Movies News

PROFILE: Best actress nominees

Feb 23, 2011, 11:40 GMT

Los Angeles - Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams are nominated for the Academy Award for best actress.

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right - A veteran American actress who is married to Warren Beatty, Bening has been nominated three times before for an Oscar in recognition of her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty and Being Julia. Born in Topeka, Kansas, Bening is the youngest of four children and has four children herself. In the Kids Are All Right, Bening plays a lesbian mother of two teenagers whose relationship with their other mother is threatened when the kids contact the sperm donor who is their father.

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole - One of the most recognizable women in the world, the Australian Kidman, 43, previously won an Academy Award for the 2002 film The Hours. Among her other acclaimed work is Cold Mountain, Moulin Rouge, Days of Thunder, Bewitched and The Interpreter. Kidman is the face of Chanel No 5 perfume. In Rabbit Hole, Kidman plays a wife and mother who struggles to come to terms with the untimely death of her son.

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone - Lawrence, 20, was little known before her breakout role in Winter's Bone. She left school in Kentucky at age 16 to pursue acting, and her first major film role was opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger in 2008's The Burning Plain, for which Lawrence was recognized as the best emerging actor at the Venice Film Festival. In Winter's Bone, she plays a 17-year- old girl in the rural Ozarks who cares for her mentally ill mother and her younger brother and sister, only to discover that her father's criminal activities are threatening their home.

Natalie Portman, Black Swan - The Jerusalem-born Portman, 29, moved to the United States as a 3-year-old. She rose to prominence at age 17 when she was cast as Padme Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Portman was also a budding young scientist and a psychology undergraduate at Harvard University. Her other films include V for Vendetta, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and The Other Boleyn Girl. In Black Swan, she plays a ballet dancer who is driven to madness by her role in Swan Lake.

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine - The American Williams, 30, first came to prominence on the TV teen drama Dawson's Creek. A former partner to Heath Ledger, she starred with him in Brokeback Mountain, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, as well as Shutter Island, The Station Agent and I'm Not There. In Blue Valentine, Williams plays a nurse dealing with the breakup of her marriage and raising her son as a single mother.