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Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners

  • Meryl StreepDino De Laurentiis insulted Meryl Streep in Italian, not knowing she spoke it. She answered him in Italian too.
  • Nicole KidmanNicole Kidman was born on the 20th of June 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and was given the Hawaiian name Hōkūlani, which means heavenly star. The inspiration for the name was a baby elephant born around the same time at the Honolulu Zoo. Since…
  • Kate WinsletKate Winslet pleaded for the part of Rose in James Cameron's Titanic while he still preferred Claire Danes and Gwyneth Paltrow. She told the director that she was Rose, and she could not see why he was seeing anyone else. The plea worked.…
  • Julia RobertsJulia Roberts was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on the 28th of October 1967. Her hospital bill was paid by Coretta King, whose children attended an acting school run by Julia's parents. The Roberts family was struggling with money at the time.…
  • Elizabeth TaylorAfter Rock Hudson said he was dying of AIDS, Elizabeth Taylor helped found a research foundation in 1985.
  • Emma ThompsonEmma Thompson is the only person to win Oscars for both acting and screenwriting.
  • Natalie PortmanNatalie Portman turned down a $2,000,000 prize in 2018. She skipped the Genesis Prize ceremony, and it was canceled.
  • Brie LarsonBrie Larson's 2005 album Finally Out of P.E. sold only 3,500 copies. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
  • Audrey HepburnAudrey Hepburn gave underground concerts to raise money for the Dutch resistance. She was a teenager in occupied Arnhem.
  • Julie ChristieJulie Christie turned down roles that won other actresses Oscar nominations. She also retreated to a farm in Wales.
  • Michelle PfeifferMichelle Pfeiffer was born on the 29th of April 1958 in Santa Ana, California, and by the early 1990s she ranked among the best-paid actresses in the world. Her start was far less certain. After her first leading role, in the 1982 musical…
  • Jane FondaJane Fonda sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun during a 1972 visit to Hanoi, and a photograph of that moment outraged a large number of Americans. It earned her a nickname that has followed her for decades: Hanoi Jane. For many…
  • Sandra BullockSandra Bullock holds a distinction that no other actor can claim. On the night before she collected the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Blind Side, she picked up the Razzie Award for Worst Actress for a different film, All About…
  • Judi DenchJudi Dench won an Oscar for a role that lasted about eight minutes. She played Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.
  • Charlize TheronCharlize Theron landed in Los Angeles in 1994 on a one-way ticket her mother had bought, carrying a budget of $300. She lived in a motel and went from paycheck to paycheck. At one point she took bread from a restaurant basket to get by.…
  • Jessie BuckleyJessie Buckley, an Irish actress and singer born on the 28th of December 1989, became the first Irish winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won it in 2026 for playing Agnes Shakespeare in the period drama Hamnet. The win closed…
  • Helen MirrenDame Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironoff on the 26th of July 1945, at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in the Hammersmith district of London. Neither the first name nor the surname on that record would last. The woman who…
  • Jodie FosterJodie Foster was a teenager when she acted as a French interpreter at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival. The film was Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or that year, and the journalists in the room came away impressed. By…

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