Birthday: July 26, 1973
Hometown: London, England
Status: Married to director Len Wiseman

Kate Beckinsale is a textbook English beauty: flawless skin, tea rose cheeks, and a lovely, toothy grin. Thus, her first high-profile role, as a nurse in Pearl Harbor, seemed a little too predictable for some. “All they saw was this Chekhov-reading Brit who had, as they saw it, no edge. I tried hard to prove otherwise,” Beckinsale has said.
When she starred in 2003’s Underworld, a dark thriller rife with vampires and other creatures of the night, Beckinsale found her acting groove—and true love. “Yep, I fell in love with the director,” she told UK Elle. Beckinsale and Len Wiseman have been married since 2004; he helps her raise her daughter Lily, whom she had with actor Michael Sheen in 1999, and they live in Los Angeles.
In 2004, Beckinsale played the heroine in another vampire film, Van Helsing. “Women in action movies should be applauded more than men, because we do everything in heels and a tight bra and a corset,” Beckinsale told Telegraph Magazine while on a press junket for the film.
Beckinsale opted for comic relief in 2006 with Click, starring Adam Sandler, then jumped back into the world of vampy action with Underworld: Vacancy. In 2007, she appeared alongside Luke Wilson in the horror-thriller Vacancy, and also starred in the drama Snow Angels. In 2008, she played an ambitious reporter in the drama Nothing But the Truth and capped the year with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.
Beckinsale’s most recent film, Whiteout, is a thriller that sees the actress take centre stage. She plays a U.S. deputy marshal who must single-handedly investigate a murder within three days, before the brutal Arctic winter begins.
—Marissa Stapley-Ponikowski

Upcoming Films:
Everybody’s Fine (December 2009)
Whiteout (September 2009)

Selected Filmography:
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Nothing but the Truth
The Aviator
Van Helsing
Underworld
Serendipity
Pearl Harbor
Brokedown Palace

Kate Beckinsale Gallery: