Trivia: Discovered at age 3 while attending a production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle by a director who noticed his intense concentration. Mother accompanied him on set for all his projects until he began filming the TV series Skins when he was 17. Visited slums in the Kenyan city of Nairobi in 2010 to raise awareness about poverty as part of Christian Aid Week. Appeared in the video for the song "Lez be Friends" by the British musical-comedy act Midnight Beast in 2010. Modelled eyewear in a advert for the 2010 Tom Ford spring collection after appearing in Ford's film A Single Man. Played a villain in a 2014 commercial for Jaguar, part of a series that also featured Ben Kingsley and Tom Hiddleston.

Trivia: Was a member of the Stagecoach Theatre Arts School in her hometown of Beverley as a child. Approached her father's agent at the age of 11 and asked to be represented. Left her sixth form college in her last year to concentrate on acting. Studied Angharad Rees' performances in the original Poldark when preparing for her role in the 2015 version of the show. A natural blonde, she had her hair dyed red for the Poldark series, as she thought the colour suited her character better. Was number 56 on the Radio Times TV 100 list in 2018, a list believed to be determined by television executives and experienced broadcasters. In 2019, played the role of Amy in the 2019 BBC TV Series The War of the Worlds, based on the H.G. Wells novel.

Trivia: Ewan McGregor rocketed to fame over a short period of time, thanks to a brilliant turn as a heroin addict in Trainspotting and the good fortune of being selected by George Lucas and co. to portray the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. Because Menace arrived amid concomitant fanfare and massive prerelease expectations in early summer 1999, McGregor's appearance in the new trilogy drew a whirlwind of media attention and elicited a series of roles in additional box-office blockbusters, launching the then 28-year-old actor into megastardom. Born on March 31, 1971, in the Scottish town of Crieff, on the southern edge of the Highlands, McGregor joined the Perth Repertory Theatre after high school graduation and subsequently trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His studies at Guildhall led to a key role in Dennis Potter's 1993 Lipstick on Your Collar, a made-for-television musical comedy set during the Suez Crisis. That same year, McGregor received first billing in the British television miniseries Scarlet & Black, an adaptation of Henri Beyle Stendhal's 1830 period novel about a young social climber in post-Napoleonic, late 19th century Europe. McGregor made a well-pedigreed cinematic debut, with a bit part in Bill Forsyth's episodic American drama Being Human (1993), starring Robin Williams. The picture, however, undeservedly flopped and closed almost as soon as it opened, rendering McGregor's contribution ineffectual. The actor continued to turn up on television on both sides of the Atlantic until late 1996; some of his more notable work during this period includes his turn as a beleaguered gunman in an episode of ER and the Cold War episode of Tales From the Crypt, in which he plays a vampiric thief. McGregor landed his cinematic breakthrough role with Danny Boyle's noirish, heavily stylized Shallow Grave (1994). In that film, he essays the role of Alex, a journalist who finds himself in a horrendous position after a murder. He appeared in Carl Prechezer's little-seen British surfing parable Blue Juice (1995) and Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) before losing almost 30 pounds and shaving his head for his turn as heroin addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting, his sophomore collaboration with Danny Boyle, which gained the attention of critics and audiences worldwide. McGregor then took a 180-degree turn (and projected unflagging versatility) by portraying Frank Churchill in the elegant historical comedy Emma (1996).McGregor continued to work at an impressive pace after Emma, with appearances in Brassed Off (1996), Nightwatch (1998), The Serpent's Kiss (1997), and yet another project with Danny Boyle, the 1997 fantasy A Life Less Ordinary. (The latter film concludes on a raffish note, with an animated puppet of Ewan McGregor dressed in a kilt that bears the McGregor family tartan). In 1998, the actor signed to appear in the Star Wars prequels. (Lucas' decision to hire McGregor for Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels was hardly capricious; his uncle, Denis Lawson, had appeared as Wedge Antilles, decades earlier, in the original three installments of the series.) That same year, McGregor contributed a fine performance to Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, with his portrayal of an iconoclastic, Iggy Pop-like singer during the 1970s glam rock era.As the new millennium dawned, McGregor had a full slate of projects before him, including several for his own production shingle, Natural Nylon, co-founded by McGregor and fellow actors Jude Law, Sean Pertwee, Sadie Frost, and fellow Trainspotter Jonny Lee Miller. Pat Murphy's biopic Nora (2000, co-produced by Wim Wenders' banner Road Movies Filmproduktion and by Metropolitan pictures), represented one of the first films to emerge from this production house. As a dramatization of the real-life relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, Nora stars McGregor as Joyce and Susan Lynch as the eponymous Nora. The actor stayed in period costume for his other film that year, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Set in 1899 Paris, it stars McGregor as a young poet who becomes enmeshed in the city's sex, drugs, and cancan scene and embarks on a tumultuous relationship with a courtesan (Nicole Kidman). Following a turn in Black Hawk Down (2001), McGregor reprised his role as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. 2003 saw McGregor taking advantage of an odd quirk. Years prior, a magazine had commented on the uncanny resemblance between the young Scotch actor and the legendary Albert Finney as a young man. In dire need of a twenty- or thirty-something to portray Finney's younger self for his fantasy Big Fish, Tim Burton cast McGregor in the role; he fit the bill with something close to utter perfection. In that same year's erotic drama Young Adam (directed by David Mackenzie and originally screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival), McGregor plays one of two barge workers unlucky enough to dredge up the nearly naked corpse of a young woman. The young actor also starred alongside Renée Zellweger, who, fresh from the success of Chicago, played the unlikely love interest of McGregor's preening, sexist Catcher Block in Down With Love, director Peyton Reed's homage to '60s romantic comedies. McGregor returned to the role of Obie-Wan Kenobi once again in 2005 for Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, the final film in George Lucas' epic saga. That same year, he lent his voice to the computer-animated family film Robots and starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's big-budget sci-fi actioner The Island. He also secured the lead role of Sam Foster, a psychiatrist attempting to locate a suicidal patient, in Finding Neverland director Marc Forster's follow-up to that earlier hit, the mindbender Stay. Though that picture died a quick death at the box office, McGregor returned the following year as Ian Rider, a secret agent whose assassination sparks the adventure of a lifetime for his young nephew, in Geoffrey Sax's Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. The film only had a limited run in the U.S., and was panned by critics.In late 2006, McGregor once again demonstrated his crossover appeal with turns in two much artier films: Scenes of a Sexual Nature and Miss Potter. The former -- Ed Blum's directorial debut, from a script by Aschlin Ditta -- is an ensemble piece about the illusions and realities in the relationships of seven British couples over the course of an afternoon on Hampstead Heath. The latter -- director Chris Noonan's long-awaited follow-up to his 1995 hit Babe -- is a biopic on the life of the much-loved children's author Beatrix Potter (played by Renée Zellweger). McGregor portrays Norman, her editor and paramour.McGregor was next cast in Marcel Langenegger's 2007 thriller The Tourist as Jonathan, an accountant who meets his dream girl at a local strip club but immediately becomes the prime suspect when the woman vanishes, and is accused of a multimillion-dollar theft. Over the coming years, McGregor would appear in a number of successful films, like Incendiary, Cassandra's Dream, I Love You, Phillip Morris, Amelia, Beginners, and Haywire.McGregor married French-born production designer Eve Mavrakis in 1995, with whom he has three children.

Trivia: Another distinguished product of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Lancashire-born Ian McShane made his professional stage, film and TV debut all in the same year: 1962. McShane's subsequent stage credits were as extensive as they were impressive, ranging from centuries-old classics to Tennessee Williams and Joe Orton. His TV resumé includes any number of TV-movies and miniseries: he played Judas in the internationally produced Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and was seen as the title character in the British "mini" Disraeli (1979). In America, he was a regular on the 1989-90 season of Dallas, playing Don Lockwood. McShane gained an international fan following as a result of his starring role in the widely-distributed TV series The Lovejoy Mysteries, originally filmed in 1986, then brought back by popular demand in 1990. Throughout the 90s, McShane was mostly absent from both the big screen and the small one. However, in 2000, he received recognition for playing a tough crime boss in the critically acclaimed Sexy Beast. It was certainly this hard-edged persona that attracted the producers of HBO's Deadwood to McShane. In 2004, he found himself with a regular gig on the foul-mouthed Western series, starring as an unscrupulous tavern-owner in a lawless 19th-century American prospecting town. He stayed with the show for its entire run, soon moving on to star as Max in the Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, before signing on to star in the NBC drama Kings in 2008. Loosely based on the story of King David, the show followed the story of a dynastic family in present-day America, but was cancelled after just a season. He went on to appear in the quirky thriller A 44 Inch Chest, before joining the likes of Donald Sutherland in the fantasy mini-series The Pillars of the Earth in 2010. Sticking with the fantastical theme, McShane next signed on to play the legendary pirate Blackbeard in the 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.In years to come, McShane would appear in several films, like Snow White and the Huntsman, as well as the mini series Pillars of the Earth.From 1965 to 1968, Ian McShane was married to actress Suzanne Farmer.

Trivia: A prolific character actor in his native Britain, Eddie Marsan specialized in challenging and provocative roles, in slightly tough and edgy projects that often took advantage of his unique, immediately identifiable countenance. After debuting as a bit player and guest star in English television series including Casualty, Game On, and The Bill, Marsan took one of his premier big-screen bows in Michael Radford's crime thriller B. Monkey (1998), then effectively played one of Tammany Hall's minions opposite Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's period crime epic Gangs of New York (2002). On a much different note, Marsan subsequently teamed up with English cause célèbre director Mike Leigh in the abortion-themed character study Vera Drake (2004) -- in which the actor ushered in a partly improvised portrayal of a kindly road worker who romances the title character's daughter. Drake brought Marsan an upsurge of attention, and thereafter, assignments rolled in quickly and furiously from both sides of the Atlantic. These included supporting roles in Isabel Coixet's gentle, atmospheric drama The Secret Life of Words, Neil Burger's period supernatural drama The Illusionist, and the mega-budgeted action extravaganza Mission: Impossible III. 2008 marked a busy period for Marsan; that year, he both tackled a supporting part opposite Will Smith and Charlize Theron in the superhero comedy Hancock, and -- on a much-anticipated note -- re-teamed with Mike Leigh for a prominent role as an angsty teacher in the slice-of-life comedy Happy-Go-Lucky.

Trivia: Despite the fact that his excrement-flinging moment of glory in director Danny Boyle's flamboyant adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel Trainspotting would forever leave an impression on adventurous filmgoers, and regardless of subsequent appearances alongside such Hollywood heavies as Ben Affleck in high-profile Hollywood releases like Pearl Harbor, actor Ewen Bremner has yet to achieve the level of success of Trainspotting cohorts Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle. An Edinburgh native whose art teacher parents actively supported his creative pursuits, Bremner first received widespread exposure when, at age 17, the theater workshop play in which he appeared transferred from Scotland to London's Royal Court. Subsequently making his feature debut with the U.K. television drama Heavenly Pursuits (1985), Bremner would take on supporting roles in Prince of Jutland (1994) and Judge Dredd (1995) before being catapulted into the international limelight as the hapless "Spud" in Trainspotting. Despite having essayed the lead as Renton in the popular stage adaptation of Trainspotting, Bremner no doubt made quite an impression with audiences in the key supporting role, his alternately pathetic and sympathetic put-upon character offering some of the film's finest comic moments. The following year, Bremner attempted to bypass the hype by taking some time off and pondering his future as an actor. Though such subsequent films as The Life of Stuff (1997) and The Acid House (1998, again adapted from the works of Welsh) contained Trainspotting's edgy humor, their attempts to be "hip" were notably strained, and neither film fared well at the box office. Bremner's role as the titular character in eccentric wonder-boy director Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy found him again overlooked when the film failed to click with critics and audiences, but the undaunted Bremner would soon crack up audiences with his supporting role as "Mullet" in Guy Ritchie's stylized follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch (2000). With his role in director Michael Bay's high-profile 2001 war film Pearl Harbor, the talented actor proved his versatility once and for all by essaying the role of a wholeheartedly patriotic American soldier fighting in WWII. When Bremner stepped back into fatigues the very next year for a supporting role in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, it appeared as if he might finally be achieving the success that had previously eluded him. The next year, he appeared as none other than legendary surrealist Salvador Dali in the U.K. television drama Surrealissimo: The Trial of Salvador Dali, and in the following few years, he would balance such high-profile Hollywood releases as The Rundown (2003) and Around the World in 80 Days (also 2003) with such foreign gems as the Swedish film Sweet Dreams. He was in 2004's Alien vs. Predator, and the next year played an Inspector in Woody Allen's Match Point. He was part of the ensemble in the original version of Death at a Funeral, and reteamed with Allen for 2010's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. In 2011 he appeared alongside Ewan McGreggor in the drama Perfect Sense, and also appeared in the spy drama Page Eight.

Trivia: Actor Warwick Davis is best known for portraying the title character -- a role written especially for him by story writer George Lucas -- in Ron Howard's sword and sorcery fantasy Willow (1988). Davis made his film debut at age 11 playing the Ewok Wicket W. Warrick in Return of the Jedi (1983). Then only 2'11" tall, he auditioned the role after his grandmother overheard a casting call for little people on the radio. During production he began a friendship with director George Lucas and went on to reprise the role in a pair of made-for-television movies: The Ewok Adventure (1984) and The Battle of Endor (1986). When Davis married in 1991, he and wife, Samantha Burroughs, honeymooned on Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Fans of horror fare will recognize Davis as the murderous, magical little person in the five Leprechaun (1993) films. In addition to his feature film work, which includes Prince Valiant (1997) and Star Wars: Episode 1, Davis has also appeared on television in movies and miniseries such as the BBC's popular Chronicle of Narnia and the American-made Gulliver's Travels (1996). In addition, he works occasionally on the British stage. Davis owns a production company, Inch High Productions, and for it has directed and produced musical and industrial videos. In 1994, he co-founded Willow Personal Management Ltd. with former castmate Peter Burroughs. They bill it as "The Largest Agency for Short Actors in the World."In the first decade of the 21st century Davis was cast as Professor Filius Flitwick in the Harry Potter films and he would go on to appear in every film in that highly successful franchise. He appeared in the 2004 biopic Ray, and in 2011 he joined forces with Ricky Gervais for the sitcom Life's Too Short.

Trivia: Won a scholarship to get Oxford Drama School. Is well known for his portrayal of 'baddie' Jez Quigley on Coronation Street. Met his wife on the set of Coronation Street. Likes working in America and hopes to continue his acting career there. Favourite actors include: Gary Oldham, Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep and Kenneth Cranham - who he worked with on Rome.

Trivia: British supporting actor Ben Daniels has spent much of his career on stage, but he also plays small roles in feature films, such as The Lost Language of Cranes (1992) and I Want You (1998). Daniels learned his craft at London's Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.

Trivia: Took up an international artistic residence in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London in 2004. Performed the dual roles in Nan and Lina in Auckland's Silo Theatre production of Richard Greenberg's play Three Days of Rain in 2007. Is a board member of New Zealand Actors' Equity and has served as its vice president.