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Born in Sweden as Noomi Noren, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace lived in Iceland with her mother and stepfather in a town of people mostly afflicted with Down’s Syndrome. She caught the acting bug when she got a nonspeaking role in an Icelandic film at age 7, and moved back to Sweden to start her acting career when she was 15.

Like many 7-year-olds, Jason Sudeikis spent numerous Saturday afternoons on his local soccer fields in Overland Park, Kansas, trying to score a goal. But any future in the game for the young boy was derailed when he discovered that his true love was for another sport, basketball, a love which would lead him some years later to win a scholarship in the sport at Fort Scott Community College.

The HFPA’s Ting Ting Xu examines Asian film trends through standout films and the authors behind them. Though it took Hong Kong director Derek Kwok Cheung Tsang and producer Peter Ho-Sun Chan almost a year to obtain a theatrical release permit from the mainland Chinese authorities, their film Better Days became an instant hit once it got released in October 2019.

Born in Iran, director, and graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi takes on the story of Madame Curie (Rosamund Pike) in the film Radioactive. The woman whose previous at-bat, Persepolis, an adaptation of her own graphic novel, garnered awards worldwide, speaks truth in a way that makes her radioactive to many.

Beginning in 1952 when the Cecil B.  deMille Award was presented to its namesake visionary director, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has awarded its most prestigious prize 66 times.

There’s a long dynastic tradition in Hollywood of children following their famous parents into the industry. From Jane Fonda to Jamie Lee Curtis, Kate Hudson to Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Bridges to Ben Stiller, many have gone on to varying degrees of renown themselves in the film industry.

What does a sex symbol wear as she matures? Firstly, Sharon Stone is so much more than her outsides. Talented actress and activist, outspoken feminist, she’s taken some beating for speaking up on issues people don’t want to talk about.

What better way to celebrate Federico Fellini’s centennial than reading the appropriately titled “Fellini on Fellini”? Not an autobiography per se, and initially published in 1974, a year after the release of the seminal Amarcord, this slim volume is a random selection of his articles, essays, letters, introspective musings and miscellanies on many topics dating back to 1955. A perfect complement for a different insight into the persona and work of a legendary filmmaker that has been so obsessively analyzed, documented, and scrutinized over the years.

For over 40 years the HFPA has recorded famous and celebrated actors, actresses, and filmmakers. The world’s largest collection of its kind – over 10,000 items – is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.

Alan Parker, the recently deceased British director, was interviewed several times by the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press. He spoke broadly with us about his films and influences.