Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is a Welsh actor. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2008. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama in 1993.
John Uhler Lemmon III was an American actor. Considered proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in comedy-drama films. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1988, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1991, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1996. The Guardian labeled him as "the most successful tragi-comedian of his age."
Kevin Spacey Fowler is an American actor. Known for his work on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and two Laurence Olivier Awards as well as nominations for 12 Emmy Awards. Spacey was named an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2015.
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor and director. Known for his distinctive deep, languid voice, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in modern and classical theatre productions. He played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, he was nominated for a Tony Award.
Alfredo James Pacino is an American actor. Considered one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century, Pacino has received many accolades including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, achieving the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also received four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2007, the National Medal of Arts in 2011, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016.
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. Known for his work in biographical and period films, he is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019, his films have grossed over $7.2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors.
Mickey Rooney was an American actor. In a career spanning nearly nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the silent-film era. He was the top box-office attraction from 1939 to 1941, and one of the best-paid actors of that era. At the height of a career marked by declines and comebacks, Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 16 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized the mainstream United States self-image.
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. He has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. His accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award and three Golden Globes, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
Sir Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor. Often described as one of the greatest actors in the history of cinema, he is the recipient of numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, Day-Lewis received a knighthood for services to drama.
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor, film producer, and director. He graduated from RADA in 1985. A Shakespeare interpreter, Fiennes excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Widely regarded as one of Britain's most well-known and popular actors, he has received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, four Screen Actors Guild Awards and an Emmy Award.
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, three British Academy Film Awards, and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. His films have grossed over $11 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.
Jason Kent Bateman is an American actor and director. He is known for his roles as Michael Bluth in the Fox / Netflix sitcom Arrested Development (2003–2019) and Marty Byrde in the Netflix crime drama series Ozark (2017–2022), as well as for his work in numerous comedy films. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Lee Byung-hun is a South Korean actor. He has received praise for his work in a wide range of genres, most notably Joint Security Area (2000); All In (2003); A Bittersweet Life (2005); The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008); I Saw the Devil (2010); Masquerade (2012); and the television series Iris (2009) and Mr. Sunshine (2018). Inside Men (2015) won him the Best Actor prize at the three most prestigious South Korean award ceremonies: 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards, 37th Blue Dragon Film Awards and 53rd Grand Bell Awards. Lee has seven films—Joint Security Area, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, Masquerade, Inside Men, Master, Ashfall and The Man Standing Next—on the list of the highest-grossing films in South Korea. Lee was Gallup Korea's Actor of the Year in the Film division in 2012 and in the Television division in 2018. He appeared in a recurring role as the Front Man in both seasons of the Netflix hit survival series Squid Game.
Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian actor. After playing roles in several Australian television and film productions during the 1990s, he moved to the United States in 1998 to further develop his film career. His work consisted of 20 films in a variety of genres, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), Casanova (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Candy (2006), I'm Not There (2007), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), the latter two of which were posthumously released. He also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
John Joseph Nicholson is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century. Throughout his five-decade career he received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Film Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and a Grammy Award. He also received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1994 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure.
James Earl Jones was an American actor. A pioneer for black actors in the entertainment industry, he is known for his extensive and acclaimed roles on stage and screen. Jones is one of the few performers to achieve the EGOT. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985, and was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2009, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2011.
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής (hupokritḗs), literally "one who answers". The actor's interpretation of a role—the art of acting—pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. This can also be considered an "actor's role", which was called this due to scrolls being used in the theaters. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is "playing themselves", as in some forms of experimental performance art.
