Jennifer Connelly

After a long stretch of forgettable roles in mostly forgettable films, Connelly gave her breakthrough performance in 2001's A Beautiful Mind. She portrayed Alicia Nash, the devoted and extraordinarily patient wife of Russell Crowe's John Forbes Nash, a talented but arrogant mathematician who falls victim to paranoid schizophrenia. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and a Golden Globe for her performance.

Connelly began her career in show business at age 10 as a model. She made her big-screen debut in Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Her other early roles include Phenomena (1984) and Labyrinth (1986). She proved her acting chops in Higher Learning (1995) and Waking the Dead (2000). She gave a disturbing yet convincing performance as a self-destructive junkie in Requiem for a Dream (2000). She starred in the critically acclaimed House of Sand and Fog (2003) with Ben Kingsley.