Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Rena Sofer

festreviews Happy Birthday

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Born
December 2, 1968 · Arcadia, California, USA

Birth name
Rena Sherel Sofer

Spouses
Sanford Bookstaver(May 18, 2024 – present)
Sanford Bookstaver(May 18, 2003 – 2016) (divorced, 1 child)
Wally Kurth(March 31, 1995 – 1997) (divorced, 1 child)

QUOTES:

I’m a character actress. It doesn’t mean I can’t do leading roles; I don’t think of myself as a leading lady.
There are many actors who, whatever they do, they pretty much play themselves.

I knew my boyfriend was going to ask me to marry him. And I was sure the ring was going to be exceptional, and I bought him a Rolex Explorer. And I engraved ‘yes’ on it. And when he proposed, I gave him the watch.

I’ve been very lucky as an actor. I have worked all the time. Some shows I do, they get cancelled. Some, they’re critically acclaimed, and then they get cancelled. And some, I’m in the last season of this or that. But I can’t complain about my career.

I’m one of those few actresses who works all the time, and even though I haven’t done a show that literally puts me on some kind of map – as in, that’s how I’m known and that’s how I’ll always be known – I’m very lucky.
For a clean makeup finish, I use Cle de Peau translucent pressed powder.

Happy Birthday Lucy Liu

festreviews Happy Birthday

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Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore & Cameron Diaz during “Charlie’s Angels 2 – Full Throttle” Premiere at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
Lucy Liu arriving at the premiere to Charlies Angels: Full Throttle 01/07/03 London Credit:WENN
Born December 2, 1968 · New York City, New York, USA Birth name Lucy Alexis Liu QUOTES: [on Ally McBeal (1997)] It’s so much fun playing her [Ling], but I have this fear that people are going to run away from me in terror on the streets. They think I’m going to bite their heads off or something. I’m so proud of my heritage, but yes, I think there’s always a danger when people put you on a pedestal. Especially when you’re just trying to live your life and pursue your dreams. The intention is not to represent Asian Americans, but to be an Asian American who is working as an actress. People often confuse the two. When you are “representing,” you have the burden of some people projecting their hopes onto you. This can eventually lead to a certain amount of disappointment. I strive to not deny myself experiences that open up to me. I hope to live without looking back in regret. If people want to join me on the ride, then I’m happy to have them along. Martial arts are art forms and require a great deal of discipline and dedication. I so admire people who focus their lives on it, because it’s not an easy thing to do. Producing is like pushing jello up a hill on a hot day. It’s really taking a while but I do think it’s becoming more acceptable to cast Asians in roles that weren’t originally slated for someone who is Asian, which is so great. I try to believe like I believed when I was five…when my heart told me everything I needed to know.

Happy Birthday Sarah Silverman

festreviews Happy Birthday

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Born December 1, 1970 · Bedford, New Hampshire, USA Birth name Sarah Kate Silverman QUOTES: I’ve turned down things that, I just go “I’d rather do stand-up than say this shitty exposition for bad writing.” It’s just not fun, like “but you’re a lawyer and he loves you!” Good writing doesn’t need some Greek chorus in the form of a sassy friend. I have very vivid dreams – almost always action-adventure. I’m often on the run. I’ve always had dreams. When I was little, I’d go to sleep with my head on my hands, which were in fists like I was looking through a camera. I felt like sleep was the movies – just drifting off to the movies. I tend to be more arrogant on stage. Far more ignorant. I sometimes say what I think and sometimes say the opposite of what I think and the lines get blurred, but I can only hope that some kind of absolute power transcends. I was always the class clown; I made my family laugh, and that was when I was always happiest. I grew up listening to stand-up comedians’ albums and watching them on TV, on The Tonight Show and Letterman. I think maybe I became funny because as a kid, I was a Jew in a town of no Jews, and being funny just instinctively came about as a way to put people at ease around me. Smells definitely do have a crazy impact on me. I’m always writing; I’m always jotting things down on paper or making notes in my iPhone. Then I’ll make myself sit down and kind of shape it up, but there’s really no other way to practice other than onstage.

Happy Birthday Katherine LaNasa

festreviews Happy Birthday

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Born

December 1, 1966 · New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Fourth wife of Dennis Hopper, first wife of French Stewart, second wife of Grant Show.

[on stifling the inclination to laugh while performing with Will Ferrell] I have tricks. I look between his eyes. I try to think of dead people.

INTERVIEW:

Happy Birthday: Sarah Snook

festreviews Happy Birthday
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Born

December 1, 1987 · Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

QUOTES:

  • I went back to Australia to do a show called The Beautiful Lie (2015), which is a retelling of ‘Anna Karenina’ in a six-part mini-series – a modern, contemporary version.
  • I was the understudy to the understudy in a year-two production of ‘Big Chief Red Feather.’ The boy who had the lead broke his arm, and then the understudy got chicken pox. And I loved it. I got to wear the most feathers in my headdress.
  • I love playing characters with different accents. It’s a lot of fun.
  • It’s always nice to have somebody with the same accent when you’re working in a foreign country.
  • I’m the youngest of three sisters. We were always performing plays for each other.
  • I’ve learnt that there’s acting for film, acting for theatre, and acting for an audition.

Happy Birthday Zoë Kravitz

festreviews Happy Birthday
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QUOTES:

  • We can change the world
  • It’s an easy dis when people don’t want to like me and want to say that I’m a brat. You have people who only want to be your friend because of that, or you have those who say, ‘Oh, Zoe thinks she is so cool cause her dad is…’
  • [on being denied an audition for The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – Nylon magazine, August 2015] They told me that I couldn’t get an audition for a small role they were casting because they weren’t ‘going urban’. It was like, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ I have to play the role like, ‘Yo, what’s up, Batman? What’s going on wit chu?’
  • [on being denied an audition for The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Nylon magazine, August 2015] In the last Batman movie [The Dark Knight Rises], they told me that I couldn’t get an audition for a small role they were casting because they weren’t ‘going urban’. It was like, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ I have to play the role like, ‘Yo, what’s up, Batman? What’s going on wit chu?’.

Happy Birthday Ridley Scott

festreviews Happy Birthday

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Born

November 30, 1937 · South Shields, County Durham, England, UK

QUOTES:

  • I’m a moviemaker, not a documentarian. I try to hit the truth.
  • A friend of mine says, “Art’s like a shark. You’ve got to keep swimming, or else you drown.” Keep bouncing around. People always ask me, “What’s the plan?” There is no plan. I go to what fascinates me next.
  • When I first said I wanted to make a film about Rome and cast Russell Crowe, everyone had a good old snigger. I thought, “You wait.” They’ve done the same with Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Orlando Bloom. I now say, “Take a look at this.”.
  • Balian [Orlando Bloom‘s character in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)] is an agnostic, just like me. I am not fighting another holy war here, I am trying to get across the fact that not everyone in the West is a good guy, and not all Muslims are bad. The tragedy is that we still have a lack of understanding between us, and it is 900 years since the Crusades. We have never truly resolved our differences.
  • Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They’re more intrigued by human relations. If you’re making a film about the trappings of the period, and you’re forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you’re in trouble.

Happy Birthday Ben Stiller

festreviews Happy Birthday
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QUOTES:

  • Show business is great, but when you’re in a movie that made more than $120 million, the perspective changes. I’d never had the experience of being in a movie that so many people found funny. After the enormous success of There’s Something About Mary (1998), I was able to command much more money and I got recognized more. But the reason for all this is only because the movie made money, not because I’m any more talented or better looking.
  • Every actor is out there trying to get parts, auditioning, going to acting class and creating a network of people who are in the same position you are. I couldn’t sit around and wait to get work, because it wasn’t happening. I would just try to create my own projects with friends who were filmmakers.
  • I think most actors have incredibly big egos, but they’re also incredibly insecure. That’s a bad combination. I include myself in this group. For whatever psychological reasons, we want and need approval from everybody in the universe, though we also think we’re totally unworthy of it. We need to validate ourselves through our work.
  • (On his most memorable pre-acting job) For a summer I was a busboy and waiter at a place in New York called Cafe Central, which was a hip, trendy restaurant in 1985. First I bused tables and was really bad at it. I’m clumsy at carrying plates and glasses. You had to have a swiftness and a facility for carrying stacked objects. That wasn’t me. I was interested in who was coming in, because it was an actor hangout. I would want to see who was talking to whom and what they were saying – basically, stuff you shouldn’t do as a person of service. Dudley Moore came into the restaurant and I was really interested in what he was saying. I kept going over to make sure that he and his companion had enough coffee and that their plates were cleared. I think I really annoyed him. I kept changing the ashtrays with that move where you put the clean ashtray over the full ashtray and remove both and put back the clean ashtray. I think I did that one time too many. Then I became a waiter there, and dealing with orders and the kitchen was worse. It prompted me to get acting work.