Since he's surely surrounded by diamonds and platinum and glitter and miniature, yippy canines and fluffy fabulosity when he's hanging out with girlfriend, Kimora Lee Simmons, Djimon Hounsou was probably more than happy to get serious this week in Washington, where he visited Congress to lobby for the reauthorization of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, which provides funding for local programs set up to help homeless kids.

It's a subject close to Hounsou's heart — he was a homeless teen on the streets of Paris in the early 80s.

In the "wintertime, when I didn't have enough warm clothes to sustain the harsh weather outside, I was sent to a juvenile prison to spend the night," he told People. "It was three or four years before I was discovered on the street by a fashion designer [Thierry Mugler] and my life started to turn around, eventually." Now he's an Oscar nominee who spends copious amounts of time in the Fab Lane. How things change.