Kate Bosworth

With her Barbie doll good looks and frequent casting as the fresh-faced girl next door, it would have been easy to write off actress Kate Bosworth as just another Hollywood ingénue, if not for her refusal to be pigeon-holed by the limitations of audience expectations. At the age of 14, and with almost no acting experience, Bosworth auditioned on a whim for a role in Robert Redford's "The Horse Whisperer" (1998). When she was cast in a small but important role, offers for more film and television work soon followed. However, the level-headed teen chose to first finish high school before embarking on a serious acting career. By her late teens, Bosworth began appearing in films like the Denzel Washington inspirational football drama "Remember the Titans" (2000), before making a splash in the surfer romance "Blue Crush" (2002). She went on to alternate between grittier projects like "Wonderland" (2003) and comedic fluff such as "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" (2004). However, when she beat out dozens of other actresses for the coveted role of Lois Lane in Bryan Singer's audacious comic book reboot "Superman Returns" (2006), Bosworth found her work scrutinized by critics and fans more closely than ever before. As the decade came to a close, Bosworth continued to diversify her professional portfolio, making herself one of the more in-demand actresses and one of the few screen beauties to be taken seriously by both the industry and her legion of fans.