Trivia: As the son of broadcast journalist Nick Clooney and the nephew of chanteuse Rosemary Clooney, George Clooney entered the world with show business coursing through his veins. Born May 6, 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky, the future E.R. headliner appeared at the tender age of five on his father's Cincinnati talk program, The Nick Clooney Show. In his youth, Clooney honed a sharp interest in sports - particularly baseball - but by adulthood, Clooney launched himself as an onscreen presence, seemingly without effort. Beginning with a string of television commercials, then signed with Warner Brothers Entertainment as a supporting player. By the time Clooney had paid his dues, he'd appeared in single episodes of The Golden Girls, Riptide, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk and Hunter.After regular gigs on TV shows like The Facts of Life, Roseanne, and Sisters, Clooney scored a role on the NBC medical drama E.R., which proved his breakthrough to superstardom. When that program shot up to #1 in prime time ratings, Clooney carried it (much more, in fact, than a first-billed Anthony Edwards) - his inborn appeal to women and his onscreen grace and charm massive contributing factors. This appeal increased as his character - initially something of a callous womanizer - matured with the show, eventually evolving into a kind and thoroughly decent, if somewhat hotheaded, human being.The performer's newfound star power led to big screen opportunities, like an acid-mouthed, rifle-wielding antihero (one of the Gecko Brothers, alongside Quentin Tarantino) in the Robert Rodriguez-directed, Tarantino-scripted horror comedy From Dusk Till Dawn (1995). Not long after, Clooney shifted gears altogether, co-headlining (with Michelle Pfeiffer) in the charming romcom One Fine Day (1996). Though he would notoriously misstep in accepting the role of Bruce Wayne in the 1997 attempted Batman reboot Batman & Robin, Clooney's honesty about the part being a bad fit was refreshing to audiences, and he took little flack for the movie, moving on to critically acclaimed movies like the action-laced crime comedy Out of Sight, and Terrence Malick's adaptation of The Thin Red Line. Out of Sight represented a massive watershed moment for Clooney: the first of his numerous collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. In 1999 -- following his much-talked-about departure from E.R. - Clooney continued to work on a number of high-profile projects. He would star alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube as an American soldier reclaiming Kuwaiti treasure from Saddam Hussein in David O. Russell's Three Kings, and eventually win a 2000 Golden Globe for his portrayal of a pomade-obsessed escaped convict in the Coen brothers' Odyssey update O Brother Where Art Thou?. It was around this time that Clooney, now an established actor equally as comfortable on the big screen as the small, began to branch out as the Executive Producer of such made-for-TV efforts as Killroy (1999) and Fail Safe (2000). Soon producing such features as Rock Star (2001) and Insomnia (2002), Clooney next re-teamed with Soderbergh for a modern take on a classic Rat Pack comedy with Ocean's Eleven (2001). After the dynamic film duo stuck together for yet another remake, the deep-space psychological science-fiction drama Solaris (2002), busy Clooney both produced and appeared in Welcome to Collinwood and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind later the same year.Confessions marked Clooney's behind-the-camera debut, and one of the most promising actor-turned-director outings in memory. Adapted by Charlie Kaufman from Gong Show host Chuck Barris's possibly fictionalized memoir, the picture exhibited Clooney's triple fascinations with politics, media and celebrity; critics did not respond to it with unanimous enthusiasm, but it did show Clooney's promise as a director. He went on to star alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Coen Brothers movie Intolerable Cruelty. The small film was a major sleeper hit among the lucky few who got to see it, and it proved to be a great showcase for Clooney's abilities as a comedian. He moved on to team up with Zeta-Jones again, along with almost the entire cast of Ocean's Eleven, for the sequel, Oceans Twelve, which earned mixed critical reviews, but (like its predecessor) grossed dollar one at the box office. By 2005, Clooney achieved his piece-de-resistance by writing, directing, and acting a sophomore outing: the tense period drama Good Night, and Good Luck.. Shot in black-and-white by ace cinematographer Robert Elswit, the picture followed the epic decision of 1950's television journalist Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) to confront Senator Joseph McCarthy about his Communist witch hunt. The picture drew raves from critics and received nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.Clooney next appeared in the harshly explicit and openly critical Syriana. He took the lead in this ensemble political thriller about the oil industry, directed by Stephen Gaghan of Traffic and heralded by critics as a disturbingly real look at a hopelessly flawed and corrupt system. Clooney won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a veteran CIA officer. Never one to rest for very long, Clooney then joined the cast of The Good German. Directed by longtime collaborator Steven Soderbergh, German unfolds in post-WWII Berlin, where Clooney plays a war correspondent who helps an ex-lover (Cate Blanchett) search for her missing husband. The actor-director team would pair up again the following year for the third installment in the Ocean's saga, Ocean's Thirteen. Next turning towards a more intimate, individualized project, Clooney earned yet more acclaim playing the title role in Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton, where his portrayal of a morally compromised legal "fixer" earned him strong reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.Complications during the pre-production of the period comedy Leatherheads led to Clooney rewriting the script, as well as starring in and directing the picture. Though the movie made few ripples with audiences or critics, Clooney's adeptness continued to impress. In 2009, he gave voice to the lead character in Wes Anderson's thoroughly charming stop-motion animation feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, played a soldier with ESP in the comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats, and earned arguably the best notices of his career as corporate hatchet man Ryan Bingham in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air. His work in that well-reviewed comedy/drama earned him nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Academy. In the midst of awards season, Clooney again produced a successful telethon, this time to help earthquake victims in Haiti.In 2011 Clooney would, for the second time in his already impressive career, score Oscar nominations for writing and acting in two different films. His leading role in Alexander Payne's The Descendants earned him a wave of critical praise, as well as Best Actor nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy, as well as capturing the Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. The film he co-wrote and directed that year, the political drama The Ides of March garnered the heartthrob a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination from BAFTA, the Academy, and the Golden Globes. In 2012 he earned his second Oscar as one of the producers of that year's Best Picture winner, the Ben Affleck-directed political thriller/Hollywood satire Argo. The following year, he appeared in the critically-acclaimed, box office smash Gravity, and also produced August: Osage County. In 2014, he co-wrote and co-produced (with Grant Heslov) and starred in The Monuments Men, but the film was delayed from a late-2013 release and didn't score well with critics or at the box office.

Trivia: Once relegated to decorative parts for years and long acknowledged as the wife of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman spent the latter half of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium earning much-deserved critical respect. Standing a willowy 5'11" and sporting one of Hollywood's most distinctive heads of frizzy red hair, the Australian actress first entered the American mindset with her role opposite Cruise in Days of Thunder (1990), but it wasn't until she starred as a homicidal weather girl in Gus Van Sant's 1995 To Die For that she achieved recognition as a thespian of considerable range and talent. Though many assume that the heavily-accented Kidman hails from down under, she was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 20, 1967, to Australian parents. Her family, who lived on the island because of a research project that employed Kidman's biochemist father, then moved to Washington, D.C. for the next three years. After her father's project reached completion, Nicole and her family returned to Australia.Raised in the upper-middle-class Sydney suburb of Longueville for the remainder of the 1970s and well into the eighties, Kidman grew up infused with a love of the arts, particularly dance and theatre. Kidman took refuge in the theater, and landed her first professional role at the age of 14, when she starred in Bush Christmas (1983), a TV movie about a group of kids who band together with an Aborigine to find their stolen horse. Brian Trenchard-Smith's BMX Bandits (1983) -- an adventure film/teen movie -- followed , with Kidman as the lead character, Judy; it opened to solid reviews. Kidman then worked for the gifted John Duigan (The Winter of Our Dreams, Romero) twice, first as one of the two adolescent leads of the Duigan-directed "Room to Move" episode of the Australian TV series Winners (1985) and, more prestigiously, as the star of Duigan's acclaimed miniseries Vietnam (1987).In 1988, Kidman got another major break when she was tapped to star in Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm (1989). A psychological thriller about a couple (Kidman and Sam Neill) who are terrorized by a young man they rescue from a sinking ship (Billy Zane), the film helped to establish the then-21-year-old Kidman as an actress of considerable mettle. That same year, her starring performance in the made-for-TV Bangkok Hilton further bolstered her reputation. By now a rising star in Australia, Kidman began to earn recognition across the Pacific. In 1989, Tom Cruise picked her for a starring role in her first American feature, Tony Scott's Days of Thunder (1990). The film, a testosterone-saturated drama about a racecar driver (Cruise), cast Kidman as the neurologist who falls in love with him. A sizable hit, it had the added advantage of introducing Kidman to Cruise, whom she married in December of 1990.Following a role as Dustin Hoffman's moll in Robert Benton's Billy Bathgate (1991), and a supporting turn as a snotty boarding school senior in the masterful Flirting (1991), which teamed her with Duigan a third time, Kidman collaborated with Cruise on their second film together, Far and Away (1992). Despite their joint star quality, gorgeous cinematography, and adequate direction by Ron Howard, critics panned the lackluster film.Kidman's subsequent projects, My Life and Malice ( both 1993), were similarly disappointing, despite scattered favorable reviews. Batman Forever (1995), in which she played the hero's love interest, Dr. Chase Meridian, fared somewhat better, but did little in the way of establishing Kidman as a serious actress even as it raked in mile-high returns at the summer box office. Kidman finally broke out of her window-dressing typecasting when Gus Van Sant enlisted her to portray the ruthless protagonist of To Die For (1995). Directed from a Buck Henry script, this uber-dark comedy casts Kidman as Suzanne Stone, a television broadcaster ready and eager to commit one homicide after another to propel herself to the top. Displaying a gift for impeccable comic timing, she earned Golden Globe and National Broadcast Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress. Further critical praise greeted Kidman's performance as Isabel Archer in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. Now regarded as one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood, Kidman starred opposite George Clooney in the big-budget action extravaganza The Peacemaker (1997) and opposite Sandra Bullock in the frothy Practical Magic (1998). In 1999, Kidman starred in one of her most controversial films to date, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and cloaked in secrecy from the beginning of its production, the film also stars Cruise as Kidman's physician husband. During the spring and summer of 1999, the media unsurprisingly hyped the couple's onscreen pairing as the two major selling points. However, despite an added measure of intrigue from Kubrick's death only weeks after shooting wrapped, Eyes Wide Shut repeated the performance of prior Kubrick efforts by opening to a radically mixed reaction.As the new millennium arrived, problems began to erupt between Kidman and Tom Cruise; divorce followed soon after, and the tabloids swirled with talk of new relationships for the both of them. She concurrently plunged into a string of daring, eccentric film roles much edgier than what she had done before. The trend began with a role in Jez Butterworth's Birthday Girl (2001) as a Russian mail order bride, and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge (2001), which cast her, in the lead, as a courtesan in a 19th century Paris hopped up with late 20th century pop songs. The picture dazzled some and alienated others, but once again, journalists flocked to Kidman's side.Following this success (the picture gleaned a Best Picture nod but failed to win), Kidman gained even more positive notice for her turn as an icy mother after the key to a dark mystery in Alejandro Amenabar's spooky throwback, The Others. When the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards finally arrived, Kidman received nominations for her memorable performances in both films. Though it couldn't have been any further from her flamboyant turn in Moulin Rouge, Kidman's camouflaged role as Virginia Woolf in the following year's The Hours (2002) (she wears little makeup and a prosthetic nose), for which she delivered a mesmerizing and haunting performance, kept the Oscar and Golden Globe nominations steadily flowing in for the acclaimed actress. The fair-haired beauty finally snagged the Best Actress Oscar that had been so elusive the year before. Post-Oscar, Kidman continued to take on challenging work. She played the lead role in Lars von Trier's Dogville, although she declined to continue in Von Trier's planned trilogy of films about that character. She swung for the Oscar fences again in 2003 as the female lead in Cold Mountain, but it was co-star Renee Zellweger who won the statuette that year. Kidman did solid work for Jonathan Glazer in the Jean-Claude Carriere-penned Birth, as a woman revisited by the incarnation of her dead husband in a small child's body, but stumbled with a pair of empty-headed comedies, Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives and Nora Ephron's Bewitched (both 2005), that her skills could not save. She worked with Sean Penn in the political thriller The Interpreter in 2005. For the most part, Kidman continued to stretch herself with increasingly demanding and arty roles throughout 2006. In Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, Kidman plays controversial housewife-cum-photographer Diane Arbus. Meanwhile, Kidman returned to popcorn pictures by playing Mrs. Coulter in Chris Weitz's massive, $150-million fantasy adventure The Golden Compass (2007), adapted from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series of books. She also headlined the sci-fi thriller The Invasion, a loose remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Also in 2007, Kidman teamed up with Noah Baumbach for a starring role as a supremely dysfunctional mother in Margot at the Wedding (2007). The actress then set out to recapture her Moulin Rouge musical success with a turn in director Rob Marshall's 8 1/2 remake Nine (2009), teamed up with indie cause-célèbre John Cameron Mitchell and Aaron Eckhart for the psychologically-charged domestic drama Rabbit Hole (2010), and starred opposite Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in the Dennis Dugan-helmed comedy Go With It (2011). Kidman would spend the next few years continuing her high level of activity, appearing in movies like Trespass and The Paperboy.

Trivia: A musical prodigy, East Prussian-born Armin Mueller-Stahl was a noted concert violinist while still in his teens. Mueller-Stahl turned to film acting in East Berlin in 1950, later launching a 25-year stint as a repertory performer at Theater aum Schiffbaurdamm. The winner of the GDR State Prize for his film work, Mueller-Stahl became persona non grata with the communist regime in 1977, due to his activism in protesting government suppression of performing artists. He relocated to the West in 1980, where he recouped his film stardom in such productions as Fassbinder's Lola (1981) and Veronika Voss (1982) and Agnieszka Holland's Angry Harvest (1985), winning the Montreal Festival "Best Actor" prize for his performance in the latter. Most American viewers first became aware of Mueller-Stahl through his portrayal of Russian general Samanov in the controversial miniseries Amerika (1987). He then gained perhaps his greatest recognition to date by U.S. film fans for two radically different characterizations: aging Nazi war criminal Mike Laszlo in Costa-Gavras' The Music Box (1989) and Jewish grandpa Sam Krischinsky in Barry Levinson's Avalon (1990). He spent the rest of the decade working steadily in Hollywood and abroad, appearing in such films as Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth (1991), The X-Files (1998), and Jakob the Liar (1999). In 1996, he earned particular acclaim and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of pianist David Helfgott's domineering father in Scott Hicks' Shine.He appeared in 2000's Mission to Mars, and followed that up the next year in The Long Run. He was away from screens for three years, reappearing in Bustin' Bonaparte and The Dust Factory, before landing the role of the scary patriarch of a crime family in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. He appeared in the highly-successful Dan Brown adaptation Angels & Demons.

Trivia: Romanian actor Marcel Iures took his cinematic bow in the early '70s and spent the next several decades specializing in character portrayals. He often appeared as distinguished and educated men (Pope Pius XII in the 2002 Amen; a doctor in The Cave [2005]; a professor in Youth Without Youth [2007]) or Eastern European ethnic types. Iures' role in the 1994 Interview With the Vampire for director Neil Jordan -- that of a Parisian vampire -- not only took full advantage of the actor's near-Transylvanian origins but channeled his ruddy looks into something far more sinister than his usual evocations.

Trivia: Randall Batinkoff first established himself as a twentysomething actor in adolescent roles, albeit in some of the more individualistic projects of that nature to come down the pike. These included the 1988 Molly Ringwald pregnancy drama For Keeps (as Molly's boyfriend-turned-husband), the anti-Semitism-themed prep-school drama School Ties (1992), and a small supporting role in the horror comedy Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). Batinkoff's roles continued through the following decade, but his projects decreased slightly in terms of prominence (and budget); his resumé during the late '90s and 2000s included parts in such films as The Last Marshal (1999), April's Shower (2003), and Touched (2005).

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: At 14, ran away from home and took a Greyhound bus to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actor, but his parents tracked him down and sent him to a boarding school in Ireland. After graduating from high school in Omaha, he studied French, art history and theatre in Paris. Was cast as an understudy in the Broadway production of Biloxi Blues. As a 46-year-old training for the lead role in the FX series Lights Out, McCallany fulfilled a lifelong dream to fight in an amateur boxing competition, winning a three-round decision against a German heavyweight.

Trivia: Versatile supporting and occasional leading actor Michael Boatman has worked steadily on stage, screen, and television since making his feature film debut playing Motown in Hamburger Hill (1987). Fans of the late-'90s ABC sitcom Spin City will recognize him for playing Carter, while those who loved the ABC drama China Beach will remember him for playing the caustic but funny Private Sam Beckett. Though born in Colorado Springs, CO, Boatman was raised in Chicago. His initial interest in acting as a teen was purely mercenary, in that he thought it might be a way to meet girls. He proved to have a knack for acting and went on to study theater at Western Illinois University, where he played leads in a variety of classic dramas. He won a Best Supporting Actor Award after competing in the Irene Ryan National Competition at the Kennedy Center. Following the filming of Hamburger Hill, Boatman spent 18 months in New York establishing his acting credentials off-Broadway. The role of Private Beckett lured him to Los Angeles and he remained on China Beach for its entire run. Other television appearances include guest shots on The Larry Sanders Show and Living Single, as well as co-starring roles in such made-for-TV movies as Donor and Conspiracy of Terror. In 1994, Boatman played the lead in the film The Glass Shield.Boatman is also recognizable for his work on the long-running HBO series Arli$$; his role as uptight CFO Stanley Babson would earn him nominations for four Image Image Awards. The actor continued to work in a supporting capacity throughout the mid-2000s, appearing in feature films including Woman, Thou Art Loosed (2004), Once Upon a Mattress (2005), and 2007's And Then Came Love. However, Boatman found more success on the small screen for his work on Sherri, the Lifetime comedy series starring Sherri Shepherd, and in the role of attorney Julius Cane in CBS' The Good Wife. In 2012, Boatman worked with Charlie Sheen in a recurring role for the television series Anger Management.

Trivia: In 1945, made her professional acting debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music playing Juliet in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. One of the first members of the Actors Studio. Former sister-in-law of Marilyn Monroe, who was married to her brother Arthur Miller. Niece Rebecca Miller is married to actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Winner of a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Award and an Obie Award.

Trivia: Supporting actor Carlos Gomez has found success on television and in feature films. As his career has progressed, he has become increasingly active as a writer and producer. A first-generation American of Cuban heritage, Gomez made his feature film debut in 1989, appearing in two movies, Dance to Win and Hard to Kill. He would go on to become well known for his roles on ER and The Glades.

Trivia: Leading actor onscreen from 1987.

Trivia: She might not be a household name, but the statuesque character actress Tamara Tunie sports a resumé as distinctive as she is innately glamorous. Tunie landed her first major role as litigator Jessica Griffin McKechnie Harris on the soap opera As the World Turns in 1986 -- a part she played for 11 years. In the mean time, Tunie signed for a small role in the endearing yet sadly overlooked coming-of-age dramedy Sweet Lorraine (1987), an unsung predecessor to the box-office blockbuster Dirty Dancing, starring Maureen Stapleton and Trini Alvarado. Tunie signed for a bit part in the 1989 period murder mystery Bloodhounds of Broadway, but despite the fact that it claimed a pedigree as impressive as Lorraine (with Matt Dillon, Madonna, Jennifer Grey, and others), the movie unfortunately failed to deliver on its noble intentions. Over the course of the next several years, Tunie turned up several times on Steven Bochco's NYPD Blue, and landed the bit part of Leslie Christos in the Al Pacino big-city crime drama City Hall (1996), directed by Harold Becker (Taps). She re-teamed with Pacino for the darkly comic supernatural horror film The Devil's Advocate (1997), then worked with Brian De Palma and Nicolas Cage on the 1998 thriller Snake Eyes. Tunie's most high-profile work, however, was yet to come. In 2002, she delivered a compelling performance as Alberta Green in the first season of the series thriller 24. In 1999, the actress resumed her portrayal of Jessica Harris on As the World Turns and continued to sporatically return to the role through the 2000s. Beginning in 2000, Tunie also portrayed Melinda Warner on the popular series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Trivia: Wanted to be an actor since a child; her parents agreed to let her take acting and dance lessons because they thought it would help her overcome being clumsy. First acting teacher was Butterfly McQueen from Gone With the Wind, who attended her church. In college she and a fellow student adapted Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye into a play; Morrison invited her to perform the play in her New York apartment before it opened Off-Broadway. Won an Obie in 1996 for her performance in Venus. Has appeared in recurring roles on NYPD Blue, Prison Break, Saving Grace; and Law & Order. Has been a regular on American Dreams; True Blood; and The Newsroom.

Trivia: Perhaps Croatia's most recognizable actor, Goran Visnjic became known to an American audience in the late 1990s, thanks to his work in American films and television. The darkly handsome actor, whom Vogue dubbed "the Tom Cruise of Croatia," was born in Sibenik on September 9, 1972, to a bus driver and a food market worker. Like just about all of his compatriots, Visnjic was indelibly affected by the Bosnian War. Although he decided at an early age that he wanted to be an actor and trained at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, his country's terrible conflict resulted in Visnjic's joining the Croatian army when he was 18. He trained as a paratrooper, ultimately extending his service by three months in order to better defend his country.After Visnjic finished his time with the military, he returned to acting. He began gaining popularity in his country when, at the age of 21, he was cast as Hamlet in a production of the play at the prestigious Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The production earned wide acclaim, and Visnjic himself was the recipient of three national Best Actor awards, including an Orlando, the Croatian equivalent of a Tony.In addition to his work on the stage (he went on to portray Hamlet six years in a row), Visnjic also began appearing in Croatian feature films, and he made his American screen debut in Michael Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo (1997). In 1998, he earned greater international recognition with his role in Practical Magic; although the film itself was a disappointment, Visnjic managed to make a sizable impression on audience members in his role as Nicole Kidman's ne'er-do-well boyfriend. The following year, the actor landed a recurring role on the popular TV medical drama E.R.; his profile further ascended with his casting in a number of feature films, including Committed (2000), a road trip comedy starring Heather Graham and Luke Wilson.

Trivia: Beginning his career as a stuntman, Terry Serpico discovered his acting talent while performing dangerous scenes for other actors. He began taking on acting roles around 1997, when he landed a role in the gangster film Donnie Brasco. A long string of minor appearances followed, and Serpico's tough appearance frequently landed him parts as members of the military, police force, and criminal underworld. He appeared in movies like Frequency, Hannibal, The Departed, and Michael Clayton, and has also enjoyed recurring roles on the TV series Rescue Me and Army Wives.

Trivia: As a high-school student, wrote and performed short plays for friends and family. Wrote and starred in the one-man show Bartenders (2002) at New York's John Houseman Theatre. Has guest starred on two Larry David sitcoms: appeared in an episode of Seinfeld as one of Jerry's neighbors; later appeared in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm as a bowling-alley employee. Enjoys collecting antiques.

Trivia: Was raised in Wisacky, South Carolina.Was encouraged by his professors at Columbia University to pursue a career in the performing arts.Originated the character of Mafala Hatimbi in the renowned Broadway show The Book of Mormon.Aside from television and films, he has had an extensive career in theaters.Is an active member of the 52nd Street Project in New York City, which mentors kids in theater arts.

Trivia: From the time of his screen debut in the late '80s, the slightly stocky character actor William Hill specialized in everyman portrayals, often with a professional edge, such as psychiatrists, guards, and police detectives. He struck a fairly equal balance between television (with a series of appearances as different characters on Law & Order over the years) and features that fell into a wide variety of genres. These included Striptease (1996), Anything Else (2003), and Gran Torino (2006).

Trivia: Born in Puerto Rico, his parents were Canadian and moved the family back to Toronto when he was 13. Was a member of the high school swim team and student council. Enjoys collecting primitive art. Is a resident director at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills. Established an acting scholarship at his high school. Is active in many charities, including Project Angel Food, the AIDS Project Los Angeles and the United Way.