Juliet Binoche
The child of actors, Binoche was only twenty three years old when she had her breakout performance in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the big screen adaptation of the best selling novel by Milan Kundera. Initially it was her innocent demeanor that critics fell in love with, but subsequent movie performances showed her to be a far more multi-dimensional actress than Roger Ebert had given her credit for. In 1996, Binoche won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, given for her performance in The English Patient. Chocolat was her follow-up movie after her win, and she received another Oscar nomination. She was also nominated for Golden Globe, BAFTA and Screen Actors' Guild Awards.
Alfred Molina
For much of his early career, Molina was known in his native Britain for two things; his work on the London stage, and his marriage to Jill Gascoine, one of British television's most popular and gritty female detectives. It was not until he made his big screen debut in 1981, in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark that he began to make a name for himself as a film actor as well. After appearing in Letter to Brezhnev, Molina's breakthrough role was in Stephen Frears' Prick Up Your Ears in which he plays Kenneth Haliwell, playwright Joe Orton's ill fated lover.
Judi Dench
Internationally recognized as the post Me-Too incarnation of Q, James Bond's handler at MI5, Dench started out her professional life as a comedy actress on television. Her breakout role was in a prime time sit-com called A Fine Romance, in which she played opposite her real-life husband, Michael Williams, and she went on to another prime time hit, As Time Goes By. Dench has won an incredible ten BAFTA Awards, including a Best Supporting Actress award for A Handful of Dust, an award she also received a nomination for after her performance in Chocolat. She was also nominated in the same category for Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors' Guild Award.
Carrie-Anne Moss
Another Bond franchise alumni, Moss began her career as a model, before going on to appear regularly in Aaron Spelling's television series Models Inc. Her breakout movie role came opposite Keanu Reeves in the action thriller The Matrix, which by strange coincidence she had also worked on and starred in when it made its first incarnation as a television series. She is currently one of the stars of the Marvel franchise, immortalizing Jessica Jones on Netflix.
Johnny Depp
One of Hollywood's most famous Francophiles, Depp has enjoyed a wide and varied career that has included characters such as Edward Scissorhands and Jack Sparrow, although his start in the movie business was not nearly so auspicious; in 1984, he made his on-screen debut playing a teenage victim of the terrifying Freddy Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street. However, it wasn't until playing the lead on the hit television series 21 Jump Street that he really came to prominence. The biggest successes of Depp's career have come as a result of collaboration with Tim Burton, which allowed him to create some of his darkest and most idiosyncratic characters.
Leslie Caron
Caron is beloved by generations of movie fans all over the world for her portrayal of Gigi, the eponymous heroine of the 1958 film. Having made her big screen debut opposite Gene Kelly in the 1951 classic An American in Paris. After appearing in Cbocolat, Caron was cast in the BBC television series The Durrell's in Corfu, which documents the childhood of Gerald Durrell, one of the UK's most popular authors.
