Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon began her movie career in 1970 before making the move to daytime television the following year, spending two seasons as a cast member of the daytime soap opera A World Apart. She received her first Academy Award nomination eight years later for her performance in the French-Canadian romance Atlantic City; Thelma and Louise also earned her an Oscar nod, but it was not until her fourth nomination came in the Best Actress category that she finally went home with a gold statuette, this time for her performance in Dead Man Walking. The film's subject, broadly, life on death row, piqued an interest in social justice in Sarandon and also proved to be serendipitous as in 2018 she became the narrator of the HLN crime series Death Row Stories.
Geena Davis
Davis is best known for her portrayal of strong and often controversial female figures, and also for her activism in the form of advocacy for women in the entertainment industry. Having begun her career as a model, Davis made her acting debut in 1980 opposite Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Award-winning movie Tootsie. In 1988, Davis won an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in The Accidental Tourist alongside William Hurt. Despite a second Oscar nomination for the role of Thelma Dickinson, Davis' career took a downturn after she appeared in one box office flop after another, and an inevitable hiatus followed.
In 2006 she experienced a career resurgence after starring in the television series Commander in Chief, for which she won a Golden Globe award in the Best Actress in a Television Drama category.
Harvey Keitel
Keitel has starred in some of the most groundbreaking an also controversial films of the last forty years, including Mean Streets in 1973, and Taxi Driver three years later. Keitel has had long-running relationships with both Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, starring in three of Tarantino's movies and earning considerable acclaim for his performance in Reservoir Dogs, in which fellow Thelma and Louise cast member Michael Madsen also starred.
In 1993, Keitel was awarded an Australian Oscar in the Best Actor category for his performance in Jane Campion's film The Piano. In 1995, he paid it forwards by becoming a co-president of Th Actors' Studio in New York, where he had studied at the start of his career.
Michael Madsen
The role of Jimmy Lennox was Madsen's first in a movie, but it is for the role of Mr Blonde in Quentin Tarantino's Reservior Dogs that he is probably best known. The sequence of him dancing to a classic Steeler's Wheel song whilst thinking about torturing the man tied to the chair in front of him is both disturbing and darkly comic, two genres that Madsen has mastered during his career. This performance led to a long lasting association with Tarantino, with Madsen also working with the director in the Kill Bill franchise and also in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
Brad Pitt
Like Michael Madsen, Pitt made his movie debut in Thelma and Louise. Noticed playing Charley Wade's boyfriend on the popular drama series Dallas, Pitt's rise after playing J.D. was nothing short of meteoric; the following year he won his first leading role in A River Runs Through It, following it up with another blockbuster, Legends of the Fall. His first Oscar nomination arrived in 1995, in the Best Supporting Actor category, for his performance i the science fiction movie 12 Monkeys.
Two more Academy Award nominations followed , for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Moneyball respectively, but it was not until 2020 that he was able to take the award home with him, winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, reuniting with Thelma and Louise cast-mates Michael Madsen and Harvey Keitel.
