Category: Girls

Natalie Portman
Portman in 2023
Born	Natalie Hershlag (1981-06-09) June 9, 1981 (age 43) Jerusalem
Citizenship	Israel United States
Education	Harvard University (AB)
Occupations	Actress director producer
Years active	1993–present
Works	Full list
Spouse	Benjamin Millepied ​ ​ (m. 2012; div. 2024)​
Children	2
Awards	Full list
Signature

Natalie Portman (née Hershlag,^[1] Hebrew: נטע-לי הרשלג,^[a][4][6] born (1981-06-09)June 9, 1981) is an Israeli-born American actress. She has had a prolific film career from her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters and independent films, receiving multiple accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.

Portman began her acting career at age twelve, when she starred as the young protégée of a hitman in the action film Léon: The Professional (1994). While in high school, she made her Broadway debut in a 1998 production of The Diary of a Young Girl and gained international recognition for starring as Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999). From 1999 to 2003, Portman attended Harvard University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in psychology. She reduced her number of acting roles, but continued to act in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002, 2005) and in The Public Theater's 2001 revival of Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull.

In 2004, Portman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won a Golden Globe for playing a mysterious stripper in the romantic drama Closer. Portman's career further advanced with her starring roles as Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta (2005), Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and a troubled ballerina in the psychological thriller Black Swan (2010), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She starred in the romantic comedy No Strings Attached (2011) and portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy in the biopic Jackie (2016), which earned her a third Academy Award nomination. Portman has also featured as Jane Foster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), which established her as one of the world's highest-paid actresses. Co-founding the production company MountainA in 2021, Portman produced and starred in the drama May December (2023).

Portman's directorial ventures include the short film Eve (2008) and the biographical drama A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015). She is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, and an advocate for animal rights and environmental causes. She was married to dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied from 2012 to 2024, with whom she has two children.

Early life and background[edit]

Natalie Hershlag^[4] was born on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, to Jewish parents with roots in Poland, Russia, Austria, and Romania.^{[7][5][8][9][10]} She is the only child of Shelley (née Stevens),^[11] an American homemaker who works as Portman's agent, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born gynecologist.^[12] Her maternal grandparents were American Jews, whereas her paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants to Israel.^[13][8][14] Portman is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States.^[15][16][17]

Portman and her family first lived in Washington, D.C., but relocated to Connecticut in 1988 and then moved to Long Island^[18] in 1990.^[19][20] While living in Washington, Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland.^[8] Her native language is Hebrew.^[5] While living on Long Island, she attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County.^[18] She studied ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop, and regularly attended the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts.^[18] Describing her early life, Portman has said that she was "different from the other kids. I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked very hard. I was a very serious kid."^[21]

When Portman was ten years old, a Revlon agent spotted her at a pizza restaurant and asked her to become a child model.^[22] She turned down the offer but used the opportunity to get an acting agent.^[23][24] She auditioned for the 1992 off-Broadway Ruthless!, a musical about a girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play.^[25] Portman and Britney Spears were chosen as understudies for star Laura Bell Bundy.^[26]

Career[edit]

1994–1998: Early work[edit]

Six months after Ruthless! ended, Portman auditioned for and secured a leading role in Luc Besson's action drama Léon: The Professional (1994).^[24] She adopted her paternal grandmother's maiden name, Portman, as her stage name.^[27][28] She played Mathilda, an orphan child who befriends a middle-aged hitman (played by Jean Reno). Her parents were reluctant to let her do the part due to the explicit sexual and violent nature of the script, but agreed after Besson took out the Mathilda character's nudity and killings that she committed.^[29] Portman herself said that after those scenes were removed, she found nothing objectionable about the content.^[30] Even so, her mother was displeased with some of the "sexual twists and turns" in the finished film, which were not part of the script.^[22] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post commended Portman for bringing a "genuine sense of tragedy" to her part, but Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times believed that she wasn't "enough of an actress to unfold Mathilda's pain" and criticized Besson's sexualization of her character.^[31][32]

After filming The Professional, Portman went back to school and during the summer break of 1994, she filmed a part in Marya Cohn's short film Developing. In it she played a young girl coping with her mother's (played by Frances Conroy) cancer.^[34] She also enrolled at the Stagedoor Manor performing arts camp, where she played Anne Shirley in a staging of Anne of Green Gables.^[35] Michael Mann offered her the small part of the suicidal stepdaughter of Al Pacino's character in the action film Heat (1995) for her ability to portray dysfunction without hysteria.^[36][37] Impressed by her performance in The Professional, the director Ted Demme cast her as a precocious teenager who flirts with her much-older neighbor (played by Timothy Hutton) in the ensemble comedy-drama Beautiful Girls (1996).^[30] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Portman, a budding knockout, is scene-stealingly good even in an overly showy role."^[38] She subsequently went back to Stagedoor Manor to appear in a production of the musical Cabaret.^[39] Also in 1996, Portman had brief roles in Woody Allen's musical Everyone Says I Love You and Tim Burton's comic science fiction film Mars Attacks!^[40]

Portman was cast opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996), but she dropped out during rehearsals when studio executives found her too young for the role.^[22] Luhrmann said "Natalie was amazing in the footage, but it was too much of a burden for her at that age".^[41] She was also offered Adrian Lyne's Lolita, based on the novel of the same name, but she turned down the part due to its excessive sexual content.^[22][30] She later bemoaned that her parts in The Professional and Beautiful Girls prompted a series of offers to play a sexualized youngster, adding that it "dictated a lot of my choices afterwards 'cos it scared me ... it made me reluctant to do sexy stuff".^[33]

Portman instead signed on to star as Anne Frank in a Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, which was staged at the Music Box Theatre from December 1997 to May 1998. In preparation, she twice visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and interacted with Miep Gies, who had preserved Anne's diary after the family was captured; she found a connection with Frank's story, given her own family's history with the Holocaust.^[42][43] Reviewing the production for Variety, Greg Evans disliked her portrayal, which he thought had "little of the charm, budding genius or even brittle intelligence that the diary itself reveals".^[44] Conversely, Ben Brantley found an "ineffable grace in her awkwardness".^[45] The experience of performing the play was emotionally draining for her, as she attended high school during the day and performed at night; she wrote personal essays in Time and Seventeen magazines about her experience.^[46]

1999–2006: Star Wars, education, and transition to adult roles[edit]

Portman began filming the part of Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy in 1997, which marked her first big-budget production. The first film of the series, Episode I – The Phantom Menace was released in 1999, when she was in her senior year of high school.^[47] Portman was unfamiliar with the franchise when she was cast, and watched the original Star Wars trilogy before filming began.^[48] She worked closely with the director George Lucas on her character's accent and mannerisms, and watched the films of Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, and Katharine Hepburn to draw inspiration from their voice and stature.^[49] Filming in arduous locations in Algeria proved challenging for Portman.^[50][24] She did not attend the film's premiere so she could study for her high school finals.^[51] The critical response to the film was mixed, but with earnings of $924 million worldwide it was the second highest-grossing film of all time to that point, and it established Portman as a global star.^[52][53]

Portman graduated from Syosset High School in 1999.^[54][55][56] Her high school paper, "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar", co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search.^[57] Following production on The Phantom Menace, Portman initially turned down a lead role in the coming-of-age film Anywhere but Here (1999) after learning it would involve a sex scene, but the director Wayne Wang and actress Susan Sarandon (who played Portman's mother in the film) demanded a rewrite of the script. She was shown a new draft, and decided to accept the part.^[19][58] Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon called Portman's performance "astonishing" and added that "unlike any number of actresses her age, she's neither too maudlin nor too plucky".^[59] She received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for it.^[60]

Portman's sole screen appearance in 2000 was in Where the Heart Is, a romantic drama filmed in Texas, in which she played a pregnant teenager.^[61] After finishing work on the film, she began attending Harvard University to pursue her bachelor's degree in psychology, and significantly reduced her acting roles over the next few years.^[19] She studied advanced Hebrew literature and neurobiology,^[62] and she served as Alan Dershowitz's research assistant.^[23][63] In the summer of 2001, she returned to Broadway (at the Delacorte Theater) to perform Chekhov's drama The Seagull, which was directed by Mike Nichols and co-starred Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.^[64] Linda Winer of Newsday wrote that the "major surprises come from Portman, whose Nina transforms with astonishing lyricism from the girl with ambition to Chekhov's most difficult symbol of destruction".^[65] Also in 2001, Portman was among several celebrities who made cameo appearances in the comedy Zoolander.^[66] The following year she reprised her role of Amidala in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, which she had filmed in Sydney and London during her summer break of 2000.^[67] She was excited by the opportunity to play a confident young woman who did not depend on the male lead.^[68] When asked about balancing her career and education, she said, "I don't care if [college] ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star."^[69][70] In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy".^[71][72] Portman graduated from Harvard in 2003 and her sole screen appearance that year was in the brief part of a young mother in the war film Cold Mountain.^[19][73][74]

Portman began 2004 by featuring in the romantic comedy Garden State, which was written and directed by its star Zach Braff. She was the first actor to sign on to the film after finding a connection with her part: a spirited young girl suffering from epilepsy.^[20][75] Her role in it was described by Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club. as a prime example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character type – a stereotypical female role designed to spiritually help a male protagonist.^[76] Portman later said she found it upsetting to have contributed to the trope.^[77] She followed it by playing a mysterious stripper in Closer, a romantic drama directed by Mike Nichols based on the play of the same name, and co-starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Clive Owen. Portman agreed to her first sexually explicit adult role after turning down such parts in the past, saying it reflected her own maturity as a person.^[20][78] She had also performed her first nude scenes for the film, but they were deleted from the final cut when she insisted that they were inessential to the story.^[78] Closer grossed over $115 million worldwide against a $27 million budget, and the critic Peter Travers took note of Portman's "blazing, breakthrough performance", writing that she "digs so deep into the bruised core of her character that they seem to wear the same skin."^[79][80] She won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award nomination in the same category.^[81][82]

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, the final installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, was Portman's first film release of 2005. It earned over $848 million to rank as the second-highest-grossing film of the year.^[83] She next played a Jewish-American girl in Free Zone, a drama from Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai. To prepare, she studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and read memoirs of Yitzhak Rabin, which she said allowed her to explore both the role and her own heritage.^[78][26] Controversy arose when she filmed a kissing scene at the Western Wall, where gender segregation is enforced, and she later issued an apology.^[84] Critics disliked the film for its heavy-handed approach to the conflicts in the Middle East.^[85] Portman's final film role in 2005 was that of Evey Hammond in the political thriller V for Vendetta, based on the comics of the same name, about an alternative future where a neo-fascist regime has subjugated the United Kingdom. She was drawn to the provocative nature of the script, and worked with a dialect coach to speak in an English accent. In a scene in which her character is tortured, her head was shaved on camera; she considered it an opportunity to rid herself of vanity.^[86] Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle deemed it Portman's strongest performance to that point, and remarked that she "keeps you focused on her words and actions instead of her bald head."^[87] She was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Actress.^[88]

Portman began 2006 by hosting an episode of the television sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live.^[89] One of her sketches, a song named "Natalie's Rap", was released later in 2009 on Incredibad, an album by the Lonely Island.^[90] In the anthology film Paris, je t'aime, consisting of eighteen short films, she had a role in the segment named "Faubourg Saint-Denis" from director Tom Tykwer.^[91] Later that year, she starred in Miloš Forman's Goya's Ghosts, about the painter Francisco Goya. Forman cast her in the film after finding a resemblance between her and Goya's portrait The Milkmaid of Bordeaux.^[92] She insisted on using a body double for her nude scenes after discovering on set that she had to perform them when they were not originally in the script.^[93] It received predominantly negative reviews, but Roger Ebert was appreciative of Portman for playing her dual role "with fearless conviction".^[94][95]

2007–2015: Career expansion and Black Swan[edit]

Portman began 2007 by replacing Jodie Foster in Wong Kar-wai's romantic drama My Blueberry Nights, which was his first English-language film. For her role as a gambler, she trained with a poker coach.^[96] Richard Corliss of Time magazine believed that "for once she's not playing a waif or a child princess but a mature, full-bodied woman" and commended her "vibrancy, grittiness and ache, all performed with a virtuosa's easy assurance".^[97] Her next appearance was in Hotel Chevalier, a short film from Wes Anderson, which served as a prologue to his feature The Darjeeling Limited (in which Portman had a cameo).^[98] In the short, she and Jason Schwartzman play former lovers who reunite in a Paris hotel room. For the first time, Portman performed an extended nude scene; she was later disappointed at the undue focus on it and she subsequently swore off appearing nude again.^[93][99] Keen to work in different genres, Portman accepted a role in the children's film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, playing an employee of a magical toy store.^[100]

Look up Nina, nina, or NINA in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Nina may refer to:

• Nina (name), a feminine given name and surname

Acronyms[edit]

• National Iraqi News Agency, a news service in Iraq
• Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, on the campus of Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• No income, no asset, a mortgage lending concept
• "No Irish need apply", an anti-Irish racism phrase found in some 19th-century employment ads in the United States

Geography[edit]

• Nina, Estonia, a village in Alatskivi Parish, Tartu County, Estonia
• Nina, Mozambique, a village in the Ancuabe District of Cabo Delgado Province in northern Mozambique

United States[edit]

• Nina, West Virginia, an unincorporated area in Doddridge County, West Virginia
• Nina, Texas, a census-designated place (CDP) in Starr County, Texas
• Nina Station, Louisiana, an unincorporated community in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana
• Ninaview, Colorado, an unincorporated area in Bent County, Colorado

Arts, entertainment, and media[edit]

Films[edit]

• Nina (1956 film), a West German film
• Nina (1959 film), a French film
• Nina (2004 film), a Brazilian film
• Nina (2016 film), an American film
• Nina (2017 film), a Slovak film
• Nina (2024 film), a Spanish film

Music[edit]

Groups[edit]

• NiNa, a multinational J-pop group
• Nina & Frederik, a Danish singing duo of the 1950s and 1960s
• Nina Sky, an American singing duo

Classical music[edit]

• Nina (Dalayrac), a 1786 opera by Nicolas Dalayrac
• Nina (opera), a 1790 opera by Giovanni Paisiello
• "Tre giorni son che Nina" (often shortened to just "Nina"), an 18th century song variously attributed to Vincenzo Ciampi or Pergolesi

Albums[edit]

• Nina (Nina album), a 2006 album by Filipina singer Nina Girado
• Nina (Xiu Xiu album), a 2013 album by American avant-garde group Xiu Xiu
• Nina (Nina Badrić album), a 2000 album by Croatian singer Nina Badrić

Songs[edit]

• "Nina", by Jean-Michel Blais from the 2022 album Aubades
• "Nina", by Noël Coward from the 1945 revue Sigh No More
• "Nina" (Ed Sheeran song), 2014
• "Draumur um Nínu" (A Dream about Nína) or simply "Nina", Iceland's 1991 Eurovision Song Contest entry

Other arts, entertainments, and media[edit]

• Nina (TV series), a French television comedy broadcast on French 2
• "Nina and the Neurons", a Scottish programme shown on the CBeebies channel
• Nina, a 1949 play by André Roussin
• Nina, a character introduced in Season 4 of the Spanish Children's show Pocoyo

People with the mononym[edit]

• Nina (musician), German synthwave electronic singer-songwriter based in London
• Nina (Spanish singer), Spanish singer, vocal coach and actress
• Nina Girado, Filipino singer
• Nina Gerhard, German singer
• Nina Kreutzmann Jørgensen, Greenlandic singer
• Nina Makino, American singer
• Nina van Pallandt (born 1932), Danish singer and actress (also of Nina & Frederik vocal duo)
• Saint Nino (anglicized to Nina), an Eastern-orthodox saint

Other uses[edit]

• Nina Printing House, a secret underground printing house in Baku, Russia, 1901–1906
• Nina Tower, a skyscraper in Hong Kong
• BLS RABe 525 train in Switzerland, also known as Nina
• Castro (clothing), an Israeli garment company originally named Nina

See also[edit]

• All pages with titles beginning with Nina
• All pages with titles containing Nina
• Nela (name)
• Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist who embedded "NINA", the name of his daughter, in most of his drawings, now used to describe messages hidden within crossword puzzles
• Niña (ship), the ship used by Christopher Columbus on his 1492 voyage
• Niña (disambiguation)
• Nena (disambiguation)
• Neena (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Nina.
If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Elisha Cuthbert
Cuthbert in 2015
Born	Elisha Ann Cuthbert (1982-11-30) November 30, 1982 (age 41) Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1996–present
Spouse	Dion Phaneuf ​ (m. 2013)​
Children	2
Signature

Elisha Ann Cuthbert (/əˈliːʃə/; born November 30, 1982)^[1] is a Canadian actress. As a child actress, she made her first televised appearance as an extra in the horror-themed series for children Are You Afraid of the Dark? and co-hosted Popular Mechanics for Kids. She made her feature-film debut in the 1997 Canadian family drama Dancing on the Moon. Her first major lead role came in the 1998 drama film Airspeed (No Control) alongside Joe Mantegna. In 2001, she starred in the movie Lucky Girl, for which she received her first award, the Gemini Awards.

After moving to Hollywood in 2001, she was cast as Kim Bauer in the series 24, her first big role in an American production, alongside Kiefer Sutherland. For this role, she was nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards twice. In 2003, she played Darcie Goldberg in the college comedy Old School and Carol-Anne in Love Actually. Cuthbert received wide recognition for her breakout role as Danielle in the 2004 teen comedy film The Girl Next Door, being nominated for Best Breakthrough Performance at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, and for her next role as Carly Jones in the 2005 House of Wax, for which she received two nominations for the Teen Choice Awards, including Best Actress: Action/Adventure/Thriller. Subsequently, Cuthbert appeared in the lead role in the drama The Quiet (2005) and the horror Captivity (2007). This role, along with Are You Afraid of the Dark?, 24 series and House of Wax, established her as a scream queen.^[2][3]

From 2011 to 2013, Cuthbert starred as Alex Kerkovich in the three seasons of the ABC comedy Happy Endings. From 2016 to 2020, she had a recurring role as Abby Phillips on the Netflix series The Ranch, before becoming a main cast member in the series' second season.^[4] She received praise for her performance on the Canadian comedy series Jann (2020), being nominated for the Canadian Screen Awards for Best Performance in a guest role.

Cuthbert has appeared in numerous magazines, such as Maxim, Complex, and FHM. In 2013, Maxim magazine named her "TV's most beautiful woman".^[5]

Early life[edit]

Elisha Cuthbert was born in Calgary, Alberta, the daughter of Kevin, an automotive design engineer and Patricia, a housewife.^{[citation needed]} She grew up in Greenfield Park, Quebec. In 2000, she graduated from Centennial Regional High School and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17.^[6] As a child, she participated in Girl Guide programs as a member of Girl Guides of Canada.^[7]

Career[edit]

Early work[edit]

When she was nine, Cuthbert began modeling children's clothing while appearing as a foot model.^[8] She made her first televised appearance as an extra in Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a horror-themed series for children; she later became a regular on the show. Cuthbert co-hosted Popular Mechanics for Kids with Jay Baruchel, filmed in Montreal. Her reporting captured the attention of Hillary Clinton, who invited her to the White House.^[9]

Cuthbert landed a role in a feature film in the family drama Dancing on the Moon (1997). She appeared in other Canadian family films and in an airplane thriller, Airspeed. In 2000, Cuthbert co-starred in Believe, a Canadian film with Ricky Mabe. The following year she starred in the Canadian television movie, Lucky Girl, and was awarded a Gemini Award for her performance.^[10]

2000s[edit]

Soon after moving to Hollywood, she was cast as Kim Bauer, daughter of federal agent Jack Bauer, in the television series 24. She appeared in the show's first three seasons, but not in its fourth; she guest-starred in two episodes in the fifth season. She also reprised her role as Kim Bauer in 24: The Game and again guest-starred in five episodes of the seventh season and in two episodes of the eighth season.

She began her Hollywood film career with small roles in Old School, which grossed $87 million. Cuthbert next appeared in Love Actually, which earned $246.4 million worldwide.^[11]

Her first break in a major film role was in 2004, The Girl Next Door. She played an ex–porn star, Danielle, opposite Emile Hirsch. She had reservations about taking the part, but director Luke Greenfield persuaded her to accept the role. Cuthbert did research for the film speaking to adult actresses from Wicked Pictures and Vivid Entertainment.^[12] The film was compared to Risky Business^[13][14] although Cuthbert said her character was not directly based on Rebecca De Mornay's. Critics were divided; some praised the film for boldness, while others, notably Roger Ebert, called it gimmicky and exploitative.^[15][16] Ebert wrote that he saw Cuthbert's character as "quite the most unpleasant character I have seen in some time."^[17] The View London said: "Cuthbert is surprisingly good, too – aside from being drop dead gorgeous, she also proves herself a capable comic actress in the Cameron Diaz mould".^[18] Cuthbert won two nominations for the MTV Movie Awards for Best Kiss and Best Breakthrough Performance.

In her next film, Cuthbert starred with Paris Hilton and Chad Michael Murray in the 2005 remake of the horror film House of Wax. In one scene, her character attempted to open her mouth while her lips were sealed with glue. For realism, she used Superglue over prosthetics.^[19] House of Wax was largely panned, critics citing a range of flaws. It was called "notable for having some of the most moronic protagonists ever to populate a horror film," though of those characters, critics tended to think Cuthbert "did the best". Though it received negative reviews the film was a box office success, which grossed $70 million worldwide.^[20] The Houston Chronicle cited Cuthbert as an exception.^[21] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said of the film, "Elisha Cuthbert's matter-of-fact, likable quality helps. Seeing her turn into wax would be as bad as seeing that happen to Glenda Farrell (the star of the 1933 version)."^[22] The Movie said: "The performances are always professional and understated in their believable cogency, particularly Cuthbert, a talented, beautiful young actress who has proven time and again just what a multilayered and promising future she has ahead of her. Cuthbert digs into the role of Carly with strength, determination, and horrified realism; you believe as you watch her that she is going through these things and forget all about the actor playing the part, which is the biggest compliment of all.^[23] Brian Orndorf of Filmjerk.com said: "[Paris] Hilton ... only plays her known personality in the film. She's overshadowed by the strong work from the rest of the cast, notably Chad Michael Murray and especially Elisha Cuthbert, who gives the film a strong dose of enthusiasm with her Jamie Lee Curtis-esque performance."^[24] Cuthbert was nominated at Teen Choice Awards in two categories Choice Movie: Actress – Action / Adventure / Thriller and Choice Movie: Rumble.

Cuthbert's next film was the indie film The Quiet. She was a co-star and co-producer. She played Nina, a 17-year-old cheerleader who is sexually abused by her father. Cuthbert looked to her younger cousin as her inspiration in portraying a teenager.^[25] The Quiet, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and received a limited release in Los Angeles and New York City on 25 August 2006^[26] before expanding regionally in the US on September 1. Cuthbert initially wanted to play the part of the silent Dot, but director Jamie Babbit cast Camilla Belle in the role instead^[27] after Thora Birch pulled out.^[28] Babbit reasoned "To me, Dot has to be someone you could believe would be invisible in high school. You look at Elisha, this beautiful woman with the most perfect body you've ever seen, and you think, there's no high school in America where this girl could be invisible. No matter how much hair and makeup I do, it's not going to happen." The Daily Californian conceded that "Despite the plot's failings, Cuthbert does a convincing job in her role, exuding an outer shell so tough that when her inner, softer layers emerge, it's a natural change of character.^[29] Empire Movies agreed, commenting "this is Elisha Cuthbert's best film performance to date. Cuthbert's Nina has the majority of the most graphic and disturbing dialogue in the film, especially during one particular lunchroom scene where the camera is close up on Cuthbert and Belle's faces."

Cuthbert appeared in the music video for Weezer's "Perfect Situation" in early 2006, playing the group's fictional original singer who threw a tantrum that led to Rivers Cuomo, the roadie, becoming the band's frontman.^[30] She also had a small role in Paris Hilton's music video for the song "Nothing in This World".^[31]

In 2007, Cuthbert appeared in Captivity, a thriller centered on a fashion model taunted by a psychopath who imprisons her in a cellar.^[32][33] She was nominated for a Razzie award as Worst Actress^[34] and Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller for the movie.^[35] The film grossed $10.9 million at the box office.^[36] The critic Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger said, "When, in the last few minutes, Cuthbert finally slipped her bonds and began looking for her tormentors, I knew exactly how she felt."^[37] The View London said: "The worst Cuthbert struggles to make her character sympathetic because the script doesn't give her anything to work with, while Daniel Gillies is too creepy-looking to convince as a potential love interest."^[38]

In He Was a Quiet Man, Cuthbert played Vanessa, a quadriplegic; she starred alongside Christian Slater. The film was in limited release in 2007, and it was released on DVD in early 2008.^[39] The critic Peter Bradshaw in his review for The Guardian praised Cuthbert's performance, writing that she "is very good".^[40] In 2008, Cuthbert appeared in My Sassy Girl, a remake of a Korean film, starring with Jesse Bradford. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India said the "Elisha is cute and their zany affair keeps the reels rolling in an unusual love story with the usual heartbreak and happy home-comings".^[41] Although Lacey Mical (Callahan) Walker of Christian Spotlight on Entertainment was not impressed by Bradford performance, she praised Cuthbert's, saying, "Elisha Cuthbert's talent rises above the character she was given to play, and she almost saves the bitter first half with a stellar performance".^[42]

Her next film was the family comedy, The Six Wives of Henry Lefay with Tim Allen, in which she played his daughter. She starred in the Canadian miniseries Guns. She was a judge in season two, episode two of Project Runway Canada. Designers were challenged to create a "party dress" for her.^[43] Cuthbert reprised her character Kim Bauer in the seventh season of 24 for five episodes.^[44] She was to star in the CBS drama pilot Ny-Lon, playing a New York literacy teacher/record-store clerk who embarks on a transatlantic romance with a London stockbroker. The project, based on a British series starring Rashida Jones and Stephen Moyer, was cancelled.^[45]

In December 2009, ABC said Cuthbert had joined the cast of The Forgotten in a recurring role as Maxine Denver, a Chicago professional.^[46] It was expected for Cuthbert to play the role of Trixie in sports action- comedy film Speed Racer (2008), but Christina Ricci was eventually chosen.^[47]

2010s[edit]

From April 2011 to May 2013, Cuthbert starred as Alex Kerkovich for three seasons on the ABC ensemble comedy Happy Endings alongside Eliza Coupe, Zachary Knighton, Adam Pally, Damon Wayans Jr., and Casey Wilson.^[48] Despite critical acclaim and having a cult following, the show was canceled by ABC after the conclusion of its third season on 3 May 2013. Cuthbert was nominated for the Online Film & Television Association Award in 2012 and 2013 in the category of "Best Cast in a Comedy Series"^[49] and TV Guide Awards for Favorite Cast. The series was also nominated for 28 other awards including the Satellite Awards for Best Series comedy television or music. Cuthbert's performance received positive reviews from critics. In 2013, she was regarded as a promising contender for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category,^{[50][51][52][53]} however she was not nominated.

In 2012, Cuthbert was host of the American Music Awards.^[54] In October 2012, she appeared in The Gaslight Anthem's music video "Here Comes My Man", playing the girlfriend of a man who mistreats her until she imagines a romantic relationship with a character in a film and chooses to end her real relationship.^[55]

In 2013, she appeared on the cover of Maxim, which named her TV's Most Beautiful Woman.^[56]

In February 2014, Cuthbert signed to play the female lead role in Liz Feldman and Ellen DeGeneres' NBC sitcom pilot One Big Happy. Cuthbert stars as Lizzy, a lesbian who gets pregnant just as her straight male best friend Luke (played by Nick Zano) meets and marries the love of his life, Prudence.^[57] Six episodes of the show were ordered on 9 May 2014, and it debuted mid-season in early 2015. The series was canceled after one season.^{[citation needed]}

In 2015, Cuthbert joined Seann William Scott in a sequel to the 2011 comedy Goon. Goon: Last of the Enforcers began production in June in Toronto. Liev Schreiber and Alison Pill reprised their roles from the first film.^[58]

In 2016, Cuthbert joined the cast of Netflix's The Ranch, a comedy series.^[59]

2020s[edit]

In 2020, she started the film Eat Wheaties!.^[60]

She is set to star the horror movie The Cellar,^[61] Bandit and the comedy Friday Afternoon in the Universe.^[62][63] For her performance in the comedy series Jann (2020), she was nominated for the Canadian Screen Awards for Best Guest Performance.^[64]

Public image[edit]

Since she began playing Kim Bauer, she has frequently been named to the magazines FHM and Maxim's annual lists of "hottest women". Her highest ranking was No. 4 in the 2008 UK Edition of FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World list. She was ranked No. 14 in 2003, No. 10 in 2004,^[65] No. 5 in 2005,^[66] No. 22 in 2006, No. 10 in 2007,^[67] and No. 7 in 2009.^[68] The U.S. Edition ranked her No. 53 in 2003, No. 63 in 2004, and No. 54 in 2006.

Cuthbert was ranked No. 10 by AskMen.com readers in the list "Top 99 Women of 2007."^[69] In Maxim's Hot 100 list, she was ranked No. 84 in 2002,^[70] No. 9 in 2003,^[71] No. 21 in 2004,^[72] No. 92 in 2006, No. 25 in 2007, No. 6 in 2008, No. 43 in 2009, No. 65 in 2011,^[73] No. 34 in 2012,^[74] and No. 10 in 2013.^[75] The magazine also featured her in its Girls of Maxim Gallery. In 2013, the magazine named her the Most Beautiful Woman in Television.^[76] BuddyTV ranked her No. 33 on its TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2011 list,^[77] No. 13 in 2012,^[78] and No. 30 in 2015.^[79] She was included in the list of The 15 Best Comedy Supporting Actresses of the 2011–2012 TV Season^[80] and 2012–2013 TV Season.^[81] The Canadian Business named her one of the most powerful Canadians in Hollywood,^[82] and The New York Daily News listed her as one of the Sexiest Canadian celebrities of 2016.^[83][84]

Complex has ranked her in The 25 Hottest Canadian Women,^[85] The 100 Hottest Women of the 2000s,^[86] The 25 Hottest Blonde Bombshell Actresses,^[87] and The 50 Hottest Celebrity Sports Fans.^[88] In 2013, GQ magazine listed her among The 100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century^[89] and The 100 Sexiest Women of Millennium.^[90]

Personal life[edit]

Cuthbert has two younger siblings and enjoys painting.^[91] She is also an ice hockey fan. In 2005, she maintained a blog on the NHL website, though she did not post for most of the season.^[92][93]

Marriage[edit]

Cuthbert and ice hockey player Dion Phaneuf, then the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, announced their engagement in September 2012^[94][95] and married 6 July 2013 at St. James Catholic Church in Summerfield, Prince Edward Island.^[96] Living in Ottawa during the ice hockey season, Cuthbert and Phaneuf spend their summers at their waterfront estate outside New London, Prince Edward Island, his parents' home province.^[96][97][98] The couple have two children, a daughter born in 2017 and a son in 2022.^[99][100]

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Television[edit]