Trivia: Actor, producer, writer, and director Vin Diesel had a charmed entry into the world of screen acting: after seeing Multi-Facial, a short that Diesel wrote, produced, financed, directed, and starred in, Steven Spielberg created the role of Private Caparzo specifically for the talented young newcomer in his Saving Private Ryan (1998).Born in New York City on July 18, 1967, Diesel made his stage debut at the age of seven in "Theatre for the New City," which was produced in Greenwich Village. He continued to be involved with the theatre throughout his adolescence, and he went on to attend the city's Hunter College, where his studies in creative writing led him to begin writing screenplays. Diesel became active in filmmaking in the early '90s, first earning notice for the short Multi-Facial, which was selected for screening at the 1995 Cannes Festival. He followed up Multi-Facial with his first feature-length film, 1997's Strays, an urban drama in which he cast himself as a gang boss whose love for a woman inspires him to try to change his ways. Written, directed, and produced by Diesel, the film was selected for competition at the 1997 Sundance Festival, which led to a deal with MTV to turn it into a series.Following the success of Saving Private Ryan, Diesel could be heard voicing the title character of the animated The Iron Giant (1999), another critically praised feature. He then starred with fellow young actors Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Affleck, Jamie Kennedy, and Nicky Katt in Boiler Room, an off-Wall Street drama that cast him as one of the members of a shady brokerage firm. He also flexed his sci-fi muscles in Pitch Black (2000), an interplanetary thriller that featured him and fellow Earthlings doing battle with a host of nasty alien mutants. Diesel jumped genres yet again as a devious, determined hot-rodder in The Fast and the Furious (2001), a cheeky, action-packed street racing picture in the vein of '50s exploitation flicks. The low-profile, star-free summer release left skid marks at the box office as it grossed over $40 million dollars in its first weekend alone -- more than enough to cover its production costs, and enough to lead many to believe that Diesel had finally arrived as a bankable leading man.Indeed Diesel was growing increasingly comfortable in his role as a tough guy action icon, though the ex-NYC club bouncer's prominent smirky scowl (usually accompanied by a hearty smile and laugh) proved almost a wink to his fans that while it worked well for him, he didn't take the image altogether seriously. The following year found Diesel teetering on the edge of mega-stardom with the release of his eagerly anticipated reteaming with The Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen, XXX. With images of a bulky Diesel adorning movie theaters nationwide and an advertising campaign that left almost no viable stone unturned, the duo were undoubtedly aiming to repeat the success of the muscle-car extravaganza. This time setting their sights on breathing life into the ailing secret agent action adventure genre, XXX's protagonist, a former extreme sports athlete recruited by the government to take on a dangerous mission, would prove a large-scale attempt at bringing James Bond style thrills into the 21st century. With his reputation set in stone, Diesel would spend the 2000's enjoying a steady stream of similar work, starring in action adventure films like The Chronicles of Riddick (a sequel to 2000's Pitch Black) and Babylon A.D., as well as occasional comedic turns, like The Pacifier. He eventually rejoined the Fast & Furious franchise, reprising his role of Dom Toretto in numerous sequels, and also working as a producer on the films. In 2014, he voiced the role of Groot in the smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy, and also recorded his iconic line "I am Groot" in numerous languages for international versions of the film.

Trivia: From the opening moments of Menace II Society (1993) in which he commits a shocking double homicide, talented young actor Larenz Tate engrained himself into the public psyche as the virtual epitome of the random and senseless violence of the inner-city streets. And while subsequent roles in such similar projects such as Dead Presidents (1995) may have pigeonholed actors of lesser talent, versatile Tate has transcended his troubled ghetto-dwelling film persona to become an actor of impressive dramatic and comedic range. Born on the west side of Chicago in September 1975, Tate was the youngest of three siblings whose family moved to California when he was nine years old. Convinced by their parents to enter a drama program at the Inner City Cultural Center, the trio didn't take the lessons seriously until classmate Malcolm-Jamal Warner's ascent to fame after being cast on the hugely popular sitcom The Cosby Show. Subsequently realizing that they could parlay their efforts into a tangible form of success, the siblings began to receive small roles and in 1985 Tate made his small-screen debut in an episode of The Twilight Zone -- The Series. Following appearances in such popular television series as 21 Jump Street and The Wonder Years, Tate was cast in the made-for-television feature The Women of Brewster Place before receiving a recurring role in the popular family comedy series Family Matters (both 1989). Offers soon began pouring in and, following numerous small-screen roles, collaborative filmmaking siblings Albert and Allen Hughes approached Tate to star in their debut feature Menace II Society. A jarring vision of inner-city desperation and decay, the film found Tate channeling his substantial energy into creating a truly memorable character that audiences would not soon forget. Following up his breakthrough role with the little-seen but often-praised television series South Central, Tate would later appear in the family comedy-drama The Inkwell before re-teaming with the Hughes brothers for Dead Presidents (1995) and taking on the role of a love-stricken young poet in the romantic drama Love Jones (1997). With subsequent roles in such films as The Postman (as the automotively monikered Ford Lincoln Mercury), Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998), and 2000's Love Come Down, Tate continued to compel audiences well into the new millennium. Though a big theatrical release had eluded Tate for the first few years of the millennial turnover, the talented young actor would soon turn up opposite Laurence Fisburne in the high-octane Biker Boyz (2003). The thrills kept coming with a role in the action-packed Vin Diesel misfire A Man Apart, with a subsequent role in the Oscar underdog Crash affording Tate the ability to riff on the persona he had so successfully perfected in Menace II Society. Later that same year, Tate would play Quincy Jones to Jamie Foxx's Ray Cherles in director Taylor Hackford's critically-acclaimed biopic Ray. Upon taking back to the streets in director Vondie Curtis Hall's tense 2006 action entry Waist Deep, it was time to try to mediate a peaceful solution to a potentially-explosive situation when the cousin of Tate's character realizes that his car has been stolen with his son still inside. He joined the cast of the hit FX TV series Rescue Me in that shows fourth season, and stayed with the program until its conclusion in 2011.

Trivia: Bearing the kind of sharp-eyed, vaguely sinister good looks that often get actors cast as charismatic drug dealers or murder suspects, Timothy Olyphant first impressed film audiences playing none other than the resident charismatic drug dealer of Doug Liman's Go (1999). Born in Hawaii on May 20, 1968, Olyphant grew up in California. After attending the University of California, where he swam competitively, the actor made his professional debut in the Playwrights Horizons' production of The Monogamist, for which he won a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance. Olyphant's first film appearance came courtesy of a miniscule role in The First Wives Club (1996); somewhat more substantial work followed in 1997's Scream 2, in which the actor was cast as one of Neve Campbell's friends. After a turn in When Trumpets Fade (1998), a critically acclaimed made-for-TV WWII drama, and a memorable guest-shot on an episode of Sex and the City, Olyphant gave a scene-stealing performance in Go, managing to stand out in an ensemble cast that included Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Taye Diggs, and Scott Wolf. His work caught the notice of more than one industry observer, and by the following year, the actor had a number of projects in the works. Included among them were The Broken Hearts Club, a comedy that cast Olyphant as a gay photographer; Gone in Sixty Seconds, which featured him as a detective on the trail of a car thief (Nicolas Cage); and Auggie Rose, a drama about assumed identity in which Olyphant played the ex-cellmate of a dead con man. In 2001, Olyphant would turn up in the tale of an aspiring singer who gets to live a dream, Rock Star.Once touted as "the next big thing," Olyphant's stock seemed to drop after attaching himself to a string of duds, most notably the aforementioned Rock Star, Dreamcatcher, and A Man Apart, the latter two both released in 2003. Fortunately, the following year saw things looking up for the actor, with a starring role on the critically acclaimed series from HBO, the Western Deadwood. Over the next several years, Olyphant would appear in films like Live Free or Die Hard and I Am Number Four, in addition to a role on the night time drama Damages, as well as the massively popular series Justified.

Trivia: California native Jacqueline Obradors was actually born to Argentinean parents, but she spent her early career playing various Latina background characters. Starting in 1993, she made numerous appearances in film and television, including some reoccurring guest star roles. In 1998, she got a bit of a break as Harrison Ford's girlfriend in the romantic adventure Six Days, Seven Nights and as William Forsythe's wife in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalow. On television, she was a regular cast member on the short-lived NBC detective comedy Battery Park and then joined the cast of NYPD Blue during the ninth season as Det. Rita Ortiz. In 2001, she lent her voice to the animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire and played one of the Naranjo daughters in the comedy Tortilla Soup. In 2003, she reprised her role for Atlantis: Milo's Return and played Vin Diesel's wife in the action thriller A Man Apart.

Trivia: With his rotund build and Eastern-European looks, Armenian-American player Ken Davitian seemed tailor-made for character roles. For the majority of his first decade onscreen, however, Davitian appeared in fairly lackluster movies, such as Talkin' Dirty After Dark (1991), Bikini Summer (1991), Sexual Intent (1994), and The Silence of the Hams (1994). His fate changed just a bit around the turn of the millennium -- first on the small screen, with guest appearances in such blockbuster series as ER and Gilmore Girls, and then cinematically, when Borat (2006) creators brought him on board that mockumentary farce as Azamat Bagatov, Borat Sagdiyev's (Sacha Baron Cohen) devoted producer (who performs a rather deviant and embarrassing act in a hotel room). Not long after, the producers of the 2008 big-screen vehicle Get Smart (based on the popular 1960s TV spy comedy) tapped Davitian for a choice role in that movie.

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

Trivia: Grandfather, Rodolfo Hoyos, was an opera singer. With Ricardo Montalban, her father, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. co-founded Nosotros, an organization aimed at improving the image of Latino/Hispanic actors in the entertainment industry. Trained at LACC Theatre Arts Academy. Studied with director James Frawley.