Talk about your favorite actor/actress.

You should say:

a)    Who your favorite actor/actress is

b)    What his/her best movies are/were

c)    How popular he/she is/was

and explain why he/she is your favorite.

SAMPLE ANSWER 1

My favorite actress is Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. While in her early teens, she studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and started acting.

In the 1990s, Angelina Jolie became a popular actress. She won a best actress Golden Globe in the 1998 television film Gia, which was based on the tragic life of model Gia Marie Carangi. This was a turning point in Jolie’s career. Her rapid ascent continued with Girl, Interrupted (1999), for which she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress. 

Throughout her acting career, Angelina Jolie has taken on a variety of interesting roles and excelled in every one, which has enabled her to be an iconic screen presence and the most famous actress in the world. For example, she successfully portrayed an adventurer Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider film, a squadron commander in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a FBI profiler in Taking Lives, an assassin in Wanted, and a pregnant widow of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl, in A Mighty Heart.

So much of what I love about Angelina Jolie is her brilliant, distinctive performance. She excelled in every single role that she was in charge of and was extremely versatile.  I also love Angelina Jolie since she is beautiful inside and out. She is charming and has a combination of confidence, self control, patience, kindness, and persistence that can shine through her as a person, which makes her a positive role model for everyone around her.

In short, I am a big fan of Angelina Jolie because of her talent and beauty. I’ve enjoyed watching all of her movies.

USEFUL PHRASES & EXPRESSIONS

1.         To base something on something ~/beɪs/– (B2): If you base something on facts or ideas, you use those facts or ideas to develop it

E.g.: The film is based on a short story by Thomas Mc.Clure.

2.         Tragic /ˈtrædʒ.ɪk/ (adj) – (B2): very sad, often involving death and suffering

E.g.:  a tragic life; tragic news

3.         Turning point ~/ˈtɝː.nɪŋ pɔɪnt/:  the time at which a situation starts to change in an important way

E.g.: The turning point in her acting career came when she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress. 

4.         Ascent /əˈsent/ (n): the fact of starting to become successful

5.         Supporting actor/part/role: not the most important actor or part in a film or play

6.         A variety of + (plural) noun - /vəˈraɪ.ə.ti/:  many different types of things

7.         To excel in something /ɪkˈsel/ - (C2):  to be extremely good at something

8.         To enable someone to do something - /ɪˈneɪ.bəl/ - (B2): to make someone able to do something, or to make something possible

E.g.:  Computerization enabled us to cut production costs by half.

9.         Iconic /aɪˈkɑː.nɪk/ (adj): very famous or popular

10.     To portray /pɔːrˈtreɪ/ (v) – (C2): to represent or describe someone or something in a painting, film, book, or other artistic work

11.     Adventurer /ədˈven.tʃɚ.ɚ/ (n): someone who enjoys and looks for dangerous and exciting experiences

12.     Squadron /ˈskwɑː.drən/ (n): a unit of one of the armed forces

13.     Commander /kəˈmæn.dɚ/ (n) – (C2): an officer who is in charge of a military operation, or an officer of a particular rank in many countries' naval forces

14.     Assassin /əˈsæs.ən/ (n): someone who kills a famous or important person, usually for political reasons or in exchange for money

15.     Widow /ˈwɪd.oʊ/ (n) – (B2): a woman whose husband or wife has died and who has not married again

16.     So much of what I love about …is….

E.g.: So much of what I love about Mozart is the way his music “smiles through the tears.”

17.     Brilliant /ˈbrɪl.jənt/ (adj): extremely intelligent or skilled

18.     Distinctive /dɪˈstɪŋk.tɪv/ (adj) – (C1): Something that is distinctive is easy to recognize because it is different from other things

19.     To be in charge of something/someone ~/tʃɑːrdʒ/: to be responsible for something or someone

E.g.: My sister was in charge of organizing the project.

20.     Versatile /ˈvɜː.sə.taɪl/ (adj) – (C2):  able to change easily from one activity to another or able to be used for many different purposes

21.     Beautiful inside and out

22.     Combination /ˌkɑm·bəˈneɪ·ʃən/ (n): a mixture obtained when two or more things are combined

23.     To persist /pɚˈsɪst/ (v) – (C2): to try to do or continue doing something in a determined but often unreasonable way

Persistence /pɚˈsɪs.təns/ (n) – (C2):  the quality of being persistent, or the act of persisting

24.     Role model (C1):  a person who someone admires and whose behavior they try to copy

E.g.:  Sports stars are role models for thousands of youngsters.