Trivia: Already something of an established actor in his native Australia, Heath Ledger first came to the attention of American audiences in 1999 with his winning turn in the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, playing the rebellious Patrick Verona in the update of The Taming of the Shrew.Born in Perth, Western Australia on April 4, 1979, Ledger first became interested in acting while attending the all-boys Guilford Grammar School. He began his career performing onstage with the Guildford Theatre Company and was soon appearing in substantial roles on Australian television shows. The 1996 series Sweat featured him as a gay cyclist, while the following year's Roar cast him as a medieval Celtic prince--and also won him the beginnings of a fan base. After moving across the Pacific to Los Angeles, Ledger landed his lead role in 10 Things I Hate About You opposite Julia Stiles in 1999. The movie proved to be a summer hit, and it succeeded in introducing Ledger to a legion of new fans. That same year, he starred in Two Hands, an Australian action comedy that cast him as a Sydney teenager who finds himself in debt to an underworld kingpin, played by Bryan Brown. The film premiered at that year's Sundance Film Festival. Following a prominent role in Roland Emmerich's The Patriot (2000), Ledger brought Excalibur sensibilities into the new millenium with A Knight's Tale (2001). With its tradition shattering blend of modern slang and music balanced with the classic tale of jousting mayhem, A Knight's Tale served as an exciting star vehicle for the popular young actor. The young actor also garnered a fair amount of praise for his supporting role as a deeply depressed prison employee in the Oscar-winning film Monsters Ball (2001). Though the film did not fare well critically or otherwise, Ledger nonetheless proved himself a versatile actor in The Four Feathers (2002), in which he starred as a cowardly officer-in-training who resigns from the British Army shortly before being shipped off to Sudan. In the same vein, though The Order (2003) was shunned by critics, Ledger was praised for his intense performance as a tortured, knowledge-seeking priest. Australia's Ned Kelly (2003) featured a then 24-year-old Heath in the title role of sixteen-year-old outlaw Ned Kelly, and placed him among a skilled cast including Six Feet Under star and fellow Australian Rachel Griffiths, the Oscar-winning Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, and Naomi Watts. In 2005, Ledger captivated Hollywood with his sensitive turn as Ennis Del Mar in the gay-themed modern western Brokeback Mountain. Impressing audiences with his portrayal of the soft-spoken and tortured character struggling with his love for fellow cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), he went on to garner multiple awards for the role, including Best Actor wins from numerous film critics associations, as well as a coveted Oscar nomination.Ledger was busy in 2005 following Brokeback, with lead roles in the period films Casanova and The Brothers Grimm, as well as a turn as a heroin-addicted husband in Candy. His own engagement to Brokeback costar Michelle Williams made headlines and produced a daughter in late 2005, though the two ended their relationship the following year. Ledger had completed his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight (due out in July 2008) and was filming Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus when he was found dead in a New York City apartment building on January 22, 2008. It turned out that his final performance would be the most celebrated of his career. His turn as Gotham City's most deranged criminal helped make The Dark Knight one of the biggest box office hits in movie history, and earned him posthumous nominations for Best Supporting Actor from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy.

Trivia: Sporting the kind of darkly mischievous good looks that often get him cast as randy, ne'er-do-well paramours, Rufus Sewell began his film career in the early '90s and soon emerged as one of England's most promising young actors. The son of an Australian animator who died when he was ten, Sewell was born in Twickenham, Middlesex, on October 29, 1967. He trained to become an actor at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, leaving the school after three years. After making a promising debut on the London stage with an award-winning performance in Making It Better, Sewell originated the role of Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which earned him a nomination for the prestigious Olivier Award. He also won acclaim on the other side of the Atlantic, winning Broadway's Theatre World Award for his performance in Translations.In addition to his work on the stage, Sewell had been acting on both the large and small screen, making his film debut in 1991 with Twenty-One, in which he played Patsy Kensit's junkie boyfriend. In 1994 he caught the attention of American art house filmgoers with his role as a sweet-natured bus driver who becomes the object of Albert Finney's affections in A Man of No Importance; the same year, PBS viewers could see him star in the acclaimed adaptation of Middlemarch.Sewell's art house recognition increased the following year, when he had starring roles in John Schlesinger's Cold Comfort Farm and Carrington. The first film cast him as an earthy farmer accustomed to rolls in the hay, while the second cast him as one of Emma Thompson's army of spurned lovers. Both films helped to get him noticed, even if the attention centered primarily on his imported lust-object status, but it was not until 1998 that he was given his first starring role, headlining the cast of Dark City. Unfortunately, the film vaporized at the box office, as did Sewell's other film that year, Dangerous Beauty.In 1999, the actor was again visible to transatlantic audiences, first as a bitter, alcoholic cokehead in The Very Thought of You, a romantic comedy released in Britain the previous year; and then in John Turturro's Illuminata, a turn-of-the-century romantic farce which cast him as an amorous actor. The latter film -- which also featured Susan Sarandon, Ben Gazzara, and Christopher Walken in its impressive cast -- won a number of good reviews, as did Sewell, an actor who by this point had made the expression of earthy lustiness into something of an endearing trademark.In 2000 Sewell graced the screen in Bless the Child, a supernatural thriller that also starred Kim Basinger and Christina Ricci. Of course few actors of his generation could essay such instantly dislikable villains as the talented Sewell, and after raising the ire of the noble Heath Ledger in the popular period adventure A Knight's Tale, he would once again make viewer's skin crawl as an aristocratic creep with more than a few skeletons in the closet in Neil Burger's romantic fantasy The Illusionist. In 2008 Sewell appeared as Alexander Hamilton in the Emmy-winning HBO mini-series John Adams, with subsequent roles in Eleventh Hour and The Pillars of the Earth preceding a turn as Detective Aurelio Zen in the TV mini-series Zen, and a turn as an evil bloodsucker with designs on the newly established United States in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

Trivia: Shannyn Sossamon's story could inspire thousands of wannabe actresses to buy a few turntables: casting director Francine Maisler discovered the 20-year-old actress spinning records at a posh Hollywood party and cast the Angelina Jolie lookalike in A Knight's Tale, which Sony hoped would be a huge summer hit. While A Knight's Tale performed somewhat respectably at the box office, it failed to set the world on fire. But it did establish Sossaman and co-star Heath Ledger as up-and-coming young actors. The Hawaii-born and Nevada-raised Sossaman moved to Los Angeles when she was 15 to study dance, which she considers a lifelong passion. She and a friend were DJing Gwyneth and Jack Paltrow's joint birthday party when Maisler noticed her, contacting her soon after the party about auditioning for the movie. Sossaman next appeared in 40 Days and 40 Nights alongside Josh Hartnett, another actor who saw his star rise in 2001 thanks to a summer blockbuster. She followed that up with the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Rules of Attraction. She continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Wristcutters: A Love Story, One Missed Call, and Road to Nowhere.

Trivia: A former Westminster Bridge busker who shot to fame in such stateside efforts as A Knight's Tale and A Beautiful Mind (both 2001), actor Paul Bettany's willingness to challenge himself by jumping genres has given him rare exposure on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in London, Bettany was raised in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire from age nine. Introduced to acting by his father (a teacher and ex-actor who gave up the stage for the classroom) and fueled by a love of cinema (Casablanca [1942] and Brief Encounter [1945] provided Bettany with early inspiration), the aspiring actor would subsequently pursue studies at London's Drama Center. Though the popular misconception that he was raised in a "theater family" continues to shadow the actor, Bettany has publicly stated that, by the time he was around, his father was working as a teacher and his mother's days as a singer were long behind her. Following his stage debut in the West End production of An Inspector Calls, it wasn't long before Bettany made his television debut in the U.K. mystery series Wycliffe in 1994; and his feature debut in 1997's harrowing war drama Bent showed much promise. Alternating between film and television work with such efforts as The Land Girls (1997) and Coming Home (1998) in the following years, Bettany continued to climb the credits until his breakthrough performance in 2000's Gangster No. 1. Though Bettany would return to the role of supporting player for Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000), that same year's depraved black comedy Dead Babies once again found him taking the lead. The following year would introduce the talented young actor to American audiences in the adventure comedy A Knight's Tale, as well as in the biopic A Beautiful Mind, in which he played the college roommate of troubled mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe). In addition to providing him with an introduction to future wife Jennifer Connelly (the couple would wed in January of 2003), the film made an impact with American audiences. That same year Bettany appearred opposite Willem Dafoe in The Reckoning, and a supporting performance in director Lars von Trier's 2003 thriller Dogville kept audiences hungering for more. Later re-teaming with A Beautiful Mind co-star Crowe for director Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Bettany would next make his first foray into romantic comedy territory opposite Kirsten Dunst in Wimbledon. Action/adventure roles would prove to be a bread and butter for Bettany as the 2000's continued, with roles in Firewall, The Da Vinci Code, Inkheart, The Tourist, Priest, and even a turn as the voice of Jarvis in Iron Man (a role he would return to for subsuquent sequels, as well as The Avengers).

Trivia: After roles on a handful of BBC television shows, British actor Mark Addy made a splash on the international film scene with his turn as a rotund exotic dancer in 1997's surprise hit The Full Monty. With the filmmaking boatloads of cash stateside and garnering a handful of Academy Award nods and Addy's ability to effortlessly adopt an American accent, it took little time before he was working on the U.S. side of the pond. Addy's first high-profile Hollywood role was a supporting gig playing Michael Keaton's pal in Jack Frost (1998), a family flick about a jazz musician who is reincarnated as a snowman. Two years later, Addy took on his first lead in an American film, filling the pelt worn previously by John Goodman, playing Fred Flintstone in the prequel The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. Unfortunately, the project failed to keep the franchise's flame burning. The next couple years saw Addy in more supporting roles in a series of projects that ranged from barely-profitable (A Knight's Tale) to downright unsuccesful (Down to Earth and The Time Machine), but in 2002 he landed the lead on the CBS sitcom Still Standing. With Addy starring opposite Jami Gertz, the show became a hit as the lead-in to the network's wildly popular Monday-night lineup.In between seasons of Still Standing, Addy continued to make time for the occassional big-screen project, popping up in such films as 2003's The Order and 2004's Around the World in 80 Days, the former of which reunited the actor with Brian Helgeland and Heath Ledger, the writer/director and star of A Knight's Tale. Addy married Kelly Addy in 1996. The couple has one daughter. He appeared as John Piggot in the highly-respected Red Riding trilogy, and followed that up with a role in 2010's Robin Hood as Friar Tuck. In 2011 he was cast in the initial season of HBO's Game of Thrones as King Robert Baratheon.

Trivia: Though he lived in Los Angeles before moving to New York and founding the Court Jesters Improv Troupe, actor Alan Tudyk freely admits that he will always be a Texan at heart. Born in El Paso and raised in Plano, Tudyk was a ham even before he pursued a serious acting career at Julliard from 1993 to 1996. Frequently dressing in cowboy garb on family dinner outings and faking fainting spells in school to get a rise out of teachers, it was easy to see that Tudyk had found his calling early in life. Later, performing at the Dallas Shakespeare Festival and founding the city's Rubber Chicken Standup Improv Troupe, Tudyk moved to the West Coast and bounced to the East Coast before making his feature debut in 1997, with 35 Miles From Normal. It didn't take long before Tudyk found more roles in such popular films as Patch Adams (1998) and The Wonder Boys (2000), though his breakthrough role would come as Sandra Bullock's rehab-mate in 28 Days (also 2000). Tudyk's character was so popular with audiences in test screenings, that director Betty Thomas called him back to shoot a scene giving closure to his character within the film. Larger roles began to pour in, such as his turn in the energetic jousting adventure A Knight's Tale (2001), as well as a lead role in writer-director Joss Whedon's short-lived sci-fi series Firefly and its much-adored theatrical spin-off, Serenity. By the early 2000's, Tudyk had become a favorite, familiar face - and voice, as well, lending his vocal talents to the cast of the animated Ice Age franchise, beginning in 2002. He would earn particular accolades for turns as the drunken Simon in the 2007 British sleeper hit Death at a Funeral, as well as the easily shaken Doc Potter in the gritty western 3:10 to Yuma that same year. Even die-hard fans might not have recognized Tudyk's comic cameo in 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon as effete and surprisingly hardcore fighting henchman Dutch. Tudyk would also find a continual home for his talents in the realm of TV, however, with recurring roles on Doll House, Good Vibes, and Suburgatory, as well as voice-acting roles on animated series like Glenn Martin DDS, Young Justice, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Never straying far from his cinematic routes, however, Tudyk would gear up for 2012 with the comedic role of historical politician Stephen A. Douglas in the comedy-centric revisionist horror-history film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Trivia: A classically trained British actor who nearly became the successor to the James Bond franchise, handsome and talented James Purefoy made himself known to stateside audiences with roles in such high-profile releases as A Knight's Tale (2001) and Resident Evil (2002). Born James Brian Mark Purefoy (his surname meaning "good faith" in Norman French) in Taunton, Somerset, England, in 1964, Purefoy received his early education at the all-boys Sherbourne School (alma mater to such actors as Jeremy Irons) before later refining his acting abilities at the London School of Drama. After receiving his Actor's Equity Card following a stage performance of Equus, Purefoy joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and essayed stage roles in performances of such classics as King Lear and The Tempest. It wasn't long before Purefoy began to hunger for something more, and after making his small-screen debut in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1990), a career in television and films soon followed. Alternating between the small (Sharpe's Sword [1995], The Tide of Life [1996]) and silver (Jilting Joe [1997], Mansfield Park [1999]) screens for the majority of the 1990s, Purefoy began to gain more prominent roles in such romantic comedies as Bedrooms and Hallways (1998) and Maybe Baby (2000) around the time of the millennial turnover. The inevitable Hollywood becoming too much to resist, the talented actor began to turn up in such big-budgeted fare as A Knight's Tale and Resident Evil soon thereafter.

Trivia: Well-bred and educated (Eton and Oxford), British stage actor Christopher Cazenove began his movie career with a small part in Julius Caesar (1970). Throughout the 1970s, Cazenove perfected his screen persona as the international charmer with a dark past. After his Broadway bow in 1980's Goodbye Fidel, Cazenove appeared with increasing frequency in American films, notably Eye of the Needle (1981), Mata Hari (1985) and Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), typecast in the latter as a landed-gentry British cad. The actor's television work has included a stint as Jaclyn Smith's enigmatic French lover in the 1988 two-part TV movie Sidney Sheldon's Windmills of the Gods. In 1989, Christopher Cazenove starred as a snide travel-show host on the short-lived "screwball" TV sitcom A Fine Romance.

Trivia: A native of Glasgow, Scottish actress Laura Fraser first came to the attention of international audiences with her work in Gillies MacKinnon's 1995 Small Faces. A coming-of-age drama set in a rough Glasgow neighborhood in the 1960s, it featured Fraser as the girlfriend of a local gangster, and the acclaim the film received contained praise for Fraser's tough, vivacious performance. She went on to do starring work in a series of British films, most of which failed to do justice to her talent. In 1999 Fraser was chosen as part of a high-profile cast to star as Lavinia in Titus, Julie Taymor's iconoclastic screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. The film received mixed reviews on both sides of the ocean, but a number of reviewers did note that Fraser more than held her own alongside such established stars as Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. After a brief turn in the British post-Beavis and Butthead brain cell ripper Kevin & Perry Go Large, Fraser traveled back in time for the popular joustfest A Knight's Tale.

Trivia: With her striking beauty and alluring voice, actress Berenice Bejo has dazzled audiences all over the world. Born in Argentina, raised in France, and eventually transitioning into American film, Bejo began her on-screen career with appearances on French TV throughout the late '90s. After nabbing the starring role of Sophie on the series Un et un Font Six, Bejo brought movies into her resume as well, prominently appearing in 2000's Most Promising Young Actress. She soon crossed the pond to play Christiana in the American movie A Knight's Tale as well. Bejo continued to appear in French movies like 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman and 2006's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, eventually catching the attention of American audiences again for her role in the 2011 critical smash The Artist. A throwback to the early days of film, the movie transcended the language barrier quite easily, as it was silent. The film racked up numerous awards, as did Bejo for her performance -- including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Trivia: Worked in Charing Cross Hospital as a Scientific Officer before turning his hand to acting. Appeared in various adverts for Sega in the 1990s.

Trivia: A struggling stage actress when she was cast in the Kevin Costner epic The Postman (1997), British actress Olivia Williams survived the film's meltdown with her reputation relatively intact. The daughter of lawyers, Williams earned a degree in English at Cambridge University before studying acting for two years with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Her training led to several stage roles, as well as to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in both Stratford-upon-Avon and London. A four-month tour of Richard III featuring Ian McKellen brought Williams to the United States, and, following a supporting role in the made-for-TV adaptation of Emma (1997), she again found herself stateside to work on The Postman. Fortunately for Williams, she rebounded from The Postman with her role as Miss Cross, the fought-over love interest of a precocious 15-year-old and an embittered millionaire in the acclaimed comedy Rushmore (1998). She could be seen the next year starring opposite Bruce Willis in the enormously successful supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. She continued to work steadily in films such as Born Romantic, The Man from Elysian Fields, A Knight's Tale, and Peter Pan. She was excellent in An Education as a sympathetic teacher, appeared in short-lived Joss Whedon series Dollhouse, and starred in Roman Polanski's politically-tinged thriller The Ghost Writer. In 2011 she had a main role in the action film Hanna and appeared as Countess Vronsky in Joe Wright's 2012 adaptation of the classic Anna Karenina.