Trivia: Brad Dourif is a slightly-built co-starring actor whose performances have an unpredictable edginess. After attending college he had a three-year apprenticeship with New York's Circle Repertory. He studied with the celebrated drama coach Sanford Meisner. Dourif debuted onscreen as Billy, the vulnerable, stuttering mental patient in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he received a "Best Supporting Actor" nomination. His first lead role came in his fourth movie, John Huston's Wise Blood (1979), in which he portrayed the obsessed preacher of the Church Without Christ. After appearing in several more films which, like Wise Blood, failed to succeed at the box office, he took three years off from the screen and taught directing at Columbia University. After 1984 he began working in films fairly often, but most of them have been forgettable "B"-movies; one exception has been Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning (1988), in which he played a bigoted, wife-beating deputy sheriff of a small town in the '60s.

Trivia: Although he had almost no prior acting experience, Mekhi Phifer made a highly auspicious screen debut as Strike, a 19-year-old petty drug dealer in Spike Lee's gritty urban drama Clockers (1995). A veteran of the Harlem streets, Phifer got his break when he attended an open casting call with only photo booth pictures of himself to give to interviewers. Displaying a rare charisma and intensity that was perfect for the role of Lee's ambitious protagonist, the novice actor beat the considerable odds against him and out-acted nearly 1,000 other applicants for the part. Following the success surrounding his Clockers debut, Phifer appeared in The Tuskegee Airmen, a powerful drama starring Laurence Fishburne that first aired on the HBO cable network. In 1997, Phifer made another strong impression playing the volatile but good-hearted Lem in George Tillman Jr.'s comedy drama Soul Food. The following year, he took part in the rage of teen horror films as one of the stars of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and further established himself as one of Hollywood's more photogenic up-and-comers by starring alongside Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett in O (2000), a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello that saw Phifer as a high-school basketball star betrayed by his jealous best friend.Though a well-known performer, Phifer didn't have a bona fide hit until 2002 when he played Future alongside hip-hop star Eminem in the urban drama 8 Mile. That same year, Phifer found success on the small screen as well, joining the cast of NBC's long-running hit medical series ER. Phifer played the role of Dr. Greg Pratt for six seasons before exiting the show at the beginning of season 15 in 2008. Phifer continued to stick with television work after leaving the series, first joining the cast of Fox's crime-drama Lie to Me as an FBI agent, and then playing a CIA agent on the fourth season of the BBC's Torchwood.

Trivia: A theater star from a diverse background, Ruben Santiago-Hudson was born in Lackawanna, NY, in 1956. Growing up with a combination of Puerto Rican and African American descent yielded many life-shaping experiences for Santiago-Hudson, and after studying at Binghamton University, he went on to write, direct, and star in the acclaimed play Lackawanna Blues, in which he portrayed over 20 characters from his past. The thespian would continue to work on-stage, appearing in plays like Jelly's Last Jam and Seven Guitars -- for which he won a Tony -- and additionally transitioned to the screen, appearing in a large number of films like The Devil's Advocate and Honeydripper. In 2005, Santiago-Hudson adapted Lackawanna Blues into a miniseries produced by HBO, which met with critical acclaim and garnered several major awards for star S. Epatha Merkerson. In the following years, Santiago-Hudson would find success on the popular series Castle.