List of drama actors, sorted by birth date - youngest first (all time)

Daryl Christine Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is an American film actress. She is best known for her performances in the films Blade Runner (1982), Splash (1984), Roxanne (1987), Wall Street (1987), Steel Magnolias (1989) and Kil...

Julianne Moore (born Julie Anne Smith; December 3, 1960) is an American actress and children's author.

Katherine Matilda "Tilda" Swinton of Kimmerghame (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress, performance artist, model, and fashion icon, known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She began her career in films directed by Der...

David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960), known professionally as Mark Rylance, is an English actor, theatre director and playwright. He was the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London, from 1995 to 2005...

Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959), better known as Kevin Spacey, is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, and comedian. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting ro...

James Hugh Calum Laurie (born 11 June 1959) is an English actor, writer, musician, singer, comedian, and author. He first became known as one-half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, wh...

Nicholas David Rowland "Nick" Cassavetes (Greek: Νικόλαος Δαβίδ Ρουλαντ "Νίκος" Κασσαβέτης; born May 21, 1959) is an American film actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker...

Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙 Watanabe Ken, born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese actor. To English-speaking audiences, he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Ka...

Michael Søren Madsen (born September 25, 1958) is an American actor, poet and photographer. He has appeared in more than 150 films, including Reservoir Dogs, Thelma & Louise, Wyatt Earp, Free Willy, Donnie Brasco, Species, Kill Bi...

Jennifer Tilly (born Jennifer Ellen Chan; September 16, 1958) is a Canadian-American actress and poker player. She is a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supportin...

Kevin Norwood Bacon (born July 8, 1958) is an American actor and musician whose films include musical-drama film Footloose (1984), the controversial historical conspiracy legal thriller JFK (1991), the legal drama A Few Good Men (...

Gary Leonard Oldman (born 21 March 1958) is an English actor, filmmaker, musician and author. He began acting in theatre in 1979, and gained his first starring film role in Meantime (1983). Oldman continued to lead a stage career,...

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (October 20, 1958) is a Danish American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of t...

Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is well known for his portrayal of Andy Dufresne in the prison drama film The Shawshank Redemp...

Frances Louise McDormand (born June 23, 1957) is an American actress. She has been married to director and writer Joel Coen since 1984 and has starred in several of the Coen brothers' films, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising...

Sir Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April 1957) is an English actor. He holds both British and Irish citizenship. Born and raised in London, he excelled on stage at the National Youth Theatre, before being accepted at the...

Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi (born December 13, 1957) is an American actor and film director. Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films, including Parting Glances, New York Stories, Mystery Train,...

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his roles in Big (1988), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail (both 199...

Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956) is an American actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is best known for portraying Walter White in the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad, Hal in the Fox comedy series...

Christoph Waltz (born 4 October 1956) is an Austrian-German actor. He is best known for his works with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (...

Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and performance artist. She was best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia Organa in the original Star Wars trilogy a...

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker.

Donald Chow Yun-fat, (born May 18, 1955), commonly known by his transcribed Chinese name, is a Hong Kong actor. He is best known in Asia for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the heroic bloodshed genre films A Better T...

Chen Daoming (born 26 April 1955) is a Chinese actor who has starred in various genres of film and television series.

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is an American actor, producer and singer. His career began on the Off-Broadway stage and then in television in the 1980s, most notably as David Addison in Moonlighting (1985–89). He is pe...

Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, musician, and playwright. He founded a nonprofit theater company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan. He has performed in a n...

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFT...

Ronald William "Ron" Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American film director, producer, and actor, best known for playing two high-profile roles in television sitcoms in his childhood and early adulthood, and for directing a numb...

John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor, dancer, and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979) and starring in the box of...

Pierce Brendan Brosnan, (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist who after leaving comprehensive school at age 16, began training in commercial illustration. He then went on to train at the Drama Ce...

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor and director. He has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award nominations...

Patrick Wayne Swayze (August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009) was an American actor, dancer, and singer-songwriter. Having gained fame with appearances in films during the 1980s, Swayze became popular for playing tough guys and roma...

Liam John Neeson, (born 7 June 1952) is an Irish actor. In 1976, he joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast for two years. He then acted in the Arthurian film, Excalibur (1981). Between 1982 and 1987, Neeson starred in five f...

Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), better known by his stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor, producer, director and comedian. He is currently a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.

Mark Richard Hamill (born September 25, 1951) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for his portrayal of Luke Skywalker, a central character and protagonist of the original Star Wars t...

Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor and film producer. He is the youngest of the few people who have won the "Triple Crown of Acting": the Academy Award, the Primetime Emmy Award, and the Tony Award. He has...

Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. He started as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. After rising to fame as Mork in the sitcom Mork & M...

Stellan John Skarsgård (born 13 June 1951) is a Swedish actor. He is known for his roles as Jan Nyman in Breaking the Waves (1996), Prof. Gerald Lambeau in Good Will Hunting (1997), Bootstrap Bill in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead...

Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. His first roles were as a child in television series, including a lead role in the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–64). In the late 1960s, he sig...

Zhang Yimou (born 14 November 1951) is a Chinese film director, producer, screenwriter and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1...

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (born 2 October 1951), known professionally by his stage name Sting, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, activist, actor, and philanthropist. He was the principal songwrit...

William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He first gained exposure on Saturday Night Live, for which he earned his first Emmy Award and later went on to star in comedy films,...

William McChord Hurt (born March 20, 1950) is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in th...

Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress and a three-time Academy Award winner. Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville in 1971, and went on to receive a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Be...

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films like The Big Bird Cage (1972)...

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. He has worked as a composer for movies and musicals and has acted in supporting roles in films, including Paradise Alley and Br...

Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor, singer and producer. He comes from a prominent acting family, and appeared on the television series Sea Hunt (1958–60), with his father, Lloyd Bridges and b...

Jeremy John Irons (born 19 September 1948) is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many West End thea...

Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez (born 30 July 1948), known as Jean Reno is a Moroccan-born French actor of Spanish descent. Working in French, English, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian, he has appeared in numerous successful films suc...

Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and film producer. He achieved prominence in the early 1990s with films such as Jungle Fever (1991), Patriot Games (1992), Amos & Andrew (1993), True Romance (1993...