Ethan Hawke
Ethan Green Hawke was born in 1970 in Austin, Texas, to seventeen-year-old Leslie Carole (Green) and eighteen-year-old James Steven Hawke. His parents divorced when Hawke was five and for the next five years he and his mother moved around, finally settling in Princeton Junction, New Jersey with Leslie's new husband.
Though Hawke's initial ambition was to become a writer, he enjoyed school theater productions and excellent in them, and so attended an audition for the science fiction feature film Explorers. He got the role, and the film came out in 1985. Though it did quite well critically, it was not a commercial success which deterred Hawke from pursuing acting for a few years. He attended Carnegie-Mellon University, but dropped out early when he secured his breakthrough role in the 1989 film Dead Poet's Society. In 1994 he received critical praise for his role in Reality Bites, and in 1995 he starred in the first of Richard Linklater's romantic drama trilogy, Before Sunrise. In 1997 Hawke starred in Gattaca, where he met his first wife, Uma Thurman.
With the release of Dead Poet's Society, Hawke had established himself as an actor, and he subsequently became very involved with the New York theater scene, starting the nonprofit theatre company 'Malaparte' with friends. The theater world welcomed Hawke with open arms: in 1992 he made his Broadway debut in Anton Checkhov's The Seagullm and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia in 2007. He also became a filmmaker in his own right. In 1993 he wrote, directed and edited the short film Straight to One.
During some time out from filmmaking, Hawke wrote his first novel, The Hottest State (published in 1996) which was by and large mocked by many critics. Nonetheless, he published a second novel, Ash Wednesday in 2002.
He has received four Oscar nominations: the first for Training Day as Best Supporting Actor, one for Boyhood as Best Supporting Actor, and two for Best Adapted Screenplay for Before Sunset and 'Before Midnight.
Uma Thurman
Born in 1970 to parents Nena von Schlebrugge and Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman, Uma Karuna Thurman grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father is a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies; the Dalai Lama was a regular guest at the family home. Uma, as well as all of her siblings, have names from Buddhist mythology: Uma means 'splendor' or 'light' in Sanskrit and Karuna 'compassion' or 'empathy'. As a child, Thurman was introverted and shy. The family travelled a lot during her childhood which meant Thurman was often the new kid at school. She was also teased for her height and big feet, strange name, and unconventional family life: Thurman had a Buddhist upbringing and spent about two years in the Indo-Himalayan town of Almora.
It is no wonder then that teenager Thurman sought refuge playing other people, by starting to act. Her passion took her to New York City for high school where, at fifteen, she began modeling and looking for acting work. Her breakthrough roles were in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons and Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, both in 1988. In the acting world, her unusual look was celebrated, and she became a sex symbol almost overnight.
Thurman has starred in huge Hollywood blockbusters, the most notable of which are probably her collaborations with director Quentin Tarantino, with Pulp Fiction in 1994 and the Kill Bill series, the first of which came out in 2003. She has also starred in arty independent films, such as A Month by the Lake in 1995. In 1997 she met her second husband, Ethan Hawke, on the set of Gattaca; they have two children together.
Among other awards and nominations, Thurman received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Pulp Fiction, won a Saturn Award for Best Actress for Kill Bill: Vol.1, and won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Science-Fiction actress for Batman and Robin. She has also won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for HBO's Hysterical Blindness.
Jude Law
Born in 1972 in Lewisham, London to schoolteacher parents Margaret Anne Heyworth and Peter Robert Law, Jude Law began his acting career on stage in 1992. He continued to star in many plays throughout London and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for 'Outstanding Newcomer' for his performance in Indiscretions, which transferred to Broadway. On Broadway, Law starred in the play opposite Kathleen Turner.
It wasn't until 1997 that Law broke into film, with Gattaca, alongside Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. In 1999 he came to international attention playing Dickie Greenleaf in Anthony Minghella's film The Talented Mr Ripley. His film career then gained momentum with Law playing roles in films including Enemy at the Gates in 2001, Road to Perdition in 2002, and The Aviator in 2004.
Law is a former partner in the production company 'Natural Nylon' with Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor and his ex-wife Sadie Frost. He has been nominated for two Academy Awards: for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Cold Mountain in 2003, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999.
Loren Dean
Dean was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1969. After his parents' divorce, he moved to California with his mother. When visiting his father, the two would often go to the movies, which lead to Dean's love of film.
Dean moved to New York to pursue acting and began on stage where her won a Theatre World Award for the Off Broadway play Amulets Against the Dragon Forces in 1989. His first film was in 1988: Plain Clothes. Much of his career he has played supporting roles in films including Apollo 13 in 1995, Gattaca in 1997 and Space Cowboys in 2000.
