Motion picture actors and actresses

The actress's film career has spanned more than four decades. She recounts some of her favorite memories from the sets of movies such as Coal Miner's Daughter, Badlands and Carrie in a new memoir, My Extraordinary Ordinary Life.

Day started singing and dancing when she was a teenager, and made her first film at 24. After nearly 40 movies, she walked away from that part of her life in 1968, and started rescuing and caring for animals. Here, she speaks to Terry Gross in a lengthy interview about her career in film and music.

From a white-knuckle Wall Street chronicle to a modernized Shakespearean war story, the films on David Edelstein's best-of-the-year list tell solid stories new and old.

It's been more than 30 years since the rugged film star's death, yet he still looms large in the national psyche. Critic John Powers was surprised to find that the indomitable American fighting man was actually a hard-earned act of self-invention.

Fresh Air remembers director Sidney Lumet — who died Saturday at age 86 — with excerpts from a 1988 interview. One of Hollywood's most prolific directors, Lumet created more than 40 films, including Network, Serpico, Fail-Safe, Dog Day Afternoon, The Wiz, The Verdict and Prince of the City.

Melissa Leo isn't that much older than actors Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. But the acclaimed character actress plays their mother in David O. Russell's boxing drama The Fighter. She discusses her role, which has earned her an Academy Award nomination.

Hal Needham worked as a Hollywood stuntman for over 40 years. He details some of his most death-defying feats (and why he can't stand modern special effects) in his new memoir, Stuntman!

French actor Vincent Cassel plays a ballet-company boss who pushes a fragile Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. The character is a hard guy -- though not quite the ruthless gangster Cassel played in the thriller Mesrine.

The co-star of Love and Other Drugs describes what it's like to go from the sweet, PG-rated fantasy of The Princess Diaries to shooting some fairly explicit romantic-drama nude scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal.