Posh and/or privileged actors/actresses

sorry, Redmayne.

Me!

/thread

I wonder how long it will take to fill both threads.

sylvester stallone

The good-looking guy who played Redmayne's college friend in Theory of Everything is Dickens' great grandson, so, I assume, he is also rather privileged.

julia louis-dreyfus

channing stockard

Oh, you Americans! You believe anyone with a British accent is posh! [italic]C'est si adorable![/italic]

R3 posh and talented are not synonymous

Benedict Cumberbatch Tom Hiddleston Max Irons Any of the Fox acting family

A lot of the British actors could fall into this category.

Emily Blunt

Alice Eve

aside from the British:

Anderson Cooper

Heath Ledger came from a privileged background as did Michelle Williams. (God she made one ugly Marilyn Monroe!)

Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart & Bette Davis

Judd Nelson and James Spader

Adam Clayton of U2

Most of them, OP. Do we have to go through this again? It's such an oversaturated field that those with connections and/or money obviously have great advantage.

Chevy Chase

Helena Bonham-Carter

R16 True.

Today's performers are not like the rags-to-riches performers in the past. The majority of them come from rich, well-connected families or are the children of established celebrities.

The have-nots better get used to. The Elvis Presley days are over.

Doesn't it depend on what you consider to be "posh"? Many would call Keira Knightley posh, but she wasn't a rich kid, her parents were an actor and a playwright but they couldn't afford to send her to drama school (which is very expensive)

The entire cast of the American version of "The Office".

Christopher Lee family on his mother's side was Italian aristocracy.

Beyoncé

Madonna comes from an upper middle-class family, took regular trips to Europe and was privately educated.

(She is not from Detroit and did not start out as a NYC street urchin as she conned her fans into believing.)

80% of us

Assuming that's a sort of meta joke R24 as Madonna would love for us to think she came from a posh upper crust British family.

My uncle went to high school with her - I've seen his yearbook. It was a very middle class suburb, she was from the slummier part of it.

Damian Lewis and Dominic West both went to Eton, so their families are loaded. Benedict Cumberbatch went to Harrow and his parents are connected out the wazoo. Keira Knightly also comes from money and serious connections.

Edgar Ramirez comes from a long line of very wealthy Venezuelan Diplomats and land owners.

Elizabeth Taylor. Her father was a successful art dealer, and while they lived in England, they hobnobbed with the aristocracy/elite. Taylor's godfather was Colonel Victor Cazalet, who was the best friend of Winston Churchill.

Jean Harlow. Her father was a dentist and her mother was an heiress. At 16 Harlow married a fellow heir, who shortly afterinherited a mass fortune. The young couple lived in Beverly Hills, where Harlow enjoyed life as a wealthy socialite. She fell into acting by mistake.

Kate & Rooney Mara. They're NFL royalty/dynasty. Their mother's family (the Rooneys) founded and own the Pittsburgh Steelers, and their father's family (the Maras) founded and own the New YOrk Giants.

[quote]The have-nots better get used to. The Elvis Presley days are over.

Marilyn is another who came from nothing. No family: Never knew/met her father, her mother's brother died as a child, her mother's parents ended their days in an institution, and her mother ended up institutionalized for life, as well. Thus, Marilyn spent her entire childhood in a succession of foster homes and a two-year stint in an orphanage, and was married off at 16 to avoid the system. And yet somehow she became Hollywood's greatest movie star and enduring icon!

Benicio del Toro. His parents are lawyers. He went to private boarding school in PA.

Sigourney Weaver

Brooke Shields (descended from royalty on her dad's side)

Nicole Kidman

R31 I think originally he was going to be lawyer like his parents. I find it quite funny imagining him as a lawyer!

Lee Marvin, who was in "Cat Ballou" and "The Dirty Dozen"

Does having parents who are lawyers or doctors necessarily make someone posh/privileged?

Lupita Nyong'o. Comes from a wealthy, political Kenyan family. She attended the best preparatory schools in Kenya and the US, and got her master's from Yale. Last year, I was rooting for her to win Supporting Actress, thinking she was an African refugee who made good, but she's in fact very wealthy and well-connected.

The actual African refugee, Barkhad Abdi, whose family fled war-torn Somalia in the early '90s and was working as a limo driver when he was cast in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. It would've been nice to have seen someone like that win an Oscar instead of the usual, privileged lot.

Rebecca Hall, daughter of theatre director Sir Peter Hall, was Head Girl at the elite Roedean School and studied at Cambridge.

Hugh Laurie is another Old Etonian.

Paul Giamatti's father A. Barlett Giamatti was President of Yale and Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

A child of privilege would have no money worries if they failed and had no connections

Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman, nephews of Francis Ford Coppola.

R40 and yet you fail to mention Coppola's own daughter, Sofia.

R41 She's not an actress.

www.datalounge.com/cgi-bin/iowa/ajax.html?t=11324121#page:postReply,15025700,5

"which actors and celebrities are bisexual" is closed?

[yeah, it's not a hotlink]

The unpopular opinions thread is also closed. Why? What kind of pathetic soul does something like that?

we're being culled

Lalla Ward of Doctor Who fame (once Mrs Tom Baker, now Mrs Richard Dawkins) is the daughter of a Viscount. From Wikipedia:

Through her father she is descended from George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, and from John Mordaunt, 1st Earl of Peterborough, John, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, and Bernard Ward, 1st Viscount Bangor. Her great-grandmother Mary Ward was an illustrator and amateur scientist, and is documented as the first person in the world to die in a motor vehicle accident.

WOW! Just saw this pic of Redmayne from the set of Tom Hooper's Wegener/Elbe film. Will he get another Oscar nom for this???? Or will there be too much "this part should have been played by a trans woman" backlash?

God. He looks amazing!

Christopher Guest, aka Lord Haden-Guest. After inheriting his title, he attended sessions in the House of Lords until they kicked out most of the hereditary peers.

His name is Harry Lloyd, R5, and not only is he Eton/Oxford, Dickens' prodigy, his father is also Chairman at Curtis Brown...the agency representing half the talent in the UK! (Pattinson, etc, etc...) I'm actually really surprised that he hasn't had more opportunities post his turn as Viserys Targaryen in Season 1 of Game of Thrones. Right now that's the role he's most associated with.

(And he's fucking GORGEOUS on screen. I've seen him in person around the Spitalfields area in London, and he's very scruffy and easy to miss in person. But on screen he's luminous. Has gorgeous green eyes.)

r42 I'll say!

not closed

Have you tried posting in it?

Visual evidence for the opinion expressed in R50, even though this thread has very obviously died a middle-of-the-night and/or nobody-cares death.

Tilda Swinton Dina Merrill Franchot Tone Grace Kelly Robin Williams Susan St. James Bob Balaban Benedict Cumberbatch Christopher Lloyd Helena Bonham-Carter Tallulah Bankhead Katharine Hepburn Katharine Houghton Daryl Hannah

Roz Russell, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper

Isn't Glenn Close from some filthy rich Greenwich, CT, family? I think I read she grew up very privileged.

English actress Anna Chancellor ("Duckface" from Four Weddings and a Funeral) is descended from English nobility and is related to Jane Austen.

Jennifer Westfeldt (Jon Hamm's GF) is descended from Swedish nobility.

[quote] Brooke Shields (descended from royalty on her dad's side)

Italian aristocracy and heavy duty royalty from France (multiple kings and emperors). Her episode of Who Do You Think You Are? was one of the best.

GOOP acts like she's posh.She's more like a cunt who is two generations away from being PWT.

[quote]GOOP acts like she's posh.She's more like a cunt who is two generations away from being PWT.

You're revealing your effeminacy with ludicrously resentful rants like that.

Is being upper-middle-class really the definition of "privileged"?

Edward Norton is the grandson of super developer James Rouse.

Let's see, what young people have come from nothing and nowhere? Jennifer Lawrence and Charlize Theron are the only ones that come to mind, the daughters of a Kentucky construction worker and an Afrikaans farmer respectively. Oh wait, Charlize isn't young, she broke in when it was easier for outsiders.

Emma Stone comes from a well-to-do family, Kristen Stewart, the Gylenhalls, Scarlett Johanssen, Ryan Gosling, and Nicholas Hoult have family members in the industry.

Oh wait, the Hemsworth brothers come from nothing and nowhere, no family money or connections.

Now pardon me, while I imagine the sexual favors those boys had to give to make it as far as they have. Mmmmm...

Tom Hardy is the only child of artsy upper-middle class parents, who raised him in one of London's leafiest, most affluent suburbs. Private schools and private tutors all the way.

His chav persona is an affectation.

r63, Ryan Gosling has no family members in the industry, unless you're counting his uncle who once earned a crust doing Elvis impersonations at blue-collar shopping malls and events.

Hilary Swank came from a trailer park in Washington state, and upon arriving in LA she and her mother lived in their car while looking for acting gigs and until her mother saved up enough to rent a shit-hole apartment. Swank also never finished high school.

Even after landing bit parts on TV shows (EVENING SHADE, GROWING PAINS) and movies (BUFFY) and landing the lead role in THE NEXT KARATE KID (which bombed), she still struggled.

She was fired from 90210 after half a season (1997-1998). She has said that was a low blow in her life/career. She desperately wanted (and needed) BOYS DON'T CRY though at small indie film ($2 million budget) nobody expected it to take off as it did. Swank was only paid $3,000.

And now she's a two-time Oscar-winner, joining the ranks of Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Jane Fonda, Vivien Leigh, etc.

Cary Elwes comes from serious money and is an Old Harrovian.

Alex from Target. What about Alex from Target?

So is that why Hilary is so mean?

Ryan Gosling is in the "comes from nothing and nowhere" category. Father worked for a paper mill and was laid off pretty early on (the paper mill's now defunct I believe). Mother scraped along raising two kids on a secretary's pay after Ryan's parents divorced.

His big break at 12 was winning an open audition in Montreal for the New Mickey Mouse Club over thousands of other hopefuls.

I think I got Ryan Gosling mixed up with someone else.

I love that expression "comes from money." So appropriate.

It's all about me.

R70 how do you mean?

The Gyllenhaals.

Kyra Sedgwick is from very old money; her cousin was the famous socialite/Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick.

Jack Huston of "Boardwalk Empire" is listed in Burke's Peerage; his maternal uncle is the Marquess of Cholmondeley.

[quote]Jack Huston of "Boardwalk Empire" is listed in Burke's Peerage; his maternal uncle is the Marquess of Cholmondeley.

Jack Huston is also the grandson of famed, Oscar-winning director/screenwriter John Huston and the nephew of Oscar-winning actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.

Well, haven't there been a lot of comments on other threads here about Hillary being a bitch or cunt? In the threads about nice celebrities/mean celebrities?

When did this become a thing? Maybe the past decade? Im not that old (38) but in the 80s and 90s -unless you were the child of a celebrity - most movie and TV stars came from humble or at best modestly middle class backgrounds. Especially all those child stars who were forced to support their parents - they were almost uniformly trash.

Someone like a Dana Delany who went to prep school and who had well-off parents was the exception not the rule. Most people from so called "priviledged" backgrounds looked down on something like going into the biz.

But I've noticed the past decade it has become more common for these people to come from if not super rich then quite connected backgrounds. Why is that?

Doesn't Hugh Dancy come from money?

Unless one is a plastic surgeon to the stars or something like that, no. It just means they made a pretty decent living.

And Kidman's father was a psychiatrist. How much money could he have pulled in.

Historically, aspiring actors/actresses arrived in Hollywood orr New York usually straight out of high school not coming from much and therefore didn't have much to lose. People from comfortable backgrounds who are used to having things taken care of for them would in general be more afraid to take that kind of risk.

But it is true you see more priviledged people now and I'm not sure why. Maybe because the business has less of a sleazy stigma than it used to?

Sigourney Weaver, daughter of a highly influential and wealthy president of NBC.

William Hurt, stepson of Henry Luce III.

Darryl Hannah, stepdaughter of real estate tycoon Jerrold Wexler.

Looking for the descendants of the 1%. Not the dentist's daughters.

Al Pacino should NOT be on this thread

R84 Um, no one mentioned him, did they? But no, he wasn't privileged, I've read interviews where he stresses how poor his family was.

James Blunt claims an upper-crust upbringing doesn't necessarily buy you a career in showbiz:

You don't have to be posh to be privileged.

R86 well no it certainly doesn't, unless your parents/family are somehow involved in the biz or know influential people who are, etc.

What it can do, however, is provide a sense of security while the aspiring actor is out there struggling. If their parents are paying for a nice Padang they don't have to wait tables today the rent, etc, they are more likely to stick it out.

And yet historically stars have come from tougher backgrounds - those who grew up privileged are generally less willing to endure the indignities required to succeed in the business.

I've thought about why that has somewhat shifted recently, and the only thing I can conclude is that fashion plays so much more of a part now. Not only does that attract more priviledged types (who often know editors and writers from their school days, etc), but a fledgling actor (female especially) with family money can simply hire a publicist to get them to be a red carpet regular and plant "seen" items on page six, etc. And then it snowballs and they start getting better jobs and more famous from there.

Actor Mel Ferrer

James Blunt should be kicked repeatedly.

Rupert Everett: upper-middle class army/colonial background; elite Catholic boarding school Ampleforth.

Wallace Shawn: intellectual aristocracy (father edited the 'New Yorker' for decades); Harvard, Oxford.

He'll still be beautiful, R90, and you'll still be a "wazzock."

R60 Cunt is the least effeminate word on the planet.Now go take your meds and make sure your room in the nuthouse is ready for inspection.

OP, are you English or British? Americans rarely use the word "posh", or has it been adopted by hipsters? I love the Britishisms.

The colour of the harbour water distracted me from my programming job and I had to re-do my maths.

Virtually every English actor. They don't exactly have a merit based system, particularly in England.

R92 is a frau who masturbates to James Blunt's photos and wonders why her gay husband never fucks her.

R95, And they have that in the US? Most American actors are dumb pretty fools.

I think the posh Brits are doing well for several reasons.

In Hollywood, because there's a segment of Americans that love them and another segment that love/hates - loves to hate? - the stereotypes of the old colonial master. There's a peculiar fascination there.

Also, connections mean a lot everywhere, not just in Britain, but in Britain the middle and high brow segments in acting are dominated by posh people, or at the very least, Oxbridge alumni. I mean, if you were in Footlights at Cambridge, you already know most of the people you need to know before you even get to RADA.

And then, post-financial crash, at the elite training schools of RADA et al, scholarships have dried up and tuition fees have skyrocketed, locking out many of the poorer candidates.

There are still routes into acting (stage schools, comedy and fringe outfits) for those who aren't posh, but these people will be much less visible to Americans because they go into the lower brow shows like soaps and procedural drams, daytime shows, kids drama and suchlike. They're there but you don't see them across the Pond.

Probably a dumb question, but are there student loans in England? Even if you can't afford tuition to RADA or somewhere like that, can't you get a loan so you can go?

And does the military do a GI Bill like we have in America?

"What it [money or connections] can do, however, is provide a sense of security while the aspiring actor is out there struggling. If their parents are paying for a nice Padang they don't have to wait tables today the rent, etc, they are more likely to stick it out."

Money and connections not only provide a safety net, they protect a young actor for the nastier sorts of harassment and abuses out there. If Daddy is paying for a good publicist or mommy's connections have gotten you a good agent, when the DP's third assistant says blow him or you're fired... you can refuse him without fear of retaliation, and you may be able to get the SOB fired.

The nothing-from-nowhere actors may actually get fired for saying "no", and if they keep their jobs they live in fear that the creepy DP's assistant will hit the big time and put them on his enemies list. So why would a nothing-from-nowhere actor choose to work in a field where they have to put up with this sort of working conditions? Breaking into acting is so much easier and more pleasant for rich kids, that I'm sure it's driving non-rich kids out of the field.

Julian McMahon: son of former Australian Prime Minister Sir William McMahon. Charles Shaughnessy: now Baron Shaughnessy. Christopher Guest: AKA Lord Haden-Guest. Ralph Fiennes: AKA Ralph Nathaniel Twyselton-Wykkham-Fiennes, from a long line of aristocrats.

R95 Whereas American actors are extremely talented, like Mark Wahlberg, Channing Tatum and Megan Fox.

R100 At the risk of sounding naive, are people in the business really that corrupt?

Did someone just call?

R99 Yes there are student loans. The issue is that the tuition fees for these Oxbridge universities and Russell group (similar to American Ivy League) universities are double sometimes triple the tuition fees of elsewhere that offers the same arts/drama courses. When historically tuition fees never had to be paid its another burdon.

Both me and my younger brother went to an Oxbridge university. When I attended I never had to pay tuition fees, I like everyone else had tuition covered by government grants and only had a student loan to help cover the cost of accommodation fees so at most it was £2000 a year which you didn't have to pay back until you were in a job paying around £19000 a year. Now my brother started a few years after me and because of a change in government funding he had to pay tuition fees (£10000) a year on top of all his other expenses. This is probably why a lot of the actors coming from the UK come from money because they are the only ones that can afford it.

R104 Since when was Bear Gryllis an actor?

R105

No, RADA charges £9k for a degree like everyone else does. University fees for bachelor degrees are capped at £9k for everyone.

The problem is that the UK loan/grant system is only available for ONE degree and entrance to RADA et al is usually after having done a bachelors degree elsewhere. So students have to find a scholarship (many gone due to austerity) or pay.

You will find that the posh actors all went to Oxbridge or a Russell Group uni and then on to RADA or LAMDA. The original degree is covered by tuition fee and maintenance loans but the post-grad training is not.

"Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart & Bette Davis"

Hepburn and Bogart, but not Davis. Raised by a divorced mother who had to make a deal to take all of the photos of Bette's graduating class in exchange for her tuition. Bette vowed then and there that if she ever became successful, her mother would never work again.

Armie Hammer

Armie Hammer

Gwyneth Paltrow

Lena Dunham

Anne Baxter, granddaughter of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Tallulah Bankhead, daughter of a United States Congressman and the niece and granddaughter of United States Senators.

Téa Leoni, Uma Therman, Owen Wilson/Luke Wilson, Bonnie Raitt, Laura Linney, and Noah Wyle

R107 it's inly a recent thing that the fees have been capped. Certainly when my brother was there it wasn't capped.

You're entirely wrong, R113.

There were no tuition fees (in England) before 1998, when they were introduced and capped at £1k. They went to £3k in 2004 followed by incremental raises, and then to £9k after the 2010 election.

Which colleges ("Oxbridge university") did you and your brother graduate from?

Thanks r105 r114 that's really interesting. So prior to 1998, English students didn't have to pay to go to university? That's amazing. It certainly must be a shock to now have to pay $35,000 a year for an elite school. it's always been like that here in America, so paying that much money to go to Harvard or Yale isn't surpirisng to me. I went to an instate school for about $6,500 a year, and at seemed fair.

That also makes sense about how only rich people can go to RAdA/LAMDA if they can only use loans for an undergraduate degree. you either need family money, or one of the few remaining scholarships. America lets you take out loans for all levels of schooling .

Thanks for the info!

R115

Yes, that's exactly the problem with the elite acting training. No state loans for post-graduate courses.

Further info on the undergraduate tuition fees: the cap is £9,000 per year for fees. Almost all universities - including Oxford and Cambridge - charge this. No institution, no matter how elite, is allowed to charge more. A few lower level institutions (similar to your community colleges, perhaps) charge less.

You also get state help with living costs. This is made up partly of a grant and partly of a further loan - how much grant (non-repayable) and how much loan (repayable) depends on your parents' income. Almost all institutions also give (non-repyable) bursaries to students from low income families.

Repayment is more akin to a graduate tax than to loan repayments. You pay back at a rate of 9% on earnings above a threshold (currently £21k, I think). So if you never earn enough to pay it back, nobody comes after you for it. Also, mortgage providers aren't allowed to count the balance as debt - they have to subtract the 9% from your salary and make you a mortgage offer based on that.

For undergraduates, it's a better system than many realise. It's only for post-graduates that the money becomes an issue.

(Of course, we can talk about how much easier it is for rich kids to get into university in the first place - cultural capital, extra tuition where needed, plenty of money for the extra curricular activities universities like to see, etc. But once there, UK undergraduates are reasonably well treated).

R114 Balliol and Churchill Colleges (Cambridge for my brother).

kelly osbourne

The Home Counties’ own Helen Grace, who in the ‘90s notoriously played incestuous Georgia off Brookie and a predator in an episode of lesbian drama Bad Girls.

She went to a private school for girls in Northwood before training at one of the London academies for Drama. She’s now married to Timothy Watson, who UMC Brits will recognise as the voice of Rob Titchener (they’re both from Hertfordshire, originally).

Ellie Kemper from "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." Her family is one of wealthiest and best known families in Kansas City.

Same with Julia Louis-Dreyfus's family in St. Louis.

Tilda Swinton is from one of the three oldest aristocratic families of all of the UK. The Spencers (Princess Diana's family) and the Bowes-Lyonses (the late Queen Mother's family), to say nothing of the Windsors, are mere arrivistes compared to the Swintons.

R119 Brookie! Brookside does not get enough love, here or anywhere.

Helen was great in it, one of the better cast members in my opinion...and so beautiful! I had a big lesbian crush on her growing up in the ‘90s and was so jealous of Nat. That incest storyline was ahead of its time too; mainstream tv drama wouldn’t show a young, pretty, intelligent & privileged sibling couple explicitly having sex and dating again for another 20 years (Game of Thrones).

Sadly I haven’t seen Helen on telly for a long while. I know she had a stint on another soap but I didn’t catch her run. Is she even still working at all or is she strictly a posho Radio 4 Yummy-Mummy now?

La Viv, la Gene, la Grace, la Audrey obviously, la maureen (see la Viv), la Liz, la Kate...Alida Valli, and many more. Cooper ( gary), humphrey, Visconti obviously.today so many. Léa Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, the Fiennes bros, etc

Christopher Catesby Harington aka Kit Harington or Jon Snow or Aegon Targaryen.

Through his father's mother he's a direct descendant of Charles II, and his father is a "Sir". I have no idea what it means that he's a "15th Baronet."

A Baronet is a low ranking hereditary title, . equivalent to a knighthood. You get to use the "Sir" before your name.

Hugh Grant, if it wasn’t terrible obvious.

I think like 90% of current actors and actresses come from upper-middle class (or higher) backgrounds - it's ridiculous.

The old GI Bill provided training for a lot of the actors Baby Boomers grew up with: Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, . . . it's a long list. I got in a fight with an old friend who's turned conservative. She was being a downright bitch in a Facebook post about people discussing free college tuition not understanding that someone has to pay for the "free" stuff. We've known each other over 40 years. This condescending crap is new for her. I was discussing with another Facebook friend of hers different schemes, pro and con. It wasn't until I brought up the GI Bill as a feat of social engineering that she finally stopped bitching at us.

Way up thread someone added James Spader's name. His parents are educators. AFAIK they are solidly middle class. He's discussed his family on Seth Myers' show. Spader was able to attend a posh school, which is certainly a privilege, but I don't think he comes from serious money.

[quote] Madonna comes from an upper middle-class family, took regular trips to Europe and was privately educated.

Her family is more middle middle class. I don't know about regular trips to Europe, but "privately educated" is a bit misleading--yes, she did go to private Catholic elementary schools, but she was graduated from a public high school (Rochester Adams), and she went to the University of Michigan.

She grew up in Pontiac and Avon Township (now Rochester Hills), which are nice but unremarkable suburbs of Detroit.

[quote] A Baronet is a low ranking hereditary title, . equivalent to a knighthood. You get to use the "Sir" before your name.

It's actually one step higher than a knighthood, because it is hereditary, whereas a knighthood is not.

Sorry R130, and whoever you are quoting.

I used to work with a guy who went to high school with Madonna.,

It was a public high school and she was one of the "greasers"

Middle class at best. No one was paying her rent for her.

British Superman and totally hetero actor Henry Cavill

Wouldn't it be easier to make a list of actors who came from poorer families and had to struggle on their own in Hollywood?

In 2019, that list is much, much shorter.

Madonna's father was an engineer-designer for both Chrysler and General Motors, so they were certainly not poor. And Rochester Adams is a public school, but it's quite a nice one--it's not lower middle class, but middle middle class to upper middle class.

Madonna was quite a skank in high school, but she also was a straight-A student and a cheerleader. She had private piano lessons and ballet lessons.

Daniel Day Lewis's father was poet laureate of the UK

Stop being such a tiresome cunt, Cousin Violet!

oops--wrong thread,.

Was James Spader the one who used to go to Jackie O’s apt? Some actor did. Isn’t Emma Thompson posh? Cambridge, like the guy from House? Olivia Colman is said to be posh.

What's with the number next to the W&W button? Is this new? Never seen it before.

Emma Thompson is from a family of actors. Her grandmother was in service, i.e., a household servant. Thompson attended Cambridge. I don't know if that adds up to posh or even monied.

Spader and John-John went to high school together.

Most actors go through years of private drama training. Or Improv if in comedy. It is very expensive.