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Nichelle Nichols was one of 10 children born to parents Lishia and Samuel Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She was a singer and dancer before turning to acting and finding fame in her groundbreaking role of Lt. Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek (1966) series.
As long as she could remember, she wanted to do nothing but sing, dance, act and write despite no one else in her family following any of those tracks; although her father could tap dance. He not only became mayor of their town, Robbins, IL, but also a magistrate. On stage, Nichelle was twice nominated for the Sarah Siddons Award as Best Actress of the Year; while on film she danced with Sammy Davis, Jr. in Porgy and Bess, and opposite James Garner in Mister Budwing (1965). In a complete changearound soon after the Star Trek television series came to an end, she played a blousey madam, then co-starred with Lynn Redgrave n Antony and Cleopatra. She was been married twice and had a son, Kyle Johnson, from her first marriage to a tap dancer.- Actress
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Gina was born in New York City and is youngest of three children in a close-knit Cuban American family. Attended New York City's High School of Music and Art She is a gifted mezzo soprano and was trained in opera and jazz and also sang in a gospel choir.- Actress
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Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, NC, one of four children of Gwendolyn Sylvia (Samuels), a nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier Jr., an Air Force mechanic. Pam has been a major African-American star from the early 1970s. Her career started in 1971, when Roger Corman of New World Pictures launched her with The Big Doll House (1971), about a women's penitentiary, and The Big Bird Cage (1972). Her strong role put her into a five-year contract with Samuel Z. Arkoff of American-International Pictures, and she became a leading lady in action films such as Jack Hill's Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), the comic strip character Friday Foster (1975) and William Girdler's 'Sheba, Baby' (1975). She continued working with American-International, where she portrayed William Marshall's vampire victim in the Blacula (1972) sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
During the 1980s she became a regular on Miami Vice (1984) and played a supporting role as an evil witch in Ray Bradbury's and Walt Disney Pictures' Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), then returned to action as Steven Seagal's partner in Above the Law (1988). Her most famous role of the 1990s was probably Jackie Brown (1997), directed by Quentin Tarantino, which was an homage to her earlier 1970s action roles, She occasionally did supporting roles, as in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), In Too Deep (1999) and a funny performance in Jawbreaker (1999). She also appeared in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001) and co-starred with Snoop Dogg in Bones (2001). Her entire career of over 30 years has brought only success for this beautiful and talented actress.
A sister of Grier's died from cancer in 1990 and the son of that sister committed suicide because of his mother's illness. Pam herself was diagnosed with cancer in 1988 and given 18 months to live, which has had an effect on how she has chosen to live. She has never been wed, although she has been romantically linked to Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the past.- Grace Park (born March 14, 1974) is an American-Canadian actress. She gained recognition as Lt. Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii and Lt. Sharon 'Athena' Agathon on Battlestar Galactica (2004), as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont (2000). From 2010 to 2017, Park starred as Officer Kono Kalakaua in the CBS television series Hawaii Five-0 (2010), which debuted on September 20, 2010. Born in Los Angeles, Park moved with her family to Canada when she was 22 months old. She was raised in the Vancouver neighborhood of Kerrisdale. Park is of Korean heritage. She graduated from Magee Secondary School in 1992 and holds a degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia.
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Michaela Conlin is an American actress best known for her role as Angela Montenegro on the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama Bones. Conlin was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1978 to a Chinese mother, an accountant, and an Irish father, a contractor. She performed in her first play at the age of seven, and continued to appear on stage in numerous Pennsylvania community and regional productions.- Actress
Navi Rawat was born on 5 June 1977 in Malibu, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Feast (2005), The O.C. (2003) and Numb3rs (2005). She has been married to Brawley Nolte since 2012. They have one child.- Actress
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Tamala Jones was born on 12 November 1974 in Pasadena, California, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Blue Streak (1999), Can't Hardly Wait (1998) and Booty Call (1997).- Actress
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Danai Gurira was born in Grinnell, Iowa, to Josephine and Roger Gurira, who were from Zimbabwe. Her father was then teaching Chemistry at Grinnell College. When she was five, the family moved back to Zimbabwe, residing in the capital Harare. Gurira later returned to the United States, and studied social psychology at Macalester College, receiving an MFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is the co-author of the play, "In the Continuum", with Nikkole Salter.- Actress
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Nathalie Emmanuel is an English actress, known for her role as Missandei on the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011) and Ramsey in Furious 7 (2015).
Nathalie was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, to a father of Saint Lucian and English descent and a mother of Dominican origin. Nathalie credits her mother for the initial motivation to become an actress. At the age of 10, she played Young Nala in the West End production of The Lion King. In 2006, she made her television break by starring as Sasha Valentine in the teen soap opera Hollyoaks (1995). Emmanuel appeared on the show until 2010, her character's story-lines included prostitution, and heroin addiction.
Nathalie presented BBC Three's Web-sex: What's the Harm?, investigating the online sexual habits of 16-24 year-old in the UK. Later in the same year she made her film debut in the thriller Twenty8. The following year, she was cast as Missandei, Daenerys Targaryen's translator, in HBO's fantasy drama series Game of Thrones (2011). In 2015, Emmanuel was promoted to a regular cast member on the show. In the same year, she played computer hacker Ramsey in the action film Furious 7 (2015) and Harriet in the sci-fi sequel Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015).
FHM magazine ranked Emmanuel as 99th in their 100 Sexiest Women of 2013. In 2015, she appeared in the April issues of InStyle and GQ magazines.- Actress
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Moon Bloodgood was born on 20 September 1975 in Alliance, Nebraska, USA. She is an actress, known for Terminator Salvation (2009), Faster (2010) and Eight Below (2006). She was previously married to Grady Hall.- Actress
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Born to immigrants in New York City, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing & her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts, the energetic actress is finally earning her stripes as an across-the-board leading lady.
She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1986 & enrolled in NYU. However, she was discouraged by the dark and sarcastic atmosphere, so she transferred to the University of Michigan after her freshman year. She graduated w/ a degree in Asian Languages & Cultures, managing to squeeze in some additional training in dance, voice, fine arts & acting. During her senior year, she auditioned for a small part in a production of Alice in Wonderland and walked away with the lead. Encouraged by the experience, she decided to take the plunge into professional acting. She moved to L.A., splitting her time between auditions & food service day jobs. She eventually scored a guest appearance as a waitress on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990). That performance led to more walk-on parts in shows like NYPD Blue (1993), ER (1994) & The X-Files (1993). In 1996, she was cast as an ambitious college student on Rhea Perlman's ephemeral sitcom Pearl (1996).
She first appeared on the big screen as an ex-girlfriend in Jerry Maguire (1996) (she had previously filmed a scene in the indie Bang (1995), but it was shelved for 2 years). She then waded through a series of supporting parts in small films before landing her big break on Ally McBeal (1997). She initially auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter, which went to Portia de Rossi. However, writer-producer David E. Kelley was so impressed w/ her that he promised to write a part for her in an upcoming episode. The part turned out to be that of growling, ill-tempered lawyer Ling Woo, which she filled w/ such aplomb that she was signed on as a regular cast member.
The "Ally" win gave her film career a much-needed boost-in 1999, she was cast as a dominatrix in the Mel Gibson action flick Payback (1999) & as a hitchhiker in the ill-received boxing saga Play It to the Bone (1999). The following year brought even larger roles: first as the kidnapped Princess Pei Pei in Jackie Chan's western Shanghai Noon (2000), then as one-third of the comely crime-fighting trio in Charlie's Angels (2000).
When she's not hissing at clients or throwing well-coiffed punches, she keeps busy w/ an eclectic mix of off-screen hobbies. She practices the martial art of Kali-Eskrima-Silat (knife-and-stick fighting), skis, rock climbs, rides horses &plays the accordion. In 1993, she exhibited a collection of multimedia art pieces at the Cast Iron Gallery in SoHo (New York), after which she won a grant to study & create art in China. Her hectic schedule doesn't leave much time for romantic intrigue, but she says she prefers to keep that side of her life uncluttered.- Actress
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Ming-Na ("enlightenment") was born on the island of Macau, forty miles from Hong Kong. Her mother, Lin Chan Wen, divorced her father when Ming-Na was only a toddler. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce, they moved to Hong Kong where her mother became a nurse. There her mother met Soo Lim Yee, a U.S. businessman. They soon married, and at four years, Ming-Na moved with her family to Queens, New York. Five years later, they transferred to Yee's hometown of Pittsburgh where his family runs the Chinatown Inn restaurant. Jonathan and half-brother, Leong, now manage this restaurant. Struggling to fit in at school, she changed her name to Maggie & Doris. She found a love for acting while appearing in a third grade Easter play, where she played a klutzy bunny. Her mother was not excited about her desire to pursue acting, She preferred that she go into medicine. Nonetheless, Ming-Na graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in theatre. She got her first acting job in 1988 on the soap As the World Turns (1956). Her big break came when she was cast in The Joy Luck Club (1993). When she needed a ride to the premiere of the film, her acting instructor sent one of his students, Eric Michael Zee. The two started dating in 1994 after Ming-Na moved permanently to Los Angeles and married in 1995, dropping her last name, Wen, at that time. She says she is now like Ann-Margret. Zee is a screenwriter and, with Ming-Na, manages At Last, a boy band.- Actress
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Melissa grew up in Calgary, Alberta. Fresh from her turn in Broadway's Les Miserables, and Jesus Christ Superstar, Melissa has had a flourishing theatre career in both Canada, and abroad, leading her to now star in Syfy's new series Dark Matter. Career highlights include Les Miserables (Mirvish Productions), Dirty Dancing (Mirvish Productions), and the Stratford Festival of Canada. Melissa is also the youngest, and first female winner of Canadian Idol, resulting in a platinum selling single, a certified gold album, and a juno nomination for Best New Artist. Melissa was also the recipient for of the Dora Mavor Moore award for "best performance from a female in a leading role (musical)" for her performance as Eponine in Les Miserables.- Actress
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Hannah Dominique E. John-Kamen is a British actress. She is known for her roles as Dutch in the Syfy television series Killjoys, Ornela in the HBO series Game of Thrones, F'Nale Zandor in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, and Ghost in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Hannah was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, England, the youngest of three children of a Nigerian forensic psychologist father and a Norwegian fashion model mother. She attended primary school in Kirk Ella and received her secondary education at Hull Collegiate School, and also trained at the National Youth Theatre in London. In 2012, she graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama.
John-Kamen began her professional career in 2011 when she provided her voice for the video game Dark Souls. She then went on to make episode appearances in television series Misfits (2011), Black Mirror (2011), Whitechapel (2012), The Syndicate (2012), The Midnight Beast (2012) and The Hour (2012).
In 2012, John-Kamen landed the lead role of Viva in Viva Forever, a West End musical based on the songs of the Spice Girls. Written by Jennifer Saunders and produced by Judy Craymer, Viva Forever premiered on 11 December 2012 at the Piccadilly Theatre to largely negative reviews. The Daily Mirror, however, praised John-Kamen's performance, noting, "It's a shame a talented cast, especially Hannah John-Kamen's Viva and the rest of Eternity, are let down by a clichéd plot and leaden dialogue." The show was eventually closed on 29 June 2013.
2015 saw John-Kamen land a starring role in SyFy's Killjoys. In 2016 John-Kamen had a guest starring role on HBO's Game of Thrones. In 2016, she appeared in "Playtest", an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror. She also appeared in Season two of the UK series The Tunnel, and played Ghost in the superhero film Ant-Man and the Wasp.
On John-Kamen's role in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, Kristen Tauer wrote: "While much of "Ready Player One" takes place in a virtual reality world, John-Kamen's character is unique in that she is rooted in the reality throughout the film."- Actress
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Mercedes Mason immigrated to the United States at the age of 12. At age 13 she was discovered by FORD modeling agency, launching her into an international modeling career while attending high school. While studying psychology in college, she booked her first audition opposite Vince Vaughn in The Break-Up (2006). After graduating, she starred in Red Sands (2009) opposite Shane West and J.K. Simmons. She then continued the franchise cult favorite Quarantine (2008) as the lead in Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011) for Sony Screen Gems. Mercedes gained notoriety for her role in the film Three Veils (2011), getting nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the UK International Filmmaker Festival in 2011. Three Veils went on to win numerous awards including Best Feature Film at ARPA International Film Festival. Mercedes can most recently be seen on ABC's The Rookie (2018) as Captain Zoe Andersen. She's also appeared in critically acclaimed shows like Entourage (2004), The Closer (2005), and Traffic Light (2011), as well as recurring in the fan favorite, Chuck (2007). She was also the lead female in FOX's Bones (2005) spin-off, The Finder (2012), opposite Oscar nominated Michael Clarke Duncan. She starred in the ABC hit series, 666 Park Avenue (2012), with Emmy Award winner Terry O'Quinn and Emmy Nominated Vanessa Williams. She had recurring rolls on Californication (2007), opposite David Duchovny, NCIS: Los Angeles (2009), and Anger Management (2012) opposite Charlie Sheen.- Actress
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Most widely known for her work on prime time television on shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, House (FOX), ER, Grey's Anatomy, The OC, 8 Simple Rules (Disney), The Deep End (ABC), the critically acclaimed Aaron Sorkin series, Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip (NBC), Julia Ling starred as the popular "nerd-herder" Anna Wu on Chuck. This action-comedy garnered international support, and Ling was voted as "No.1 Woman of Geek Culture" by G4TV. After voicing the live action character "Izumi" for the video game, Command and Conquer (EA), Ling toured the world to raise money for charities. In the 2007 Jackie Chan Disciples martial arts competition, Ling was selected as a Finalist to compete in the International Top 100 and won "Best Acting Award" for her performance.
As a dancer, her first award-winning solo performance aired on national television when she was 8 years old. At sixteen, she was selected as a State Finalist in the "Miss America Pageant" and was awarded by Congressman David Dreier for over one hundred hours of volunteer service to her local hospital. After nine years of playing the piano, Ling received a diploma from the Royal Board of Music. She graduated high school second in her class with a 4.0 GPA, then went on to UCLA where she majored in chemical engineering and became Vice President of Engineering Society and honorary member of Society of Women Engineers. She returned to UCLA to study film producing and receive a professional certificate in the Mandarin Chinese language.
Ling later joined the star cast of FOX sitcom, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, voiced a sketch in Chinese for Conan O'Brien, performed opposite Academy Award winner Adrien Brody in the movie "High School," and starred in a number of independent films, but Ling could not contain her passion as a film-maker. While on set as an actress, she shadowed notable directors as Jay Chandrasekhar, Timothy Busfield, Leslie Linka Glatter and many others. She studied film producing at UCLA and was largely self taught through experience and studying from her mentors in the field. UCI awarded her the Anne Frank Researcher Award for her film-making efforts on a historical documentary.
Ling launched her own production company, Silver Rose Entertainment, for writing, script coverage, and film production. The company's clients included scientists from Cal Tech, University of Illinois, other filmmakers and commercial companies. In recent years, Ling joined the cast of a few feature films, and also co-created, produced and starred in a couple of her own short films: "Brotherhood" which won overall best action in the 2-minute category at the Urban Action Film Festival, and "Tango Down" which won "Best Short Film" at the 573 Film Festival in Perryville, MO. She appeared on Fox 2 St. Louis prior to the screening to promote "Tango Down."- Actress
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Dana DeLorenzo was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio and showed an innate love of comedy and performance at an early age. At age 3 she made up knock-knock jokes and recorded them on her Fischer-Price tape recorder solely to listen back and make herself laugh. At some point she started doing impressions. She landed her first paying gig at 11 yrs old performing Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" with her younger brother in a weekly variety show.
DeLorenzo graduated from DePaul University in Chicago and soon after became an on-air personality and producer on The Mancow Show. She continued to perform in various theater productions around Chicago, and in 2008 formed an Amy Winehouse tribute band called House of Winehouse. The band performed at various festivals and venues including Pridefest Milwaukee and House of Blues Chicago. DeLorenzo garnered international acclaim for her uncanny portrayal of the singer, including a feature in The Chicago Tribune and was voted Best Tribute Band by The Chicago Reader in 2010.
Later that year DeLorenzo moved to Los Angeles, and soon after appeared in various TV shows (Californication, Workaholics, 2 Broke Girls) and films (A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas, The Mad Ones). She gained attention with her first recurring role on television playing Beth the CBS Executive on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. DeLorenzo returned to the stage to perform in the original LA production of The Best of Craigslist Live! and in sold-out tours in Chicago at The Royal George Theatre as well as the prestigious Joe's Pub in New York City. DeLorenzo continued down the comedy road and returned to doing impressions on PopTV's Impress Me opposite Ross Marquand (The Walking Dead).
DeLorenzo's breakout role came when she was cast alongside Bruce Campbell in the horror-comedy series Ash Vs. Evil Dead, a continuation of the cult-classic movie trilogy The Evil Dead written and directed by Sam Raimi. DeLorenzo won the approval of fans and critics alike originating the role of Kelly Maxwell, the foul-mouthed demon-slaying sidekick to the show's titular anti-hero. Her performance in the series nabbed her back-to-back nominations for a Fangoria Chainsaw Award and an iHorror Award nomination for Best Actress in a Horror Series. In 2018 DeLorenzo was the recipient of the Artemis Women in Action Next Wave award.
Since wrapping the final season of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, DeLorenzo had another dream come true when she landed a guest-starring role on the reboot of Will & Grace. She later recurred in the critically-acclaimed series Perpetual Grace, LTD., and won over audiences playing Kat Dennings' Jersey-Italian sister Barbra in the female-driven comedy Friendsgiving. DeLorenzo also was an associate producer and played a the role of Mandy in the dark comedy indie, The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood, and had a guest starring role on Tacoma FD.
DeLorenzo crossed more off her bucket list when she lent her vocal talents to various animated projects, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, King Tweety, and the Netflix animated children's series, Ask The StoryBots. DeLorenzo was thrilled to have the opportunity to vocally reprise her role of Kelly Maxwell along with star Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead: The Game.- Actress
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Dominique Jade Tipper is a British actress, dancer, and singer-songwriter. She rose to prominence in her role as Naomi Nagata, the engineer in the SyFy/Amazon Prime Video science fiction television series "The Expanse".
In addition to acting, Dominique took her first steps into directing and producing in 2018 with the creation of "Trying To Find Me" her first short film based on the one-woman play of the same name, written and performed by Ann Akin.- Actress
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Frankie Adams is a New Zealand-Samoan actress, Best known for playing fan favorite "Bobbie Draper" in the Amazon series The Expanse, Frankie can also be seen in the limited series The Flowers of Alice Hart opposite Sigourney Weaver for Amazon as well as Taika Waititi's Next Goal Wins. Her credits include the NZ limited series The Panthers which premiered at TIFF, Peter Jackson's Mortal Engines for Universal and the lead of director Tusi Tamasese's feature One Thousand Ropes which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, the follow-up to his Samoan film The Orator, both of which were shortlisted for the Academy Awards foreign-language category from New Zealand. Frankie's additional credits include the Luc Besson feature Valerian with Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, a recurring role on the award-winning Australian series Wentworth, and five seasons of the long running NZ series Shortland Street.- Actress
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Kaniehtiio 'Tiio' Horn is a Canadian actress from Kahnawake, the Mohawk reserve outside of Montreal. Since graduating from Dawson College's Professional Theatre Program in 2005 she has established herself as a versatile actress with roles on television including the multiple award-winning comedy Letterkenny, Amazon's Man in the High Castle, Hemlock Grove for Netflix, and the CBC legal drama Diggstown. Feature film credits include Immortals, On the Road, Death Wish and The Hummingbird Project opposite Alexander Skarsgård. Tiio received critical acclaim as Oak in the 2017 action/thriller Mohawk, directed by Ted Geoghegan. Tiio earned a Gemini Award nomination in 2009 for her portrayal of Angel in the APTN MOW Moccasin Flats: Redemption, as well in 2010 and 2011 as part of the ensemble cast of CBC's 18 to Life. In 2018 she launched the podcast Coffee With My Ma, sharing the adventures and experiences of of her activist mother, Kahentinetha. Most recently, Tiio co-hosted the 2019 Indspire Awards on CBC, recognizing the outstanding achievements of individuals within Canada's Indigenous community.- Actress
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Ruth Negga was born on 4 May 1981 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She is an actress and producer, known for Loving (2016), Passing (2021) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013).- Actress
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Margaret Denise Quigley was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a father of Polish and Irish descent (originally based in New York) and a Vietnamese mother. Her parents met during the Vietnam War. Maggie has two older half-siblings from her mother's previous marriage, and two older sisters. The family moved to Hawaii and settled in Mililani.
Maggie dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but modeled and found herself bursting onto the Hong Kong movie scene - eventually becoming a full-fledged superstar in Asia. She changed her name to the easily pronounceable "Maggie Q" (for the Chinese audience). She had a cameo in the Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker smash hit Rush Hour 2 (2001) and is part of the supporting cast in Mission: Impossible III (2006), starring Tom Cruise.- Actress
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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Simone always knew she was meant to perform. Growing up, Simone spent years playing the violin, singing, and playing sports before she decided to focus on acting. While in her first year as an English major at Howard University, she decided to take a theatre for non-majors course. This class solidified her commitment to acting, and she graduated with a minor in Theatre arts. Following graduation, Simone traveled to Oxford, England, where she participated in the British American Drama Academy taking Master Classes with greats Ben Kingsley, Alan Rickman, and Jane Lapotaire. She then honed her craft performing in regional theatre in Detroit, Michigan before packing it all up and moving to Los Angeles. In 2015, Simone made her debut as "Misty Knight" in "Marvel's Luke Cage". She has since reprised her role as that character in "Marvel's: The Defenders", and Season 2 of both "Marvel's Luke Cage" and "Marvel's Iron Fist". In the spring of 2018, Simone made her New York theatre debut in Dominique Morrisseau's "Paradise Blue" at the Signature Theatre. This fall, Simone stars and is a producer on the highly anticipated Orion pictures film, "Jinn", which will be in theaters in the fall of 2018.- Actress
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This stunning and resourceful actress has been primarily a film player thus far. Only recently has she been opening herself up more to doing television (the series Gemini Division (2008), which she executive-produced), and animated voice-overs. Dawson's powerhouse talent stands out the most in edgy, urban filming that dates back to 1995 when she was only sixteen.
A rags-to-riches article entitled "Rosario Dawson: From Tenement to Tinseltown" probably says it all. Rosario was born on May 9, 1979 in New York City. Her mother, Isabel Celeste, of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent, is a singer, and her stepfather, who raised her, Greg Dawson, of Irish descent, is a construction laborer. Her parents, who married when both were teenagers, eventually divorced. Rosario and her younger brother, Clay Dawson, had it hard while growing up, and were cared for by family members, most of whom were poverty-stricken, and some of whom were HIV-positive.
Her career actually started as a child when she made a minor showing on the children's show, Sesame Street (1969). As the story goes, she was "discovered" as an adolescent on her front porch step by two photographers. One of them, Harmony Korine, was an aspiring screenwriter who thought the inexperienced sixteen-year-old was ideal for the controversial cult film Kids (1995), in which she would portray a sexually active adolescent. It took time for Rosario's film career to kick in after that, but by the late 1990s, she had nabbed several independent films. Since then, she has moved into main-stream hits (and misses) and has surprised viewers with her earthy, provocative, uninhibited approach to her roles.
Reflecting New York's tougher, tawdrier side as assorted streetwalkers, homeless mothers, drug addicts, etc., her film highlights have included Light It Up (1999), Edward Burns' Sidewalks of New York (2001), Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002) and Shattered Glass (2003). For Oliver Stone, she portrayed the duped bride of Colin Farrell's famed B.C. Macedonian warrior, Alexander (2004) (as in "...the Great"), which featured a notoriously violent-tinged nude/sex scene.
Expanding her horizons beyond film, she has always expressed interest in singing. She hooked up with Prince for the re-release of his 1980s hit "1999" and appeared in The Chemical Brothers' video for the song "Out of Control" from the album "Surrender". She is also featured on the Outkast track, "She Lives in My Lap". On stage, she co-starred as Julia in a revival of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" at the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" and appeared in "The Vagina Monologues".
She lucked into and got to show off her singing chops in the film adaptation of the hit New York musical Rent (2005), when Daphne Rubin-Vega, the original Mimi, became pregnant and was unable to reprise her exotic dancer role. Rosario also appeared as a prostitute in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City (2005). Of late, she has turned to producing. One of those, Descent (2007), had her playing a college coed who is brutally attacked and raped by a fellow student. Her more popular ventures have thus far included the role of Valerie Brown in the live-action version of the comic strip Josie and the Pussycats (2001), the Will Smith starrer Men in Black II (2002), Eagle Eye (2008) with Shia LaBeouf and Seven Pounds (2008), again with Smith, in which she offered one of her more tender-hearted performances as a woman with a potentially fatal heart condition.
More recent millennium films opposite some of Hollywood's top leading movie men include the tense actioneer Unstoppable (2010) with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine; the comedy/fantasy Zookeeper (2011) opposite Dalekmania (1995); romantic dramedy 10 Years (2011) with Channing Tatum; crime drama Fire with Fire (2012) with Bruce Willis; romantic comedy Top Five (2014) with Chris Rock; and action adventure Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) with Woody Harrelson. She has also top-lined independent films with her own feisty characters such as the thriller Unforgettable (2017) and the title role in the dramedy Krystal (2017).
Focusing also on TV projects, Rosario has graced such action series/mini-series as Daredevil (2015), Iron Fist (2017) and The Defenders (2017), as well as the comedy Jane the Virgin (2014) and animated cartoon series The Last Kids on Earth (2019).
Off-camera, the still-single Dawson is highly active in political, social and environmental causes and has been involved with such organizations/charities/campaigns as the Lower East Side Girls Club, Global Cool, the O.N.E. Campaign, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Control Arms, International Rescue Committee, Voto Latino (which she founded), Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy and Save the Children. In October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign, a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence.- Actress
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Thandiwe Newton was born in London. She is the daughter of Zimbabwean mother Nyasha, a health-care worker from the Shona tribe, and British father Nick Newton, who worked as a lab technician. She lived in Zambia until political unrest caused her family to move back to the UK, where she lived in Cornwall (in southwest Britain) until she was 11 and enrolled in London's Art Educational School to study modern dance until a back injury forced her to quit dancing. This led to her auditioning for films. Her first role was in John Duigan's Flirting (1991). She then moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue acting. When her British accent limited the amount of work she was getting, she returned to Britain, studied at Cambridge University, and earned a degree in anthropology. Between semesters she continued acting and became noticed in in- demand for future film roles.