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As part of its continued efforts in the area of education, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has awarded California State University, Northridge $2 million to support students and enhance technology in the school’s acclaimed Department of Cinema and Television Arts. A portion of the grant will go toward creating endowed scholarships to support underrepresented film and television students in the industry.

Raised in New Providence, New Jersey, Tom McCarthy is a graduate of Boston College and Yale School of Drama. A quintessentially independent director, McCarthy, who's 49, has also benefited from being an accomplished actor, in various genres, such as broad Hollywood comedies (Meet the Parents), and some serial TV (Boston Public, The Wire).

One of the most acclaimed filmmakers of his generation, three-time Golden Globe nominee Ridley Scott (Gladiator, American Gangster and now The Martian) has also earned three Academy Award nominations for Best Director (Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down). Scott’s most recent credits include Exodus: Gods and Kings starring Christian Bale, and Prometheus, starring Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend – Marilyn Monroe sang about it and Elizabeth Taylor proved the point as the men in her life paid homage to the woman she was by lavishing the most stunning jewels on the great beauty. Such was the magnitude of Elizabeth’s collection that a relationship developed between the talented actress and the House of Bulgari that spanned her lifetime.

Between Independence Day and the Men in Black and Bad Boys franchises you would think Will Smith is a prototypical action/comedy blockbuster kind of an actor. But the five times Golden Globe nominee has time and again also proven himself in serious roles.

Given his low profile in Hollywood, it may come as a surprise to some that many regard Mark Rylance the best actor of his generation. With a long career in theater, film and television, Rylance can range effortlessly from Shakespeare to Steven Spielberg.

Being a Bridesmaid has been good to Melissa McCarthy. Since playing Megan Price, the groom’s bawdy sister in Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids, Melissa has marched to the center of comedy cinema.

Bryan Cranston, the award-winning actor who gave us the memorable Walter White character in the AMC hit crime drama series Breaking Bad, has gone a long way from living on the farm with his grandparents, working with poultry and surviving the separation of his parents when he was just 11 years old. The 59-year-old actor, who was born in Canoga Park, California, admitted in an interview that he partly based his portrayal of Walter White on his own father, Joseph Louis “Joe” Cranston, a former actor and amateur boxer, who had a slumped posture “like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

Brie Larson does not know another life except the one called show business. The 26-year-old actress, who was raised in Sacramento and Los Angeles, has been in entertainment for 20 years.

Many new things will happen in the coming year but for now we have one constant: Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still dominating the domestic and international box office. J.