Curated playlist

Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners

Al PacinoAl Pacino's mother told him poor people don't do acting. He went on to earn nine Oscar nominations.
Matthew McConaugheyMatthew McConaughey, the American actor, won the part that launched his career by walking up to a stranger in a hotel bar. At the time he was a film student at the University of Texas in Austin. He had gone out with his girlfriend to the…
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando sold back his Godfather profit points for $100,000, a sum that cost him an estimated $11 million.
Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas insisted on giving blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo an on-screen credit for Spartacus.
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…
Russell CroweRussell Crowe once told an interviewer about a visit to an Italian store, where a crowd had gathered outside and was shouting a single name. The name was Maximus, the first name of the hero he played in Gladiator. Crowe said the film…
Nicolas CageNicolas Cage was 15 years old when he told his uncle, the director Francis Ford Coppola, "I'll show you acting." He wanted a screen test. What he got was silence in the car. His uncle had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene…
Jack NicholsonJack Nicholson improvised one line in the 1980 horror film The Shining, and it was not in the script.
Richard BurtonRichard Burton, the Welsh actor born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr., once received a cable from Laurence Olivier. Olivier was shocked by Burton's affair with Elizabeth Taylor, and his message was blunt. It read: “Make up your mind, dear heart.…
Robert DuvallRobert Duvall died at his farm in Middleburg, Virginia, on the 15th of February 2026, at the age of 95. His wife, Luciana Pedraza, announced his death in a public statement. He had worked for seven decades, and on screen he rarely seemed…
John WayneJohn Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison and got his new name from a dog.
Peter O'ToolePeter O'Toole asked the Academy to wait when it offered him an honorary Oscar. He hoped to win the award outright.
Dustin HoffmanWhen Dustin Hoffman told his family he wanted to be an actor, his Aunt Pearl had a ready answer. "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough." Hoffman was born in Los Angeles in 1937, and her prediction aged badly. He went on…
Michael DouglasMichael Douglas won a Best Picture Oscar before he was a star. He produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds to play a dying lawyer in Philadelphia. He thinned his hair and learned to walk differently.
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…
Gene HackmanGene Hackman, born Eugene Allen Hackman, once received the lowest score the Pasadena Playhouse had ever given a student. His classmates already treated him and his friend Dustin Hoffman as outsiders. They voted the two of them the least…
Laurence OlivierLaurence Olivier's 1948 film Hamlet was the first non-American film to win Best Picture.
Tom CruiseTom Cruise attended fifteen schools in fourteen years. He was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on the 3rd of July 1962 in Syracuse, New York. Today he is an American actor and film producer, and his career has now run for forty-five years. A…
Sean PennIn Kyiv in November 2022, Sean Penn handed an Oscar statuette to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "This is for you. It's just a symbolic silly thing...When you win, bring it back to Malibu." That was the whole speech. Penn is an…
Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman was an American actor whose career the director Joel Schumacher summed up in 2000 with bad news and good news. Schumacher put it this way: "The bad news is that Philip won't be a $25-million star. The good news is…
Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis collapsed sobbing during a 1989 Hamlet, in the scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father appears.
Joaquin PhoenixJoaquin Phoenix had just flipped his car on a winding canyon road in Hollywood when a voice at the window told him to relax. It was the 26th of January 2006. Gasoline was leaking into the cabin. A shaken Phoenix answered, "I'm fine. I am…
George ClooneyIn 1977, a teenage George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and did not make it past the first round of player cuts. No contract was offered. Clooney, an American actor and filmmaker, would go on to collect two Academy Awards, a…
Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness privately called Star Wars "fairy-tale rubbish" in letters to friends.
Cillian MurphyCillian Murphy, the Irish actor and film producer born on the 25th of May 1976, once looked back on a single month as the hinge of his life. That month was August 1996. In 2023 he described the sort of domino effect that a handful of…
Ben KingsleyBen Kingsley turned down an offer to become a pop star in 1966. He auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company instead.
Rami MalekRami Malek watched a single concert video, the Live Aid performance of 1985, at least 1,500 times before he played Freddie Mercury. He did it on YouTube, while preparing for a role he would later call precious beyond anything else in his…
Gary OldmanGary Oldman needed 200 hours in a makeup chair to become Winston Churchill. The transformation also took 14 pounds of silicone rubber. Then came US$20,000 worth of Cuban cigars, which left the actor with nicotine poisoning. Oldman, an…
Adrien BrodyAdrien Brody was twenty-nine when he collected the Academy Award for Best Actor, and no winner under thirty has joined him since. He has since won a second statuette, but the numbers say little about how he got there. His route ran from…