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Curated playlist

American male Shakespearean actors

  • Christopher WalkenTo look gaunt for The Deer Hunter, Christopher Walken ate only bananas, water and rice for a month.
  • Al PacinoAl Pacino's mother told him poor people don't do acting. He went on to earn nine Oscar nominations.
  • Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
  • John Wilkes BoothJohn Wilkes Booth first plotted to kidnap Lincoln, not kill him. The plan failed when Lincoln changed his plans.
  • Leonardo DiCaprioLeonardo DiCaprio owes his first name to a kick. His pregnant mother felt the baby move while she stood before a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. That child grew up to be an American actor and film…
  • Denzel WashingtonIn 2025, on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the actor Denzel Washington said that the emphasis in his first name belongs on the first syllable. His mother had moved it to the second syllable so that young Denzel would answer to her call and not his…
  • Ewan McGregorEwan McGregor rode motorcycles 22,345 miles from London to New York City in 2004.
  • Morgan FreemanIn January 2010, Morgan Freeman became the voice that opened the CBS Evening News, replacing Walter Cronkite in that spot. The network said it wanted consistency across the introductions to its regular news broadcasts and special reports.…
  • Mel GibsonMel Gibson was paid $400 for his first film role, in Summer City, while he was still a drama student. A short time later, the title role in Mad Max paid him $9000. In the year 2000, Hollywood handed him a record $25 million to star in The…
  • David HarbourDavid Harbour made his television debut in 1999 on Law & Order, playing a waiter. He was born on the 10th of April 1975, and he is an American actor. A waiter is about as small as a screen part gets. So how does an actor go from that…
  • Val KilmerVal Kilmer spent decades being praised in a way that sounded almost like an apology. In 1992, the film critic Roger Ebert remarked, "if there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Kilmer should get it". By then…
  • Kevin SpaceyLate in the 1995 thriller Se7en, Kevin Spacey walks into the story as the serial killer John Doe, and most of the audience had no idea he was coming. His name was missing from the opening credits. It was missing from the film's…
  • Oscar IsaacOscar Isaac wrote his first play in fifth grade, a Noah's Ark story with a doubtful platypus.

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