Actors in Character (6) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Will Smith

The tennis coach is Richard Williams, coach of his tennis-playing daughters Venus and Serena Williams rather than aliens. The 2021 "King Richard" is a biographical sports film covering the early days with Richard already making plans before their birth. Although a box office failure, it received six Oscar nominations with Will Smith winning an Oscar for Best Actor.

Will Smith's role in the first three "Men in Black" films (1997, 2002 and 2012) is policing Earth's alien population and managing various crises. Will Smith portrays Agent J in all three films. Judicious use of a neuralyzer ensures Earth's human population is mostly unaware.

The 2004 sci-fi film "I, Robot" takes its name after Isaac Asimov's 1950 short story collection, although it is not an adaptation. Smith's role is as Detective Del Spooner with a grudge against robots. He is tasked with tracking down a robot suspect. All is not as it seems.

Answer: Selma Hayek

The Mexican artist is Frida Kahlo and this particular film is the 2002 biographical film "Frida" starring Salma Hayek as Kahlo. The film starts various scenes as one of her paintings, which dissolves into the live action scene. The film received numerous award nominations.

In the 2017 comedy-drama "Beatriz at Dinner", the viewer follows the character Beatriz Blanco (portrayed by Hayek) with the main focus being a dinner party at a wealthy client's place that she gets invited to after her car won't start.

Kitty Softpaws (voiced by Hayek) is a character in the 2011 animated comedy adventure film "Puss in Boots", a spin-off of the "Shrek" franchise. Kitty Softpaws is the female counterpart to Puss in Boots and his love interest.

Answer: Brendan Fraser

Brendan Fraser stars in the 1999 version of the action-adventure film "The Mummy", which sees him paired with Rachel Weisz in accidentally awakening a cursed ancient Egyptian priest with supernatural powers. Part of a Universal Monsters franchise, it led to a couple sequels (in which he starred) and a prequel. The 2017 re-boot starring Tom Cruise, however, failed.

The 1864 Jules Verne novel has been adapted many times. In this 2008 version of "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", Brendan Fraser portrays the volcanologist Prof Trevor Anderson who goes on an underground journey starting in Iceland.

The last part of the clue is a reference to the 2010 medical drama "Extraordinary Measures" where Brendan Fraser's character is one half of a couple whose children have a life-threatening disease. They are motivated to find a cure, founding a biotech company to do so. The film is based on a true story.

Answer: Diane Lane

One of the many Superman films, the 2013 superhero film "Man of Steel" has Superman's adoptive mother Martha Kent portrayed by Diane Lane in a supporting role.

In the 2002 erotic film "Unfaithful", Lane's character jeopardises her marriage by having an affair with a stranger, a performance for which she received an Oscar nomination.

Lane followed this up with the 2003 romantic comedy "Under the Tuscan Sun" where her character, a depressed divorce writer, ends up buying a Tuscan villa on a whim.

Answer: Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy earned an Oscar for his portrayal of the American theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer in the 2023 biographical thriller "Oppenheimer". The film is largely based on the 2005 biography "American Prometheus" by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin, with Oppenheimer possibly best known for his wartime work on the first atomic bomb.

In the second film, Murphy portrays a Slovak soldier Jozef Gabčík who with a Czech colleague returns to their country on an assassination mission code named Operation Anthropoid. The 2016 war film "Anthropoid" is set in 1941 Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

The third film is "Peacock", a 2010 psychological thriller where Murphy portrays a person with dissociative identity disorder. Part of the time he portrays John Skillpa, a quiet bank clerk, whilst the rest of the time he portrays a woman Emma who does the domestic chores. Life gets complicated following a railway accident.

Answer: Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn stars along with John Wayne in the 1975 western "Rooster Cogburn", a sequel to the 1969 "True Grit" for which Wayne earned an Oscar. Wayne plays the title character, a former US Marshal trying to redeem himself with Katharine Hepburn's character becoming attached to his quest.

In the 1951 adventure film "African Queen", Hepburn portrays a missionary who persuades Humphrey Bogart's small steamboat captain to take on a German gunboat. He who won an Oscar for his role with Hepburn being nominated for hers.

Portraying a wealthy aunt to Elizabeth Taylor's character, Hepburn's character is trying to have her niece lobotomised after her son died in strange circumstances whilst in the company of her niece in the 1959 psychological drama "Suddenly, Last Summer" set in the deep South.

Answer: Adrien Brody

The 2022 comedy mystery film "See How They Run" is a whodunnit with a nod to Agatha Christie. She even has a role in the film. Adrien Brody's character soon gets to be murdered and the film follows the progress of the Inspector and his inexperienced side-kick.

In the 2022 biographical drama "Blonde", the titular blonde is Marilyn Monroe with Brody portraying the playwright Arthur Miller, the third of her husbands. The film is a fictional portrayal of her life, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates.

Another drama, the 2024 award-winning "The Brutalist" sees Brody portraying a Holocaust-surviving architect who emigrates to the US to pursue the American Dream. The film follows his struggles to fit in. Brody won an Oscar for his portrayal.

Answer: Demi Moore

Patrick Swayze portrays the dead boyfriend and the ghost in the 1990 romance "Ghost". Demi Moore portrays the grief-stricken girlfriend who is at risk. Whoopie Goldberg earned the Oscar for her portrayal as the psychic medium who helps connect them.

In the 1997 action film "G. I. Jane", the story follows Demi Moore as her character undergoes a grueling selection process for a Navy SEAL-like service whilst enduring the gender politics side as well.

"Mortal Thoughts" is a 1991 psychological thriller in which the story of a murder is revealed in flashbacks during a police interrogation of the main suspect, portrayed by Demi Moore. The film title is said to be a reference to the same phrase in Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" (Lady Macbeth's first soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 5) where 'mortal thoughts' means 'thoughts of murder'.

Answer: Marlon Brando

In the 1972 film adaptation of Mario Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather", Marlon Brando plays Vito, the patriarch of the Corleone crime family, with Al Pacino as his youngest son. Brando received an Oscar for his performance in this multi-award winning gangster-genre film. Two more films followed although it was Robert de Niro and Oreste Baldini who portrayed Vito Corleone in "The Godfather Part 2".

The 1979 psychological war drama "Apocalypse Now" is a loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1899 "Heart of Darkness" novella in a Vietnam War setting. Brando portrays the highly-decorated Colonel Kurtz turned rogue who becomes a target for assassination. Filming ran into difficulties not least because Brando turned up on set overweight and completely unprepared for his role.

Fletcher Christian is the lead mutineer portrayed by Brando in the 1962 historical drama "Mutiny on the Bounty". Based on the 1932 novel of the same name, this is a highly fictionalised version of a true story where a harsh captain and poor conditions leads to a mutiny on HMS Bounty.

Answer: Emma Stone

The 2017 sports drama "Battle of the Sexes" sees Emma Stone taking on the role of tennis player Billie Jean King on a story loosely based on the famous 1973 tennis match between her and Bobby Riggs.

Moving on to "Cruella" (2021), and based on the Dodie Smith 1956 novel "The Hundred and One Dalmations", Stone portrays a younger Cruella de Vil in the third live action adaptation. The film provides an alternative origin story for the character.

In the 2012 superhero film "The Amazing Spider-Man", Emma Stone portrays Gwen Stacy who is Peter Parker's love interest. Peter Parker is the teenager bitten by a spider who takes on the Spider-Man persona. Based on the Marvel Comics character, this was a re-boot of the Spider-Man film series produced from the 1970s.