Thornquestgallery - Art News

Bullock was born in Arlington County, Virginia, the daughter of Helga D. Meyer, a German opera singer, and John W. Bullock, a Pentagon contractor, executive and part-time vocal coach from Alabama. Bullock's maternal grandfather was a rocket scientist from Nuremberg, Germany. Bullock lived in Nuremberg until age twelve, where she sang in the opera's children's choir at the Staatstheater Nürnberg.She frequently traveled with her mother on her opera tours, and lived in Germany and other parts of Europe for much of her childhood. Bullock studied ballet and vocal arts as a child, taking small parts in her mother's opera productions.

Bullock attended Washington-Lee High School where she was a cheerleader, participated in high school theater productions and dated a football player. She graduated in 1982 and enrolled in East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. During this time, she worked as a waitress at a restaurant. She later left school during her senior year (Spring 1986), only three credits short of graduating, to pursue an acting career. She went on to Manhattan to pursue auditions and supported herself with a variety of odd jobs (bartender, cocktail waitress, coat checker).

Bullock later completed her coursework and was awarded a bachelor's degree from East Carolina University.^[6] She is fluent in German. However, she prefers to speak English when appearing on German TV shows, although the TV hosts speak German.

Firth was born in Grayshott, Hampshire, England, the son of Shirley Jean (née Rolles), a comparative religion lecturer, and David Norman Lewis Firth, a history lecturer and education officer for the Nigerian Government. Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is now also an actor. Firth's parents were born and raised in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican minister, performed missionary work abroad. Firth's name is pronounced very similarly to the Old English word collenferhð, meaning pride. Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching. He lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11. He later attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School, a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire, and then Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh, Hampshire. His acting training took place at the Drama Centre in North London.