Trivia: Actor Zac Efron's career began when he was just 11 years old, when his parents took note of his tremendous singing talent. They let him audition for a production of Gypsy, and he won a small role in a production that would run for 90 performances. He would eventually graduate to on-screen acting, scoring a recurring role on the hit series Summerland in 2004. This would seem like his big break, but an even bigger role would come the next year, in the hugely popular Disney feature High School Musical. Efron immediately earned a strong, loyal fan base, going on to star in big screen projects like Hairspray, 17 Again, Charlie St. Cloud, and The Lucky One.

Trivia: Lettered in baseball, football and track in high school. Nicknamed "Prime Time" and "Neon Deion." Played in both a World Series and a Super Bowl. Also, hit a home run in MLB action and scored a touchdown in the NFL in the same week. Has said he attempted suicide in a car crash in 1997. Selected for the Pro Bowl eight times in his NFL career. Coached the Dallas Fury, a women's pro basketball team. Hosted the Miss America Pageant in 2002. Owner of the Austin Wranglers, an Arena Football League team. Elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011.

Trivia: Actor Channing Tatum might be best known to audiences as a shirtless young man baring his muscular physique for the pages of Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs. His career began when he was cast as an extra in the Ricky Martin video for "She Bangs." Up until then, he'd been drifting from one job to another after the promising football career he prepared for in military school floundered when he entered college. Modeling proved to be a natural fit for Tatum, and he cultivated a successful career appearing in print ads and commercials for such companies as Nautica, Gap, Aeropostale, Emporio Armani, American Eagle, and Pepsi. His charisma in front of the camera didn't go unnoticed and he soon parlayed his modeling career into a shot at acting, landing an appearance on CSI: Miami in 2004. He was soon given a substantial role in the sports drama Coach Carter, which dealt with familiar subject matter for the lifelong athlete. He had no trouble being cast in films geared toward twentysomethings, as 2005 and 2006 brought him roles in Havoc, Supercross, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, She's the Man, and Step Up. Within only a few short years, Tatum had worked with many other up-and-coming actors of his generation, such as Amanda Bynes, Anne Hathaway, Jenna Dewan, and Bijou Phillips. In 2007, Tatum was cast in the leading role in 2007's epic Genghis Khan biopic Mongol: The Early Years of Genghis Khan, directed by legendary Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov, but he was later replaced by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano amid rumors that Tatum's dominantly caucasian features were ill recieved by producers, who wanted an actor of Asian descent to play the 13th century Mongolian leader. Tatum's career didn't stall as a result of the upset, however, as he was soon working with acclaimed director Kimberly Peirce on the Iraq War drama Stop-Loss. He played Pretty Boy Floyd in Michael Mann's gangster drama Public Enemies in 2009, the same year he had a prominent role in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2010 he appeared in the Nicholas Sparks written romantic drama Dear John. The next year he had a short but memorable part in The Dilemma, but 2012 turned out to be something of a breakout year for the actor when he appeared in a variety of projects. First up was Haywire, Steven Soderbergh's action thriller. While working on that film, the duo cooked up Magic Mike based on stories Channing shared about his days as a male stripper. That film opened in the summer of 2012. Between those two projects, the comedy 21 Jump Street came out, featuring Tatum as an undercover cop working a high school with his best friend and partner played by Jonah Hill. His work paid off when he was named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in late 2012. Tatum continued working at a neck-breaking pace the following year, reprising his role in the G.I. Joe sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation, starring in psychological thriller Side Effects and action film White House Down and appearing in cameo roles in This Is The End and Don Jon.

Trivia: Better known in many quarters by her initial stage name -- "Scary Spice" -- British diva Melanie Brown enjoyed a successful career as one of the singer/dancers in the late-'90s all-female Europop group the Spice Girls. She parlayed her celebrity into acting work as one of the leads in Spice World (1998), and then -- in the mid-2000s -- performed in stage productions of The Vagina Monologues and Rent. In 2007, Brown competed as one of the "celebrity dancers" (opposite dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy) on the fifth season of the popular ABC reality series Dancing with the Stars; the pair earned some of the season's highest scores and ended up coming in second place. She followed that success with the lead part in the little-seen thriller Telling Lies, and made a workout video in 2009.

Trivia: Skied in her first Olympics, in Salt Lake City, at age 17 in 2002. Suffered through a disappointing 2006 Winter Olympics after crashing in training, settling for seventh in the super-giant slalom and eighth in the downhill. She was given the U.S. Olympic Spirit Award for her efforts. Nominated for Best Female Athlete at the 2008 ESPY Awards, losing out to WNBA star Candace Parker.Severed a tendon in her right thumb while celebrating her 2009 World Championships downhill title, accidentally grabbing a broken champagne bottle. Vonn still raced a few days later. Became the first American woman to win Olympic gold in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games, adding a bronze medal in the Super G. Crashed at the 2013 World Championships, tearing two ligaments in her knee and breaking her leg, but still claimed her sixth straight World Cup title in the downhill. Re-injured her knee in November 2013 and ultimately pulled out of consideration for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.Has won a total of 78 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup races throughout her career, which is an all-time American women's record.Has won races in all five World Cup alpine skiing disciplines, one of only six racers to do so.Is one of only two skiers to win four Ladies Overall Alpine World Cup championships.

Trivia: A native of Missoula, MT, who came of age in Albuquerque, Jesse Tyler Ferguson first cut his dramatic chops on the American stage, delivering fluid performances in such on and off-Broadway productions as On the Town, The 25th Annual Puttnam County Spelling Bee, Little Fish, and Hair. Ferguson moved into filmed work as early as 2000, with a bit part in the made-for-television opus Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, and appeared on the British situation comedy Absolutely Fabulous, before making his mark as a regular on two series: The Class (2006), as Richie Velch, a former "nerd" thrust back into a social situation with various members of his third-grade class during adulthood; and Do Not Disturb, as a housekeeper at a Manhattan hotel more preoccupied with strife at home than with sticking to the requirements of his daily grind.

Trivia: A former standup comedian whose four-year stint as a Daily Show correspondent laid the groundwork for a successful onscreen career, Atlanta, GA, native Ed Helms has since gone on to keep fans in stitches as abrasive cubicle drone Andy Bernard on the hit television series The Office and as an undead flesh-eater who only wants a girlfriend and equal rights in the popular comedy short Zombie-American (2005). It was after a stint at Oberlin College in Ohio that Helms first began working the standup circuit, with regular appearances at some of the top comedy clubs in New York City quickly gaining him a loyal fan base. Helms' poker-faced sense of humor was an ideal fit for The Daily Show, and with only a handful of credits to his name, the rising star quickly became a regular fixture on the show. In 2006, shortly after wrapping a four-year stint on the Emmy Award-winning Comedy Central faux-newscast, Helms turned up as a member of the Stamford branch on The Office -- a series that also helped launch former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell to stardom. When the Stamford branch eventually merged with the Scranton branch in the series, Helms' angry ass-kisser became a regular fixture on the show -- his decidedly short-fused character quickly becoming a foil for office prankster Jim Halpert (played by John Krasinski). Having previously studied improvisational comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Helms became a semi-regular fixture at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City while simultaneously preparing for appearances in the Carell comedy Evan Almighty and the stoner-friendly sequel Harold and Kumar 2. He continued to get good reviews for his work on The Office, but he had a smash hit as one of the three bachelors trying to piece together their night in The Hangover. He would star in the very funny Cedar Rapids two years later, but that film would not do nearly as well at the box office as The Hangover Part II that same year. In 2012 he had a major part in The Duplass Brothers' Jeff, Who Lives At Home, and voiced one of the main characters in the smash animated film Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.

Trivia: Took tap-dancing lessons as a youngster. Modelled for Modell's Sporting Goods and Toys"R"Us. Appeared in Pleasure P's 2008 music video for "Did You Wrong." Provided the voice of Jace in the video game Gears of War 3. Was homeschooled but was allowed to play on the basketball team at New Jersey's Newark Arts High School. Once received a $40,000 royalty check that was supposed to be sent to NBA great Michael Jordan, who starred in Space Jam. The catchphrase "Where's Wallace?", a reference to his teen drug-dealer role in HBO's The Wire, became popular among fans of the series. His middle name, Bakari, is Swahili and means "of noble promise."

Trivia: A native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he was born on September 18, 1973, Marsden grew up with a sister and two brothers. Following a short stint at Oklahoma State University, he dropped out of school to move to Los Angeles and pursue his interest in acting. Marsden's move led to work as a Versace model and to a brief role as the original Griffin on Fox's Party of Five (the part would later be taken over by Jeremy London), as well as brief stints on a variety of other TV series. Marsden's growing fan base got another boost when he was cast alongside Katie Holmes and Nick Stahl in David Nutter's Disturbing Behavior; despite the film's lackluster performance, in part abetted by an overabundance of teen horror films, Marsden was able to nab the plum role of Cyclops in Singer's X-Men. One of the most highly anticipated films of 2000, it allowed the actor to work alongside the likes of Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, and Famke Janssen. Marsden's rising popularity was reflected in his busy schedule the following year; among his projects was Sugar and Spice, a black comedy that cast him opposite fellow up-and-comer Mena Suvari. In 2003 Marsden would once again appear as Cyclops in the big-budget X-Men sequel, X2. Marsden continued to work steadily insuch films as The Notebook and Heights before returning for trhe third installment of the X-Men franchise. Although he appeared again as Cyclops, he in fact scored more screen time in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns playing Lois Lane's husband who must contend with the fact that his wife is in love with the man of steel. He also played opposite Amy Adams in Enchanted a romantic fable that combined live-action with animation. Marsden would go on to enjoy a growing leading-man status, appearing in movies like The Box, Death at a Funeral, and a remake of Straw Dogs. Marsden would also appear in a memorable arc on 30 Rock.

Trivia: A veritable household name during the 2008 presidential election (in which he won the Democratic nomination, roundly defeating Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York), Barack Obama campaigned for the United States Presidency while serving as a Democratic senator in Illinois. The product of a unique and complex ethno-cultural heritage -- he began life in Honolulu as the son of a white Kansan mother and a Kenyan father -- Obama spent various periods of his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii. As a young man, he attended Columbia University as a political science major, then held a job as a Manhattan financial counselor before growing listless, moving to Chicago, and taking on a job as a community organizer -- a post that witnessed him working strenuously with churches to aid the impoverished in local housing projects. Obama later attended Harvard Law School, where he excelled, and became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. A successful bid for the Senate followed, culminating with a November 2004 victory. As a presidential candidate, Obama exuded a populist appeal that won him legions of supporters and enabled him to cinch the nomination. Obama beat Arizona senator John McCain in 2008 to become the 44th President of the United States. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Obama defeated former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in 2012 to secure a second term as president.Cinematically, Obama limited his exposure to participation in documentaries, including the biographical profiles Senator Obama Goes to Africa (2007) and Biography: Barack Obama (2007), and the Darfur genocide-themed muckraking documentary The Devil Came on Horseback (2007). He was the subject of the election year documentary 2016: Obama's America.

Trivia: As legend has it, when director Karyn Kusama was casting the lead for her directorial debut, Girlfight, she wanted to find a young woman who would radiate the powerful, surly charisma of the young Marlon Brando. Her search for an actor with this enviable but elusive quality ended when Michelle Rodriguez, a 20-year-old Latina whose previous experience was limited to work as an extra, answered an ad in Backstage magazine that Kusama had posted. Cast as Diana Guzman, the fierce and vibrant protagonist of Kusama's story of a high school girl who takes up boxing, Rodriguez went on to earn almost universal acclaim for her powerful portrayal, winning the admiration of audiences and critics from Sundance to Toronto.Of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, Rodriguez was born in Bell County, TX, on July 12, 1978. She moved around throughout her childhood and adolescence, living for a time in Texas, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Jersey City, NJ. It was while she was working as an extra in various film productions that she answered Kusama's ad for actors; after being cast as Girlfight's protagonist, she trained intensively to condition her body like that of a boxer to such a degree that, at one point, she was even asked to go pro. Her dedication to the physical and emotional demands of her character paid off lavishly, when Girlfight premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival it received the Grand Jury Prize, with Rodriguez's performance singled out as one of the most exciting breakthroughs in years; among the many kudos she subsequently received was the National Board of Review's prize for Best Breakthrough Performance.Rodriguez's status as one of the year's New Hot Young Thangs on the Block was duly reflected by the attention she was subsequently paid in both the media and Hollywood. In the following year, her projects included Rob Cohen's The Fast and the Furious, an urban adrenaline extravaganza in which she played the tough girlfriend of a gang leader alongside Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Jordanna Brewster, and 3 A.M., a made-for-cable drama which cast her as a taxi driver and was screened at the Sundance Festival.Striving to maintain the balance between sexy and tough, Rodriguez would take on zombies in Resident Evil (2002) before hitting the waves in Blue Crush. Though neither film proved a bona fide box-office smash, they did offer the up and coming actress the exposure needed to develop an enduring career. Rodriguez could next be seen opposite Colin Farrell in the hard-hitting action thriller S.W.A.T. In 2005, Rodriguez appeared briefly on the first season of NBC's endlessly enigmatic primetime drama Lost as Ana Lucia Cortez, a tough cop with a shady past. She reprised the role in the following season, when she clashed heads with fellow flight survivor Jack (Matthew Fox) and struggled with her changing status within the group. The actress also starred in The Breed and Battle in Seattle, and co-stars as a tough-as-nails pilot in Avatar (2009), director James Cameron's science fiction adventure.

Trivia: A handful of actresses carry such a wellspring of inner grace and presence that they appear destined for celebrity from birth. Natalie Wood had it, as did Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly; many would doubtless place Kate Winslet among their ranks. A tender 11 when she commenced her formal dramatic training, 19 when she debuted cinematically, and 20 when she received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, Winslet never "ascended" to stardom; she became a star overnight. The possessor of an hourglass-figured, full-lipped beauty that lends itself effortlessly to costume dramas, Winslet was roundly hailed by the press for standing in stark, proud contrast to her more conventional Hollywood peers. Born on October 5, 1975, and raised in Reading, England, as the daughter of stage actors and the granddaughter of a repertory theater manager, Winslet inherited the "drama bug" from her folks. After training exhaustively as a child and securing professional representation she went on the air as a spokesgirl for a popular British cereal, and later attended a performing-arts secondary school. Following an early graduation in 1991 (prior to the age of 16), Winslet launched her regional stage career, highlighted by roles in adaptations of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and Peter Pan. It would be difficult to imagine a more auspicious film bow than the role of Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures -- or a more difficult one. This characterization -- that of an extroverted adolescent who constructs an incestuously exclusive fantasy world with her best friend (Melanie Lynskey) -- put Winslet on the map, and opened the door for follow-ups in international megahits such as Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), as the willful, passionate Marianne; and James Cameron's Titanic (1997), as the object of Leonardo Di Caprio's affections, Rose DeWitt Bukater. She received dual Oscar nominations for those roles, but, surprisingly, failed to net either one.Meanwhile, Winslet concurrently shied away from the high gloss of Cameron and unveiled her stage origins, traveling the arthouse circuit with such productions as Michael Winterbottom's Jude (1996), as Sue Bridehead; and Kenneth Branagh's disappointing, overbaked, four-hour Hamlet (1996), as Ophelia. Hideous Kinky embodied a turn on a much smaller scale. Directed by Scottish helmer Gillies MacKinnon (and scripted by his brother, Billy), the film casts Winslet as a freewheeling young hippie who takes her children to Morocco in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Beyond the positive reviews gleaned by the film and the praise that critics lavished onto Winslet's performance, one of the most alluring sidelights happened off camera, when Winslet dated and then married James Threapleton, the third assistant director on the MacKinnon film. The couple divorced in 2001.During 1999 and 2000, Winslet dove into two roles that required her to cut loose and break free of all inhibitions. First, she played another young woman in search of spiritual enlightenment, this time in Jane Campion's Holy Smoke. Starring as an Australian girl who joins a cult on a visit to India, and is then "deprogrammed" by Harvey Keitel, Winslet's role pushed her beyond the limits of propriety and embarrassment (one scene has her standing naked and urinating in front of Keitel). Unfortunately, one or two brave performances did not an unequivocal masterpiece make; the picture sharply divided critics, falling far short of the praise heaped onto Campion's The Piano six years earlier. Even gutsier (though more successful on a dramatic level) was Winslet's turn as a laundress who delivers the Marquis de Sade's manuscripts to the outside world in Phil Kaufman's Quills. Winslet reentered the Oscar limelight with yet another Academy-nommed performance as a youthful Iris Murdoch in director Richard Eyre's Iris, but the gold statuette eluded her a third time when Jennifer Connelly netted it for A Beautiful Mind. In early 2003, she hit a low point as Bitsey Bloom, opposite Kevin Spacey in The Life of David Gale. Based on the experience of a University of Texas professor -- an avid anti-death-penalty activist faced with execution after a false conviction -- Winslet portrayed the reporter who broke the story in a desperate attempt to discover the truth behind the mysterious and brutal crime for which Gale was convicted. As scripted by Charles Randolph and directed by Alan Parker, the picture opened and closed almost simultaneously, to devastating, brutal reviews. Winslet fared better in 2004, as the love interest opposite Jim Carrey in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This humorous and poignant mindbender, with a tender romance at its core, scored on all fronts, as did Winslet's performance, earning her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. She followed it up with a return to period film in Finding Neverland (2005), a movie about Victorian author J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp. Playing the inspiration for the character of Wendy in the beloved novel Peter Pan seemed only natural for the charming actress, who had long since proven herself a similarly charismatic onscreen force. The next year, 2006, found Winslet in a quintet of back-to-back projects. In the CG-animated Flushed Away -- from Aardman and Dreamworks -- she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Hugh Jackman's Roddy escape from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. That year, she also headlined the political drama All the King's Men, opposite Sean Penn. Written and directed by Schindler's List's Steven Zaillian, the picture cast Winslet as Jude Law's childhood sweetheart; while overflowing with talent, the long-gestating remake was a major misfire with critics and audiences. Perhaps more fortuitously, Winslet joined the cast of Todd Field's Little Children, an ensemble comedy drama about fear and loathing in an upper-class suburb in New England. The film would net her her fifth Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. More financially successful was her involvement in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Holiday, as Iris, a British woman who temporarily "swaps homes," as part of a vacation ploy, with Cameron Diaz's Amanda, and has an affair with Jack Black. Meanwhile, Winslet and Johnny Depp reunited for the first occasion since Finding Neverland as narrators of the IMAX documentary Deep Sea 3D (2006), filmmaker Howard Hall's lavish exploration of the aquatic depths, designed for young viewers.After taking some time off in 2007, Winslet returned in 2008 with a pair of award-winning performances. Playing opposite her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road earned her Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press, as well as a healthy number of year-end critics awards. But it was her work in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of The Reader that provided her with the sixth Academy nomination of her career, as well as Best Supporting Actress nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press made history that year selecting her the winner in both the Best Actress in a drama and the Best Supporting Actress categories at that year's Golden Globes.In 2011, Winslet would win an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in HBO's 5-part miniseries Mildred Pierce, and take on a lead role in Contagion, a disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. In 2013, she starred in Labor Day and joined the Divergent film series, returning for the film's sequel, Insurgent, in 2015. She also starred in Steve Jobs, and earned her seventh Oscar nomination.

Trivia: Born on June 15, 1964, Courteney Cox grew up with three older siblings in Mountain Brook, an affluent Alabama town. Though Cox participated in multiple extracurricular activities during her high school years, she did not exercise her taste for acting until she dropped out of the architecture program at Mount Vernon College. Landing a contract with the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency led Cox to several commercial appearances. Her first official role arrived in 1984, when she was cast as a young debutante in one episode of the long-running soap opera As the World Turns.Her big break, however, was rooted in director Brian De Palma's decision to feature Cox as the girl pulled from the audience in Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" video. Years later, after the actress had gained a great deal more notoriety, this short music-video appearance became a key piece of celebrity trivia in a multitude of magazines and entertainment shows. In 1985, she starred alongside Dean Paul Martin in the forgettable series Misfits of Science. Cox reappeared on the television screen as Michael J. Fox's girlfriend, Psychology major Lauren Miller, in the '80s sitcom Family Ties. Though Cox landed bit parts in a handful of mediocre films (Mr. Destiny, The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them) after Family Ties wrapped in 1989, her status as an actress officially gelled in 1994, when she co-starred with Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and, most notably, won the role of Monica Geller on the hugely successful sitcom Friends. This role brought her a nomination for an American Comedy Award, as well as a prominent role in Wes Craven's Scream trilogy. Cox's role as the notoriously cutthroat reporter Gale Weathers was significant not only in terms of critical acclaim, but also because the set of Scream was where she met fellow actor David Arquette, whom she married in 1999.Although she certainly attempted to match the big screen-success of her fellow Friends castmates with such efforts as 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001), and The Longest Yard (2005), Cox-Arquette fought a tortuous uphill battle, and never managed to land a part that brought her nearly as much goodwill as the high-strung Monica. She voiced Daisy the Cow in Steve Oedekerk's 2006 animated feature Barnyard, alongside an all-star cast that includes Danny Glover, Kevin James, Wanda Sykes, Sam Elliott and Andie MacDowell. The endeavor became a double-edged sword; on one hand, most critics detested the $50 million picture; on the other, it worked wonders at the box office, as one of the top grossers of its season. Cox-Arquette's decision to join the cast of the family-friendly superhero story Zoom alongside Tim Allen and Chevy Chase didn't prove nearly as capricious. The picture suffered from relentless (though arguably justifiable) critical drubbings and performed abysmally on a commercial front, grossing just over $4 million in the week that followed its premiere - from an estimated $60 million budget. It also became the latest in Allen's long line of box office stinkers that included Christmas with the Kranks, Joe Somebody, and many others; The New York Times's Jeannette Catsoulis moaned that it "bleeds boredom from every frame," while Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwartzbaum observed, "this lifeless family comedy sucks the joy from every joke it touches."That same year, the trades indicated Cox's forthcoming producer credit in longtime husband David Arquette's 2007 directorial debut, the slasher picture The Tripper, with Balthazar Getty, Paul Reubens and Lukas Haas. The Hostel-like story involved a group of potheads who travel to a Woodstock-esque concert for indulgence in sensual (and visceral) pleasures, but find themselves stalked by a psychotic. Cox and Arquette each cameo in the film. 2007 also found Cox returning to TV, producing and starring in the dramatic thriller Dirt, about the seedy side of an already seedy industry - the tabloid press. The show only ran until 2008, but Cox was soon onto the next project, the sitcom Cougar Town, which she produced and starred in as well. By 2011, she was back in the movies, working on Scream 4 -- though during the production of the film, she and husband/co-star David Arquette announced they were separating; their divorce was finalized in 2013.

Trivia: Known to legions of fans as the mop-topped frontman of teen pop band the Jonas Brothers, Nick Jonas began his career at a young age, appearing on Broadway when he was only seven. A child of musical parents, the New Jersey native co-wrote a song called "Joy to the World (A Christmas Prayer") with his father, which he recorded with his castmates from the stage show of Beauty and the Beast for a charity Christmas album in 2002. The song reached the ears of Columbia record execs in 2004, who signed the 12 year old to a contract. While writing and arranging songs for his debut self-titled album, Nick collaborated with his brothers Kevin and Joseph, and the trio made such great music together that they were subsequently signed as a team. They released their debut album as a band, It's About Time, in 2006 when they were just 13, 14, and 16. The trio were then signed to Disney's Hollywood Records, through which they released their 2007 self-titled sophomore album, as well as 2008's A Little Bit Longer, and became a regular fixture on the Disney Channel, appearing on shows like Zoey 101 and Hannah Montana. The Jonas Brothers became a phenomenal hit with tween audiences and were soon selling out arenas, as well as starring in movies like Camp Rock and The Jonas Brothers 3-D. The success of Camp Rock led to the brothers getting their own Disney Channel series Jonas that lasted two seasons. The trio went to the well one more time with Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam in 2010. He also released his first solo album in 2010.