[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuoIQySqmMQ]
After a decade or so of B-list roles, Kate Beckinsale rose to leading lady status with the Underworld series in 2003. Looking sleek in a black leather body suit, her Selene didn’t do a whole lot of biting or bloodsucking, but she did a fair amount of gunslinging, firing fusillades of silver bullets in the wars between vampires and werewolves.
Okay, she was basically a centuries-old version of Carrie-Anne Moss’ Trinity from The Matrix, but despite the occasional love interest, she was pretty independent, a renegade to both camps. Horror and action fans alike were smitten; so was director Len Wiseman, who married Beckinsale after the first of the four Underworld films.