Award in 2003.
* Recipient of Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year Award in February 2006

Was a member of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival jury.[39]
Co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert with Julianne Moore in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2005.