Everything Percy Jackson

And little did he know that if the shield actually got hit, all their problems would have been solved.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie stills

heckyeahloganlerman: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:29:07 -0500

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Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie stills

Thurman’s mother, Nena Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge,...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:44:38 -0500

Thurman’s mother, Nena Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge, was a fashion model born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1941, to German-born Friedrich Karl Johannes von Schlebrügge, and Swedish-born Birgit Holmquist, from Trelleborg. In 1930, Birgit Holmquist, Thurman’s grandmother, modeled for a nude statue that stands overlooking the harbor of Smygehuk. Thurman’s father, Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (b. 3 Aug 1941), was born in New York City to Elizabeth Dean Farrar, a stage actress, and Beverly Reid Thurman, Jr., an Associated Press editor and U.N. translator. Thurman’s mother was introduced to LSD guru Timothy Leary by Salvador Dalí and became Leary’s third wife in 1964; she later wed Thurman’s father in 1967.

Thurman’s father, Robert, a scholar and professor at Columbia University of Tibetan Buddhist studies, was the first westerner to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He gave his children a Buddhist upbringing: Uma is named after an Dbuma Chenpo (in Tibetan, the “db” is silent; from Mahamadhyamaka in Sanskrit, meaning “Great Middle Way”). She has three brothers, Ganden (b. 1971), Dechen (b. 1973) and Mipam (b. 1978), and a half-sister named Taya (b. 1960) from her father’s previous marriage. She and her siblings spent time in Almora, India, during childhood, and the Dalai Lama sometimes visited their home.

Thurman grew up mostly in Amherst, Massachusetts and Woodstock, New York. She is described as having been an awkward and introverted girl who was teased for her tall frame, angular bone structure, and unusual name (sometimes using the name “Uma Karen” instead of her birth name). When she was 10 years old, a friend’s mother suggested a nose job.

As a child, she suffered bouts of body dysmorphic disorder, which she discussed in an interview with Talk magazine in 2001.

Thurman attended Northfield Mount Hermon, a college preparatory boarding school in Northfield, Massachusetts, where she earned average grades, but excelled in acting.^{[citation needed]} Talent scouts noticed her performance as Abigail in a production of The Crucible, and offered her the chance to act professionally. Thurman moved to New York City to pursue acting and to attend the Professional Children’s School, but she dropped out before graduating.

Thurman began her career as a fashion model at age 15. She signed with the agency Click Models.^[8] Her modeling credits included Glamour Magazine. In 1989, she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine’s annual Hot issue.

Thurman made her movie debut in 1988, appearing in four films that year. Her first two were the high school comedy Johnny Be Good and the teen thriller Kiss Daddy Goodnight. Thurman appeared in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, playing the goddess Venus alongside Oliver Reed’s Vulcan. During her entrance Thurman briefly appears nude in a homage to Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus. With a budget of $46 million and box office receipts of only $8 million, the film was a commercial failure.

Her breakthrough came in her role as Cecile de Volanges in Dangerous Liaisons. Actresses Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer earned Oscar nominations for their performances. At the time, she was insecure about her appearance, and fled to London for almost a year, during which she wore only loose, baggy clothing.

Soon after the release of Dangerous Liaisons, the media were eager to profile Thurman. She was praised by her co-star John Malkovich, who said of her, “There is nothing twitchy teenager-ish about her, I haven’t met anyone like her at that age. Her intelligence and poise stand out. But there’s something else. She’s more than a little haunted.”

In 1990, Thurman co-starred with Fred Ward in the sexually provocative drama Henry & June, the first film to receive an NC-17 rating. Because of the rating, it never played in a wide release but critics embraced her; The New York Times wrote, “Thurman, as the Brooklyn-accented June, takes a larger-than-life character and makes her even bigger, though the performance is often as curious as it is commanding”.

Thurman’s first starring role in a major production was Gus Van Sant’s 1993 adaptation of Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It was a critical and financial disappointment; Thurman was nominated for a Worst Actress Razzie. The Washington Post described her acting as shallow, writing that, “Thurman’s strangely passive characterization doesn’t go much deeper than drawling and flexing her prosthetic thumbs”. Thurman also starred opposite Robert De Niro in the drama Mad Dog and Glory, another box office disappointment. Later that year, she auditioned for Stanley Kubrick while he was casting a movie to be called Wartime Lies, which was never produced. Her agent said she described working with him as a “really bad experience”.

After Mad Dog and Glory, Thurman auditioned for Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, which grossed over $107 million on a budget of only $8 million USD. The Washington Post wrote that Thurman was “serenely unrecognizable in a black wig, [and] is marvelous as a zoned-out gangster’s girlfriend”. Thurman was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar the following year. Entertainment Weekly claimed that, “of the five women nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category this year, only [Thurman] can claim that her performance gave the audience fits”. Thurman also became one of Tarantino’s favorite actresses to cast, stating in a 2003 issue of Time: “[Thurman]’s up there with Garbo and Dietrich in goddess territory”.

She starred opposite Janeane Garofalo in the moderately successful 1996 romantic comedy The Truth About Cats & Dogs as a ditzy blonde supermodel. In 1997, she starred opposite her future husband Ethan Hawke in the dystopian science fiction film Gattaca. Although Gattaca was not a success at the box office, it drew many positive reviews and became successful on the home video market, some critics were not as impressed with Thurman, such as the Los Angeles Times which stated she was “as emotionally uninvolved as ever”. Her next role was Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin, the fourth film of the popular franchise. Batman & Robin became one of the largest critical flops in history, though it did garner nearly $100 million over its production budget in box office receipts making it a financial success. Thurman’s performance in the campy film received mixed reviews, and critics compared her with actress Mae West. The New York Times wrote, “like Mae West, she mixes true femininity with the winking womanliness of a drag queen”. A similar comparison was made by the Houston Chronicle: “Thurman, to arrive at a ’40s femme fatale, sometimes seems to be doing Mae West by way of Jessica Rabbit”. The next year brought The Avengers, another major financial and critical flop. CNN described Thurman as, “so distanced you feel like you’re watching her through the wrong end of a telescope”. She received Razzie Award nominations for both films. She closed out 1998 with Les Misérables, a film version of Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name, directed by Bille August, in which she played Fantine.

After the birth of her first baby in 1998, Thurman took a rest from major roles to concentrate on motherhood. Her next roles were in low-budget and television films, including Tape, Vatel, and Hysterical Blindness. She also starred in Chelsea Walls, a movie directed by then-husband Ethan Hawke. In 2000, she narrated a theatrical work by composer John Moran entitled Book of the Dead (2nd Avenue) at The Public Theater. She won a Golden Globe award for Hysterical Blindness, a film for which she also served as executive producer. In the film, she played a New Jersey woman in the 1980s searching for romance. The San Francisco Chronicle review wrote, “Thurman so commits herself to the role, eyes blazing and body akimbo, that you start to believe that such a creature could exist — an exquisite-looking woman so spastic and needy that she repulses regular Joes. Thurman has bent the role to her will”.

After a five-year hiatus, Thurman returned in 2003 in John Woo’s film Paycheck, which was only moderately successful with critics and at the box office.

Her next film was Tarantino’s Kill Bill, which relaunched her career. In Kill Bill she played assassin Beatrix Kiddo, out for revenge against her former lover. Tarantino wrote the part specifically for her. He also cited Thurman as his muse while writing the film, and also gave her joint credit for the character, whom the two conceived on the set of Pulp Fiction from the sole image of a bride covered in blood.

Production was delayed for several months after Thurman became pregnant, as Tarantino refused to recast the part. The film took nine months to shoot, and was filmed in five different countries. The role was also her most demanding , and she spent three months training in martial arts, swordsmanship, and Japanese. The two-part action epic became an instant cult classic and scored highly with critics. The film series earned Thurman Golden Globe nominations for both entries, and three MTV Movie Awards for Best Female Performance and twice for Best Fight. Rolling Stone likened Thurman to “an avenging angel out of a 1940s Hollywood melodrama”.

The inspirations for “The Bride” were several B-movie action heroines. Thurman’s main inspiration for the role was the title character of Coffy (played by Pam Grier) and the character of Gloria Swenson from Gloria (played by Gena Rowlands). She said that the two characters are “two of the only women I’ve ever seen be truly women [while] holding a weapon”. Coffy was screened for Thurman by Tarantino prior to beginning production on the film, to help her model the character.

By 2005, Thurman was commanding a salary of $12.5 million per film. Her first film of the year was Be Cool, the sequel to 1995’s Get Shorty, which reunited her with her Pulp Fiction castmate John Travolta. In the film, she played the widow of a deceased music business executive. The film received poor reviews, and came in below expectations at the box office. In 2005, she starred in Prime with Meryl Streep, playing a woman in her late thirties romancing a man in his early twenties. Thurman’s last film of the year was a remake of The Producers in which she played Ulla, a Swedish stage actress hoping to win a part in a new Broadway musical. Originally, the producers of the film planned to have another singer dub in Thurman’s musical numbers, but she was eager to do her own vocals. She is credited for her songs in the credits. The film was considered a bomb at the box office, but many praised Thurman’s efforts, including A. O. Scott of the New York Times who said: “Uma Thurman as a would-be actress is the one bit of genuine radiance in this aggressively and pointlessly shiny, noisy spectacle.”

With a successful film career, Thurman once again became a desired model. Cosmetics company Lancôme selected her as their spokeswoman, and named several shades of lipstick after her, though they were sold only in Asia. In 2005, she became a spokeswoman for the French fashion house Louis Vuitton.

On February 7, 2006, Thurman was named a knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France for outstanding achievement in the field of art and literature.

In May 2006, Thurman bought the film rights to the Frank Schätzing novel The Swarm, which is in development and due for release in 2011. When the film remake The Women was in pre-production in 2006, Thurman was cast as Crystal Allen, alongside Annette Bening, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Lisa Kudrow and Anne Hathaway, being directed by James L. Brooks, but the director was changed and Thurman was no longer part of the cast.

In July 2006, Thurman starred opposite Luke Wilson in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Thurman portrayed a super-heroine named “G-Girl” who is dumped by her boyfriend and then takes her revenge upon him. Thurman received a reported $14 million for the role, but the film flopped. Once again Thurman was well-received, yet the film was not.

In February 2008, she starred opposite Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The Accidental Husband, a romantic comedy about a woman who finds herself married while engaged to another man. It seems like archetypal Hollywood contrivance, but according to Thurman, a similar situation happened in New York.

Thurman starred as “Elsa” in the British telefilm My Zinc Bed, in which she plays a cocaine addict, starring opposite Paddy Considine and Jonathan Pryce.

She finished filming Motherhood, an indie comedy, about the challenges faced by a mother preparing for her daughter’s birthday.

She will star in the film version of the 1950s books Eloise In Paris, playing the role of Nanny, this film is to be directed by Charles Shyer.

Thurman also agreed to star in the new Muppets movie, playing a ticket clerk.

Bollywood director Vishal Bharadwaj has announced his interest in Thurman to star in his latest film venture opposite Hrithik Roshan, in a biographical film of the life of actress Nadira. The film is still in its pre-production stage. Uma Thurman has shown interest in playing either Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo.

Thurman supports the United States Democratic Party, and has given money to the campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Joseph R. Driscoll. She supports gun control laws, and in 2000, she participated in Marie Claire’s “End Gun Violence Now” campaign. She also participated in Planned Parenthood’s “March for Women’s Lives” to support the legality of abortion. Thurman is a member of the board of the New York– and Boston-based organization Room to Grow, a charitable organization providing aid to families and children born into poverty. She serves on the board of the Tibet House.

In 2007, Thurman hosted the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway with actor Kevin Spacey.

While living in London after shooting Dangerous Liaisons, she began dating director Phil Joanou.^{[citation needed]} On the set of State of Grace, she met English actor Gary Oldman. They were married in 1990, but the marriage ended in 1992.

On May 1, 1998, Thurman married actor Ethan Hawke, whom she met on the set of Gattaca. Hawke’s novel Ash Wednesday is dedicated to “Karuna”, Thurman’s middle name. Thurman acknowledged that they had married because she was pregnant - seven months at their wedding. The marriage produced two children, daughter Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke (b. July 8, 1998) and son Levon Roan Thurman-Hawke (b. January 15, 2002).

In 2003, Thurman and Hawke separated, and in 2004 they filed for divorce.When asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show if there was “betrayal of some kind” during the marriage, Thurman said, “There was some stuff like that at the end. We were having a difficult time, and you know how the axe comes down and how people behave and how people express their unhappiness”.

Director Quentin Tarantino has described Thurman as his “muse”. However, in a 2004 Rolling Stone cover story, Thurman and Tarantino denied having had a romantic relationship, despite Tarantino once having told a reporter, “I’m not saying that we haven’t, and I’m not saying that we have”.

Thurman owns a townhouse in New York’s Greenwich Village, but lives in Hyde Park, New York. Raised as a Buddhist, she considers herself agnostic.

Thurman dated Andre Balazs from 2004 to 2006. She was engaged to London based Franco-Swiss financier Arpad Busson,whom she began dating in late 2007.

Abel was born in Canton, Ohio. His first break was landing a...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:35:33 -0500

Abel was born in Canton, Ohio. His first break was landing a role in the Disney Channel Original Movie Go Figure as Spencer, and later had a recurring role on Threshold, and numerous guest starring roles on such shows as Cold Case and ER. He was honored with a Rising Star award at the 16th Hamptons International Film Festival in October, 2008 for his work in the film Flash of Genius. In 2009, Abel can be seen in The Lovely Bones directed by Peter Jackson, and Angel of Death, which is a 10-episode web series. In February 2009, Jake was cast as the 18-year old Adam Milligan, on the CW hit series Supernatural. He was next seen as Luke Castellan in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, released on February 12, 2010.

Dawson was born in New York City, the daughter of Isabel, a...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:33:49 -0500

Dawson was born in New York City, the daughter of Isabel, a plumber of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent, and Greg Dawson, a construction worker of Native American and Irish descent. Dawson’s parents were 15 years old when she was born. Dawson has one younger brother, Clay (b. 1983). When Isabel was 21, she broke into an abandoned building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she and her husband installed plumbing and electrical wiring, in order to turn the building into a squat in which Rosario would grow up. Dawson cites this when explaining how she learned “if you wanted something better, you had to do it yourself.” Her parents divorced while she was in elementary school.

As a child, Rosario made a brief appearance on Sesame Street. She was subsequently “discovered” on her front porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, where Harmony lauded her with praise as being perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay that would become the controversial 1995 film Kids. She went on to star in varied roles, ranging from independent films to big-budget blockbusters including Rent, He Got Game, and Men in Black II.

In 1999, Dawson teamed up with Prince for the re-release of his 1980s hit “1999”. The new remixed version featured the actress in an introductory voice over, offering commentary on the state of the world in the year before the new millennium. The same year, she appeared in The Chemical Brothers’ video for the song “Out of Control” from the album Surrender. She is also featured on the track “She Lives In My Lap” from the second disc of the OutKast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, in which she speaks the intro and a brief interlude towards the end.

Dawson starred as “Naturelle,” the love interest of a convicted drug dealer played by Edward Norton, in the 2002 Spike Lee film drama, 25th Hour. In the 2004 Oliver Stone film Alexander, she played the bride of Alexander the Great, which featured her in a fully nude sex scene. In the autumn of 2005, Dawson appeared on stage as Julia in the Public Theater’s “Shakespeare in the Park” revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona. In the film adaptation of the popular musical Rent in 2005, she played the exotic dancer Mimi Marquez, replacing the original Mimi, Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was pregnant and unable to play the part. She also appeared in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller where she played Gail, a prostitute-dominatrix. Also in that year, she appeared in a graphically violent scene in the Rob Zombie film The Devil’s Rejects. Though the scene was cut from the final film, it is available in the deleted scenes on the DVD release.

She starred as Becky in 2006’s Clerks II, and mentioned in Back to the Well, the making-of documentary, that the donkey show sequence was what made her decide to take the role. In May of the same year, Dawson, an avid comic book fan, co-created the comic book miniseries Occult Crimes Taskforce. She was at the 2007 Comic-Con to promote the comic. She co-starred with former Rent alum Tracie Thoms in the Quentin Tarantino throwback movie Death Proof in 2007, part of the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature Grind House. She teamed up with friend Talia Lugacy, whom she met at the Lee Strasberg Academy, to produce and star in Descent. On July 7, 2007, Dawson presented at the American leg of Live Earth.

In 2008, Dawson starred with Will Smith in Seven Pounds and in the Steven Spielberg produced Eagle Eye. Beginning in August, she starred in Gemini Division, an online-based TV series. In the computer animated series Afterworld she voiced the character Officer Delondre Baines. On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted Saturday Night Live. Later in the year, she voiced the character of Artemis in the animated Wonder Woman film.

For the Kasabian album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, she is featured singing on the track, “West Ryder Silver Bullet.”

In 2010, she starred in the movie Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief as Persephone

Dawson dated former Sex and the City star Jason Lewis for two years. They lived together in Los Angeles until they separated in November 2006. She has also been rumored to have dated Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson. In December 2008, Dawson confirmed on the Tonight Show that she had been dating an international DJ that she met at a French cafe.

Dawson is involved with the Lower East Side Girls Club and supports other charities such as environmental group Global Cool, the ONE Campaign, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Stay Close.org (a poster and public service ad campaign for PFLAG where she is featured with her uncle Frank Jump), International Rescue Committee, and Voto Latino, and she participated in the Vagina Monologues. She attended both the Democratic National Convention as well as the Republican National Convention in 2008. In October 2008, Dawson became a spokesman for TripAdvisor.com’s philanthropy program, More Than Footprints,^[ involving Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, and Save The Children. Also in October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign,^[ a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence. She recorded a voice message for the Giverespect.org Web site stressing the importance of respect in helping stop domestic violence.

Kanakaredes was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of Connie (née...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:29:18 -0500

Kanakaredes was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of Connie (née Temo), a candy company owner, and Harry Kanakaredes, an insurance salesman.^[ She is a second-generation Greek-American and is fluent in Greek. Her two maternal uncles own and run a candy store in Akron called “Temo’s Candy Company,” a chocolate store established in its current location by Kanakaredes’ grandfather Christ Temo. Melina’s sister is an attorney in Akron, Ohio.

Kanakaredes graduated from the Firestone High School in Akron. She attended Ohio State University for a short time, and then transferred to Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Point Park in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater arts.

Kanakaredes’s first television role was on the daytime drama Guiding Light, originating the role of Eleni Andros Spaulding Cooper from 1991 to 1995. She was nominated twice for a Daytime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Eleni.

Her most high-profile roles on television were as the series protagonist Dr. Sydney Hansen on Providence, which ran for five seasons (1999–2002), and since 2004 in a leading role on the CBS drama series CSI: NY as Det. Stella Bonasera.

Her other television credits include NYPD Blue (in a recurring role as reporter Benita Alden during that show’s second season), Northern Exposure, Due South, Oz (TV series), The Practice, MTV’s The Ben Stiller Show, and a Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation of the Anne Tyler novel Saint Maybe.

Her appearances in movies include The Long Kiss Goodnight as Trin and 15 Minutes as Nicolette Karas, the girlfriend of Robert De Niro’s character. She was considered for the lead role in My Big Fat Greek Wedding but had to turn it down due to her pregnancy. She played the role of the Greek goddess Athena in “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lighting Thief”.

Coogan is one of seven children born to Kathleen, a homemaker,...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:26:37 -0500

Coogan is one of seven children born to Kathleen, a homemaker, and Anthony Coogan, an IBM engineer. He was born in his parents’ house and raised in Alkrington, a suburb of Middleton, Greater Manchester, in a large Irish Catholic family. He had a happy childhood growing up with four brothers and two sisters, and in addition his parents fostered children on a short-term basis, sometimes accommodating two or three foster children at a time. Coogan had a talent for impersonation, and wanted to go to drama school despite being advised by a teacher that it could lead to a precarious profession. He went to five interviews for drama school in London, and then - after gaining confidence by joining a theatre company in Manchester - gained a place at the Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre. Coogan’s brother Martin was the vocalist and wrote the music for The Mock Turtles, a successful indie rock band in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Coogan started out as a comic and mimic in Ipswich, as well as doing voice-over work for adverts and impressions on Spitting Image. In 1988, he did impressions of Prince Charles which featured on the Urban label release “Don’t Believe the Hype” by Acid House artist Mista E. The impressions were also used as jingles in 1988/89 on the BBC Radio 1 FM Friday night dance music show Jeff Young’s Big Beat.

Coogan’s show Steve Coogan in character with John Thomson was winner of the Perrier award for best show at the 1992 Edinburgh Fringe. He has won numerous awards for his work in TV including British Comedy Awards, BAFTAs, and The South Bank Show award for comedy. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2005, a poll to find The Comedians’ Comedian saw him being voted amongst the top 20 greatest comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

One of his brothers, Brendan, is a former Top Gear presenter, and another, Martin, was the lead singer of the early 1990s band The Mock Turtles. All the brothers attended the Cardinal Langley RC High School.

A favourite of the British tabloids, Coogan’s personal life has made headlines since the early 1990s. In August 2005, the News of the World stated that rock star Courtney Love had claimed to be pregnant with Coogan’s child, following a two-week long fling the pair allegedly had while staying at the same hotel, although this claim has been dismissed by both parties. The news came a month after Coogan had divorced his wife, Caroline Hickman,whom he married in 2002, on the grounds that the marriage had irretrievably broken down. He lives in Brighton to be close to his daughter, from a previous relationship.

On the commentary for Series 2 of I’m Alan Partridge, Coogan states that he is a socialist who enjoys paying taxes, whilst discussing the eponymous character’s investigation by the Inland Revenue.

A well noted car enthusiast, he has had a succession of Ferraris, but stopped buying them after realising that the depreciation and running costs were greater than hiring a private plane. Coogan currently drives one of the final air-cooled Porsche 911 Carrera 4s.

McKidd was born and raised in Elgin, Moray, Scotland; his father...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:21:58 -0500

McKidd was born and raised in Elgin, Moray, Scotland; his father was a plumber and his mother a secretary. He attended Seafield Primary School and Elgin Academy, and was a member of the local acting group the Moray Youth Theatre. Planning to study engineering, he attended the University of Edinburgh, but dropped out and instead enrolled at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh to study drama. He also joined Edinburgh University’s student theatre company, Bedlam Theatre.

McKidd is married to Jane Parker and has two children, Joseph and Iona; the family resides in Los Angeles during filming of Grey’s Anatomy

After playing Tommy in ‘Trainspotting’, McKidd was cast as Father Deegan in the 1996 Christmas episode of ‘Father Ted.’ Subsequent roles include Malky Johnson in Small Faces. In 2004, he played James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, the third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the BBC mini-series Gunpowder, Treason & Plot.

He appeared in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, the 2002 film adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby and was also the voice of Jezz Torrent in GTA: Vice City. In Neil Marshall’s horror film, Dog Soldiers, he appeared as Pvt. Lawrence Cooper. In the 2005 BBC drama, The Virgin Queen, he played Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk.

In 1998, McKidd was in the 4-part BBC2 series Looking After Jo Jo, playing the role of Basil. He was also one of the stars of the joint HBO/BBC series Rome, where his portrayal of the soldier/politician Lucius Vorenus received critical acclaim.

Additional work includes his role in the Silence of the Lambs prequel Hannibal Rising (2007). In the fall of 2007, McKidd began his role as the lead character in the American science-fiction television series Journeyman on NBC. However, the show suffered from low ratings and only thirteen episodes were produced.

McKidd currently appears on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Owen Hunt. He is also credited with playing a voice-over for the character “Soap” MacTavish on Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2.

Bean was born Shaun Mark Bean in the Handsworth district of...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:15:00 -0500

Bean was born Shaun Mark Bean in the Handsworth district of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, the son of Rita and Brian Bean. Bean’s father owned a fabrication shop, which he had set up with a colleague. The business employed 50 people, including Bean’s mother, who worked as a secretary. He has a younger sister named Lorraine. Despite becoming relatively wealthy (his father owned a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow), the family never moved away from the council estate, because they preferred to remain close to friends and family.

As a child, Bean smashed a glass door due to an argument over scissors. It left a piece of glass embedded in his leg that briefly impeded his walking and left a large scar. This accident prevented him from pursuing his dream of playing football professionally. In 1975, Bean left Brook Comprehensive School with two O Levels in Art and English. After a job at a supermarket and another for the council, Bean started working for his father’s firm with a day release at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology to take a welding course. While at Rotherham he stumbled into an arts class and decided to pursue his interest in art. After attending courses at two other colleges, one for half a day and the other for less than a week, he returned to Rotherham College, where he came across a drama course for which he subsequently enrolled. After some college plays and one at Rotherham Civic Theatre, he applied for and received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), starting a seven term course in January 1981.

He graduated from RADA in 1983 having won the Silver Medal for his performance in Waiting for Godot. He made his professional acting début in 1983 at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, Berkshire as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet.His early work involved a mixture of stage and screen work. As an actor, he adopted the Irish spelling “Sean” of his first name. His first national exposure came in an advert for non-alcoholic lager. Between 1984 and 1988 he toured the country with the Royal Shakespeare Company doing productions of Romeo and Juliet, Fair Maid of the West, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He appeared in his first film in 1986 when he played Ranuccio Thomasoni in Derek Jarman’s film Caravaggio he then reunited with the director on War Requiem in 1988, which also starred Sir Laurence Olivier.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he became an established actor on British television. He had notable performances in the BBC productions Clarissa and Lady Chatterley. His role in the latter became infamous for his sex scenes with Joely Richardson. In 1990, Bean co-starred with Richard Harris in Jim Sheridan’s adaption of the John B. Keane play, The Field; also in 1990, his role as the journalist Anton in Windprints examined the difficult problems of apartheid in South Africa.

In 1996 he appeared in what became an infamous Sky Sports commercial for the Premier League and, that year, he combined his love of football with his career, to finally achieve his childhood dream of playing for Sheffield United, albeit as Jimmy Muir in the film When Saturday Comes. Although the film was not critically acclaimed, Sean Bean received credit for a good performance.

His critical successes in Caravaggio and Lady Chatterley contributed to his emerging image as a sex symbol, but he became most closely associated with the character of Richard Sharpe, the maverick Napoleonic Wars rifleman. Bean was not the first actor to be chosen to play Sharpe, but Paul McGann, the first choice, was injured while playing football two days into filming. Initially, producers tried to work around McGann’s injury, but it proved impossible and Bean received the call.The 14-episode Sharpe television series was based loosely on Bernard Cornwell’s novels about the Peninsular War, and the fictional experiences of a band of soldiers in the famed 95th Rifles. Starting with Sharpe’s Rifles, the series followed the fortunes and misfortunes of Richard Sharpe as he rose from the ranks as a Sergeant to Lieutenant Colonel by the time of the Battle of Waterloo. It ran from 1993 to 1997, with three episodes produced each year. The series was filmed under challenging conditions, first in the Ukraine, and later in Portugal. After several years of rumours, more episodes were produced, called Sharpe’s Challenge, which aired in April 2006, and Sharpe’s Peril which aired on ITV in the autumn of 2008 and was later released on DVD.

With a mini-series role as enigmatic Lord Richard Fenton in the TV miniseries Scarlett, loosely based on the sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, Bean made the transition to Hollywood feature films. His first notable Hollywood appearance was that of an Irish republican terrorist in the 1992 film adaptation of Patriot Games; in a fight scene, Harrison Ford clocked him with a boat hook, giving him a permanent scar. Bean’s rough-cut looks made him an patent choice for a villain, and this role in Patriot Games was the first of several villains that he would portray, all of whom come to a sticky end. He became Alec Trevelyan (MI6’s 006) and James Bond’s nemesis in the 1995 film GoldenEye; the weak-stomached Spence (with Robert de Niro) in Ronin (1998); a wife-beating ex-con in Essex Boys (2000); the malevolent kidnapper-jewel thief in Don’t Say a Word (2001). He was also widely recognized as villainous treasure hunter Ian Howe in the popular National Treasure opposite Nicholas Cage. He also played a villainous scientist in The Island (2005), a dedicated father in Silent Hill. In the independent film, Far North, he played a Russian mercenary, lost in the tundra and rescued by an Inuit woman and her daughter; he ends up pitting his two female rescuers against one another. “I think I’m quite good at differentiating between the psychopaths,” he commented to an interviewer.

In arguably Bean’s most widely-seen role, as Boromir in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, his major screen-time occurs in the first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring. He appeared briefly in flashbacks in the theater releases of The Two Towers and The Return of the King; he also appears in a scene from the extended edition of The Two Towers. Before casting finished, rumors circulated that Jackson had considered Bean for the role of Aragorn, but neither Bean nor Jackson confirmed this in subsequent interviews. Bean’s well-known fear of flying caused him difficulties in mountainous New Zealand, where the trilogy was filmed. After a particularly rough ride, he vowed not to fly to a location again. In one instance, he chose to take a ski lift into the mountains and then hike the final few miles, in full costume complete with shield, armour and sword.

Bean has a tattoo of the Elvish symbol for “nine” on his shoulder, a reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings and the fact that his character was one of the original nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of “The Fellowship”—Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, and Viggo Mortensen—acquired the same tattoo. John Rhys-Davies, whose character, Gimli, was also one of the original nine companions, designated his stunt double for the tattoo

Later roles gave more scope for his acting abilities. In 1999’s Extremely Dangerous, his character walked a fine line between villain and hero, reminiscent of the 1960s American TV series, The Fugitive. He became a repentant, poetry-reading Grammaton cleric who succumbs to his emotions in 2002’s Equilibrium; a quirky alien cowboy in 2003’s The Big Empty, and a sympathetic and cunning Odysseus in the 2004 film Troy.

He cameo-ed with other Hollywood stars in Moby’s music video We Are All Made of Stars in February 2002. In the same year, he returned to the stage in London performing in Macbeth alongside Samantha Bond. Due to popular demand, the production ran until March 2003.

Bean’s high profile and recognisable voice have created opportunities for voice-over work, especially in the British advertising industry. He has featured in television adverts for O2, Morrisons and Barnardos as well as for Acuvue and the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States. He also does the voice over for the National Blood Service’s television and radio campaign. For the role-play video game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, he voiced Martin Septim.

Bean has completed a one hour pilot, Faceless, for US television. He has also appeared in Outlaw, an independent British production, and a remake of 1986 horror film, The Hitcher (released in January 2007); here he used an American accent again. He also starred in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, playing the role of Zeus, the king of Mount Olympus and god of lightning, in February 2010. In his upcoming film CASH (CA$H), to be released in Spring of 2010, Bean will play the lead role of Pyke Kubic, a dangerous man determined to recover his wealth in a bad economy. CASH (CA$H), which co-stars Chris Hemsworth, explores the role money plays in today’s hard economic times. Bean will also play the villain’s twin brother, Reese. The film is directed and written by Stephen Milburn Anderson (South Central)

Often described as down-to-earth, Sean Bean has retained his Sheffield accent, despite now living in London. Partly due to his role as Sharpe, he is also described as a sex symbol. He was voted the UK’s second sexiest man in 2004; his Trilogy co-star Orlando Bloom received the highest votes. He admits he does not mind being considered as a “bit of rough” by women. Related to this, in addition, he has been accused of being a chauvinist; this originated after his second wife (of four) claimed he watched too much football, spent too much time in the pub, and left clothes about the house. Contributing to his chauvinist image, Bean’s first love was football and he has been a passionate Sheffield United supporter from a young age; he has a tattoo on his left shoulder that reads 100% Blade. He was until December 2007 one of the directors of the club, but decided to “go back to the terraces, where (he) truly belong(s)”. He had some problems with Neil Warnock, former manager of Sheffield United, after Warnock claimed that Bean stormed into his office and shouted at him in front of his wife and daughter after the 2006–07 season. Bean denies it, calling Warnock “bitter” and “hypocritical”. He also wrote the foreword and helped to promote a book of anecdotes called Sheffield United: The Biography. He also follows Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

In addition to his image as a sex symbol and an admitted “bit of rough”, Bean has developed a reputation as a loner, a label he considers unfair. He describes himself instead as quiet, and interviewers confirm that he is a “man of few words”; a recent interviewer even called him surprising shy. Although he admits he can be a workaholic, in his spare time he relaxes with a book or listens to music, and he is himself a talented pianist. He is also a keen gardener, and does both welding and sketching.

Bean has been married four times and divorced three times: He married first his high-school sweetheart Debra James on 11 April 1981, but he was already in London attending RADA and the marriage broke up. He met actress Melanie Hill at RADA, and they were married for seven years, (27 February 1990 and August 1997); they have two daughters, Lorna and Molly. During the filming of Sharpe, he met actress Abigail Cruttenden, and they married on 22 November 1997; she is the mother of his third daughter, Evie Natasha; they divorced in July 2000. After canceling a planned wedding on the eve of the ceremony, on 19 February 2008, he married the actress Georgina Sutcliffe; amid allegations that he beat up wife #4 in 2009,^[40] domestic disturbances have resulted in the police being called to their home in Belsize Park on three occasions.

Sean Bean is yet to receive a major individual award in the film industry. However he did receive three separate awards as part of the ensemble cast in Return of the King: from the Screen Actors Guild, the National Board of Review and the Broadcast Film Critics Association all in 2004.

In his home city of Sheffield, he received an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University in 1997 and a second doctorate, a Doctor of Letters in English Literature from the University of Sheffield in July 2007. Afterward, Bean commented, “I did get a doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University about 11 or 12 years ago so now I’m a double doctor. But this was wonderful, especially from my home city.” He was also selected as one of the inaugural members of Sheffield Legends, the Sheffield equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He now has a plaque in his honour placed in front of Sheffield Town Hall.

Jackson, one of six children, was born in Detroit, Michigan, the...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:09:59 -0500

Jackson, one of six children, was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Beverly Y., a pastor, and Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the senior pastor of Great Faith Ministries International. Jackson attended West Bloomfield High School in West Bloomfield, Michigan. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue stand up and started at the Laugh Factory, as well as opened for Wayne Brady and Chris Tucker. His role as “Junior” in the film Roll Bounce won him the 2006 Black Reel Award for Breakthrough Performance. He hosted one episode of the Brandon T. Jackson Show on The N channel. In 2006, Jackson hosted the “Up Close and Personal Tour,” featuring Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Lil Wayne, Juelz Santana and Dem Franchize Boyz. He starred on the show Wild ‘N Out with Nick Cannon, and in the films Tropic Thunder, as Alpa Chino, and Percy Jackson, as Grover Underwood.

Born March 16, 1986 in New York, New York, USA. Alexandra got...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:07:32 -0500

Born March 16, 1986 in New York, New York, USA.

Alexandra got her big break in the Daytime soaps in 2002/2003 in “All My Children.” It also was integral in her growing up, as shown in these excepts from “All My Children Wasn’t Just a Job…it Was High School” from The Pine Valley Bulletin:

Alexandra Daddario grew up in front of the camera, and she loved it. “Since I lived in the [New York] City where auditions and agents are very accessible, I have been doing it since I was a kid,” Daddario said about her start as a child commercial actress. “My parents signed me up for all kinds of lessons, one of them was acting. The teacher took us to agents. One of the agents wanted to hire me, and I have been going out for roles ever since then.”

But her first television role did not come about until she was 16 years old, when she booked a single episode in the role of victimized teen Laurie Lewis on All My Children. “My first scene was JR (Chandler, then Jonathan Bennett) taking me to prom. It was with David Canary (Adam Chandler), Jonathan Bennett (JR), and Elizabeth Hendrickson (ex-Maggie Stone),” said Daddario. “I only had a couple lines, something like, ‘Hi Mr. Chandler’ and ‘Bye Mr. Chandler.”

“I was so nervous, but it was the most fun ever just being there,” Daddario said.

Daddario’ did not let her nerves get the best of her. “They called me back for another episode and another,” Daddario said. “I was so excited when they called me back.”

Daddario will never forget her first moments at the studio. “When you’re a dayplayer, you don’t have your own dressing room, they put you in someone’s,” Daddario said. “I was put in Kelly Ripa’s (ex-Hayley Santos). She had a note on the wall from Kathy Lee (Gifford) congratulating her on the new show.” Daddario is referring to Live With Regis and Kelly, the nationally syndicated morning talk show Ripa continues to co-host to this day with Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award Winner Regis Philbin.

Still, the road ahead was uncertain for Daddario. Daddario was still attending a traditional girls school in New York, and the new opportunities to recur as Laurie was affecting her ability to focus on her education. “I was finishing my sophomore year of high school at Brearley in New York,” Daddario said. “I would not have been able to continue my education there.”

With a great opportunity in front of her, Daddario dropped out of Brearley. “I did not have a contract at the time, so I took a chance,” Daddario said. “I went to PCS (Professional Childrens School) and did guided study and stuff like that.” Being around other children in the industry afforded Daddario the time to continue her role as Laurie. “School was never going to be a problem because that is what the school was made for. They are very respectful and very helpful,” Daddario said.

PCS has helped many a young actress on All My Children get their start. Notable alumnus include Sarah Michelle Gellar (ex-Kendall Hart), Lindsey Price (ex-AnLi Chen) and most recently Leven Rambin (ex-Lily Montgomery/Ava Benton). Daddario was joined by a sleu of younger actors including Michael B. Jordan (ex-Reggie), Micah Alberti (ex-Jamie), Amanda Seyfried (ex-Joni) The typical high school comrade absent from attending a school like PCS was supplemented by Daddario’s set life. “They had all these new kids at the time: Amanda (Seyfried, ex-Joni Stafford), Andrew Riddings (ex-JR Chandler), Michael Jordan (ex-Reggie Montgomery),” Daddario said. “They were trying to start a whole ‘teen scene’ thing and develop new characters.” Later, the brood grew with the addition of Micah Alberti (ex-Jamie Martin).

…

…Daddario persevered and landed a contract. “I was so excited, I screamed for sure.’” Daddario said. “I came in before they (the other members of the younger set) did. I was the first person in. We worked so together so much. We spent most of our time together.” By 2003, all the younger cast members were on contract.

Though they were all supposed to be in high school, only Alberti, Jordan and Daddario actually were. “They were a couple years older than me,” Daddario said. Downtime onset sometimes became study hall. “Micah had some special program from his hometown. He was being sent things and he would send papers back.”

That did not mean the younger cast stayed out of trouble. “Once, we were running around and I don’t remember if it was Micah’s or Michael Jordan’s, but we wrote in magic marker all over his dressing room mirror,” Daddario laughed. “Maybe you had to be there.”

Being on contract afforded Daddario a few perks, including attending the Daytime Emmy Awards. “I had a full length dress that a wonderful designer made for me, it was so gorgeous,” Daddario said. “My mom was my date… I got to walk the red carpet and do interviews with some of the other cast.”