1.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
2.
Actor
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An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. Simplistically speaking, the person denominated actor or actress is someone beautiful who plays important characters, the actor performs in the flesh in the traditional medium of the theatre, or in modern mediums such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής, literally one who answers, the actors interpretation of their role pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is playing themselves, as in forms of experimental performance art, or, more commonly, to act, is to create. Formerly, in societies, only men could become actors. When used for the stage, women played the roles of prepubescent boys. The etymology is a derivation from actor with ess added. However, when referring to more than one performer, of both sexes, actor is preferred as a term for male performers. Actor is also used before the name of a performer as a gender-specific term. Within the profession, the re-adoption of the term dates to the 1950–1960s. As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper, Im an actor – I can play anything. The U. K. performers union Equity has no policy on the use of actor or actress, an Equity spokesperson said that the union does not believe that there is a consensus on the matter and stated that the. subject divides the profession. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times stated that Actress remains the term used in major acting awards given to female recipients. However, player remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a group or company, such as the American Players. Also, actors in improvisational theatre may be referred to as players, prior to Thespis act, Grecian stories were only expressed in song, dance, and in third person narrative. In honor of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians, the exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, as the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, from the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder
3.
Laurence Olivier
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Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles, late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles. His family had no connections, but Oliviers father, a clergyman. After attending a school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Cowards Private Lives, in 1935 he played in a celebrated production of Romeo and Juliet alongside Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, there his most celebrated roles included Shakespeares Richard III and Sophocless Oedipus. From 1963 to 1973 he was the director of Britains National Theatre. His own parts there included the role in Othello and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Among Oliviers films are Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor-director, Henry V, Hamlet and his later films included Sleuth, Marathon Man, and The Boys from Brazil. His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence, Long Days Journey into Night, Love Among the Ruins, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brideshead Revisited, Oliviers honours included a knighthood, a life peerage and the Order of Merit. For his on-screen work he received four Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. The National Theatres largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, given annually by the Society of London Theatre. He was married three times, to the actresses Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest of the three children of the Revd Gerard Kerr Olivier and his wife Agnes Louise, née Crookenden. Their elder children were Sybille and Gerard Dacres Dickie and his great-great-grandfather was of French Huguenot descent, and Olivier came from a long line of Protestant clergymen. Gerard Olivier had begun a career as a schoolmaster, but in his thirties he discovered a strong religious vocation and was ordained as a priest of the Church of England and he practised extremely high church, ritualist Anglicanism and liked to be addressed as Father Olivier. This made him unacceptable to most Anglican congregations, and the church posts he was offered were temporary. This meant a nomadic existence, and for Laurences first few years, in 1912, when Olivier was five, his father secured a permanent appointment as assistant priest at St Saviours, Pimlico. He held the post for six years, and a family life was at last possible
4.
Christopher Walken
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He was nominated for the same award and won BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for his performance as Frank Abagnale Sr. in Catch Me If You Can. Walkens films have grossed more than $1 billion in the United States and he has also played the lead in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Coriolanus. He is a popular guest-host of Saturday Night Live, having hosted seven times as of April 2008, Walken debuted as a film director and scriptwriter with the short film Popcorn Shrimp in 2001. He also wrote and acted the role in a play about his idol Elvis Presley, titled Him. Named after actor Ronald Colman, Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31,1943 in Astoria, Queens, New York City. He is the son of Rosalie, a British emigrant from Glasgow, Scotland, and Paul Wälken and his father owned and operated Walkens Bakery in Astoria. Influenced by their mothers own dreams of stardom, he and his brothers, Kenneth, at age 15, when a girlfriend showed him a magazine photo of Elvis, Walken said, This guy looked like a Greek god. Then I saw him on television and he changed his hairstyle to imitate Elvis and hasnt changed it since. As a teenager, he worked as a lion tamer in a circus, Walken initially trained as a dancer in music theatre at the Washington Dance Studio before moving on to dramatic roles in theatre and then film. As a child, Walken appeared on screen as an extra in numerous anthology series, after appearing in a sketch with Martin and Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Walken decided to become an actor. He landed a role in the 1953 television show The Wonderful John Acton as the shows narrator. During this time, he was credited as Ronnie Walken, over the next two years, he appeared frequently on television and had a thriving career in theatre. From 1954 to 1956, Walken and his brother Glenn originated the role of Michael Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light, in 1963, he appeared as a character named Chris in an episode of Naked City, starring Paul Burke. In 1966, Walken played the role of King Philip of France in the Broadway premiere of The Lion in Winter, in 1969, Walken guest-starred in Hawaii Five-O as Navy SP Walt Kramer. He prefers to be known informally as Chris instead of Christopher, Walken made his feature film debut with a small role opposite Sean Connery in Sidney Lumets The Anderson Tapes. In 1972s The Mind Snatchers a. k. a, the Happiness Cage, Walken played his first starring role. In this science fiction film, which deals with control and normalization. Paul Mazurskys 1976 film Next Stop, Greenwich Village had Walken, under the name Chris Walken, playing fictional poet, in Woody Allens 1977 film Annie Hall, Walken played the homicidal and borderline crazy brother of Annie Hall
5.
Javier Bardem
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Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem is a Spanish actor. Bardem won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in the 2007 Coen brothers film No Country for Old Men. Bardem has also won a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, five Goya Awards and he is the first Spanish actor to be nominated for an Oscar, as well as the first Spaniard to win one. He received his third Academy Award nomination, and second Best Actor nomination, Bardem was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Pilar Bardem, is an actress, and his father, the two separated shortly after his birth. Both his older brother and sister, Carlos and Mónica, are actors and he also comes from a political background, as his uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by Franco for his anti-fascist films. Bardem was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith by his grandmother, as a child, he spent time at theatres and on film sets. At age six, he made his first film appearance, in Fernando Fernán Gómezs El Pícaro and he also played rugby for the junior Spanish National Team. Though he grew up in a full of actors, Bardem did not see himself going into the family business. Actually, painting was his first love and he went on to study painting for four years at Madrids Escuela de Artes y Oficios. In need of money he took acting jobs to support his painting, but he also says he was a bad painter and eventually abandoned that career pursuit. In 1989, for the Spanish comedy show El Día Por Delante, he had to wear a Superman costume for a comedic sketch, Bardem has confessed to having worked as a stripper during his struggling acting career. Bardem came to notice in a role in his first major motion picture, The Ages of Lulu. The film, which starred a teenaged Penélope Cruz, was a major international success. He then starred again in Lunas next film Golden Balls, Bardems talent did not go unnoticed in the English-speaking world. In 1997, John Malkovich was the first to him, then a 27-year-old, for a role in English. His first English-speaking role came that year, in with director Álex de la Iglesias Perdita Durango. After starring in two dozen films in his native country, he gained international recognition in Julian Schnabels Before Night Falls in 2000
6.
Heath Ledger
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Heathcliff Andrew Heath Ledger was an Australian actor and director. After performing roles in several Australian television and film productions during the 1990s and he also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director. In the film, Ledger portrayed an actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylans life. Ledger died on 22 January 2008 from an accidental intoxication from prescription drugs, a few months before his death, Ledger had finished filming his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. His death occurred during editing of The Dark Knight and in the midst of filming his last role as Tony in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and his untimely death cast a shadow over the subsequent promotion of the $185 million Batman production. The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust is named after his great-grandfather and he had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Ledger attended Marys Mount Primary School in Gooseberry Hill, and later Guildford Grammar School and his parents separated when he was 10 and divorced when he was 11. After sitting for early graduation exams at age 17, Ledger left school to pursue an acting career, in 1999, he starred in the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You and in the acclaimed Australian crime film Two Hands, directed by Gregor Jordan. In 2001, he won a ShoWest Award as Male Star of Tomorrow, in The New York Times review of the film, critic Stephen Holden writes, Both Mr. Ledger and Mr. Gyllenhaal make this anguished love story physically palpable. Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean and it is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn. In a review in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers states, Ledgers magnificent performance is an acting miracle and he seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesnt just know how Ennis moves, speaks and listens, to see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jacks closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost. Shortly after the release of Candy, Ledger was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, posthumously, on 23 February 2008, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the films ensemble cast, its director, and its casting director. In his penultimate film performance, Ledger played the Joker in Christopher Nolans 2008 film The Dark Knight, released nearly six months after his death. At the time of his death on 22 January 2008, Ledger had completed half of the work for his final film performance as Tony in Terry Gilliams The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. In 2006, Ledger directed music videos for the track on Australian hip hop artist Nfas CD debut solo album Cause An Effect. Later that year, Ledger inaugurated a new label, Masses Music, with singer Ben Harper. After Ledgers death, his video for Black Eyed Dog was shown on the Internet
7.
The Dark Knight (film)
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The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Nolans inspiration for the film was the Jokers comic book debut in 1940, the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke, and the 1996 series The Long Halloween, the nickname the Dark Knight was first applied to Batman in Batman #1, in a story written by Bill Finger. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom. Nolan used IMAX70 mm film cameras to film some sequences, Warner Bros. initially created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Ledger as the Joker. With over $1 billion in worldwide, it is the 26th-highest-grossing film of all time. The film received eight Academy Award nominations, it won the award for Best Sound Editing, the Dark Knight Rises, the final film in the trilogy, was released on July 20,2012. A gang of criminals rob a Gotham City mob bank, double-crossing and murdering each other there is only one left, The Joker. Batman, District Attorney Harvey Dent and Lieutenant Jim Gordon form an alliance to rid Gotham of organized crime, Mob bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol and the Chechen hold a videoconference with corrupt accountant Lau, who has taken their funds and fled to Hong Kong. The Joker interrupts, warns them that Batman is unhindered by the law, and offers to him in exchange for half of their money. After escaping and smuggling himself as a corpse, the Joker kills Gambol, the mob ultimately decides to take the Joker up on his offer. Dent arrests the mob, while Batman finds Lau in Hong Kong. The Joker threatens to keep killing people unless Batman reveals his identity, and starts by murdering Police Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb, the Joker also tries to kill Mayor Anthony Garcia, but Gordon sacrifices himself to stop the assassination. Dent learns that Rachel is the next target, Bruce decides to reveal his secret identity. Before he can, however, Dent announces that he is Batman, Dent is taken into protective custody, but the Joker appears and attacks the convoy. Batman comes to Dents rescue and Gordon, who faked his death, Rachel and Dent are escorted away by Michael Wuertz and Anna Ramirez, detectives on Maronis payroll. Batman interrogates the Joker, who reveals that Rachel and Dent have been trapped in separate locations rigged with explosives, Batman races to save Rachel, while Gordon goes to save Dent. Batman arrives at the building, realizing that the Joker sent him to Dents location instead, both buildings explode, killing Rachel and disfiguring half of Dents face. The Joker escapes the jail with Lau. Coleman Reese, an accountant at Wayne Enterprises, deduces that Bruce is Batman, after observing the unpredictability of the Joker, Maroni informs the Jokers location to Commissioner Gordon
8.
Inglourious Basterds
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Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 American-German war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent. Christoph Waltz co-stars as Hans Landa, an SS colonel tracking down Raines group, the films title was inspired by Italian director Enzo G. Castellaris macaroni combat film, The Inglorious Bastards. Tarantino wrote the script in 1998 but struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming, after directing Death Proof in 2007, Tarantino returned to work on Inglourious Basterds. A co-production of the United States and Germany, the film began principal photography in October 2008 and was filmed in Germany, Inglourious Basterds premiered on May 20,2009, at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. It was widely released in theaters in the United States and Europe in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company, the film was commercially successful, grossing over $321 million in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantinos highest-grossing film at that point, and second-highest to date, after Django Unchained. It received multiple awards and nominations, among them eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. For his role as Landa, Waltz won the Cannes Film Festivals Best Actor Award, as well as the BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 1941, SS colonel Hans Landa interrogates French dairy farmer Perrier La Padite as to the whereabouts of the last unaccounted-for Jewish family in the area. In exchange for the Germans agreeing to leave his family alone for the rest of the war, Landa orders SS soldiers to shoot through the floorboards. The family is killed except for Shosanna, a woman who escapes. Three years later, Lieutenant Aldo Raine of the First Special Service Force recruits Jewish-American soldiers to the Basterds, the Basterds also recruit Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz, a German soldier who murdered thirteen Gestapo officers. Adolf Hitler interviews a German soldier, Private Butz, the survivor of a Basterd attack on his squad. Raine carved the Nazi swastika into Butzs forehead with a knife so he could never hide that he served in the German Heer, Shosanna is operating a cinema in Paris under an assumed name. She meets Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper who killed 250 soldiers in a battle, Zoller is to star in a Nazi propaganda film. Infatuated with Shosanna, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere of the film at her cinema, Shosanna plots with her projectionist and lover, Marcel, to kill the Nazi leaders attending the premiere by setting the cinema ablaze. Unknown to Shosanna, British Army Lieutenant Archie Hicox is working with the Basterds to plan an attack on the same premiere, Hicox goes to a tavern with Hugo Stiglitz and Basterd Wilhelm Wicki to meet an undercover agent, the German film star Bridget von Hammersmark. Hicox draws the attention of Wehrmacht Sergeant Wilhelm then Gestapo Major Dieter Hellstrom with his uncommon accent, Hicox eventually gives himself away by ordering three drinks and gesturing three with his hand, Hellstrom knows that Germans gesture three with the thumb and first two fingers extended. Discovered, Stiglitz and the Basterds open fire, killing everyone in the tavern except Sergeant Wilhelm, Raine arrives and negotiates with Sergeant Wilhelm for Hammersmarks release, but she shoots Wilhelm when he lowers his guard
9.
Django Unchained
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Set in the Old West and Antebellum South, it is a highly stylized tribute to Spaghetti Westerns, in particular the 1966 film Django by Sergio Corbucci, whose star Franco Nero has a cameo appearance. Development of Django Unchained began in 2007 when Tarantino was writing a book on Sergio Corbucci, by April 2011, Tarantino sent his final draft of the script to The Weinstein Company. Casting began in the summer of 2011, with Michael K. Williams, principal photography took place from November 2011 to March 2012 in California, Wyoming and Louisiana. Django Unchained premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on December 11,2012, the film was nominated for several film industry awards, including five Academy Awards. Waltz won several awards for his performance, among them Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Tarantino won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA award for writing the films original screenplay. The film grossed over $425 million worldwide in theaters against its $100 million budget, in 1858 Texas, the Speck brothers, Ace and Dicky, drive a group of black slaves on foot. Among the shackled slaves is Django, sold off and separated from his wife, the Speck brothers are stopped by Dr. King Schultz, a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter from Düsseldorf, who asks to buy one of the slaves. He questions Django about his knowledge of the Brittle brothers, a group of outlaws for whom Dr. Schultz is carrying a warrant, when Ace becomes suspicious, Dr. Schultz, a superior gunslinger, kills Ace with a fast draw. Dr. Schultz insists on honorably paying Dicky a fair price for Django before leaving him at the mercy of the newly-freed slaves, as Django can identify the Brittle brothers, Dr. Schultz offers him his freedom in exchange for help tracking them down. After tracking and killing the Brittles to a plantation owned by Spencer Big Daddy Bennett and they are also briefly hunted by Big Daddy but Dr. Schultz deceives and kills most of his gang with an explosive in their carriage, as Django kills Big Daddy himself. Dr. Schultz explains that he responsible for Django since Django is the first person he has ever freed. Now fully trained, Django collects his first bounty, keeping the handbill for good luck, Dr. Schultz and Django meet Calvin at his gentlemans club in Greenville and submit their offer to buy one of his best fighters. Intrigued, Calvin invites them to his ranch at Candyland, after finding Broomhilda and telling her of their plan, Dr. Schultz claims to be charmed by her and offers to buy her as well. During dinner, Calvins staunchly loyal house slave Stephen becomes suspicious, Dr. Schultz agrees, and the papers for her freedom are drawn up and signed. Calvin smugly insists that the deal be sealed through a handshake, when Calvin threatens to kill Broomhilda, Dr. Schultz kills Calvin by shooting him in the heart with a concealed derringer. As Stephen mourns over Calvins death, Butch, Calvins bodyguard, kills Dr. Schultz by shooting him with a shotgun, an extensive gunfight begins, and Django guns down a great number of his opponents before surrendering when Broomhilda is taken hostage. The next morning, Stephen tells Django that Calvins sister, Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly, is in charge now, en route to the mine, Django proves to his escorts that he is a bounty hunter by showing them his handbill. The escorts release him and give him a pistol, which he uses to kill them before stealing a horse and returning to Candyland with a bag of dynamite
10.
Christopher Plummer
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Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. After making his debut in Stage Struck, Plummer went on to a successful film career. Plummer has ventured into television projects, including the miniseries The Thorn Birds. Plummer has won awards and accolades for his work, including an Academy Award. With his win at age 82 in 2012 for Beginners, Plummer is the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award and his fathers uncle was patent lawyer and agent F. B. Plummers parents were divorced shortly after his birth, and he was brought up at the Abbott family home in Senneville, Quebec and he is bilingual, speaking English and French fluently. Plummer is a cousin of actor Nigel Bruce, the British actor, best known as Doctor Watson to Basil Rathbones Sherlock Holmes. He had studied to be a concert pianist, but developed a love for the theatre at an early age and he began acting while he was living on Pine Avenue in Montreal and attending Montreal High. He attended McGill, at time he also took up acting. Whittaker, who was also stage director of the Montreal Repertory Theatre, cast Plummer, aged 18. Plummer made his Broadway debut in January 1953 in The Starcross Story and his next Broadway appearance, Home is the Hero, lasted 30 performances from September to October 1954. He appeared in support of Broadway legend Katharine Cornell and film legend Tyrone Power in The Dark is Light Enough, the play toured several cities, with Plummer serving as Powers understudy. Later that same year, he appeared in his first Broadway hit, Plummer appeared less frequently on Broadway in the 1960s as he moved from New York to London. From May to June 1973, he appeared on Broadway as the character in Cyrano. For that performance, Plummer won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, later that year, he played Anton Chekhov in Neil Simons adaptation of several Chekhov short stories, The Good Doctor. In the 1980s, he appeared on Broadway in two Shakespearean tragedies, Othello, playing Iago to James Earl Jones Moor, and the role in Macbeth with Glenda Jackson playing his lady. His Iago brought him another Tony nomination and he appeared with Jason Robards in the 1994 revival of Harold Pinters No Mans Land and had great success in 1997 in Barrymore, which he also toured with after a successful Broadway run. His turn as John Barrymore brought him his second Tony Award and he was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for his 2004 King Lear and for a Tony playing Henry Drummond in the 2007 revival of Inherit the Wind
11.
Bridge of Spies (film)
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Based on the 1960 U-2 incident during the Cold War, the film tells the story of lawyer James B. The name of the film refers to the Glienicke Bridge, which connects Potsdam with Berlin, the film was an international co-production of the United States and Germany. Bridge of Spies was shot under the title of St. James Place. Principal photography began on September 8,2014, in Brooklyn, New York City, the film was released by Touchstone Pictures on October 16,2015, in the United States and distributed by 20th Century Fox in other territories. It was a box office success, grossing $165 million worldwide, and received positive reviews, garnering praise for its direction, screenplay, acting, score, the film received six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and won Best Supporting Actor for Rylance. In 1957 New York City, Rudolf Abel is charged with spying for the Soviet Union, insurance lawyer James B. Donovan is prevailed upon to take on the unenviable task of defending Abel, so that Abels trial will be seen as fair. Donovan appeals the conviction to the Supreme Court based on the lack of a warrant for the seizure of Abel’s ciphers and photography equipment. For his principled stand Donovan and his family are harassed, including shots being fired at his home, meanwhile Gary Powers, a pilot in the CIAs top secret U-2 spy plane program, is shot down over the USSR. He is captured and sentenced in a trial to ten years confinement. Donovan receives a letter from East Germany, purportedly sent by Abels wife, thanking him and urging him to get in contact with their lawyer, the CIA think this is a back-channel message hinting that the USSR is willing to swap Powers for Abel. They ask Donovan to go to Berlin unofficially to negotiate the exchange, crossing in to East Berlin, he meets with a KGB officer in the Soviet Embassy and is then directed to Vogel, who represents the Attorney General of the German Democratic Republic. The CIA wants Donovan to forget about Pryor but he insists both Pryor and Powers should be swapped for Abel, in a message to the Attorney General he bluffs that they will either release Pryor with Powers or there will be no deal. As Abel and Powers are poised at opposite ends of the Glienicke Bridge, the next day, back in the United States, the government publicly acknowledges Donovan for negotiating the deal, rehabilitating his public image. During the end credits the audience learns that Donovan helped negotiate the release of fighters captured during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Bridge of Spies is an American-German co-production based on a written by the Coen Brothers. Studio Babelsberg co-produced and oversaw production services for the film, James Donovan wrote an account of the incident in 1964 under the title Strangers on a Bridge, The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers. Soviet intelligence officer Rudolf Abel, who lived and operated in Brooklyn Heights and his arrest and history were discussed by Truman Capote, another Heights resident at the time, in his book A House on the Heights. Matt Charman became interested in Donovans story after reading a footnote about him in An Unfinished Life, John F. Kennedy, after meeting with Donovans son in New York City, Charman pitched the story to several studios and DreamWorks bought it
12.
Anthony Hopkins
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Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE, is a Welsh actor of film, stage, and television. In 1968, he got his break in film in The Lion in Winter, since 2016, he has starred in the critically acclaimed HBO television series Westworld. Along with his Academy Award, Hopkins has won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmys, and the Cecil B, in 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, Hopkins was born on New Years Eve 1937, in Margam, a suburb of Port Talbot, Glamorgan. His parents were Annie Muriel and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker and his school days were unproductive, he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing, or playing the piano, than attend to his studies. In 1949, to discipline, his parents insisted he attend Jones West Monmouth Boys School in Pontypool. He remained there for five terms and was educated at Cowbridge Grammar School in the Vale of Glamorgan. Hopkins was influenced and encouraged by Welsh compatriot Richard Burton, whom he met at the age of 15, Hopkins promptly enrolled at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, from which he graduated in 1957. After two years in the British Army doing his national service, he moved to London, where he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Hopkins made his first professional appearance in the Palace Theatre, Swansea. In 1965, after years in repertory, he was spotted by Laurence Olivier. Hopkins became Oliviers understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a production of August Strindbergs The Dance of Death, despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles nightly and yearned to be in films. He made his debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. His first starring role in a film came in 1964 in Changes, in 1968, he got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard I. Although Hopkins continued in theatre he gradually moved away from it to more established as a television. He portrayed Charles Dickens in the BBC television film The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens in 1970, and Pierre Bezukhov in the BBCs mini series War and Peace. In 1972 he starred as British politician David Lloyd George in Young Winston, in 1980, he starred in The Elephant Man as the English doctor Sir Frederick Treves, who attends to Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th century London. That year he starred opposite Shirley MacLaine in A Change of Seasons
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