Birthday's to share this week : 1st - 7th January 2017.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Jeremy Renner does on 7th January - check out my tribute to this Birthday Lad turning 46, at the end of this feature.

Do you also share your birthday with a well known, highly regarded & famous Actor or Actress; share your special day with a Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Singer/Songwriter or Composer of repute; or share an interest in whoever might notch up another year in the coming seven days? Then, look no further! Whilst there will be too many to mention in this small but not insignificant and beautifully written and presented Blog, here are the more notable and noteworthy icons of the big screen, and the small screen, that you will recognise, and that you might just share your birthday with in the week ahead. If so, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online!

Sunday 1st January

• Frank Langella - Born 1938, turns 79 - Actor
• Verne Troyer - Born 1969, turns 48 - Actor  

Monday 2nd January

• Todd Haynes - Born 1961, turns 56 - Director | Producer | Writer
• Cuba Gooding Jnr. - Born 1968, turns 49 - Actor | Producer
• Tia Carrere - Born 1967, turns 50 - Actress | Producer 
• Paz Vega - Born 1976, turns 41 - Actress  
• Kate Bosworth - Born 1983, turns 34 - Actress 

Tuesday 3rd January

• Victoria Principal - Born 1950, turns 67 - Actress | Producer
• Mel Gibson - Born 1956, turns 61 - Actor | Director | Producer | Writer  

Wednesday 4th January

• Julian Sands - Born 1958, turns 59 - Actor 
• Dyan Cannon - Born 1937, turns 80 - Actress | Writer | Director
• Julia Ormond - Born 1965, turns 52 - Actress    

Thursday 5th January

• Diane Keaton - Born 1946, turns 71 - Actress | Producer | Director
• Robert Duvall - Born 1931, turns 85 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer
• Hayao Miyazaki - Born 1941, turns 75 - Animator | Director | Producer | Writer | Editor
• Roger Spottiswoode - Born 1945, turns 72 - Director | Producer | Writer | Editor
• Clancy Brown - Born 1959, turns 57 - Actor | Producer
• Vinnie Jones - Born 1965, turns 52 - Actor
• Bradley Cooper - Born  1975, turns 42 - Actor | Producer | Director

Friday 6th January

• Rowan Atkinson - Born 1955, turns 62 - Actor | Writer 
• Norman Reedus - Born 1969, turns 48 - Actor | Writer | Director
• Eddie Redmayne - Born 1982, turns 35 - Actor  
• Sylvia Syms - Born 1934, turns 82 - Actress
• Kate McKinnon - Born 1984, turns 33 - Actress | Writer

Saturday 7th January

• Linda Kozlowski - Born 1958, turns 59 - Actress  
• David Caruso - Born 1956, turns 61 - Actor | Producer
• Nicolas Cage - Born 1964, turns 53 - Actor | Producer
• Irrfan Khan - Born 1967, turns 50 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Jeremy Renner - Born 1971, turns 46 - Actor | Producer | Singer | Songwriter

Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, USA to mother Valerie Tague and father Lee Renner who managed the the local bowling alley in Modesto during the 1980's. His parents were married as teenagers and divorced when the young Jeremy was just ten years of age. He attended the Fred C. Beyer High School in Modesto and then Modesto Junior College where he studies criminology, computer science and psychology before being drawn to acting through an elective. Bitten by the acting bug, he decided to relocate himself to San Francisco to study at the American Conservatory Theatre, then moving to Hawaii and then onto Los Angeles in 1993. 

Upon his arrival in L.A. Renner dedicated much of his time to theatre productions with the highlight coming in 'Search and Destroy' which he starred in and Co-Directed to critical acclaim. In 1995 he secured his first big screen break in 'National Lampoon's Senior Trip'. From here he secured single episode appearances on televisions series 'Deadly Games', 'Strange Luck', 'To Have & to Hold', 'The Net', 'Time of Your Life' and 'Angel'. In the meantime there were a number of made for television films and features that included 'Paper Dragons' and 'A Friend's Betrayal' all seeing out the '90's.

In 2002 he secured his first starring role in 'Dahmer' playing serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer - a complex role for which he was highly acclaimed. This in turn led to 'S.W.A.T.' with Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson - his first commercially successful action film. This led to 'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things', then 'A Little Trip to Heaven' with Forest Whitaker, 'North Country' with Charlize Theron, '12 and Holding', 'Neo Ned', an uncredited turn in 'Lords of Dogtown' and 'Love Comes to the Executioner'.

2007 saw 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' with Brad Pitt, then the British zombie horror sequel offering'28 Weeks Later' with Robert Carlyle, then 'Take' with Minnie Driver before Kathryn Bigelow's highly acclaimed and six times Academy Award winning 'The Hurt Locker' in which Renner was nominated for Best Actor in a Lead Role for his performance as maverick bomb disposal expert Staff Sergeant William James. The film picked up 120 award wins and another 121 nominations around the circuit including the Oscar for Best Film and Best Director. 

'Ingenious' came next with another critically acclaimed turn in the Ben Affleck Directed, Co-Written and starring crime drama 'The Town'. Renner was again nominated for an Academy Award for his role as James Coughlin in the Best Supporting Actor category. The film picked up nine award wins and a further 45 nominations in all.

The following years saw Renner embark on a series of hugely successful franchise offerings that started off with his uncredited role and first appearance as Clint Barton/Hawkeye in 2011's Avengers offering of 'Thor'. He would reprise his role in 2012's 'The Avengers', 2015's 'Avengers : Age of Ultron', 2016's 'Captain America : Civil War', the currently filming and due in 2018 'Avengers : Infinity War' and the recently announced 'Ant Man and the Wasp' also due in 2018.

The next franchise saw Renner star as intelligence analyst William Brandt opposite Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the fourth instalment in the ever popular and successful 'Mission : Impossible' series of films with 2011's 'Ghost Protocol'. Again, he reprised his role in 2015's 'Rogue Nation' and is set to do so in 'M:I 6 - Mission Impossible' currently in pre-production for a 2018 release. Finally, Renner starred in a spin off of the acclaimed fast paced action Jason Bourne franchise but without Matt Damon. Renner played Alex Cross in 'The Bourne Legacy' for Director and Writer Tony Gilroy - a role he is set to reprise again in a recently announced Bourne sequel that may or may not see him playing alongside Matt Damon.

In between 'The Avengers', 'Mission:Impossible' and 'Bourne' franchise films he starred in a modern take on the German folklore fairy tale of Hansel & Gretel, in the fantasy action comedy outing of 'Hansel & Gretel : Witch Hunters' in which Renner starred as Hansel alongside Gemma Arterton's Gretel - siblings who now grown up work as a pair of witch exterminators for hire. The film made US$226M off its US$50M budget outlay. This was followed up by the James Gray Directed period piece 'The Immigrant' with Marion Cotillard and Joaquin Phoenix which was nominated for the Palme D'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

Next up was the David O. Russell Directed criminal comedy drama film 'American Hustle' in 2013 which was nominated for ten Academy Awards, won  a total of 66 awards and was nominated a further 202 times. With an ensemble cast including Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Michael Pena the film was a commercial success too bringing home US$252M at the Global Box Office from its US$40M budget.




2014 brought the true story of investigative journalist Gary Webb in 'Kill the Messenger' which saw Renner starring as Gary Webb and also taking his first Producer credit. With an all star cast that included Ray Liota, Oliver Platt, Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia, Barry Pepper, Robert Patrick, Rosemarie DeWitt and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the film was well received critically, albeit it failed to make back its budget outlay.

'Avengers : Age of Ultron', 'Mission:Impossible - Rogue Nation' and 'Captain America : Civil War' as mentioned previously bring us up to his most recent release at the end of 2016, 'Arrival' for Director Denis Villeneuve and starring Amy Adams, and Forest Whitaker. The film has so far made US$145M off its US$47M budget cost and has already picked up eighteen award wins and 111 nominations.





Next up for Renner is 'Avengers : Infinity War' due in 2018 and currently filming, the animated 'Arctic Justice : Thunder Squad' also due in 2018 to which Renner is lending his voice talents together with James Franco, Alec Baldwin, John Cleese, Michael Madsen, Omar Sy, Anjelica Huston and Heidi Klum. 'M:I 6 - Mission Impossible' is in pre-production for later in 2018, recently announced are a Bourne sequel and Marvel's 'Ant Man and the Wasp', with 'Wind River' in post-production for an early 2017 release and starring also Martin Sensmeier, Jon Bernthal, and Elizabeth Olson.

All up Renner has 54 Acting credits to his name so far, and four as Producer. He has two Academy Award nominations for his performances in 'The Town' and 'The Hurt Locker', one Golden Globe nomination for 'The Town' and one BAFTA nomination for 'The Hurt Locker'. So far he has garnered thirty award wins and a further 51 nominations along the way. As well as an active career as an Actor in demand, he is a singer/songwriter, guitarist, drummer and keyboard player, and has written and preformed songs for a number of films he has appeared in. Renner married Canadian model Sonni Pacheco in January 2014 and within a year she had filed for divorce. They have a daughter together, Ava Berlin, born in 2013.

Jeremy Renner - runs a house renovating business in his spare time restoring rundown iconic Hollywood homes; is a UN Goodwill Peace Ambassador helping raise awareness of mine-clearing efforts in Afghanistan; has studied both Filipino and Thai martial arts; often plays intense, emotional character driven roles, frequently tinged with violence or unstable traits; is a bona fide action star having played such recurring roles in three major film franchises to date; put also plays flawed, often complicated grounded roles that bring him acclaim critically to match his commercial success from the blockbusters he is perhaps better known for. Very watchable and keeping it real in front of the camera and away from it - Happy Birthday to you Jeremy, from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-