Bosworth, Kate

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Kate Bosworth

Actress

Born Catherine Bosworth, January 2, 1983, in Los Angeles, CA; daughter of Hal (a business executive) and Patti Bosworth.

Addresses: Agent—c/o United Talent Agency, 9560 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 500, Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

Career

Actress in films, including:The Horse Whisperer,1998;The Newcomers,2000;Remember the Titans, 2000;Blue Crush,2002;The Rules of Attraction,2002;Wonderland,2003;Advantage Hart,2003;Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!,2004;Beyond the Sea,2004;Bee Season,2005;Superman Returns,2006;Seasons of Dust,2006. Television appearances include:Young Americans,The WB, 2000. Spokesperson for Revlon Cosmetics, 2004—.

Awards: Young Hollywood Award for next generation—female, 2003.

Sidelights

Blond, petite actress Kate Bosworth made her mark in a number of films, including her break-out role in the surfer girl hitBlue Crushand a lead inWin a Date with Tad Hamilton!.Acting had not been a particular interest of young Bosworth until she won a role inThe Horse Whispererbecause of her equestrian skills. After the experience, she became committed to acting as a career and deliberately chose to vary her roles so that she would never work in the same genre in back-to-back films. Of her potential in Hollywood, the director ofWin a Date,Robert Luketic, told Allison Hope Weiner ofEntertainment Weekly,"Kate Bosworth is a movie star in every sense of the word. There is something incredibly paper-thin about some of these Next Big Things, but Kate has the talent to back the fame up."

Born in 1983 in Los Angeles, Bosworth is the only child of Hal and Patti Bosworth. Her father worked as a fashion retailing executive for companies such as Ermenigildo Zegna and Talbots. Because of her father's career, she moved regularly throughout her childhood. When she was six years old, the family moved to San Francisco. In this period, Bosworth began singing at county fairs in the state of California. She also began competing in equestrian events and was a champion for many years. At the age of nine, Bosworth moved with her family to Connecticut. She already had a passing interest in acting, appearing in a community theater production ofAnnie.

When Bosworth was in eighth grade, she filmed her debut role inThe Horse Whisperer.Bosworth applied for the role in an unusual fashion: she brought a photo from a family Christmas card instead of a standard headshot. For the film, casting directors were looking for a young girl who had experience with horses. Because her equestrian abilities, she was cast as Judith, the friend of the character played by Scarlett Johansson. Judith is killed in the first few scenes of the movie, and her horse-related death prompts the need for the title character, played by Robert Redford. Though Bosworth had only a small role, she found a new calling. She told Cindy Pearl-man of theChicago Sun-Times,"One of the biggest highs is when I did that role because I fell in love with acting. It was almost like when you meet that person you want to be with for the rest of your life. You're like, 'This is it. This is where I belong.'"

Bosworth did not immediately pursue an acting career after the 1998 release ofThe Horse Whisperer.Her family moved to Cohasset, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, after the film was shot. Bosworth decided to focus on school and family, and to complete her education at the local public school she had been attending. She also continued to compete as an equestrian as well as play soccer. When Bos-worth was 15 years old, she began auditioning again, but was selective in what roles she would accept. School and a normal life remained important. When she was a senior in high school, for example, she was cast in her first leading role in an independent film. However, because the producers would not agree to let her go to her prom and graduation, she declined the role.

While still in high school, Bosworth did take on a few parts. She had a role in the short-lived television seriesYoung Americans,set primarily at a fictional New England prep school, Rawley Academy. Bosworth played Bella Banks, a local girl who works at a gas station near campus. Bella becomes involved with a rich student at the academy, Scout. Though most of the cast was supposed to be high school age, she was the only cast member actually still in high school.Young Americansdid not catch on with audiences; it only lasted one summer on the WB network.

Young Americanswas one of the few television roles Bosworth would take in her young career. She focused primarily on film, though most of her roles remained small. She played Courtney Docherty in 2000'sThe Newcomers,a children's film. A more high profile role that same year came inRemember the Titans,a movie about a newly racially integrated high school football team. Set in 1971,Remember the Titansstarred Denzel Washington as a football coach.

As her film career was developing, Bosworth graduated from Cohasset High School and was accepted to Princeton University. However, Bosworth took a deferred enrollment. As her acting career took off, Bosworth repeatedly stated her intention to go to school there. She was assured by Princeton that she would have a place there whenever she was ready to enter. Bosworth returned to the city of her birth, Los Angeles, to more fully pursue acting.

Within a few years, Bosworth was being cast in leading roles in Hollywood films. Her breakthrough role came in 2002'sBlue Crush,directed by John Stockwell. Bosworth played Anne Marie Chadwick, a talented surfer with the skills to become a world-class champion. However, Anne Marie faces difficulties reaching her potential as a surfer related to a previous injurious accident and a problematic personal life. Her mother has abandoned Bosworth's Anne Marie, leaving her to support both herself and her younger sister. She works as a maid in a hotel, where she meets and becomes involved with a professional football player named Matt. Over the course of the film, Anne Marie conquers her fears and successfully competes in the Pipeline Masters competition.

When Bosworth first read the script forBlue Crush,she was certain she could play Anne Marie. She learned surfing basics just to audition. Despite what she considered poor casting sessions, she was given the role. She and the actresses who played her friends underwent intense training to hone surfing skills and develop the bodies of surfers. Bosworth told Susan Wloszczyna ofUSA Today,"At the height of training in Hawaii, I got pretty good. I was in 20-foot waves, and when you're thrown into a situation where you either deal with it or suffer consequences, you learn quickly." The shoot proved slightly hazardous for Bosworth who was knocked out for a short amount of time when a heavy surf-board hit her in the head. The pain aside,Blue Crushwas a minor hit in the summer of 2002.

Bosworth's next two roles were supporting efforts in very different films. In 2002, she appeared inThe Rules of Attraction,a film version of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. It was directed and adapted by Roger Avary. Set in the 1980s, the plot explored the sex lives of college students. The film co-starred James Van Der Beek and Jessica Biel. Bosworth played a love interest of Van Der Beek's character. Bosworth's next film also took place in the 1980s. In 2003'sWonderland,Bosworth played Dawn Schiller, the teenaged girlfriend of John Holmes, played by Val Kilmer. The film was based on actual events in 1981 in which Holmes, a pornography industry insider, played a peripheral role in the Wonderland murders in Los Angeles. Both parties involved with the actual murders sold drugs to Holmes, who was arrested for the murder of one drug trafficker. Bos-worth's Dawn was a drug addict living in Holmes' home with him and his Christian wife. Bosworth lost most of the muscle she gained forBlue Crushfor this role.

ReviewingWonderlandin theToronto Sun,Jim Slotek was dismissive of the part of the film related to Holmes and his personal life, but not Bosworth's performance. Slotek wrote, "The standout in the Holmes half of the tale is Kate Bosworth. Tormented and stupidly faithful, it's the sort of character that actresses are obliged to learn how to play, and Bosworth carries it off with a touching innocence that suggests reserves of still-untapped talent."

For Bosworth's next two major film roles, she played characters far removed from Dawn Schiller. In 2004, she had a leading role inWin a Date with Tad Hamilton!.Bosworth played Rosalee Futch, a naive, big-hearted girl from small town America. In an interview with Evan Henderson of theHouston Chronicle,the actress explained her approach for developing the character. She told him, "What I tried to do is take all of my best qualities and eliminate the bad ones, to take the qualities I admire in other people and roll it all up in one person. She sees the best in people, really wanting to see the good in situations. That's her sweet naiveté and innocence. She's just kind of a kindhearted soul." Rosalee works as a grocery store clerk in Fraziers Bottom, West Virginia, when she wins a date with the title character, a famous movie actor. The contest was created to improve the bad-boy image of Tad, played by Josh Duhamel. After their date, the actor follows Rosalee home and competes for her affections with one of her best friends, Pete Monash, played by Topher Grace, who has had a long-time crush on her. (Coincidentally, Bosworth and Grace were acquainted as children, from the years she lived in Connecticut, where he spent his childhood.)

The same yearWin a Date with Tad Hamilton!was released, Bosworth played a real icon inBeyond the Sea.Bosworth portrayed actress Sandra Dee, who was a star in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the biopic about singer Bobby Darin, whom Dee married. Darin was played by Kevin Spacey, who also directed the film. Spacey had been working on getting the project off the ground for 12 years. Darin was a star whose career dimmed and whose alcoholism contributed to a tragic end, death due to heart failure in 1973.Beyond the Seafocuses on the sometimes troubled marriage between Dee and Darin. Though the film was a box office and critical flop, Spacey was sure from the first that Bosworth was the perfect Dee. He told Jane Stevenson of theToronto Sun, "I met her at dinner. I never saw her work. And I cast her. I just knew. She had all the qualities I needed. The chemistry just worked instantly and she was incredibly enthusiastic about it and I just looked at her and thought 'She could be America's Sweetheart.'"

Bosworth continued to take interesting roles in the early 2000s. AfterBeyond the Sea,Bosworth played Chali, a follower of Hare Krishna, in 2005'sBee Season.Her next major role had the potential to be a blockbuster. She was cast as Lois Lane in the 2006 release of the nextSupermanmovie. In addition to her acting career, Bosworth also received a signifi-cant amount of press attention for her on-again, off-again relationship with British actor Orlando Bloom.

Bosworth continued to be careful about the roles she chose as an actress. She told Paul Fischer ofSunday Herald Sun,"I would never take a role for the money. I just think that is probably a bad way to go and I just listen to a combination of my heart and my mind." Yet acting was not her whole life. She continued to ride horses as a hobby and greatly enjoyed reading. Bosworth wanted to study literature or psychology when she was ready to go to college. Education remained important to her, though she kept deferring her enrollment at Princeton. Bosworth told Bruce Kirkland of theToronto Sun,"I'm totally in love with what I do but [acting is] not the only thing that fulfils me. I mean, I'd love to be enriched by going to [college] and having that experience in learning. It's a great life experience."