Mission: Impossible actors

1. Tom Cruise

In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. ...

Ethan Hunt

2. Ving Rhames

Actor | Pulp Fiction

Strikingly featured and muscular American actor Ving Rhames was born Irving Rameses Rhames in Harlem, New York, to Reather, a homemaker, and Ernest Rhames, an auto mechanic. A good student, Ving entered the New York High School of Performing Arts, where he discovered his love of acting. He studied ...

Luther Stickell

3. Simon Pegg

Actor | Shaun of the Dead

English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was ...

Benji Dunn

4. Michelle Monaghan

Actress | Gone Baby Gone

Michelle Lynn Monaghan was born on March 23, 1976, in Winthrop, Iowa. She is the youngest of three children and the only daughter of Sharon (Hamel), who ran a day care center, and Robert L. Monaghan, a factory worker and farmer. She is of mostly Irish and German descent. After graduating from high ...

Julia

5. Jeremy Renner

Actor | The Hurt Locker

Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, the son of Valerie (Tague) and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with his four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of...

William Brandt

6. Jon Voight

Actor | Midnight Cowboy

Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first ...

Jim Phelps

7. Dougray Scott

Actor | Ever After

Born in Scotland, trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he was named most promising drama student. Scott's early work was in Scottish national theatre and television, first appearing in the series Soldier Soldier as well as on the stage in the Tim Fleming directed production ...

Sean Ambrose

8. Philip Seymour Hoffman

Actor | The Master

Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in ...

Owen Davian

9. Emmanuelle Béart

Actress | 8 femmes

Emmanuelle Béart was born August 14, 1963, in Gassin, France. She lived with her mother, brothers, and sister on a farm not far from Saint-Tropez in Provence (southern France), because her father, singer and poet Guy Béart, did not want his children to be affected by the glamour world of Paris. ...

Claire Phelps

10. Thandiwe Newton

Actress | Crash

Thandiwe Newton was born in London. She is the daughter of Zimbabwean mother Nyasha, a health-care worker from the Shona tribe, and British father Nick Newton, who worked as a lab technician. She lived in Zambia until political unrest caused her family to move back to the UK, where she lived in ...

Nyah Nordoff-Hall

11. Keri Russell

Actress | Mission: Impossible III

Most recently, Keri can be seen starring in "The Diplomat" for Netflix in which Keri plays the titular role of an American Diplomat in London. She also stars in an episode of the limited anthology series "Extrapolations" created by Scott Burns. She also recently starred in "Cocaine Bear" for ...

Lindsey Farris

12. Paula Patton

Actress | Precious

Paula Patton was born in Los Angeles, California, to Joyce (Vanraden) and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American and her mother, who is caucasian, has German, English, and Dutch ancestry. Her family lived across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing up and she was a ...

Jane

13. Rebecca Ferguson

Actress | The Greatest Showman

Rebecca Ferguson was born Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström in Stockholm, Sweden, and grew up in its Vasastaden district. Her father is Swedish. Her mother, Rosemary Ferguson, is British, of Scottish and Northern Irish descent, and moved to Sweden at the age of 25. Rebecca attended an ...

Ilsa Faust

14. Michael Nyqvist

Actor | Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Born Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist in Stockholm, Sweden, it wasn't until he was over a year old when he was finally adopted from the orphanage he had been given to. His father was a lawyer and his mother a writer. It wasn't until he had his first child that he decided to seek out his biological parents. ...

Hendricks

15. Sean Harris

Actor | Harry Brown

Sean Harris was born in 1966 in Bethnal Green, London, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Harry Brown (2009), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018).

Lane

16. Henry Czerny

Actor | Mission: Impossible

Henry Czerny was born on February 8, 1959 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor, known for Mission: Impossible (1996), Clear and Present Danger (1994) and The Pink Panther (2006). He has been married to Claudine Cassidy since August 11, 2001. They have one child.

Eugene Kittridge

17. Billy Crudup

Actor | Almost Famous

Known as much for his rigorous career choices as for his talent and chiseled good looks, Billy Crudup has been straddling the line between serious actor and "it" leading man for several years. He is father to eighteen-year-old William Atticus Parker -- a director, writer and actor.

Crudup was born ...

John Musgrave

18. Jean Reno

Actor | Léon

Jean Reno was born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez in Casablanca, Morocco, to Spanish parents (from Andalucía) who moved to North Africa to seek work. His father was a linotypist. Reno settled in France at 17. He began studying drama and has credits in French television and theater as well as films. ...

Franz Krieger

19. John Polson

Actor | Mission: Impossible II

John Polson is an acclaimed actor, director, and producer who gained international recognition for directing films such as Siam Sunset (starring Linus Roache), which won awards at various global film festivals including the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Other notable films from Polson include ...

Billy Baird

20. Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Actor | Den 12. mann

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was born Jonathan Michael Meyers on July 27, 1977, in Dublin, Ireland, to Mary Geraldine (Meyers) and John O'Keeffe, a musician. He and his family moved to County Cork, Ireland, when the actor was nearly a year old, and then, at the age of 3, his father left the family, leaving...

Declan Gormley

21. Henry Cavill

Actor | Man of Steel

Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill was born on the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne (Dalgliesh), a housewife, was also born on Jersey, and is of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Henry's father, Colin Richard Cavill, a stockbroker, is of ...

August Walker

22. Léa Seydoux

Actress | La vie d'Adèle

French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also ...

Sabine Moreau

23. Alec Baldwin

Actor | The Departed

Alec Baldwin is the oldest, and best-known, of the four Baldwin brothers in the acting business (the others are Stephen Baldwin, William Baldwin and Daniel Baldwin). Alexander Rae Baldwin III was born on April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb (Martineau) and Alexander Rae ...

Alan Hunley

24. Richard Roxburgh

Actor | Van Helsing

Richard Roxburgh is an Australian actor, writer and producer who is known for portraying Dracula in the 2004 cult classic monster movie Van Helsing starring Hugh Jackman, Hugh Stamp in Mission: Impossible 2 and for his collaborations with Baz Luhrmann, particularly Moulin Rouge. He is married to ...

Hugh Stamp

25. Kristin Scott Thomas

Actress | Gosford Park

The acclaimed Cornish actress Dame Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, to Deborah (Hurlbatt) and Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas. Her father was a pilot for the British Royal Navy and died in a flying accident in 1964. Her stepfather, Lt. Cdr Simon Idiens, was also a pilot, ...

Sarah Davies

26. Anil Kapoor

Actor | Slumdog Millionaire

Living in a Chawl in Tilak Nagar, Punjabi-speaking Anil was born in 1959 to Surinder and Nirmal aka Suchitra Kapoor. He has an elder brother, Boney, a sister, Reena, and a younger brother, Sanjay. His dad used to be Shammi Kapoor's Secretary.

A loner, without many friends, he studied in the nearby ...

Brij Nath

27. Brendan Gleeson

Actor | Calvary

Brendan Gleeson was born in Dublin, Ireland, to Pat and Frank Gleeson. From a very young age, he loved to learn, especially reading classical text in and outside the classroom. He took great attention to Irish play writers such as Samuel Beckett, which eventually led to him performing in his high ...

John C. McCloy

28. Maggie Q

Actress | Divergent

Margaret Denise Quigley was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a father of Polish and Irish descent (originally based in New York) and a Vietnamese mother. Her parents met during the Vietnam War. Maggie has two older half-siblings from her mother's previous marriage, and two older sisters. The family ...

Zhen Lei

29. Vanessa Redgrave

Actress | Coriolanus

On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, ...

Max

30. Rade Serbedzija

Actor | The Saint

Rade Serbedzija was born in Bunic (Korenica) in 1946. Graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. Still a student, he started to play the leading roles in films and theater productions. He is remembered as an outstanding Peer Gynt, Don Juan, Georgij, Melkior, Oedipus, Hamlet, Leon and ...

Dr. Nekhorvich

31. Laurence Fishburne

Actor | The Matrix

Critically hailed for his forceful, militant, authoritative figures and one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile performers, Laurence (John) Fishburne III has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a number of NAACP Image honors.

Born in Augusta, Georgia on July 30, 1961, to Hattie ...

Theodore Brassel

32. Angela Bassett

Actress | Strange Days

Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters and on stages and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a ...

Erika Sloane

33. Ingeborga Dapkunaite

Actress | Seven Years in Tibet

Ingeborga Dapkunaite was born on January 20, 1963 in Vilnius, Lithuanian SSR, USSR. She is an actress, known for Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Hannibal Rising (2007).

Hannah Williams

34. Josh Holloway

Actor | Lost

Josh Holloway was born on July 20, 1969 in San Jose, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Lost (2004), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and Sabotage (2014). He has been married to Yessica Kumala since October 1, 2004. They have two children.

Hanaway

35. Eddie Marsan

Actor | Happy-Go-Lucky

Eddie Marsan was born in Stepney, East London, to a lorry driver father and a school employee mother, and raised in Bethnal Green. He served an apprenticeship as a printer before becoming an actor twenty years ago. During this time he has worked with directors such as Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, ...

Brownway

36. Vanessa Kirby

Actress | The Crown

Vanessa Kirby is an English stage, TV, and film actress. From 2016 to 2018, Kirby portrayed Princess Margaret in Peter Morgan's Netflix series The Crown, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Television Series in 2018. She starred as Estella in the BBC ...

The White Widow

37. Emilio Estevez

Actor | The Way

Emilio Estevez was born on May 12, 1962, in New York City. He is the eldest son of actor Martin Sheen, who at the time was just breaking into the business. His mother, Janet Sheen (née Templeton), was a former New York art student who had met Emilio's father right after he had moved to Manhattan. ...

Jack Harmon

38. Tom Hollander

Actor | Pride & Prejudice

Tom Hollander was born the second child of educated parents, both teachers. He grew up in Oxford, (UK).

Hollander credits the happy atmosphere of the Dragon School with his childhood introduction to acting. There, encouraged by an influential teacher named Andrew Roberts, he won the title role in "...

Prime Minister

39. Wes Bentley

Actor | American Beauty

Wes Bentley is an American actor who first became well-known via his role in the Oscar-winning film American Beauty (1999), in which he played the soulful, artistic next-door neighbor Ricky Fitts. He also portrayed game-maker Seneca Crane in The Hunger Games (2012), and co-stars in Lovelace (2013) ...

Erik

40. Tom Wilkinson

Actor | Michael Clayton

Popular British character actor Tom Wilkinson was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and came from a long line of urban farmers. He was the son of Marjorie (Percival) and Thomas Wilkinson. Economic hardships forced his family to move to Canada for a few years when Wilkinson was a child; then, ...

IMF Secretary

41. Anthony Hopkins

Actor | The Silence of the Lambs

Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...

Mission Commander Swanbeck

42. Aaron Paul

Actor | Breaking Bad

Aaron Paul was born Aaron Paul Sturtevant in Emmett, Idaho, to Darla (Haynes) and Robert Sturtevant, a retired Baptist minister. While growing up, Paul took part in church programs, and performed in plays.

He attended Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho. It was there, in eighth grade, that Aaron ...

Rick

43. Ilia Volok

Actor | Gemini Man

Ilia Volok trained at the Moscow Art Theatre School under Russian actor Aleksandr Kalyagin and is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio. He has appeared in over 150 films, television shows, and video games. He is known for his work on Gemini Man opposite Will Smith for director Ang Lee, Indiana ...

The Fog

44. William Mapother

Actor | Lost

William Mapother was born on April 17, 1965 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA as William Reibert Mapother Jr. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in English. He is the co-founder of the film finance marketplace Slated. He is known for his work on Lost (2004), In the Bedroom (2001)...

Wallis

45. Dominic Purcell

Actor | Blade: Trinity

Dominic was born in England, to a Norwegian father and Irish mother. At the age of two, Dominic and his family moved from England to Sydney's Bondi and then moved to the Western Suburbs. After trying his hand at landscape gardening he decided to become an actor whilst watching the war movie Platoon...

Ulrich

46. Greg Grunberg

Actor | Hollow Man

Gregory Phillip "Greg" Grunberg is an American television and film actor. He is best known for starring as Matt Parkman in the NBC television series Heroes and "Snap" Wexley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He has often appeared in works produced and directed by childhood friend J. J. Abrams. He is...

Kevin

47. Sasha Alexander

Actress | Shameless

Sasha Alexander began acting by the time she was in the seventh grade when she found herself cast as the lead female in her school's production of "Baby". What she didn't know was that her male co-star would chicken out on her only a few hours before opening night. Determined to let the show go on,...

Melissa

48. George Cheung

Actor | Rush Hour

George Cheung was born on February 8, 1949 in Hong Kong. He is an actor, known for Rush Hour (1998), Starsky & Hutch (2004) and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).

Shanghai Game Player

49. Alec Utgoff

Actor | Stranger Things

Alec Utgoff is a British actor best known for playing 'Alexei' in the Netflix hit show, 'Stranger Things'. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine. After moving to UK at a young age, Alec pursued acting and attended the prestigious Drama Centre London where he graduated in 2010 after completing his BA and MA ...

A400 Crewman

50. Pom Klementieff

Actress | Avengers: Infinity War

Pom Klementieff (born 3 May 1986) is a French actress. She was trained at the Cours Florent drama school in Paris and has appeared in such films as Loup (2009), Sleepless Night (2011) and Hacker's Game (2015). She plays the role of Mantis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Guardians of the ...

51. Hayley Atwell

Actress | Captain America: The First Avenger

Born in London, England, Hayley Elizabeth Atwell has dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and the United States. An only child, Hayley was named after actress Hayley Mills. Her parents, Alison (Cain) and Grant Atwell, both motivational speakers, met at a London workshop of Dale Carnegie's ...