Rachel Weisz

Astonishingly adept at maintaining a balancing act between unassuming yet well-spoken bit of posh, and heaven-sent goddess-next-door who just so happens to like the footy, Weisz' radiance in front of the camera has taken her from that BBC-produced My Summer With Des business to Hollywood blockbusters like The Mummy with minimum effort.

Jewish by birth, with faintly exotic Eastern European looks, she first caught the eye in Stealing Beauty, although the demands of the role were confined to outburts of off-hand bitchiness and some topless sunbathing. By the time she won an Oscar for The Constant Gardener, she'd played everything from con artist to crap girlfriend but by far her most endearing quality is a desire to avoid the red carpet paparazzi madness of celebrity. You're just as likely to find her hurrying back from some Primrose Hill coffee shop as you are to see her quaffing champagne at a Beverly Hills premiere. Plus, she's self-confessedly scruffy, so it's hard not to picture her tucked up in a ball on the sofa one Sunday afternoon, watching an old Elvis film and wearing nothing but an oversized jumper and the remnants of a hangover.

Raven of hair, luscious of mouth, and full of bosom, Rachel Weisz was (according to the director of About A Boy) the most popular girl at Cambridge. Everyone wanted to ask her out on a date. Quelle fucking surprise.