Profiles of the performers who shape the screen and stage: their craft, their breakthroughs and the discipline behind the fame.
From a struggling young actor eating a cricket on a dare to surviving a grueling wilderness shoot that left a director speechless, Leonardo DiCaprio has always been willing to do whatever a role demands. This is his story.
Born prematurely on a Bahamian tomato farm, raised in a world with no margin for error, Sidney Poitier walked into a segregated industry and refused to leave on its terms. He changed everything.
From a childhood without heat or running water in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the Triple Crown of acting, Viola Davis built one of the most important careers in American performing arts through sheer, unrelenting will.
When Halle Berry's name was announced as the winner of the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress, she became the first Black woman in Oscar history to win that prize. The historical weight of that moment was real, and she carried it with grace while making sure it was not the only thing she was.
He gained 60 pounds to play Jake LaMotta. He learned to box at a professional level for the same role. He worked as a New York taxi driver to prepare for Travis Bickle. Robert De Niro did not play characters; he became them, and in doing so he remade what acting in America could mean.
He played a free Black man sold into slavery and survived it on screen in a way that required enormous courage. He has also played a doctor, a jazz musician, an arms dealer, and a Marvel sorcerer, each with the same quality of complete, unhurried presence that makes his work so distinctive.
She had one film credit when Steve McQueen cast her in '12 Years a Slave.' She had one credit when People magazine named her the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. In both cases the recognition was not premature but simply accurate.
He played Stringer Bell without anyone knowing he was British. He played DCI John Luther without anyone doubting he could be that damaged and that brilliant. Idris Elba has spent three decades making the difficult look effortless and the effortless look dangerous.