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Favourite Villians

by emmakillam • Created 11 months ago • Modified 1 month ago
My favourite actors and actresses who have played villains in movies and tv shows. Not an exhaustive list; more to be added
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  • Neal McDonough

    1. Neal McDonough

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Writer
    Minority Report (2002)
    Multi talented and award winning actor Neal McDonough has been blessed to have an incredible career in the film industry.

    He is now producing films alongside his wife Ruvé for the McDonough company. Films such as THE WARRANT, BREAKERS LAW, REDSTONE, BOON, BLACK SPARTANS ,and most recently the hit film THE SHIFT for Angel Studios.

    McDonough is about to start filming THE LAST RODEO which he has written with his partner Derek Presley.

    The McDonough company will be producing this film with Jon Avnet directing.

    After that they will going into production on their next western he has written called THE WICKED AND THE RIGHTEOUS .

    McDonough is well known for performances in productions, such as BAND OF BROTHERS, MINORITY REPORT, WALKING TALL and STAR-TREK FIRST CONTACT. He also started in many stage productions, and most recently playing Whitey Bulger on stage in FINDING WHITEY at the Wilbur theater in Boston.

    He also recently played Daddy Warbucks in ANNIE and numerous other stage productions as well.

    His voice over career is what really started him. The voice of many cartoons, including Bruce Banner in the INCREDIBLE HULK and in many video games such as CALL OF DUTY ZOMBIES.

    He has also been the long term voice of FIDELITY AND CADILLAC.

    But he's most proud of his relationship with God, his wife, Ruvé, and their five children.

    McDonough trained at Syracuse University and studied at LAMDA in London.
  • Cameron Monaghan

    2. Cameron Monaghan

    • Actor
    • Director
    • Writer
    The Giver (2014)
    Cameron Monaghan was born in Santa Monica, California. Cameron's debut TV role as "Winthrop Paroo" in The Music Man (2003) was originally played by Ron Howard in The Music Man (1962). Cameron began his acting career at 5 years old in commercials. At age 7, he began appearing on stage as Stuart Little in "Stuart Little" and as Piglet in "Winnie the Pooh" at Little Palm Family Theatre in Boca. His most famous rolls include Ian Gallagher in "Shameless US" and Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska in "Gotham".
  • Bruce Willis at an event for The Expendables (2010)

    3. Bruce Willis

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Writer
    Die Hard (1988)
    Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.

    Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene Kassel, and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.

    After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). His sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. is seen by some as a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988), in which Willis' character single-handedly battled a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. He reprised the role of McClane in the sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), set at a snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), this time co-starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shop owner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in New York.

    Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyper-violent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993).

    During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller 12 Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).

    Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less than gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".

    Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three daughters.
  • Kevin Costner in Rumor Has It... (2005)

    4. Kevin Costner

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Writer
    The Postman (1997)
    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 brother died at birth in 1953. His father's job required him to move regularly, which caused Kevin to feel like an Army kid, always the new kid at school, which led to him being a daydreamer. As a teen, he sang in the Baptist church choir, wrote poetry, and took writing classes. At 18, he built his own canoe and paddled his way down the rivers that Lewis & Clark followed to the Pacific. Despite his present height, he was only 5'2" when he graduated high school. Nonetheless, he still managed to be a basketball, football and baseball star. In 1973, he enrolled at California State University at Fullerton, where he majored in business. During that period, Kevin decided to take acting lessons five nights a week. He graduated with a business degree in 1978 and married his college sweetheart, Cindy Costner. He initially took a marketing job in Orange County. Everything changed when he accidentally met Richard Burton on a flight from Mexico. Burton advised him to go completely after acting if that is what he wanted. He quit his job and moved to Hollywood soon after. He drove a truck, worked on a deep sea fishing boat, and gave bus tours to stars' homes before finally making his own way into the films. After making one soft core sex film, he vowed to not work again if that was the only work he could do. He didn't work for nearly six years, while he waited for a proper break. That break came with The Big Chill (1983), even though his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor -- he was remembered by director Lawrence Kasdan when he decided to make Silverado (1985). Costner's career took off after that.
  • Kelly Reilly at an event for Calvary (2014)

    5. Kelly Reilly

    • Actress
    • Producer
    Pride & Prejudice (2005)
    Jessica Kelly Siobhán Reilly (born July 18, 1977) is an English actress. Her performance in After Miss Julie at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star of the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress of 2003. Reilly was born and brought up in Chessington, Surrey, England, the daughter of a hospital receptionist mother, and Jack Reilly, a police officer. She attended Tolworth Girls' School in Kingston, where she studied drama for GCSE. Her grandparents are Irish.

    Reilly wrote to the producers of the television drama Prime Suspect to ask for work, and six months later she auditioned for a role in an episode of Prime Suspect 4: Inner Circle, which was broadcast on ITV on 7 May 1995. Six years later, she again appeared alongside Helen Mirren in the film Last Orders.

    Her first professional role was followed by a series of parts on the English stage. She worked with Terry Johnson in four productions: Elton John's Glasses (1997), The London Cuckolds (1998), The Graduate (2000), and Piano/Forte (2006). Johnson wrote Piano/Forte for her and said, "Kelly is possibly the most natural, dyed-in-the-wool, deep-in-the-bone actress I've ever worked with." Reilly has stated that she learned the most as an actor from Karel Reisz, who directed her in The Yalta Game in Dublin in 2001. She said, "He was my masterclass. There is no way I would have been able to do Miss Julie if I hadn't done that play."

    By 2000, Reilly felt she was being typecast in comedy roles, and actively sought out a role as the young Amy in Last Orders, directed by Fred Schepisi. This was followed by a role in the Royal Court's 2001 rerun of Sarah Kane's Blasted. The Times called her "theatrical Viagra." In 2002, Reilly starred alongside Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris as Wendy, an English Erasmus student, in the French comedy L'Auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment). She reprised her role in the 2005 sequel, Les Poupées russes (The Russian Dolls) and the 2013 follow-up, Casse-tête chinois (Chinese Puzzle). Also in 2005, Reilly had roles in such films as Mrs Henderson Presents and Pride & Prejudice.

    Reilly's first lead role came in 2008 in the horror film Eden Lake and, in 2009, she had a high-profile role on prime-time British television in Above Suspicion. Reilly also appeared in three major films: Sherlock Holmes, Triage, and Me and Orson Welles.

    In 2011, Reilly reprised her role as Mary Watson in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. In 2012, Reilly appeared opposite Sam Rockwell in A Single Shot and had a leading role in Robert Zemeckis' Flight opposite Denzel Washington. In 2014, Reilly starred with Greg Kinnear in the film Heaven is for Real and in the John Michael McDonagh film Calvary. The same year Reilly starred in the short-lived ABC series Black Box, as Catherine Black, a famed neuroscientist who explores and solves the mysteries of the brain (the black box) while hiding her own bipolar disorder from the world.

    In 2015, Reilly starred in the second season of HBO's True Detective as Jordan Semyon, the wife of Vince Vaughn's character Frank Semyon. The same year, Reilly made her Broadway debut opposite Clive Owen and Eve Best in Harold Pinter's play Old Times at the American Airlines Theatre.
  • Wes Bentley at an event for The Hunger Games (2012)

    6. Wes Bentley

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Soundtrack
    American Beauty (1999)
    Wes Bentley is an American actor who first became well-known via his role in the Oscar-winning film American Beauty (1999), in which he played the soulful, artistic next-door neighbor Ricky Fitts. He also portrayed game-maker Seneca Crane in The Hunger Games (2012), and co-stars in Lovelace (2013) as photographer Thomas.

    Wesley Cook Bentley was born September 4, 1978, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to David and Cherie Bentley, two Methodist ministers. Wes joined older brothers Jamey and Philip, and was later joined by younger brother, Patrick. Wes attended Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood, Arkansas, where he was in the drama club. Interest in acting came from Improv Comedy. He, his brother Patrick, his best friend Damien Bunting, and another close friend Josh Cowdery developed an Improv group called B(3) + C. They regularly dominated competitions in Arkansas. He then placed First in the state of Arkansas in solo acting in 1996, his senior year of high school, Second in Duet, and also regularly won for Poetry and Prose Readings.

    Wes appeared on-stage quite a bit in Little Rock. At The Weekend Theater, Wes played the straight son of the gay couple in a production of "La Cage aux Folles". At Murry's Dinner Playhouse, Wes' plays included "Oliver". At his mother's urging, Wes attended Juilliard School in New York after high school graduation. He was there only a short time but appeared in stage work like "Henry IV, Part 1" and "The Weavers". Wes then worked at Blockbuster and was a waiter at TGI Friday's on Long Island. Wes has stated that his most prideful venture in life was starting a soccer team from scratch at his high school and subsequently putting together a full conference, one of Arkansas's first. Wes had no real experience in soccer before doing this.

    Bentley made his onscreen debut in Jonathan Demme's Beloved (1998). Following his success in American Beauty, Bentley struggled with substance abuse, which cost him his first marriage to actress Jennifer Quanz. Although he continued to land parts in films, including that of the primary antagonist in Ghost Rider (2007) and another major role in The Game of Their Lives (2005), Bentley has publicly admitted that during most of the 2000s he only took on acting roles to earn enough money to buy drugs. Bentley did not enter a 12-step program until 2009. He has stated that he considers his sobriety to be an ongoing process.

    Bentley is one of the main subjects featured in the documentary My Big Break (2009), which followed him and his former roommates Chad Lindberg, Brad Rowe, and Greg Fawcett as they struggle to find success within the film industry. In 2010, Bentley made his professional stage debut with Nina Arianda in David Ives' award-winning play "Venus In Fur."

    Bentley has one child with his second wife, producer Jacqui Swedberg.
  • Cole Hauser

    7. Cole Hauser

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Director
    2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
    Cole Hauser was born in Santa Barbara, California. He is the son of Cass Warner, who founded a film production company (Warner Sisters), and Wings Hauser, an actor. His grandfathers were screenwriters Dwight Hauser and Milton Sperling, and his maternal great-grandfather was film mogul Harry M. Warner, of Warner Bros. His father is of German, Irish, and Belgian (Walloon) descent, and his mother is from a Jewish family (from Austria, Russia, and Poland). He grew up in California, Oregon and Florida.

    Hauser has had a long and impressive career in acting. He made his big screen debut in "School Ties" where many other then up and coming actors had their starts. He next went on to star in Richard Linklater's Cult Classic "Dazed and Confused." Other feature credits include "Tigerland," for which Cole received an Independent Spirit Award nomination, "White Oleander" for which he received a Movieline breakthrough performance also, "Hart's War," "Tears of the Sun," "Higher Learning," and "Too Fast, Too Furious," to name a few.

    In 2014 Hauser will be seen in two anticipated projects. This spring he can be seen opposite Johnny Depp in the Warner Bros release of Transcendence (2014). Immediately following he will star in DirecTV's original drama "Rogue" opposite Thandie Newton. The show, in its second season has been a big draw for the network. Earlier this year he was seen in Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen (2013), an action ensemble which included Aaron Eckhart, Gerald Butler and Morgan Freeman.

    Hauser lives outside of Los Angeles with his wife, photographer Cynthia Daniel, and three children.
  • Gil Birmingham

    8. Gil Birmingham

    • Actor
    • Additional Crew
    Wind River (2017)
    Gil Birmingham is an American actor of Comanche ancestry, best known for his portrayal of Billy Black in the The Twilight Saga film series. Birmingham was born in San Antonio, Texas. His family moved frequently during his childhood, due to his father's career in the military. He learned to play the guitar at an early age and considers music his "first love". After obtaining a Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California, he worked as a petrochemical engineer before becoming an actor. In the early 1980s, a talent scout spotted Birmingham at a local gym, where he had been bodybuilding and entering bodybuilding contests. This led to his first acting experience, in a music video for Diana Ross, for her 1982 hit song "Muscles". After appearing in Ross' music video, Birmingham began to pursue acting as his primary career. He studied acting with Larry Moss and Charles Conrad. In 1986, Birmingham made his television debut on an episode of the series Riptide. By 2002, he had a recurring role as the character Oz in the medical drama Body & Soul, starring Peter Strauss. In 2005, he was cast as the older Dogstar in the Steven Spielberg six-part miniseries Into the West. He recently played a Texas ranger a ranger, in Hell or High Water, opposite Jeff Bridges.
  • Titus Welliver at an event for Lost (2004)

    9. Titus Welliver

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Writer
    The Town (2010)
    Titus Welliver was born on March 12, 1962 in New Haven, Connecticut. His father was a famous landscape painter, Neil Welliver. His mother was a fashion illustrator, Norma Cripps. He has three brothers, one was killed overseas. He was raised in Philadelphia and New York City, surrounded by poets and painters. He credits them for his creativity. Originally wanting to be a painter like his father, he later decided to pursue acting. Titus moved to New York in 1980 to learn his craft. He enrolled in classes at New York's HB Acting Studios while attending New York University. To support himself, Titus did a variety of jobs including bartender and construction worker.

    His first paid acting job was in Navy Seals (1990) with Charlie Sheen, playing a redneck in the bar." He soon began to appear in movies, including JFK (1991) and The Doors (1991). While appearing in movies, he continued to work in live theatre. He appeared in stage productions of Riff Raff, American Buffalo, Naked at the Coast, and Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts I and II. During the 1990s, he guest starred on many TV shows like Matlock (1986), L.A. Law (1986), The X-Files (1993), and The Commish (1991), and appeared in many TV Movies including An American Story (1992) and Mind Prey (1999). He had recurring roles on Murder One (1995) and High Incident (1996).

    Then he got a regular part on Steven Bochco's Brooklyn South (1997) as Officer Jack Lowery and played a recurring character on Bochco's and David Milch's NYPD Blue (1993). He also had starring roles on Big Apple (2001) and the second season of That's Life (2000) playing Dr. Eric Hackett opposite Paul Sorvino and Ellen Burstyn. In 2004, he got a semi-regular role on David Milch's critically acclaimed HBO drama Deadwood (2004) as Silas Adams. After "Deadwood" ended, he mostly guest starred on TV shows including Law & Order (1990), Jericho (2006) and NCIS (2003), but also appeared in movies including in Ben Affleck's feature film directorial debut Gone Baby Gone (2007). He has appeared in Affleck's The Town (2010) and Argo (2012).

    He also had recurring roles on Lost (2004) as Man in Black, Sons of Anarchy (2008) as Irish gun kingpin Jimmy O'Phelan, and The Good Wife (2009) as Glenn Childs. After "The Good Wife", he had recurring roles on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), Touch (2012), The Last Ship (2014), Suits (2011) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013), but also appeared in The Mentalist (2008) and White Collar (2009). His notable movie roles include in Man on a Ledge (2012), Promised Land (2012) and Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). In 2014, he was cast as LAPD Homicide Detective Harry Bosch in Bosch (2014), which dropped its sixth season in 2020.

    Like his father, Neil, Titus is an acclaimed landscape painter, and has had shows in Maine, California and Connecticut.
  • Eric Dane

    10. Eric Dane

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Soundtrack
    X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
    Eric Dane was born on November 9, 1972, in San Francisco, California, the older of two brothers. His father is an architect and interior designer based in San Francisco. His mother, Leah (Cohn), was a homemaker. His ancestry includes English, German, Finnish, Russian Jewish, and Austrian Jewish, and he had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

    He was a good athlete in high school. There, he started amateur stage work by playing Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons", and realized that this was all he wanted to do.

    He moved to Los Angeles and made his television debut in 1993 on The Wonder Years (1988). In his early career, he also played bit parts on the TV series Married... with Children (1987) (1995), Silk Stalkings (1991) (1996) and Roseanne (1988) (1996). He played medical doctors more than once, first appearing as a Dr. Cooper in Gideon's Crossing (2000). He was also recurring as Jason Dean in the hit show Charmed (1998). From 2006 until 2012, he appeared as handsome Dr. Mark Sloan, the plastic surgeon on the show Grey's Anatomy (2005). He is also starring as Tom Chandler on The Last Ship (2014).

    He landed his first leading role on the big screen in the German-made feature, Open Water 2: Adrift (2006). He was also a co-star in Marley & Me (2008) and Valentine's Day (2010). In X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) he played the character of Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man.

    On October 29, 2004, in Las Vegas, Eric Dane married actress Rebecca Gayheart. They have two daughters.
  • Cillian Murphy

    11. Cillian Murphy

    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Writer
    28 Days Later (2002)
    Striking Irish actor Cillian Murphy was born in Douglas, Co Cork, the oldest child of Brendan Murphy, who works for the Irish Department of Education, and a mother who is a teacher of French. He has three younger siblings. Murphy was educated at Presentation Brothers College, Cork. He went on to study law at University College Cork, but dropped out after about a year. During this time, Murphy also pursued an interest in music, playing guitar in various bands. Upon leaving University, Murphy joined the Corcadorca Theater Company in Cork, and played the lead role in "Disco Pigs", amongst other plays.

    Various film roles followed, including a film adaptation of Disco Pigs (2001). However, his big film break came when he was cast in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), which became a surprise international hit. This performance earned him nominations for Best Newcomer at the Empire Awards and Breakthrough Male Performance at the MTV Movie Awards.

    Murphy went on to supporting roles in high-profile films such as Cold Mountain (2003) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), and then was cast in two villain roles: Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka The Scarecrow, in Batman Begins (2005) and Jackson Rippner in Red Eye (2005). Although slight in nature for a villain, Murphy's piercing blue eyes helped to create creepy performances and critics began to take notice. Manhola Dargis of the New York Times cited Murphy as a "picture-perfect villain", while David Denby of The New Yorker noted he was both "seductive" and "sinister".

    Later that year, Murphy starred as Patrick "Kitten" Braden, an Irish transgender woman in search of her mother in Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto (2005), a film adaptation of the Pat McCabe novel. Although the film was not a box office success, Murphy was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical and he won Best Actor for the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards.

    The following year, Murphy starred in Ken Loach's The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006). The film was the most successful independent Irish film and won the Palm D'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Murphy continued to take roles in a number of independent films, and also reprised his role as the Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008). Nolan is known for working with actors in multiple films, and cast Murphy in Inception (2010) as Robert Fischer, the young heir of the multi-billion dollar empire, who was the target of DiCaprio's dream team. His most well-known work is starring as Thomas Shelby in the British TV show Peaky Blinders beginning in 2013.

    Murphy continues to appear in high-profile films such as In Time (2011), Red Lights (2012), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), the final film in Nolan's Batman trilogy.

    Murphy is married to Yvonne McGuinness, an artist. The couple have two sons, Malachy and Aran.
  • Paul Anderson in Peaky Blinders (2013)

    12. Paul Anderson

    • Actor
    Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
    Paul Anderson is an English actor of film and stage. He is best known for portraying Arthur Shelby in the BBC series Peaky Blinders.

    Anderson began his acting career by appearing in plays written by friend Gregory Burke. His first leading role in a film was in The Firm (2009).

    He also has appeared in many major films including Legend (2015), and The Revenant (2015).
  • Sophie Rundle

    13. Sophie Rundle

    • Actress
    • Producer
    Peaky Blinders (2013–2022)
    Sophie Rundle is an English actress. Born on April 21, 1988 to Fiona and Michael Rundle, she has two brothers James and Henry. She attended the Bournemouth School for Girls before going on to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she graduated in 2011 with a BA in Acting.

    Upon graduation, she appeared in the period drama Garrow's Law (2009) and was part of the huge cast recreating the fate of the passenger liner Titanic (2012), which aired on the 100th anniversary of the disaster. Most of her appearances have been in dramas set in bygone days, from the 17th-century Jamestown (2017), the post-war The Bletchley Circle (2012) and Call the Midwife (2012), and the 1920s gangster saga Peaky Blinders (2013). She had contemporary roles in the sitcom Not Safe for Work (2015) and played the brave young PC Kirsten McAskill in Happy Valley (2014).

    On stage, she has also gone back to the 1920s in Noel Coward's 'The Vortex' at the Rose, Kingston and on film to the nineteenth century with Great Expectations (2012). In 2015, she joined another huge cast playing the pre-'Bleak House' Lady Dedlock in Dickensian (2015), a mash-up of various characters from books by Charles Dickens in a fictional interaction. In 2018 she will be seen in the series Bodyguard (2018).
  • Helen McCrory at an event for A Little Chaos (2014)

    14. Helen McCrory

    • Actress
    • Soundtrack
    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
    Award-winning actress Helen Elizabeth McCrory was born in London, England, to Welsh-born Anne (Morgans) and Scottish-born Iain McCrory, a diplomat from Glasgow. After training at the Drama Centre London, Helen began her career on stage in the UK and won the Manchester Evening News' Best Actress Award for her performance in the National Theatre's "Blood Wedding" and the Ian Charleson award for classical acting for playing "Rose Trelawney" in "Trelawney of the Wells." Helen's theatre work continued to win her critical praise and a large fan base through such work as the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Les Enfant du Paradis" opposite Joseph Fiennes, Rupert Graves and James Purefoy. At the Almeida Theatre, her productions included "The Triumph of Love" opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor and the radical verse production, "Five Gold Rings," opposite Damian Lewis.

    Helen also worked extensively at the Donmar Warehouse playing lead roles in "How I Learnt to Drive," "Old Times" directed by Roger Michel, and in Sam Mendes' farewell double bill of "Twelfth Night" and "Uncle Vanya" (a triumph in both London and New York). For her performance in "Twelfth Night," Helen was nominated for the Evening Standard Best Actress Award, and the New York Drama Desk Awards. She also founded the production company "The Public" with Michael Sheen, producing new work at the Liverpool Everyman, The Ambassadors and the Donmar (in which she also starred).

    With over twenty productions under her belt, Mike Coveney recently wrote "We celebrate the careers of great actors Olivier, Ashcroft, Richardson, Gielgud, Dench, the Redgraves, Gambon, Walter, Sher, Russell Beale and McCrory."

    On the small screen, Helen's first television film, Karl Francis' Streetlife (1995) with Rhys Ifans, won her the Welsh BAFTA, Monte Carlo Best Actress Award and the Royal Television Society's Best Actress Award, for her extraordinary performance as "Jo." The Edinburgh Film Festival wrote "simply the best performance this year." She went on to win Critics Circle Best Actress Award for her role as the barrister "Rose Fitzgerald" in the Channel 4 series North Square (2000), having been previously nominated for her performance in The Fragile Heart (1996). Helen showed diversity as an actress, appearing in comedies such as Lucky Jim (2003) with Stephen Tompkinson or Dead Gorgeous (2002) with Fay Ripley, as well as dramas such as Joe Wright's The Last King (2003) (for which she was nominated for the LA Television Awards) and Anna Karenina (2000).

    Helen McCrory died on 16 April, 2021, in London, of cancer. She was 52, and was survived by her husband Damian Lewis and their two children.
  • Finn Cole

    15. Finn Cole

    • Actor
    F9: The Fast Saga (2021)
    Finn Cole was born on 9 November 1995 in Kingston, London, England, UK. He is an actor, known for F9: The Fast Saga (2021), Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) and Peaky Blinders (2013).
  • Aimee-Ffion Edwards

    16. Aimee-Ffion Edwards

    • Actress
    • Soundtrack
    Slow Horses (2022–2025)
    Aimee-Ffion Edwards (born 21 November 1987) is a Welsh actress from Newport, Wales. She is known for playing Sketch in Skins, Esme in Peaky Blinders, Sophie in Detectorists and Abi in Loaded.

    Aimee-Ffion Edwards was born in Newport, Wales. She attended Ysgol Gymraeg Casnewydd (Newport Welsh medium primary school) and Ysgol Gyfun Gwynllyw. She played for a local youth rugby team, the only girl in a boys' team, until she was 14. She would often go from ballet lessons to playing for the rugby team.

    She took a drama A-level at school, and joined the National Youth Theatre of Wales. She is fluent in English and Welsh.

    Edwards appeared in the 2002 short film Dwr Dwfn.

    She was training to be a classical singer when she appeared on the Pop Idol-type Welsh language TV show called Wawffactor in 2006, finishing as runner-up.

    Edwards made her television debut as the character Sketch in the E4 series Skins in 2008.

    In 2009, she appeared in the Valentine's Day episode of Casualty ("Stand By Me"), as a teenager who finds a replacement speed-date in the wards of Holby City Hospital, and ends up involved in a serious gun-related incident. In the first episode of Casualty 1909 she played a young prostitute called Deborah Lynch, who was being abused by her father.

    In 2010, she appeared in an episode of the supernatural BBC drama series Being Human as a theatre usher, who is also a ghost.

    In 2011, she appeared in series 2 of the BBC drama series Luther, playing the character Jenny Jones.

    In 2012, she appeared in Sky Atlantic's four-part series Walking And Talking, a spin-off from an episode of Sky One's Christmas series of shorts Little Crackers. Aimee played Mary, friend of Kath, played by Ami Metcalf, in these stories written by Kathy Burke and based on her own teenage years.

    In 2013 and 2014, she appeared as Esme, the wife of John Shelby, in the BBC series Peaky Blinders.

    In 2014, Edwards appeared in two BBC Cymru Wales television productions celebrating the centenary of Dylan Thomas: as part of an all-Welsh cast in a television adaptation of Thomas' radio drama Under Milk Wood, playing the part 'Laugharne Voice'; and as Marianne in A Poet in New York, Andrew Davies' dramatisation of Thomas' last days.

    In 2014, she appeared as Katy in "The Harrowing", the sixth episode of the first series of Inside No. 9, written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.

    Edwards played Sophie in the BAFTA award-winning BBC Four comedy series Detectorists; series 1 in 2014 and series 2 in 2015.

    In 2016, she appeared as Sian in Death In Paradise as a young girl who is murdered.

    In 2017, she was Josh's (ex)girlfriend in Channel 4 comedy Loaded.

    In 2009, she performed in Jez Butterworth's play Jerusalem at the Royal Court Theatre, alongside Mackenzie Crook.

    In 2011, she made her Broadway debut, reprising her role in Jerusalem at the Music Box Theatre, New York. She appeared in the London revival of Jerusalem later that year.

    In 2012, she appeared in The Recruiting Officer at the Donmar Warehouse, and in Marius von Mayenburg's Fireface at the Young Vic.

    In 2013, she appeared as Avonia Bunn in Trelawny of the Wells at the Donmar Warehouse.

    In 2017, she played Marcella in B, a new play by Guillermo Calderón which had a limited run at the Royal Court Theatre.
  • Anya Taylor-Joy at an event for Emma. (2020)

    17. Anya Taylor-Joy

    • Actress
    • Producer
    • Executive
    The Queen's Gambit (2020– )
    Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy (born April 16, 1996) is a British-American actress. She is best known for her roles as Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit (2020), Thomasin in the period horror film The Witch (2015), as Casey Cooke in the horror-thriller Split (2016), and as Lily in the black comedy thriller Thoroughbreds (2017). She has been the recipient of the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard and was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

    Anya was born in Miami, the youngest of six children. Her father is Scottish who was born in South America, and her mother is Spanish-English who was born in Zambia in Africa, to an English diplomat father and a Spanish mother from Barcelona. Anya lived her childhood between Argentina and England. Her father was a banker and a powerboat racer, and her mother is a psychologist. Anya was raised in Argentina until the age of six, then moved to London, where the family lived in Victoria. She attended Northlands School in Buenos Aires, then preparatory school Hill House and Queen's Gate School in London, and is also a former ballet dancer. Anya's dream of becoming an actress came when she was very young and it finally became possible when she was offered a modeling job. It wasn't long until Taylor-Joy received her first part in the Show Business. When she was fourteen, she used her savings to move to New York, and at 16, she left school to pursue acting.

    Anya's outstanding performance as Thomasin in Robert Eggers' period horror film The Witch (2015), and the positive reviews it got at the Sundance festival revealed her incredible potential to the world; it was widely released and viewed in 2016. She then starred as the title character in the thriller Morgan (2016), directed Luke Scott and also starring Kate Mara. She also starred in Vikram Gandhi's film Barry, which focused on a young Barack Obama in 1981 New York City. Taylor-Joy played one of Obama's close friends. In 2017, she headlined M. Night Shyamalan's horror-thriller film Split (2016), playing Casey Cooke, a girl abducted by a mysterious man with split personalities. In 2019, she reprised her role as Casey in the film Glass. Anya was also the lead actress in the music video for Skrillex's remix of GTA's song Red Lips. She was nominated for the 2017 BAFTA Rising Star Award.

    Taylor-Joy is attached to star in Nosferatu, a remake of the film of the same name, to be directed by Eggers in her third collaboration with him. She will also star in The Sea Change.
  • Antony Starr

    18. Antony Starr

    • Actor
    • Producer
    Outrageous Fortune (2005–2010)
    Antony Starr is a New Zealand actor best known for his starring role as Homelander in Amazon Prime Video's original series The Boys, which is based on the comic book series of the same name. In New Zealand, he is best known for his dual role as twins Jethro and Van West in Outrageous Fortune and Billy Newwood in Without a Paddle. He was the lead character, Lucas Hood, in the four-season run of Banshee.
  • Laila Robins at an event for Multiple Sarcasms (2010)

    19. Laila Robins

    • Actress
    Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
    Laila Robins is an American stage, film and television actress. She has appeared in films including Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), An Innocent Man (1989), Live Nude Girls (1995), True Crime (1999), She's Lost Control (2014), Eye in the Sky (2015), and A Call to Spy (2019). Her television credits include regular roles on Gabriel's Fire, Homeland, and Murder in the First. In 2022, she portrays Pamela Milton in the final season of The Walking Dead.
  • Lana Parrilla

    20. Lana Parrilla

    • Actress
    • Producer
    • Director
    Once Upon a Time (2011–2018)
    Lana Maria Parrilla (born July 15, 1977) is an American actress. Parrilla is best known for her roles on television and radio. She was a regular cast member in the fifth season of the ABC sitcom Spin City (1996) from 2000 to 2001. She later starred in Boomtown (2002-2003), Windfall (2006), Swingtown (2008) and as Doctor Eva Zambrano in the short-lived medical drama Miami Medical (2010). She also played the role of Sarah Gavin during the fourth season of the Fox series 24 in 2005. In 2011, Parrilla began starring as The Evil Queen/Regina Mills in the ABC fantasy drama series, Once Upon a Time (2011). In 2016 Parrilla won a Teen Choice Award for Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actress. Parrilla was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Her father, Sam Parrilla (1943-94), was a Puerto Rico-born baseball player who played professionally for 11 seasons (1963-73), including one season with the Major League Philadelphia Phillies in 1970 as an outfielder.

    In her early career, Parrilla appeared in several movies, including Very Mean Men (2000), Spiders (2000), and Frozen Stars (2003). She made her television debut in 1999, on the UPN sitcom Grown Ups. In 2000, she joined the cast of the ABC comedy series Spin City (1996), playing Angie Ordonez for one season. She left the show in 2001. After that she joined Donnie Wahlberg and Neal McDonough in the short lived crime drama Boomtown, for which she received the Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her portrayal of Teresa, a paramedic. Initially a success, Boomtown began to struggle, and Parrilla's character became a police academy rookie, to tie her more closely to the rest of the show. "Boomtown" was cancelled just two episodes into its second season.

    Parrilla guest-starred in a number of television dramas, including JAG (1995), Six Feet Under (2001), Covert Affairs (2010), Medium (2005), The Defenders (2010) and Chase (2010). She had a recurring role in 2004 as Officer Janet Grafton in NYPD Blue. In 2005, Parrilla took a recurring guest role on the fourth season of the Fox series 24 (2001) as Sarah Gavin, a Counter Terrorist Unit agent. After just six episodes, Lana was made a regular cast member; but in the thirteenth episode, her character was written out after she tried to thwart another character's promotion from temporary to permanent CTU head Michelle Dessler (Reiko Aylesworth).

    In 2006, Parrilla starred in the NBC summer series Windfall alongside Luke Perry, fellow former 24 (2001) cast member Sarah Wynter, and Parilla's former Boomtown castmate Jason Gedrick. In 2007, she guest starred as Greta during the third season of ABC's Lost in the episodes "Greatest Hits" and "Through the Looking Glass" In 2008, she had a leading role on the Lifetime movie The Double Life of Eleanor Kendall, in which she played Nellie, a divorcee whose identity has been stolen. Also in 2008, she starred in the CBS summer series Swingtown as Trina Decker, a woman who is part of a Swinging couple. In 2010, Parrilla had a female lead role in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Miami Medical on CBS, which had a short run towards the end of the 2009-10 television season before it was canceled in July 2010. Windfall (2006), Swingtown (2008) and Miami Medical (2010) were all canceled after 13 episodes.

    In February 2011, she was cast as Mayor Regina Mills/The Evil Queen, in the ABC adventure fantasy drama pilot, Once Upon a Time (2011) created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. The series debuted in October 2011. The pilot episode was watched by 12.93 million viewers and achieved an adult 18-49 rating/share of 4.0/10 during the first season, receiving generally favorable reviews from critics.

    Parrilla's performance also received positive reviews from critics. In 2012 and 2013, she was regarded as a promising contender for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series category, though she did not receive a nomination. She won the TV Guide Award for Favorite Villain and the ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 2012. Parrilla also received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress on Television from the 38th Saturn Awards.
  • Robert Carlyle

    21. Robert Carlyle

    • Actor
    • Director
    • Soundtrack
    The Full Monty (1997)
    Robert Carlyle was born in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland, to Elizabeth, a bus company employee, and Joseph Carlyle, a painter and decorator. He was raised by his father after his mother left him when he was four. At the age of 21, after reading Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," he enrolled in acting classes at the Glasgow Arts Centre. In 1991, together with four other actors, he founded the Raindog theatre company (named after Tom Waits' album "Rain Dog," one of Carlyle's favorites), a company dedicated to innovative work. Danny Boyle's film Trainspotting (1996) marked his breakthrough.
  • Colin O'Donoghue

    22. Colin O'Donoghue

    • Actor
    • Soundtrack
    The Rite (2011)
    O'Donoghue was born and raised in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, in a Roman Catholic family. He initially attended Dundalk Grammar School, and then The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. At age 16, O'Donoghue went to Paris, France, for a month to learn the French language. Colin's early career was mainly split between theatre and television work in Ireland and the UK. In 2003, Colin won the Irish Film and Television Award for "Best New Talent" for his role as Norman in "Home For Christmas.
  • Robbie Kay

    23. Robbie Kay

    • Actor
    • Producer
    Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
    Robbie Kay was born on 13 September 1995 in Lymington, Hampshire, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Once Upon a Time (2011) and Fugitive Pieces (2007).
  • Greg Germann

    24. Greg Germann

    • Actor
    • Director
    • Soundtrack
    Ally McBeal (1997–2002)
    A native of Houston raised on Lookout Mountain outside of Golden, Colorado, Greg Germann was exposed to the performing arts at an early age, particularly through his father, an award-winning children's playwright and theater professor. As a Theater major at the University of Northern Colorado, a constant stream of plays led him to the gradual realization that acting would be his professional future. Buckling down at UNC, he graduated in two years and moved to New York. He became a member of Circle Repertory Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre, accumulating credits in such off-Broadway and Broadway plays as Steven Sondheim musical "Assassins", "The Person I Once Was" opposite Holly Hunter, and David Mamet's "War Games", among others. He has distinguished himself on the big screen portraying roles in various films. In addition to acting he also devotes himself to writing. His short film, Pete's Garden (1998), for which he also served as director and star, premiered in competition at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and went on to air on The Sundance Channel in January 1999. He also wrote "The Observatory" a play performed at New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre.
  • Elizabeth Mitchell in Lost (2004)

    25. Elizabeth Mitchell

    • Actress
    • Producer
    • Soundtrack
    The Purge: Election Year (2016)
    Elizabeth Mitchell was born in Los Angeles in 1970. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved to Dallas, Texas. She was graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. Later, she earned a BFA degree in acting from Stephens College and also studied at the British American Drama Academy. Additionally, she spent six years at the respected Dallas Theatre Center and one year with that theater's Encore Company. Before her big screen debut, she started her acting career from theaters. Her theatrical stage credits include productions of "As You Like It", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "Measure for Measure", "Baby" and "Chicago", among many others.

    Her breakthrough performance was opposite Angelina Jolie in Michael Cristofer's acclaimed HBO telefilm Gia (1998) endearing her to audiences and critics, alike. Following with the sci-fi time-travel adventure, Frequency (2000) with Dennis Quaid and Neil LaBute's highly anticipated Nurse Betty (2000) opposite Renée Zellweger, Elizabeth showed her charismatic acting skills. With numerous credits from theaters, TV series and movies, Elizabeth Mitchell continues to give her best in the acting field.

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