
Best Action Actors
In No Particular Order (with the exception of the #1 spot)
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1.
Bruce Willis
Actor, The Sixth Sense
Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for his film appearances as wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD placing him in the top ten stars in terms of box office receipts...
2.
Sylvester Stallone
Actor, Rocky
Sylvester Stallone became one of Hollywood's highest paid actors,usually playing monosyllabic, anti society, underdog heroes and also known for his machismo. Stallone is an American actor,screenwriter,film director,filmmaker and occasional painter. While Stallone has attempted to extend his range into film comedies and drama, his real box office success continues in action films.
3.
Clint Eastwood
Actor, Gran Torino
Perhaps the icon of macho movie stars, Clint Eastwood has become a standard in international cinema. Born in San Francisco, he is the son of Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a factory worker, and Ruth Wood (née Runner). The family frequently moved around Northern California when Clint was growing up before settling in Oregon...
4.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Actor, The Terminator
Growing up in a small, isolated village in Austria, he turned to bodybuilding as his ticket to a better life. Prior to that he served a mandatory one year in the Austrian military (beginning in 1965). After conquering the world as arguably the greatest bodybuilder who ever lived, he went to America to make his name in motion pictures...
5.
Will Smith
Actor, Men in Black
Will Smith was the second of four children of Caroline (school board employee) and Willard C Smith Sr. (owner of a refrigeration company). Smith is of both African American and Native American heritage. He grew up in middle class area in West Philadelphia called Wynnefield. Will attended the Overbrook High School located in the Overbrook section of Philadelphia...
6.
Jason Statham
Actor, The Transporter
Jason Statham has done quite a lot in a short time. He has been a Diver on the British National Diving Team and finished 12th in the World Championships in 1992. He has also been a fashion model, black market salesman and finally of course, actor. He got the audition for his debut role as Bacon in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels through French Connection...
7.
Kurt Russell
Actor, The Thing
Kurt Russell landed a part in the Elvis Presley movie, It Happened at the World's Fair, when he was 10-years-old. In 1960, Walt Disney himself signed Russell to a 10-year contract. Once his stint as a child actor ended, he spent the early 1970s playing minor league baseball. In 1979, he gave a classic performance as Elvis Presley in John Carpenter's ABC-TV movie...
8.
Denzel Washington
Actor, American Gangster
Denzel Washington was born in December 28,1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He was the middle child of the 3 children of a Pentecostal minister father and a beautician mother. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University intent on a career in journalism. However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions and...
9.
Mark Wahlberg
Actor, Boogie Nights
American actor Mark Wahlberg is one of a handful of respected entertainers who successfully made the transition from teen pop idol to respected actor. A Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for The Departed who went on to receive positive critical reviews for his performance in The Fighter, Wahlberg also is a solid comedy actor, proven by his starring role in Ted...
10.
Gerard Butler
Actor, 300
Born in Paisley, Scotland, to Margaret and Edward Butler, Gerard Butler was raised along, with his older brother and sister, in his hometown of Paisley, Scotland. He also spent some of his youth in Canada. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he and his siblings were raised primarily by their mother...
11.
Hugh Jackman
Actor, The Prestige
Born in Sydney of English parentage, and the youngest of five children, Jackman has a communications degree with a journalism major from the University of Technology Sydney. After graduating, he pursued drama at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, immediately after which he was offered a starring role in the ABC-TV prison drama Correlli...
12.
Jeremy Renner
Actor, The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Lee Renner, son of Valerie and Lee, was born in Modesto, California. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of study, including computer science, criminology, and psychology, before the theater department, with its freedom of emotional expression, drew him in...
13.
Jackie Chan
Actor, Rush Hour
Apprenticed to the China Drama Academy (or "opera school") by his parents at the age of 6, Jackie Chan was rigorously trained in music, dance, and traditional martial arts. A visiting filmmaker offered Chan his first (tiny) role as a stunt player. Chan took the part, and soon left the Opera to pursue the world of film...
14.
Harrison Ford
Actor, Star Wars
Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. His father was Irish, his mother Russian-Jewish. He was a lackluster student at Maine Township High School East in Park Ridge Illinois (no athletic star, never above a C average). After dropping out of Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he did some acting and later summer stock...
15.
Ethan Hawke
Actor, Gattaca
Ethan Green Hawke was born on 6 November 1970 in Austin Texas. His parents were students at the University of Texas at the time but divorced when Ethan was 5. His mother raised him alone for the next five years, moving around the country, until she remarried in 1981 and the family settled in Princeton Junction, New Jersey...
16.
Tommy Lee Jones
Actor, No Country for Old Men
Born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Clyde C. and Lucille Marie (Scott) Jones, Tommy Lee Jones worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas, on a scholarship, and went to Harvard on another scholarship.He roomed...
17.
Kiefer Sutherland
Actor, 12:00 a.m.-1:00 a.m.
Kiefer Sutherland was born in London, England, UK to parents Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas. He got his first film role in the comedy drama Max Dugan Returns. Sutherland's first major role was in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy, which earned Sutherland and director Daniel Petrie, Genie award nominations for best actor and best director...
18.
Don Johnson
Actor, Django Unchained
Best known for his starring role as Det. Sonny Crockett on the hugely successful TV series Miami Vice, Don Johnson is one of the stars who really defined the 1980s. As James "Sonny" Crockett he went toe-to-toe with drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, assassins, illegal arms-dealers and crooked cops on a weekly basis from 1984 to 1989...
20.
Tom Cruise
Actor, Top Gun
If you had told 14 year old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be considered one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to become a priest. Nonetheless, this sensitive...
21.
Mel Gibson
Actor, Braveheart
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born on January 3, 1956, in Peekskill, New York, USA as the sixth of eleven children to parents Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Ann Gibson, who was born in Australia and died in December of 1990. Though born in the US, Mel and his family moved to New South Wales...
22.
Christian Bale
Actor, The Dark Knight
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales on January 30, 1974. Bale's father, David, was a commercial pilot, and the family lived in different countries throughout Bale's childhood, including England, Portugal, and the United States. Bale acknowledges the constant change was one of the influences on his career choice...
23.
Matt Damon
Actor, Good Will Hunting
Matt Damon was born in 1970. His father, Kent Damon, a tax preparer, and his mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a college professor, are now divorced. His older brother, Kyle (b. 1967), is a sculptor. Matt's first film role was a one-line part in Mystic Pizza. Hollywood's power brokers realized his potential...
24.
Russell Crowe
Actor, Gladiator
Born in New Zealand, Russell has made his home in Australia since he was a small child. The son of movie set caterers, Russell got the acting bug early in life. Beginning as a child star on a local Australian TV show, Russell's first big break came with two films ... the first, Romper Stomper, gained him a name throughout the film community in Australia and the neighboring countries...
25.
Paul Walker
Actor, The Fast and the Furious
Paul William Walker was born on September 12, 1973 in Glendale, California. A native of Southern California, Paul grew up active in sports like soccer and surfing, with brothers Cody and Caleb and sisters Ashlie and Amie. His mother was a model, which lead to Paul modeling and acting as a young child...
26.
Wesley Snipes
Actor, Blade
Wesley Snipes grew up on the streets of the South Bronx in New York City, where he very early decided that the theater was to be his career. He attended the High School for the Performing Arts (popularized in Fame). But dreams of the musical theater (and maybe a few commercials) faded when his mother moved to Orlando...
27.
Steven Seagal
Producer, Above the Law
Steven Seagal is a striking and somewhat boyishly handsome looking (often with ponytail) and usually impeccably dressed action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988 in the fast-paced Warner Bros. film Above the Law. The enigmatic Seagal commenced his martial arts training at the age of seven under the tutelage of well-known karate instructor and author Fumio Demura...
“ Old school Steven Seagal, that is ” - SonicStuart
28.
John Wayne
Actor, The Searchers
John Wayne (born Marion Morrison) was the son of pharmacist Clyde Morrison and his wife Mary. Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school...
29.
Steve McQueen
Actor, The Great Escape
He was the ultra-cool male film star of the 1960s, and rose from a troubled youth spent in reform schools to being the world's most popular actor. Over 25 years after his untimely death from mesothelioma in 1980, Steve McQueen is still considered hip and cool, and he endures as an icon of popular culture...
30.
Sean Connery
Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphamia C. Maclean, was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and truck driver. He also has a brother named Neil Connery, who works as a plasterer in Edinburgh. Before going into acting...
31.
Daniel Craig
Actor, Skyfall
Daniel Craig, one of British theatre's most famous faces who was waiting tables as a struggling teenage actor with the NYT, went on to star as "James Bond" in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on March 2, 1968, at 41 Liverpool Road, Chester, Cheshire...
32.
Liam Neeson
Actor, Schindler's List
Born on June 7, 1952 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, UK, Liam Neeson worked as a forklift operator for Guinness, truck driver, assistant architect and an amateur boxer. He had originally sought a career as a teacher by attending St Mary's Teaching College, Newcastle upon Tyne. However, in 1976, Neeson...
33.
Dwayne Johnson
Actor, The Scorpion King
Dwayne Douglas Johnson was born in Hayward, California on May 2nd 1972 to Rocky Johnson and Ata Johnson. While growing up, Dwayne traveled around a lot with his parents and watched his father perform in the ring. During his high school years, Dwayne began playing football and he soon received a full scholarship from the University of Miami where he had tremendous success as a football player...
34.
Jet Li
Actor, Hero
Jet Li started training at the Beijing wushu academy (wushu is China's national sport, largely a performance version of various martial art styles) at age eight. He won five gold medals in the Chinese championships, his first when he was only 11. In his teens, he was already a national coach, and before he was 20 he had starred in his first movie: _Shao Lin tzu (1979)_ (Shaolin Temple)...
35.
Nicolas Cage
Actor, Lord of War
The son of comparative literature professor August Coppola (a brother of director Francis Ford Coppola) and dancer/choreographer Joy Vogelsang, Cage changed his name early in his career to make his own reputation, succeeding brilliantly with a host of classic, quirky roles by the late 1980s. Initially studying theatre at Beverly Hills High (though he dropped out at 17)...























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