Top 50 Popular Hollywood Actors and Actresses

1.

Johnny Depp
Actor, Edward Scissorhands

2.

Al Pacino
Actor, The Godfather

3.

Robert De Niro
Actor, Goodfellas

4.

Kevin Spacey
Actor, American Beauty

5.

Denzel Washington

Actor, Training Day

6.

Russell Crowe
Actor, Gladiator

7.

Brad Pitt
Actor, Inglourious Basterds

8.

Angelina Jolie
Actress, Maleficent

9.

Leonardo DiCaprio
Actor, Inception

10.

Tom Cruise
Actor, Top Gun

11.

John Travolta
Actor, Pulp Fiction

12.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Actor, The Terminator

13.

Sylvester Stallone
Actor, Rocky

14.

Kate Winslet
Actress, Titanic

15.

Christian Bale
Actor, The Dark Knight

16.

Morgan Freeman
Actor, The Shawshank Redemption

17.

Keanu Reeves
Actor, The Matrix

Keanu Reeves, whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, was
born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1964, the son of English-born Patricia Taylor, a showgirl, and
American-born Samuel Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. Keanu's father was born in Hawaii, of
British, Portuguese, Native Hawaiian...

18.

Nicolas Cage
Actor, Leaving Las Vegas

Nicolas Cage was born in Long Beach, California, the son of comparative literature
professor August Coppola (a brother of director Francis Ford Coppola) and
dancer/choreographer Joy Vogelsang. He is of Italian (father) and German, English, and
Polish (mother) descent. Cage changed his name early in his career to make his own
reputation...

19.

Hugh Jackman
Actor, The Prestige

Hugh Jackman was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to Grace McNeil (Greenwood) and
Christopher John Jackman, an accountant. He is the youngest of five children. His parents,
both English, moved to Australia shortly before his birth. He also has Greek (from a greatgrandfather) and Scottish (from a grandmother) ancestry...

20.

Edward Norton
Actor, Fight Club

Edward Norton is an American actor, filmmaker and activist. He has been nominated for
three Academy Awards for his work in the films Primal Fear (1996), American History X
(1998) and Birdman (2014). He also starred in other roles, such as Everyone Says I Love
You (1996), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)...

21.

Bruce Willis
Actor, The Sixth Sense

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, placing him in the top ten stars in terms of box office
receipts. Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19...

22.

Tom Hanks
Actor, The Da Vinci Code

Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend
turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier
roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair,
Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ...

23.

Charlize Theron
Actress, Mad Max: Fury Road

Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg-area, in South
Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (ne Gerda Jacoba Aletta Maritz) and Charles Jacobus
Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some
French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner military figure Danie Theron was her
great-great-uncle...

24.

Will Smith
Actor, Men in Black

Willard Carroll "Will" Smith, Jr. (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, comedian,
producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In
April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood". Smith has been
nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy
Awards...

25.

Sean Connery
Actor, Dr. No

Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His
mother, Euphamia McBain (Maclean), was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery,
was a factory worker and truck driver. He also has a brother named Neil Connery, who
works as a plasterer in Edinburgh. He is of Irish and Scottish descent...

26.

Keira Knightley
Actress, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Keira Christina Knightley was born in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond
on March 26th 1985. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned
playwrightSharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her
father is English, while her Scottish-born mother is of Scottish and Welsh origin...

27.

Vin Diesel
Actor, Furious 7

Vin Diesel was born Mark Sinclair in Alameda County, California, along with his fraternal twin
brother, Paul Vincent. He was raised by his astrologer/psychologist mother, Delora Sherleen
(Sinclair), and adoptive father, Irving H. Vincent, an acting instructor and theater manager,
in an artist's housing project in New York City's Greenwich Village...

28.

Matt Damon
Actor, The Bourne Identity

Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in Boston Massachusetts, to Kent
Damon, a stockbroker, realtor and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early
childhood education professor at Lesley University. Matt has an older brother named Kyle
who is now a sculptor. His father is of English and Scottish descent...

29.

Richard Gere
Actor, Pretty Woman

Humanitarian and actor Richard Gere was born on August 31, 1949, in Philadelphia, the
second of five children of Doris Ann (Tiffany), a homemaker, and Homer George Gere, an
insurance salesman, both Mayflower descendants. Richard started early as a musician,
playing a number of instruments in high school and writing music for high school
productions...

30.

Catherine Zeta-Jones
Actress, Chicago

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales,
UK. She is the daughter of Patricia (Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned
a candy factory. Her father is of Welsh descent and her mother is of English, Irish, and
Welsh ancestry. Her brothers are David Jones (born 1967)...

31.

Clive Owen
Actor, Children of Men

British actor Clive Owen is one of a handful of stars who, though he is best known for his art
house films, can handle more mainstream films with equal measures of grace and skill.
Owen is typically cast as characters whose primary traits are a balance of physical strength,
intellect, and forceful will...

32.

Mel Gibson
Actor, Braveheart

Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the
sixth of eleven children ofHutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly)
Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while
his American-born father is of mostly Irish descent...

33.

George Clooney
Actor, Gravity

George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce
(ne Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and
game show host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish,
English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of this youth in Ohio and Kentucky...

34.

Jack Nicholson
Actor, The Shining

Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, screen-writer and director, is a three-time

Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of
two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received Oscar nods in every decade
from sixties through the naughts...

35.

Scarlett Johansson
Actress, Lost in Translation

Scarlett Johansson was born in New York City. Her mother,Melanie Sloan, is from an
Ashkenazi Jewish family, and her father, Karsten Johansson, is Danish. She has a
sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, a brother, Adrian, a twin brother, Hunter
Johansson, born three minutes after her, and a paternal half-brother, Christian. Her
grandfather was writer Ejner Johansson...

36.

Tom Hardy
Actor, Mad Max: Fury Road

With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's science fiction

thriller Inception, English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream
audiences worldwide. But the versatile actor has been steadily working on both stage and
screen since his television debut in the miniseriesBand of Brothers...

37.

Robert Downey Jr.

Actor, The Avengers

Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an
amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over
four decades in the business. Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the
son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (ne
Elsie Ann Ford)...

38.

Orlando Bloom
Actor, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent, England on January 13,
1977. His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine (Copeland), was born in Kolkata, India, to an
English family then-resident there. The man he briefly knew as his father, Harry Bloom, was
a legendary political activist who fought for civil rights in South Africa...

39.

Ian McKellen
Actor, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery
Lois (Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer. He is of Scottish, Northern Irish,
and English descent. During his early childhood, his parents moved with Ian and his sister
Jean to the mill town of Wigan...

40.

Antonio Banderas
Actor, Desperado

Antonio Banderas, one of Spain's most famous faces, was a soccer player until breaking his
foot at the age of fourteen; he is now an international film star known for playing Zorro in
the eponymous film series. He was born Jos Antonio Domnguez Banderas on August 10,
1960, in Mlaga, Andalusia, Spain...

41.

Guy Pearce
Actor, Memento

Guy Edward Pearce was born 5 October, 1967 in Cambridgeshire, England, UK to Anne
(Pickering) and Stuart Graham Pearce. His father was born in Auckland, New Zealand, to
English and Scottish parents, while Guy's mother is English. Pearce and his family initially
traveled to Australia for two years, after his father was offered the position of Chief test pilot
for the Australian Government...

42.

Samuel L. Jackson
Actor, Pulp Fiction

Samuel L. Jackson is an American actor and film producer. He achieved prominence and
critical acclaim in the early 1990s with films such as Jungle Fever (1991), Patriot Games
(1992), Amos & Andrew (1993), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993) and his
collaborations with director Quentin Tarantino including Pulp Fiction (1994)...

43.

Sandra Bullock
Actress, Gravity

Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her
mother, Helga Bullock (ne Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father,
John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of Irish, English,
French, and German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger
sister...

44.

Meg Ryan
Actress, Sleepless in Seattle

Blond-haired, blue-eyed with an effervescent personality, Meg Ryan was born Margaret Mary
Emily Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut, to Susan (Duggan), an English teacher and one-time
actress, and Harry Hyra, a math teacher. She has Polish, Irish, and German ancestry
("Hyra" is a Polish surname, and "Ryan" is her maternal grandmother's maiden name)...

45.

Megan Fox
Actress, Transformers

Megan Denise Fox was born in Rockwood, Tennessee, to Gloria Darlene (Cisson) and
Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. Megan began her training in drama and dance at age
5 and, at age 10, moved to St. Petersburg, Florida where she continued her training and
finished school. Megan began acting and modeling...

46.

Nicole Kidman
Actress, Moulin Rouge!

Elegant redhead Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was
actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational
visas. Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony
David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical psychologist...

47.

Gerard Butler
Actor, 300

Gerard James Butler was born in Paisley, Scotland, to Margaret and Edward Butler, a
bookmaker. His family is of Irish origin. Gerard spent some of his very early childhood in
Montreal, Quebec, but was mostly raised, along with his older brother and sister, in his
hometown of Paisley. His parents divorced when he was a child...

48.

Simon Baker
Actor, The Mentalist

Simon Baker was first recognized in 1992, when he received Australia's prestigious Logie
award for Most Popular New Talent. Upon relocating to Los Angeles with his family, Baker
was immediately cast in the Academy Award winning film L.A. Confidential.

49.

Cameron Diaz
Actress, There's Something About Mary

Cameron Diaz was born in 1972 in San Diego, California, to Billie Joann (Early), an importexport agent, and Emilio Diaz, who worked for an oil company. Her mother has English,
Scots-Irish, and German ancestry, and her father was from a Cuban family (of Spanish
origin). Self-described as "adventurous...

50.

Katherine Heigl
Actress, Grey's Anatomy

Katherine Marie Heigl was born on November 24, 1978 in Washington, D.C., to Nancy
Heigl (ne Engelhardt), a personnel manager, and Paul Heigl, an accountant and executive.
Her father is of German/Swiss-German and Irish descent, and her mother is of German
ancestry. A short time after her birth, the family moved to New Canaan...