Illeana Douglas

Born: 25th July 1965
Where: Massachusetts

Illeana Douglas is the granddaughter of screen legend, and two-time Academy Award-winner Melvyn Douglas.

Having performed stand-up comedy since she was a teenager, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and embarked on a New York City stage career.

In 1988 she was working for publicist Peggy Siegel in New York, and got the chance to audition for Martin Scorsese, whose office happened to be in the same building as Siegel's, and landed her first film role, in The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988.

Scorsese subsequently cast her in New York Stories the following year, GoodFellas in 1990, and, most notably, opposite Robert De Niro in the thriller Cape Fear.

Illeana claims she became a director in self-defense so that she could showcase her neglected comedic side. In 1993 she directed, wrote, and starred in a comedy short called The Perfect Woman, which won Best Short Film at the Aspen Festival.

This led to larger roles such as Janice in To Die For alongside Nicole Kidman in 1995. For this role she really attracted critical and popular attention.

Recently she has starred in The Next Best Thing alongside Madonna and Rupert Everett and in Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon.