Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum is an American actor born in Cullman, Alabama in 1980 to Kay and Glenn Tatum. He is known for his work in Magic Mike (2012), Magic Mike XXL (2015), 21 Jump Street (2012), 22 Jump Street (2014), Dear John (2010), She's the Man (2006), The Dilemma (2011), The Hateful Eight (2015), and Logan Lucky (2017) and many more.
Tatum played many sports in growing up and when he graduated high school in 1998 he was voted most athletic. However, he dropped out of college and returned home and started working odd jobs. One of his jobs included being a roofer but he left this job and became a stripped under the name "Chan Crawford". In 2010, he told an Australian newspaper he wanted to make a movie about his experience as a stripped which in turn lead to Magic Mike. From there he moved to Miami where he was discovered by a model talent scout and his career took off.
Fun Fact: Tatum has dealt with attention deficit disorder and dyslexia while growing up.
Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox is an American actress born in Mobile, Alabama in 1972. She is known for her role as Sophia Burset in Orange Is The New Black (2013) where she became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in any acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. She was also the first transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy Award as well as the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on broadcast TV. She became the first transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine and the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine. She is also the first openly transgender person to have a wax figure of herself at Madame Tussauds.
Cox studied at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Alabama where she studied creative writing before switching to dance. She then studied at the Marymount Manhattan College in New York City where she switched from dance to acting. During her first season on Orange Is The New Black, she was still appearing at a restaurant on the Lower East Side as a Drag Queen (where initially she wanted to be a waitress). From there she appeared in different shows until she landed on Orange Is The New Black.
Fun Fact: Cox has an identical twin brother, M Lamar, who portrayed the pre-transitioning Sophia (as Marcus) in Orange Is The New Black.
Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox is an American actress born in Birmingham, Alabama (Mountain Brook) in 1964 to Richard Lewis Cox and Courteney Copeland. She is known for her role as Monica Geller in Friends (1994-2004) and Gale Weathers in Scream (1996-2011). She was also in Family Ties (1987-1989), Cougar Town (2009-2015), Ace Ventura (1994), and Bedtime Stories (2008), etc.
Cox also owns her own company called Coquette Productions. Her career began from architecture at Mount Vernon College where she did not complete the course but instead opted to pursue a career in modeling and acting. Cox (along with her female co-stars), according to the 2005 Guinness Book of World Records, became the highest-paid TV actress of all time, with her US$1 million-per-episode fee for the final two seasons of Friends.
Fun Fact: In the mid-1980s, she hosted a television show called "This Week's Music" and she was the inspiration to the running gag of the Carlton Dance on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990). The Carlton Dance was a parody of her dance during Bruce Springsteen's music video "Dancing in the Dark".
Lucas Black
Lucas Black is an American actor born in Decatur, Alabama in 1982 to Jan Gillespie and Larry Black. He is known for his role in American Gothic 1995-1996) as well as Sling Blade (1996), Flash (1997), Friday Night Lights (2004), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), Get Low (2009) and for his character Special Agent Christopher LaSalle in NCIS: New Orleans (2014).
Black made his film debut in Kevin Costner's film The War. He was then cast as Caleb Temple in CBS's television series American Gothic, which ran from 1995 to 1996, and in the films Sling Blade, Ghosts of Mississippi, and The X-Files. Black won three awards in 1997 from Sling Blade. He won Best Performance by a Younger Actor, Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor, and Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Drama Film.
Fun Fact: Black goes by the nickname "Lucky".
Octavia Spencer
Octavia Spencer is an American actress born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1970. She is best known for her role as a maid in The Help (2011) and the mathematician Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures (2016). She has also been seen in The Shape of Water (2017), Smashed (2012), The Divergent Series (2015-16), Gifted (2017), Instant Family (2018), etc.
Spencer has won many awards including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. Some include winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in The Help (2011), and the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress in Fruitvale Station (2013).
She is one of the two women of color to have three Oscar nominations and the first black actress to receive two consecutive nominations. Spencer went to school at Auburn University where she majored in English with a double minor in journalism and theater. Her career began when she was hired to work on casting for A Time to Kill but asked if she could audition and she got the part as a nurse.
Fun Fact: Spencer is an author too and has created the children's book series Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective. She published two books in the series, titled The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit (2013) and The Sweetest Heist in History (2015).
Nell Carter
Nell Carter was an American actress born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1948 to Horace and Edna Mae Hardy. She is best known for her role as Nell Harper on the NBC sitcom Gimme a Break! (1981). She also appeared in The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo (1981), You Take the Kids (1990), Hangin' with Mr. Cooper (1993), Reba (2001), Ally McBeal (2002), etc.
Carter began her career on Broadway when she broke into stardom in the musical Ain't Misbehavin (1978), for which she won a Tony Award in 1978 and she won an Emmy for the same role in a televised performance in 1982. She then turned to TV with her first role on the ABC soap opera, Ryan's Hope (1975) in New York. It wasn't until 1981 when she got her big break as the lead role of Nell Harper on the sitcom Gimme a Break! which received hit ratings for NBC and earned Carter a Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations.
Fun Fact: In 1982, Carter married mathematician and lumbar executive George Krynicki, and she converted to Judaism.
Kate Jackson
Kate Jackson is an American actress born in Birmingham, Alabama (Mountain Brook) in 1948 to Ruth and Hogan Jackson. She is best known for her television roles as Sabrina Duncan in Charlie's Angels (1976), Elizabeth Prentiss in Criminal Minds (2007) and Amanda King in Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983). Her film roles include Making Love (1982) and Loverboy (1989).
She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee and four-time Golden Globe Award nominee. Her career began when she became an apprentice at the Stowe Playhouse in Vermont and then moved to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She initially worked as an NBC page and tour guide at the network's Rockefeller Center before landing a role as Daphne Harridge in Dark Shadows (1960). She continued until she appeared on the crime drama known as The Rookies (1970). However, when the show cancelled, she and the producer of The Rookies started a new series where she came up with the name and that name is Charlie's Angels.
Fun Fact: Jackson was born with an atrial septal defect, or tiny hole in her heart. She underwent open heart surgery to correct it in 1995.
Clayne Crawford
Clayne Crawford is an American actor born in Clay, Alabama in 1978 to Brian and Lennie Crawford. He is best known for his role of Martin Riggs on the action comedy-drama television series Lethal Weapon (2016). He has also been seen in Rectify (2013), A Walk to Remember (2002), A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), and The Great Raid (2005). He was also in a few television series such as C. Vincent in Criminal Minds, Law & Order, NCIS, and CSI. In 1996, he drove to Los Angeles to seek work as an actor. From there he found his first role, a recurring role, in Jericho as Mitch Cafferty.
Fun Fact: In 2000, he changed his name professionally from Joey to Clayne, a combination to honor an ancestor ("Clan") and his hometown.
Felicia Day
Felicia Day is an American actress born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1979. She is best known for her role with her original web series The Guild (2007). She created this web series loosely based on her life as a gamer. She also wrote and starred in Dragon Age: Redemption (2011). She starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2003) as well as Supernatural (2012) and more.
Day studied operatic singing and ballet professionally, performing nationwide. She was home-schooled throughout much of her childhood and began college at 16. She was a National Merit Scholar in 1995 and graduated valedictorian. Being an accomplished violinist, she was accepted to the Julliard School of Music but chose to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a full scholarship for violin. She double majored in math and music and graduated at 19 in the top 4% of her class. Her career started after graduation when she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting where she started in Undeclared (2001) and Maybe It's Me (2001).
Fun Fact: At the age of 7, Day starred as Scout in a local production of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). She has her own YouTube channel called "Geek & Sundry".
Michael Biehn
Michael Biehn is an American actor born in Anniston, Alabama in 1956 to Marica and Don Biehn. Biehn is from German descent. He is best known for his roles in The Terminator (1984), The Abyss (1989), Tombstone (1993), The Rock (1996), and more.
His career started after he attended the drama program at the University of Arizona before moving to Hollywood. He had a small part in Grease (1978). Then he moved into The Fan (1981) before moving on to The Terminator (1984). He played Sgt. Kyle Reese, the soldier who was sent back by John Connor to save his mother, Sarah Connor. Biehn said he wished he was alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro and not Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Fun Fact: Biehn directed the 2010 film The Blood Bond (2010) and in 2011 he wrote, directed, and starred in The Victim (2011).
Kim Dickens
Kim Dickens is an American actress born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1965 to Pam Howell and Justin Dickens. She is best known for her roles in Gone Girl (2014), Zero Effect (1998), Mercury Rising (1998), Hollow Man (2000), The Blind Side (2009), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), House of Cards (2015), and Fear the Walking Dead (2015).
Dickens attended Vanderbilt where she earned a bachelor of arts in communications. Soon after she moved to New York City working as a waitress to continue her studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her debut was in a student production in Sexual Perversity in Chicago at Vanderbilt. Her professional debut was in Palookaville playing Vincent Gallo's character's girlfriend.
Fun Fact: Dickens voiced a scientist in the 2020 video game Half-Life: Alyx.
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1934 to Estelle Caldwell and Reverend Robert Capers Fletcher. She is best known for her role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). She's also seen in A Gathering of Eagles (1963), Thieves Like Us (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Brainstorm (1983), Firestarter (1984), Flowers in the Attic (1987), and more.
Fletcher won Academy Award for Best Actress, BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). On TV she debuted in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Picket Fences (1996), Shameless (2011), Girlboss (2017), and more.
Fletcher was taught how to speak by a hearing aunt who also introduced her to acting. After attending the University of North Carolina, she traveled to Los Angeles, California where she found work as a secretary by day and received acting lessons by night. From there she appeared in several television series including Lawman (1958) and Maverick (1959).
Fun Fact: Fletcher had greater success in Westerns due to her height and not being seen as sexually attractive. She also signed her thank you to her parents when she won her awards.
Walton Goggins
Walton Goggins is an American actor born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1971 to Janet Long and Walton Sanders Goggins, Sr. He is best known for his roles in The Shield (2002), Justified (2010), Lincoln (2012), Django Unchained (2012), The Hateful Eight (2015), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and more. He also produced and starred in The Accountant (2001), which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
When Goggins was 19 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting where he worked as a valet and sold cowboy boots. In 1990 he got his big break in Murder in Mississippi where he met his future business partner, Ray McKinnon. Together they created their production company named Ginny Mule Productions. Together they produced five films: The Accountant (2001), Chrystal (2005), Randy and the Mob (2007), Rectify (2013), and That Evening Sun (2009).
He has been nominated for many awards including Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama for his role in The Shield (2009), San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble in Django Unchained (2013), as well as five awards for his role in Justified (2011), and two awards for his role in Sons of Anarchy (2013).
Fun Fact: Goggins showcases some of his photography on a blog he created while on sabbatical and traveled across India. He is also a partner in a spirits company, Mulholland Distilling.
Beth Grant
Beth Grant is an American actress born in Gadsden, Alabama in 1949. She is best known for her roles in The Mindy Project (2012), Jericho (2006), Rain Man (1988), Speed (1994), Flatliners (1990), Jackie (2016), A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017), and more.
Grant credits her mother for being the inspiration to become an actress. Grant graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Directing then travelled to New York to pursue acting. She won the award for Lead Actress in a Play for the tole of Grace in the Colony Theatre Company production of Grace & Glorie in 2010.
Fun Fact: Inspired by Mindy Kaling, Grant is in the process of writing a Broadway musical, set in 1969 Greenwhich Village.
Sonequa Martin-Green
Sonequa Martin-Green is an American actress born in Russellville, Alabama in 1985. She is best known for her roles in Star Trek: Discovery (2017), The Walking Dead (2010), The Good Wife (2009), Once Upon a Time (2011), New Girl (2011), and more.
Martin-Green didn't know she wanted to be an actress until she was 16. She initially wanted to be a psychologist until 10th grade. "...I thought I was going to be a psychologist, which is interesting because it's very similar to acting. I was fascinated with human behavior and why people do what they do. I was in the middle of rehearsal in 10th grade when I had this epiphany. And so I got my theatre degree from the University of Alabama". In 2008 she made her TV debut on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Then she made her film debut in 2009 where she played the lead role in Toe to Toe.
Fun Fact: Martin-Green was pregnant during filming of the fifth season of The Walking Dead, which she covered up by wearing think layers of clothing and using larger guns.
Mitch Holleman
Mitch Holleman is an American actor born in Auburn, Alabama in 1994. He is best known for his roles in Reba (2001), The Sopranos (1999), Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), Bubble Boy (2001), Shake It Up (2010), The Hangover (2009) and more.
Holleman began acting at age two when his family moved to Naples, Florida and he was signed to a Miami-based talent agency. At four he had already done two commercials for Nickelodeon and Burger King. He currently lives with his family is Los Angeles, California. He got his big break at age five when he landed a regular role on Daddio (2000). He has also periodically been an on-air reporter for TV Guide Channel.
Fun Fact: In addition to acting, Holleman enjoys Taekwondo, amusement parks, and surfing.
Johnny Simmons
Johnny Simmons is an American actor born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1986 to Cindy and Ben Simmons. He is best known for his roles in Evan Almighty (2007), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Girlboss (2017), 21 Jump Street (2012), Elementary (2012), The Late Bloomer (2016), and more.
Simmons graduated from W. T. White High School in Dallas, Texas and went straight into acting. His first film was My Ambition after contacting the production office hoping to have a part for a male where he was cast as the lead on the spot after a misprint stating the production was looking for a female to play the lead. He got his big break in the 2007 comedy Evan Almighty. From there he was cast in many films and TV shows, one of which, Whiplash (2013), became an Academy Award-winning feature-length film of the same name.
Fun Fact: In 2013, Simmons made a cameo appearance in the music video for Drake's single "Hold On, We're Going Home".
Roy Wood, Jr.
Roy Wood, Jr. is an American actor born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1978. He is best known for his work on Last Comic Standing (2010), Sullivan & Son (2011), The Daily Show (2015), Father Figure (2017), and more.
Wood graduated from Florida A&M University where he worked as a morning news reporter for Tallahassee, Florida radio station Hot 105.7. He began focusing on comedy after filling in for the in-house comedian. in 2010, Wood finished third in Last Comic Standing and began hosting his own morning show called The Roy Wood Jr Show. The show won 'Large Market Morning Show of the Year' from the Alabama Broadcasters Association for several years. He now is shooting, starting May 2019, a TV show in Jefferson County Alabama called "Jefferson County Probation".
Fun Fact: Wood became the head writer and producer for the Buckwilde Morning Show (WBHJ Birmingham's 95.7 JAMZ) after Rickey Smiley left the station. He became known for his prank calls.
Ned Vaughn
Ned Vaughn is an American actor born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1964 to Helen and Ed Vaughn. He is best known for his roles in The Rescue (1987), China Beach (1989), 24 (2005), NCIS (2003), Criminal Minds (2006), Castle (2014), Star Track: The Next Generation (1993), Apollo 13 (1995), and more.
At age 10, Vaughn performed his first acting role in a community theater production of the musical Oliver!. From there he attended Birmingham-Southern College where he decided to pursue acting. He drove to New York with just $600 to become an actor. His favorite job, he says, was as a doorman at New York's Wellington Hotel. There he saw people from all walks of life and got a crash course in human nature as well as law enforcement roles (which later helped in his acting career).
Vaughn's first starring role was in The Rescue where soon after his acting career quickly took off. In 2008, Vaughn co-founded Unite for Strength to elect leaders to the Screen Actors Guild board of directors on a platform of merging with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In 2012 SAG-AFTRA finally passed creating the largest union representing performers in the entertainment and media industries.
Fun Fact: Vaughn is an avid collector of fine wristwatches.
Michael Rooker
Michael Rooker is an American actor born in Jasper, Alabama in 1955. He is best known for his roles in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), Eight Men Out (1988), JFK (1991), The Walking Dead (2010), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), and more.
Rooker studied at the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University before making his film debut in 1986 in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. At first, Rooker was given more dramatic roles in films but became widely known for his roles in action and thriller. From there he continued in many films, TV series and even video games. Now he joined the cast of the upcoming 2021 action film F9 directed by Justin Lin.
Fun Fact: Rooker studied Japanese martial art of Aikido with Fumio Toyoda Shihan prior to establishing himself in Chicago theatre and he holds a black belt in Kyokushin style of Karate.
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