Movies trivia | 100 facts about famous actresses (part 3)

We all think we know the actresses we adore and like, but how many things do we actually know about them?

Here we are about to dive into the lives of some of the most famous and successful actresses of all the times.

1. Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born 5 October 1975 in Reading, Berkshire, England.

2. Her parents are Sally Anne , a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming pool contractor.

3. She has two sisters, Beth and Anna, and one brother, Joss Winslet.

4. Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl.

5. At the age of 12, Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope for Sugar Puffs cereal.

6. Pope said her naturalism was “there from the start”.

7. During her teenage years, Winslet appeared in more than 20 stage productions of Reading-based Starmaker Theatre Company including lead parts such as Miss Hannigan in Annie, Mother Wolf in The Jungle Book and Lena Marelli in Bugsy Malone.

8. Winslet made her television debut with a co-starring role in the BBC children’s science fiction serial Dark Season.

9. This role was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV film Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back, and an episode of the medical drama Casualty in 1993.

10. In 1992, Winslet attended a casting call for Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures in London. Winslet auditioned for the role of Juliet Hulme, a teenager who assists in the murder of the mother of her best friend, Pauline Parker.

11. The film included Winslet’s singing debut, and her a cappella version of “Sono Andati”, an aria from La bohème, was featured on the film’s soundtrack.

12. The same year, from 7 April to 7 May, she appeared as Geraldine Barclay in What the Butler Saw for The Royal Exchange Theatre. For her performance in the play, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards.

13. The following year, Winslet auditioned for the role of Lucy Steele in the adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. She was instead cast in the second leading role of Marianne Dashwood.

14. In 1996, Winslet starred in both Jude and Hamlet. In Michael Winterbottom’s Jude, based on the Victorian novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, she played Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings who falls in love with her cousin, played by Christopher Eccleston.

15. She achieved global stardom with the epic romance Titanic (1997), which was the highest-grossing film of all time at that point.

16. Winslet’s performances in Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), Revolutionary Road (2008), The Dressmaker (2015), and Steve Jobs (2015) continued to draw praise from film critics. In 2008, film critic David Edelstein described her as “the best English-speaking film actress of her generation”.

17. Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader (2008) and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for playing the title role in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011).

18. Winslet’s greatest commercial successes since Titanic include the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), the animated film Flushed Away (2006), and the first two films of The Divergent Series.

19. In addition to acting, Winslet has narrated documentaries and children’s books. She was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000 for narrating Listen to the Storyteller.

20. She has also provided her vocals to soundtracks of her films, including the single “What If” from Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001).

21. While on the set of the 1991 TV series Dark Season, Winslet met actor and writer Stephen Tredre, with whom she had a four-and-a-half-year relationship.[143] Winslet and Tredre remained close after their separation in 1995.[144] He died of bone cancer during the opening week of Titanic, causing her to miss the film’s Los Angeles premiere to attend his funeral in London.[145]

22. On 22 November 1998, Winslet married film director Jim Threapleton, whom she met while on the set of Hideous Kinky in 1997.

23. They have a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, who was born on 12 October 2000 in London.

23. Winslet and Threapleton divorced on 13 December 2001.

24. Following her separation from Threapleton, Winslet began a relationship with director Sam Mendes in 2001, and she married him on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla. Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City.

25. Winslet and Mendes announced their separation in March 2010, and divorced in 2011.

26. In August 2011, a fire broke out at a residence in which Winslet, her children, and her then-boyfriend, model Louis Dowler, were staying on Necker Island, the private resort island of Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. The fire caused significant damage to the home, but no injuries.

27. During the same August 2011 holiday on Necker Island, Winslet met fellow guest Ned Rocknroll, and they soon began dating.

28. Rocknroll was born Ned Abel Smith, but later legally changed his name. He is a nephew of Richard Branson and works for Virgin Galactic, the space-travel division of his uncle’s business.

29. Rocknroll was previously married to Eliza Pearson, daughter of Viscount Cowdray. Winslet and Rocknroll became engaged in the summer of 2012.

30. It was announced in September 2012 that the couple had relocated from New York to live in the UK permanently, moving into a heritage home in South Downs National Park in West Wittering, West Sussex.

31. Winslet and Rocknroll married in a private ceremony in New York in December 2012.

32. The couple’s son, Bear Blaze Winslet, was born in the County of Sussex, England, on 7 December 2013.

33. Her favorite type of shoes to wear are boots because she says it makes her feel like she is “firmly on the ground.”

34. She is 12 years older than Evan Rachel Wood, who played her daughter on Mildred Pierce in 2001.

35. Just one week after Ashlee Simpson’s had an embarrassing “recorded song malfunction” on Saturday Night Live, Winslet hosted and she opened the show by singing and dancing live.

36. Angelina Jolie is a famous actress, who has also received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In August 2002, she received the inaugural Humanitarian Award from the Church World Service’s Immigration and Refugee Program, and in October 2003, she was the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association.

37. She was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA in October 2005, and she received the Freedom Award from the International Rescue Committee in November 2007.

38. In October 2011, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres presented Jolie with a gold pin reserved for the most long-serving staff, in recognition of her decade as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

39. In November 2013, Jolie received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Academy Award, from the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

40. In June 2014, she was appointed an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for her services to the UK’s foreign policy and campaigning to end sexual violence in war zones.

41. Queen Elizabeth II presented Jolie with the insignia of her honorary damehood during a private ceremony the following October.

42. “Jolie” means “pretty” in French.

43. On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child,[169] seven-month-old Maddox Chivan, from an orphanage in Battambang, Cambodia.

44. Jolie adopted a daughter, six-month-old Zahara Marley, from an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 6, 2005.

45. After Pitt announced his intention to adopt her children, she filed a petition to legally change their surname from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt, which was granted on January 19, 2006. Pitt adopted Maddox and Zahara soon after.

46. In an attempt to avoid the unprecedented media frenzy surrounding their relationship, Jolie and Pitt traveled to Namibia for the birth of their first biological child. On May 27, 2006, she gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, in Swakopmund

47. They sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images with the aim of benefiting charity, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these valuable photographs. People and Hello! purchased the North American and British rights to the images for $4.1 and $3.5 million respectively, a record in celebrity photojournalism at that time,[187] with all proceeds donated to UNICEF.

48. They sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images with the aim of benefiting charity, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these valuable photographs. People and Hello! purchased the North American and British rights to the images for $4.1 and $3.5 million respectively, a record in celebrity photojournalism at that time, with all proceeds donated to UNICEF.

49. At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins.

50. For the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, France, reporters, and photographers camped outside on the promenade. She gave birth to a son, Knox Léon, and a daughter, Vivienne Marcheline, on July 12, 2008. The first pictures of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for a reported $14 million—the most expensive celebrity photographs ever taken. All proceeds were donated to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

51. On February 16, 2013, at age 37, Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning she had an 87% risk of developing breast cancer due to a defective BRCA1 gene.

52. On February 16, 2013, at age 37, Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning she had an 87% risk of developing breast cancer due to a defective BRCA1 gene. Her maternal family history warranted genetic testing for BRCA mutations: her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, had breast cancer and died from ovarian cancer, while her grandmother died from ovarian cancer. Her aunt, who had the same BRCA1 defect, died from breast cancer three months after Jolie’s operation. Following the mastectomy, which lowered her chances of developing breast cancer to under 5 percent, Jolie had reconstructive surgery involving implants and allografts. Two years later, in March 2015, after annual test results indicated possible signs of early ovarian cancer, she underwent a preventive oophorectomy, as she had a 50% risk of developing ovarian cancer due to the same genetic anomaly. Despite hormone replacement therapy, the surgery brought on premature menopause.

53. After completing each operation, Jolie discussed her mastectomy and oophorectomy in op-eds published by The New York Times, with the aim of helping other women make informed health choices. She detailed her diagnosis, surgeries, and personal experiences, and described her decision to undergo preventive surgery as a proactive measure for the sake of her six children. Jolie further wrote, “On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”

54. Has the Latin phrase “Quod me nutrit me destruit” (“What nourishes me also destroys me”) tattooed across her stomach.

55. Ranked #87 in Premiere magazine’s 2002 annual “Power 100” list.

56. In role as goodwill ambassador, she visited Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand to check on conditions of 9,000 refugees from bordering Myanmar. [May 2002]

57. Was named “The sexiest woman alive” by the Swedish evening newspaper “Aftonbladet” (2003).

58. Voted the 3rd Sexiest Female Movie Star in the Australian Empire Magazine. [September 2002]

59. Voted #9 in the 2004 FHM UK list of 100 Sexiest Women in the World.

60. One of her favorite television series is King of the Hill (1997). She also enjoys the Game Show Network and Animal Planet.

61. She was voted #2 on VH1’s “100 Hottest Hotties”.

62. Named Most Beautiful Woman in People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World (2005). More than 500,000 readers were polled.

63. She was made an official citizen of Cambodia by the King for her ongoing efforts to help the environment there. [August 2005]

64. Was nominated for Worst Actress at the Razzie Awards for four straight years from 2002 to 2005, but each time was beaten by another of her fellow nominees.

65. Performed her own stunts in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and received cuts from the chandelier scene as a result. She also set fire to her silk pajamas on the chandelier while she was doing her “bungee jumps” in the house. She was taken to a hospital with minor burns but resumed filming the next day.

66. Named #7 on Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 Women of 2005 list.

67. Ranked #1 in E! Television’s 2006 101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies.

68. Has tattoos of the coordinates representing the birth countries of each of her kids (she even has the coordinates of France tattooed on her arm twice, one each for Knox and Viv), which cover up the Billy Bob Thornton tattoo. [June 2006]

69. Holds a Private Pilot Certificate with the Airplane, Single Engine, Land rating. This means that she is qualified to fly any single-engined aircraft based on land (i.e., no seaplanes) under visual flight rules only (i.e., no instrument qualifications yet so she cannot fly in conditions requiring instruments).

70. She has a fondness for Liverpool Football Club because her son Maddox “only wants to play for Liverpool”.

71. Became the third actress to join the coveted $20 Million Club (after Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz), when she signed to do Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) for that amount.

72. Named #2 in FHM magazine’s “100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006” supplement.

73. Is left-handed and therefore had to have guns specially made so that she could reload them easily for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).

74. Was on the “Time 100”, a list of the world’s 100 most influential people in the world by “Time” magazine (2006).

75. Ranked #33 on EW’s The 50 Smartest People in Hollywood (2007).

76. Ranked #3 in the 2008 Forbes Celebrity 100 list.

77. Friends with Gwen Stefani.

78. In July 2009, she was voted in first place in a poll to find the 100 Greatest Sex Symbols for Britain’s Channel 4. Elvis Presley was runner-up.

79. Was considered for the role of Natasha Rushman/Black Widow in Iron Man 2 (2010) after Emily Blunt dropped out of the project, but Scarlett Johansson was cast instead.

80. Replaced Charlize Theron as Elise Clifton-Ward in The Tourist (2010) shortly before filming began.

81. Was originally cast as Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011) before being replaced by Charlize Theron, who in turn was replaced by Taylor Schilling.

82. Was considered for the role of Ryan Stone in Gravity (2013), but Sandra Bullock was cast instead.

83. Was named after costumer designer Angela Alexander who designed costumes for the film The All-American Boy (1973) that her father Jon Voight starred in. Jon and Angela became good friends on the set, and he became fascinated when she told him her original Greek name was “Angeliki”, which in Greek means “Angelic Messenger of God”. During the film’s shoot, Jon Voight came to Angela on the set and told her that one day if he and his wife (then actress Marcheline Bertrand) ever had a daughter he was going to name her “Angelica”. They had only had a son at the time; Jolie was born two years later. Although he originally named her Angelica, a year later after his divorce with Marcheline, she began calling her “Angelina.”.

84. Returned to work 8 months after giving birth to twins Vivienne and Knox in order to begin filming Salt (2010).

85. Ranked #10 in Men’s Health 100 Hottest Women of All Time (2011).

86. Delivered all her biological children via scheduled Caesarean sections.

87. Was a guest writer for The Economist’s special edition The World in 2008. In an article entitled A Year For Accountability, she stated that, “accountability is perhaps the only force powerful enough to break the cycle of violence and retribution that marks so many conflicts… Common sense tells us that when risks are weighed, decisions are made differently. When crimes against humanity are punished consistently and severely, the killers’ calculus will change.”

88. Was made a honorary Dame by Queen Elizabeth II on June 13, 2014 in London.

89. She handpicked Lana Del Rey to perform the song “Once Upon a Dream” as the main theme for Maleficent (2014).

90. Is one of 15 Oscar-winning actresses to have been born in the state of California. The others are Fay Bainter, Gloria Grahame, Jo Van Fleet, Liza Minnelli, Tatum O’Neal, Diane Keaton, Sally Field, Anjelica Huston, Cher, Jodie Foster, Helen Hunt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marcia Gay Harden and Brie Larson.

91. Emily Blunt has three siblings: Felicity, Sebastian and Suzanna.

92. Her mother Janice is a school teacher and former actress and her father Oliver Simon Peter Blunt is a Barrister.

93. She was nominated for BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress based on her performance in “The Devil Wears Prada.”

94. She was born as Emily Olivia Leah Blunt on February 23, 1983 in London, England.

95. In November 2008, Blunt started dating American actor John Krasinski. The couple got engaged in August 2009 and married on 10 July 2010 in Como, Italy.

96. The Entertainment Weekly named her the “Best Female Scene Stealer” for her performance in “The Devil Wears Prada.” According to her she was told to lose weight for the role in the movie. Both she and Anne Hathaway would stay hungry on the set as they were kept under strict diet.

97. At the early age of 16 she was offered a record deal by producer, who spotted her in a musical bliss at the Edinburg Festival.

98. She overcame stuttering at an early age of 12 with acting and adopting new accents. She gives the credit to one of the school teacher.

99. She later was included in the board of director for American Institute for Stuttering.

100. Impressed by her performance in “The Summer of Love” she was asked to audition for “Irresistible” in 2006 by Susan Sarandon.

Read more: Movies trivia | 100 facts about famous actresses (part 2)