Kate Hudson

2008-06-22T01:05:00.001-07:00

A favorite female lead in romantic comedies for her outgoing comedic personality and sunny charisma, Kate Hudson avoided the dual dangers a Hollywood upbringing and famous parents; instead earning her own success on the big screen. At the beginning of the new century Hudson was Tinseltown’s reigning nouveau hippie chick, a sensibility likely passed down from flower power mom Goldie Hawn and further established by her Oscar-nominated role as a 1970s rock ‘n’ roll groupie in “Almost Famous” (2000) and real-life marriage to Black Crowes’ rocker Chris Robinson. Hudson went on to enjoy major box office success with romantic comedies including “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” (2003) and “You, Me, and Dupree” (2006), due largely to the actresses’ natural charm and the fun-loving rapport she shared with her male co-stars.But Hudson undoubtedly made her biggest impression on Hollywood in 2000. She read the script of Cameron Crowe’s 1970s coming-of-age rock chronicle, “Almost Famous” and was determined to land a role in the film, attracted by the music and fashion of her favorite decade, as well as recognizing that it would be a significant acting challenge that would prove she could take her career to the next level. In this tale of an aspiring music journalist on the road with a rising rock band and its troupe of female “band-aides,” Hudson initially landed the smaller role of the rebellious runaway sister of lead character William (Patrick Fugate). Thankfully for her, Sarah Polley had to drop out of her role as head band-aid Penny Lane and Hudson tirelessly worked to convince Crowe that she could carry the one of the film’s three leads. He relented, and Hudson delivered a pitch-perfect performance, imbuing Penny Lane’s flamboyant, life-of-the-party facade with heart-breaking (and heartbroken) vulnerability and insecurity just beneath the surface. The rumor mill had calmed down enough by the beginning of 2008, so as not to overshadow Hudson’s sparkling, comedic re-teaming with McConaughey in “Fool’s Gold,” an adventure about a newly-divorced couple who bury the hatchet and team up to retrieve a sunken treasure. Hudson was next slated to co-star opposite Dane Cook in another crossed-wires romantic farce, “Bachelor No.2” (2008), and the budding entrepreneur also planned to launch a line of natural hair-care products later in the year.

Rachel Weisz

2008-06-22T01:02:00.001-07:00

Rachel Hannah Weisz is an Academy Award-winning English actress. She became well-known after her roles in the Hollywood films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and has since continued appearing in major film roles.
Her breakthrough role was that of Gilda in Welsh director Sean Mathias's 1995 West End revival of Noel Coward's 1933 play Design for Living at the Gielgud Theatre. Having already worked for television, with parts in major UK series such as Inspector Morse (1993), Weisz started her cinema career in 1995 with Chain Reaction and then appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty. She followed this work with more English films including My Summer with Des, Swept from the Sea, The Land Girls, and Michael Winterbottom's I Want You. Although she received favourable critical recognition for her work to this point, her breakout into wide audience recognition came from a popular serio-comic horror movie The Mummy, in which she played the lead female role. Since then she has starred in a number of films including The Mummy Returns (2001), which grossed higher than the original, as well as Enemy at the Gates (2001), About a Boy (2002), Runaway Jury (2003) and Constantine (2005). Her stage work includes the role of Catherine in a London production of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer and Evelyn in Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things at the Almeida Theatre (also film).
In 2005, Weisz starred in Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener, a film adaptation of a John le Carré thriller of the same title set in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya. For this role, Weisz won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. In her home country, she was recognized as a leading role for the film according to the nomination from the BAFTA awards and winnings from the London Critics Circle Film Awards and British Independent Film Awards.
In 2006 Weisz was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The same year, she starred in The Fountain and also provided the voice for Saphira in Eragon. Her upcoming films include the Wong Kar-wai-directed drama My Blueberry Nights (in which she plays an "anti-Southern Belle") and director Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom, in which she plays a wealthy American woman targeted by two con man brothers (Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo). On 7 July 2007, Weisz presented at the American leg of Live Earth.

hollywood

Kate Hudson

Rachel Weisz