Movies

Movies trivia | 100 facts about famous actresses (part 4)

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

Greta Gerwig’s full name is Greta Celeste Gerwig
She was born on August 4, 1983
She is an American actress and filmmaker
She first garnered attention after working on and appearing in several mumblecore films
Between 2006 and 2009, she appeared in a number of films by Joe Swanberg
Some of which she co-wrote or co-directed
These include Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007) and Nights and Weekends (2008)
Since the early 2010s, Gerwig has collaborated with her partner Noah Baumbach on several films
Including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, and Mistress America (2015)
She has also appeared in the films Damsels in Distress (2011), To Rome with Love (2012), Maggie’s Plan (2015), Jackie (2016), and 20th Century Women (2016)
Gerwig’s solo directorial ventures were the coming-of-age films Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019)
For the former, she received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay
She is a native of Sacramento, California
Gerwig is the daughter of Christine, an OB-GYN nurse
And Gordon Gerwig, who worked for a credit union on small business loans
She is close to her parents and they make an appearance in Frances Ha as her character’s parents
She has an older brother, a landscape architect
And sister, a manager at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
She has German, Irish, and English ancestry
She was raised a Unitarian Universalist
She attended St. Francis High School, an all-girls Catholic school in Sacramento
She has described herself as having been “an intense child”
She showed an early interest in dance
She had intended to complete a degree in musical theatre in New York
She ended up graduating from Barnard College with a degree in English and philosophy
Outside class, she performed in the Columbia University Varsity Show with Kate McKinnon
Gerwig will collaborate with Baumbach in co-writing and potentially directing a live-action Barbie film
In the film, Margot Robbie will star in the title role
Gerwig’s films tend to be based on her own experiences
In a behind-the-scenes video on the set of Lady Bird she said, “I tend to start with things from my own life, then pretty quickly they spin out into their own orbit”
Gerwig presses her actors to incorporate their personalities into their performances as well
And says of her writing and directing, “it’s all about actors.”
In addition, she allows little line improvisation and the script is followed fairly closely
Her works have common themes: the growth and emotional maturation of the leading woman, and relationships among family members, friends, and significant others, with a special interest in female dynamics
Characters are reportedly never villainized, and all are sympathetic
She tends to imbue her films with a unique and specific deadpan sense of humor
Visually they also carry a very specific atmosphere
Simultaneously having the warmth of looking back on something in memory and displaying things as they are, stripped of any sort of showiness
Gerwig moved to New York City at 19 to attend Barnard College
She lives in Brooklyn with filmmaker Noah Baumbach
They are partners since late 2011
In March 2019, it was announced Gerwig had given birth to their son Harold
Gerwig had become the fifth woman in history to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director
Carrie Fisher was a really famous singer known mostly for her role on Star Wars.
46. Fisher published her autobiographical book, also titled Wishful Drinking, based on her successful play in December 2008 and embarked on a media tour
On April 2, 2009, Fisher returned to the stage with her play at the Seattle Repertory Theatre with performances through May 9, 2009
On October 4, 2009, Wishful Drinking then opened on Broadway in New York at Studio 54 and played an extended run until January 17, 2010.
In December 2009, Fisher’s audiobook recording of her best-selling memoir, Wishful Drinking, earned her a nomination for a 2009 Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word Album category.
. Fisher joined Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne on Saturday evenings for The Essentials with informative and entertaining conversation on Hollywood’s best films.
She guest-starred in the episode titled “Sex and Another City” from season 3 of Sex and the City with Sarah Jessica Parker. This episode also featured Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hefner, and Sam Seder in guest roles.
In 2010, HBO aired a feature-length documentary based on a special live performance of Fisher’s Wishful Drinking stage production.
Fisher also appeared on the seventh season of Entourage in the summer of 2010.
. In August 2013, she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Venice Film Festival.
In June 2014, she filmed an appearance on the UK comedy panel show QI. It was broadcast on December 25, 2014.
In 2015 she starred alongside Sharon Horgan and American comedian Rob Delaney in Catastrophe, a six-part comedy series for the British Channel 4 that aired in the UK from 19 January 2015.
Fisher’s memoir, The Princess Diarist, was released in November 2016.
The book is based on diaries she kept while filming the original Star Wars trilogy in the late 70s and early 80s.
In an interview posted March 2013, confirming she would reprise her role as Princess Leia in Episode VII of the series, she claimed Leia was “Elderly. She’s in an intergalactic old folks’ home [laughs]. I just think she would be just like she was before, only slower and less inclined to be up for the big battle.”
After other media outlets reported this on March 6, 2013, her representative said the same day Fisher was joking and nothing has been announced.
In March 2014, Fisher stated that she was moving to London for six months because that was where filming would take place.
On April 29, 2014, the cast for Star Wars Episode VII was officially announced, and Fisher, along with original trilogy castmates Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, and Kenny Baker, were all cast in their original roles for the film. New castmates include Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, and Max von Sydow.
. Star Wars Episode VII, subtitled The Force Awakens, was released worldwide on December 18, 2015. Fisher was nominated for a 2016 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal.
. In her 2016 autobiography, The Princess Diarist, Fisher alleged that she and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair during the filming of Star Wars in 1976.
Fisher dated musician Paul Simon from 1977 until 1983.
. In 1980, she was briefly engaged to Canadian actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd, who proposed on the set of their film The Blues Brothers.
Fisher was married to Simon from August 1983 to July 1984, and they dated again for a time after their divorce.
During their marriage, she appeared in Simon’s music video for the song “Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War”. Simon’s song “Hearts and Bones” is about their relationship.
Subsequently, she had a relationship with Creative Artists Agency principal and talent agent Bryan Lourd. They had one child together, Billie Catherine Lourd (born July 17, 1992).
. Eddie Fisher states in his autobiography (Been There Done That) his granddaughter’s name is Catherine Fisher Lourd and her nickname is “Billy”.
The couple’s relationship ended when Lourd left to be in a relationship with a man. Though Fisher has described Lourd as her second husband in interviews, according to a 2004 profile of the actress and writer, she and Lourd were never legally married.
Fisher also had a close relationship with James Blunt. While working on his album Back to Bedlam in 2003, Blunt spent much of his time at Fisher’s residence.
On February 26, 2005, R. Gregory “Greg” Stevens, a lobbyist, was found dead in Fisher’s California home.
The final autopsy report lists the cause of death as “cocaine and oxycodone use” but adds chronic, and apparently previously undiagnosed, heart disease as contributing factors.
Media coverage of an initial autopsy report used the word “overdose,” but that wording is not in the final report.
In an interview, Fisher claimed that Stevens’ ghost haunted her mansion, which unsettled her: “I was a nut for a year”, she explained, “and in that year I took drugs again.”
Fisher has described herself as an “enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God”.
She was raised Protestant, but often attends Jewish services, the faith of her father, with Orthodox friends.
. She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, Inc. weight loss television ads that aired in January 2011.
. Fisher has publicly discussed her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her addictions to cocaine and prescription medication, including an appearance on ABC’s 20/20 and The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive with Stephen Fry for the BBC.
She has said that her drug use was a form of self-medication, using pain medication such as Percodan to “dial down” the manic aspect of her bipolar disorder.
Princess Leia never actually gets to ‘meet’ Obi Wan Kenobi. She sees him from afar when she’s escaping the Death Star and Obi Wan is about to let Darth Vader kill him but that’s it. Unless you count Obi Wan being present for her birth in Revenge of the Sith.
Leia says the last line of the movie Rogue One “What Is It They’ve Sent Us? Hope.” It’s a clever set up for the title of A New Hope and ties in thematically well. In saying this last line, that takes Leia’s tally of saying the final line of a Star Wars movie to three – the other two being The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi.
She beat some big names to land the role of Princess Leia. More than two dozen actresses auditioned for the role.
These included Sissy Spacek, Farrah Fawcett, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Cybill Shepherd, Jane Seymour, Anjelica Huston, Kim Basinger, Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis.
She was forced to strap down her boobs. Her breasts were taped down with gaffer tape, as her costume did not permit any lingerie to be worn underneath.
She joked later, “As we all know, there is no underwear in space.”
She didn’t like her bagel bun hair style. She disliked the “bagel bun” hairstyle she wore in the original Star Wars, but she didn’t say anything about it because she was afraid that director George Lucas would get angry and fire her.
She clashed with her mother about the role. Due to the limited budget the American cast members and crew flew economy class to England, rather than first class.
Ehen Carrie Fisher’s mother, film star Debbie Reynolds, heard about this she called George Lucas to complain. Lucas handed the phone to Carrie who simply said, “Mother, I want to fly coach, will you fuck off?!” and hung up.
She thinks she did a bad job playing Leia. She doesn’t think she’s a very good actress and often quotes her awkward half-British, half-American accent as an example.
She has a common ancestry with Mark Hamill. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are of Swedish and Jewish ancestry, respectively. In the prequels, their parents would be played by Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, who also have Swedish and Jewish ancestry.
She was too short for some scenes.
She stood on a box for many of her scenes with Harrison Ford in the Star Wars trilogy, owing to the fact that she was roughly a foot shorter than him and didn`t fit into the frame.
Fisher died at the age of 60 on December 27, 2016, after going into cardiac arrest during a transatlantic flight four days earlier.
Keira Knightley was born on the 26th of March 1985.
She was born in Teddington, Greater London.She grew in an artistic family because her parents were theatre actors
. Her mother is of Scottish and Welsh descent, while her father is English.
She was meant to be named “Kiera”, the Anglicized form of “Kira”, a name influenced by the Russian ice skater, Kira Ivanova, whom her father admired. However, Macdonald misspelled the name when she went to register her daughter, writing the “e” before the “i”.
She has an elder brother called Caleb.
At the age of six, she was diagnosed with dyslexia but by the time she was eleven, with her parents’ support she was able to get over it.