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

Sir Michael John Gambon (born 19 October 1940) is an Irish-born English actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. Gambon has played Philip Marlow in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, Jules Maigret in the...

Peter Henry Fonda (born February 23, 1940) is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda is an...

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is well known for playing mobsters, especially Michael Corleone in The Godfather films and Tony Montana in Scarface, and often appeared on the...

Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English film, television, and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career on stage and screen. He is most widely known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Ne...

Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for the Beatles. He occasionally sang lead vocals, usually for...

Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III (born December 9, 1941) is an American actor and director. He is a three-time Emmy, two-time Golden Globe and one-time Grammy Award winner. He is also a two-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee. H...

Martin Charles Scorsese (born November 17, 1942) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian, whose career spans more than 45 years.

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor and film producer. He gained worldwide fame for his starring roles as Han Solo in the original Star Wars epic space opera trilogy and the title character of the Indiana Jones...

Werner Herzog Stipetić (born 5 September 1942), known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, author, actor and opera director.

David Paul Cronenberg, (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor.

Ronald Walken, known professionally as Christopher Walken (born March 31, 1943), is an American actor. He has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows, including The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, The Prophecy trilogy, The D...

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer, songwriter and actor, best known as lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones.

Robert De Niro (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor and producer who has starred in over 90 films. His first major film roles were in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Martin Scorsese's crime film Mean Street...

Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress and director. She is known for her film roles in Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Norma Rae (1979), Places in the Heart (1984), Murphy's Romance (1985), Steel Magnol...

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016) was an English actor known for playing a variety of roles on stage and screen, often as a complex antagonist. Rickman was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company i...

Tessa Charlotte Rampling (born 5 February 1946) is an English actress, model, chanteuse, and fashion icon, known for her work in European arthouse films in three languages, English, French, and Italian. A four-time César Award nom...

Sylvester Gardenzio "Sly" Stallone (born July 6, 1946) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, and director. He is well known for his Hollywood action roles, particularly boxer Rocky Balboa, the title character of the Rocky...

Tommy Tam Fu-Wing (born 19 August 1946 in Guangdong, Republic of China), better known by his stage name Ti Lung, is a Hong Kong actor, known for his numerous starring roles in a string of Shaw Brothers Studio's films, particularly...

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947) was an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, arranger, painter, and actor.

Iggy Pop (born James Newell Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor. He is the vocalist of influential proto-punk band The Stooges, who reunited in 2003, and has been known for his outr...

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-born American actor, producer, activist, businessman, investor, writer, philanthropist, former professional bodybuilder, and politician. Schwarzenegger served two ter...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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)...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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