Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE (; born 25 September 1969) is a Welsh actress. Born and raised in Swansea, Zeta-Jones aspired to be an actress from a young age. As a child, she played roles in the West End productions of the musicals Annie and Bugsy Malone. She studied musical theatre at the Arts Educational Schools, London, and made her stage breakthrough with a leading role in a 1987 production of 42nd Street.

Steven Spielberg took notice of Zeta-Jones in Titanic and recommended her to Martin Campbell, who was directing The Mask of Zorro (1998) for Spielberg's production company. Campbell cast her as the leading lady in favour of Izabella Scorupco, who was his original choice for the part. Co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas, the film tells the story of Zorro (Hopkins), a Mexican warrior who sets out to avenge the death of his wife and find his lost daughter Elena (Zeta-Jones). She found similarities between her "volatile" Celtic personality and her Latin character's temperament, and in preparation she studied dancing, riding and sword-fighting, and took diction lessons in Spanish. Filming the action and dance sequences while wearing heavy corsets in the humid Mexican desert proved to be a challenge for Zeta-Jones, but she found the experience "worth suffering for". The Mask of Zorro was positively received by the critics and earned over US$250 million worldwide. The role proved to be a breakthrough for her and she was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance. Zeta-Jones' first release of 1999 was the heist film Entrapment, in which she starred opposite Sean Connery as a seductive insurance agent on the lookout for an art thief. Despite a negative critical reception, the film was a commercial success; Janet Maslin of The New York Times thought that the film provided Zeta-Jones a platform to "show off her slithery skills", and Desson Howe of The Washington Post called on viewers to appreciate the sex appeal she brought to the role. Later that year, Zeta-Jones appeared alongside Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor in The Haunting, a remake of the 1963 film of the same name about a team of paranormal experts who look into strange occurrences in an ill-fated mansion. The horror feature received generally poor reviews but found a significant worldwide audience. In a scathing review, the critic Mick LaSalle wrote that "Zeta-Jones seems less an actress and more a pretty face, and not an interesting one at that". After taking the supporting part of star John Cusack's romantic interest in the comedy-drama High Fidelity (2000), Zeta-Jones starred in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000). In the ensemble thriller on drug abuse starring Michael Douglas and Benicio del Toro, she played Helena Ayala, the pregnant wife of a drug lord who takes over the business when her husband is arrested. Initially written by Soderbergh as a mother of two, he changed the part to that of a pregnant woman on Zeta-Jones' suggestion, to accommodate her own pregnancy. Highly profitable at the box office and critically acclaimed, Traffic was described by the Dallas Observer as "a remarkable achievement in filmmaking, a beautiful and brutal work". Edward Guthman of the San Francisco Chronicle found Zeta-Jones to be a standout among the ensemble and labelled her "sensational" in a scene in which she confronts a Tijuana dealer, adding that "through sheer conviction, she electrifies a moment that could have been absurd". The ensemble of Traffic won the SAG Award for Outstanding Cast and Zeta-Jones was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. CANNOTANSWER

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