Trivia: Long the bad boy of Hollywood, Sean Penn is also among the most fiercely talented actors of his generation. He was born August 17, 1960, in Burbank, CA, the second son of actress Eileen Ryan and director Leo Penn. He grew up in Santa Monica, in a neighborhood populated by future celebrities Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez, the sons of actor Martin Sheen. Penn's older brother, Michael, is a singer/songwriter-turned- director, while younger sibling Chris is a noted character actor. The children spent much of their free time together, making a number of amateur films shot with Super-8 cameras. Still, Penn's original intention was to attend law school, although he ultimately skipped college to join the Los Angeles Repertory Theater. After making his professional debut on an episode of television's Barnaby Jones, he relocated to New York, where he soon appeared in the play Heartland. A TV-movie, The Killing of Randy Webster, followed in 1981 before he made his feature debut later that same year in Taps.Penn shot to stardom with 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High; as the stoned surfer dude Jeff Spicoli, he stole every scene in which he appeared, helping to elevate the picture into a classic of the teen comedy genre; however, the quirkiness which would define his career quickly surfaced as he turned down any number of Spicoli-like roles to star in the 1983 drama Bad Boys, followed a year later by the Louis Malle caper comedy Crackers and the period romance Racing With the Moon. While none of the pictures performed well at the box office, critics consistently praised Penn's depth as an actor. A turn as a drug addict turned government spy in John Schlesinger's 1985 political thriller The Falcon and the Snowman earned some of his best notices to date, but Penn's performance was quickly lost in the glare of the media attention surrounding his very public romance with pop singer Madonna, which culminated in the couple's 1985 media-circus wedding.While Madonna actively courted press attention, the private Penn made his loathing for the media quite clear; his run-ins with the paparazzi quickly became the stuff of legend, and the notoriety of his temper began to eclipse even his immense acting ability. His penchant for fisticuffs, combined with other civil infractions, ultimately resulted in a 30-day jail sentence; more seriously, his marriage to Madonna began to buckle under the weight of media scrutiny, and, as the couple's star collaboration in the 1987 movie Shanghai Surprise met with box-office disaster, their private relationship was also over. Soured by the Hollywood experience, Penn did not resurface prior to 1988's Colors, which proved to be his biggest hit in some time. He next appeared in Brian DePalma's Vietnam tale Casualties of War, followed by a turn opposite his idol, Robert De Niro, in the 1989 comedy We're No Angels.After starring in the gangster melodrama State of Grace, Penn wrote and directed 1991's The Indian Runner, a film inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song and shaped in the image of the films of John Cassavetes. After an almost unrecognizable turn as a troubled attorney in the 1993 DePalma thriller Carlito's Way, Penn announced his intention to retire from acting in order to focus his full attentions on directing; however, after helming 1995's The Crossing Guard with Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston, he was back onscreen, winning an Academy Award nomination for his gut-wrenching portrayal of a death-row inmate in Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking. By 1997, Penn's wishes for retirement were but a memory as he enjoyed his busiest year yet: In addition to starring opposite second wife Robin Wright in Nick Cassavetes' She's So Lovely -- roles which won both spouses acting honors at the Cannes Film Festival -- he also appeared in the David Fincher thriller The Game and in Oliver Stone's U-Turn. He found further acclaim the following year for his roles in the adaptation of David Rabe's Hurlyburly and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. In 1999, he had a cameo appearance in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich and earned his second Oscar nomination as a callous '30s jazz guitarist in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown, while 2000s adaptation of Anita Shreve's novel, The Weight of Water, starred Penn as a poet embroiled in a small town murder mystery. In 2001, Penn would play a fame-craving impressionist in The Beaver Trilogy, serve as narrator in director Stacy Peralta's skateboarding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, and direct the psychological drama The Pledge, which marked Penn's second collaboration with Jack Nicholson. In 2002, Penn would once again win critical praise with his Oscar-nominated portrayal of a developmentally disabled man struggling to retain custody of his daughter in I Am Sam.After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the left-leaning actor's outspoken political views garnered a great deal of attention from right-wing pundits, including the much aggrieved Bill O'Reilly, who found himself on the receiving end of Penn's animosity in a controversial interview with Talk magazine. Though O'Reilly demanded his viewers boycott any of Penn's future films, it appears his career has remained relatively unscathed. In 2002, Penn directed a segment for the French-produced 9'11"01, which was met with mixed reviews, while his participation in Burkowski: Born Into This (2002) helped the film win a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. The year 2003 was, in fact, an eventful year for Penn; he participated in two small but nonetheless critically acclaimed films -- Michael Almereyda's documentary This So-Called Disaster and Alejandro González Iñárritu's low-key urban drama 21 Grams -- while managing to claim yet another Hollywood success in actor/director Clint Eastwood's highly lauded Mystic River. In 2004, it was this third film that garnered Penn his fourth Academy Award nomination and, ultimately, his first win. The Oscar, coupled with a standing ovation by the audience, showed once and for all that Penn's unorthodox approach to his acting career hadn't had an adverse effect on his popularity.The following year Penn would return to the screen to document one man's chilling descent into madness in the fact-based psychological drama The Assassination of Richard Nixon, but despite generally favorable reaction from critics the grim feature failed to make much of an impression at the box office. Subsequently sticking to politics with Sydney Pollock's 2005 thriller The Interpreter, Penn would this time find his character attempting to prevent the assassination of a high profile political leader rather than personally carry one out. By the time Penn essayed the role of a populist Southern politician modeled loosely on Depression-era Louisiana governor Huey Long, it seemed as if the serious-minded actor's career had finally become as political as the boat-rocking rhetoric that often found him sailing into the headlines. The third screen adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's influential novel, All the King's Men featured an impressive list of top-name Hollywood talent including Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini, and Mark Ruffalo. In 2008, Penn received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Milk, a biopic starring Penn in the role of politician and civil rights activist Harvey Milk. Shortly afterwards, Penn starred in Fair Game, an adaptation of author Valerie Plame's novel of the same name, and co-starred with Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain in director Terrence Malick's critically acclaimed drama The Tree of Life in 2011. In 2013, he had a small role as gangster Mickey Cohen in Gangster Squad and a supporting role in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Trivia: Tim Robbins ranks among contemporary cinema's most acclaimed and provocative voices; a multifaceted talent, he has proved so adept at wearing the various hats of actor, writer, and director that no less a figure than the legendary filmmaker Robert Altman declared him the second coming of Orson Welles. Born October 16, 1958, in West Covina, CA, he was the son of folk singer Gil Robbins; raised in Greenwich Village, he made his performing debut alongside his father on a duet of the protest song "Ink Is Black, Page Is White." At the age of 12, Robbins joined the Theater for the New City, remaining a member for the next seven years; he also joined his high-school drama club, an experience which afforded him his first opportunities to direct for the stage. After briefly attending the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, he relocated to Los Angeles to study at UCLA; there he also joined the Male Death Cult, an intramural softball team comprised of his fellow drama students. After graduating, the teammates reunited to form the Actors' Gang, an avant-garde theater troupe noted for productions of works by the likes of Bertolt Brecht and Alfred Jarry. After guest starring on television series including Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, in 1984 Robbins made his film debut with a bit part in the feature Toy Soldiers. His first starring role came in 1985's teen sex romp Fraternity Vacation. Small roles in hits including Top Gun and The Sure Thing followed before a breakout performance as a doltish fastballer in Ron Shelton's hit 1988 baseball comedy Bull Durham. An onscreen romance with co-star Susan Sarandon soon expanded into their offscreen lives as well, and the twosome became one of Hollywood's most prominent couples. A series of starring roles in films including 1989's misbegotten Erik the Viking and 1990s Jacob's Ladder followed, before Altman's 1992 showbiz satire The Player won Robbins Best Actor honors at the Cannes Film Festival. That same year, he wrote, directed, starred, and performed the music in Bob Roberts, a mock-documentary brutally parodying right-wing politics.Upon appearing in Altman's 1993 ensemble piece Short Cuts, Robbins enjoyed starring roles in four major 1994 releases: The Hudsucker Proxy, I.Q., Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter), and the Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption. However, his most acclaimed project to date was 1995's Dead Man Walking, a gut-wrenching examination of the death penalty, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director; Sean Penn, portraying a death-row inmate, garnered a Best Actor nomination while Sarandon won Best Actress honors. After a three-year hiatus from acting, Robbins returned to the screen in 1997 with the comedy Nothing to Lose; he soon announced plans to mount a film adaptation of Cradle Will Rock, the Marc Blitzstein play first staged by Orson Welles six decades earlier. The film, which examined the relationship between art and politics in 1930s America, premiered at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. That same year, audiences could view Robbins as a clean-cut suburban terrorist opposite Jeff Bridges in Arlington Road, as well as see the fruits of his directorial work in Cradle Will Rock. Robbins opened the year 2000 with a brief but nonetheless fun role as the maddeningly calm Ian in High Fidelity. The early 2000s presented a series of misfires for Robbins -- AntiTrust (2001), Mission to Mars (2000), and Human Nature (2001), writer Charlie Kaufman's eagerly awaited follow-up to Being John Malkovich, fared rather badly in theaters -- though his versatility and respect within the industry remained solid. The polarizing presidential elections of 2002 certainly thrust Robbins into the political spotlight, if not major big-screen successes. After multiple appearances on Politically Incorrect and various awards shows gave Robbins a platform for some of his views concerning the right-wing agenda, the legitimacy of the Bush administration, and the controversial pre-emptive action in Iraq, the planned screening of Bull Durham (and a subsequent appearance from Robbins and Susan Sarandon) for the 15th anniversary of the film at the Baseball Hall of Fame was surprisingly cancelled in what Robbins claimed was a retaliatory measure.By the end of 2003, the controversy was a distant memory with Robbins hitting it big with audiences and critics alike in the film adaptation of Mystic River. The performance, which saw Robbins as a tragic adult who couldn't overcome a devastating childhood, eventually won the actor his second Golden Globe along with his first ever Oscar.Robbins followed up his Oscar win by switching gears substantially. In 2004, audiences could find him as a caricature of a cutthroat PBS newsman in an extended cameo in Anchorman and starring opposite Samantha Morton in the futuristic sci-fi thriller Code 46. In 2004 Robbins wrote and staged a satire about the Iraq war titled Embedded. He returned to the big-screen as the father in the science-fiction family fantasy Zathura. In the same year he turned in a memorable supporting performance as a deranged survivor of an alien attack in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. One year later he played a white police officer in Philip Noyce's anti-Apartheid drama Catch a Fire. And though Robbins' politics seemed to overshadow his celebrity in the first years of the new millennium, film roles in City of Ember and Green Lantern, as well as an appearance on SNL alum Fred Armisen's satirical television series Portlandia kept the longtime actor in the public eye as he continued to hone his directoral skills with the made-for-television movie Possible Side Effects, and episodes of the popular HBO series Treme. Meanwhile, in 2010, Tim Robbins & the Rogue's Gallery Band released their self-titled debut album.

Trivia: Rarely can it be said that an actor is so recognized and of such prominence that a game can be played by connecting him to just about any other celebrity simply through referencing his resumé. Any film buff has most likely participated in a round of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and it's likely that if their opponent was an avid cinephile they came out on the losing end of the match. This should come as no surprise, considering Bacon's extensive and diverse body of work. Born in Philadelphia, PA, in 1958, Bacon received his education at The Circle in the Square (where he became the youngest student to appear in a production) and Manning Street Actor's Theater after leaving home at the age of 18. Two years later, Bacon made his feature debut as the smarmy Chip Diller in director John Landis' beloved frat-house epic Animal House. Following in the next few years with minor roles in such seemingly forgettable films as Hero at Large and Friday the 13th (both 1980), Bacon would re-create his off-Broadway role of a drug-addicted male prostitute in Forty Deuce the same year that he made a memorable appearance as the troubled Timothy Fenwick in Barry Levinson's Diner (1982). Though he had appeared in a few major films and displayed an intriguing range of abilities, it was 1984's Footloose that brought Bacon his breakthrough role. As the big-city boy crusading against the puritanical constraints against dancing imposed by a well-meaning but overbearing fundamentalist minister, Bacon became a teen icon -- an image that, though it propelled him to stardom, would prove difficult to shed. Following Footloose's success with a series of curious failures such as Quicksilver (1986) and White Water Summer (1987), it was on the set of Lemon Sky (also 1987) that Bacon would meet future wife Kyra Sedgwick; the couple exchanged wedding vows the following year. Though he would appear in a few other failed-but-interesting, audience-pleasing thrillers such as Tremors (1989) and Flatliners (1990) in the following years, it was with his role in conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) that Bacon found his career revived and began to shed his heartthrob image. Narrowly escaping the Brat Pack trappings of his '80s contemporaries, subsequent roles after JFK may not have all scored direct hits at the box office for Bacon, but audiences were now well aware of his talents and thirsted for more. Bacon would again prove his substantial range in the true story of a brutalized prison inmate opposite Gary Oldman in 1995's Murder in the First. His performance as the disillusioned and broken prisoner, accentuated by his famished and frail skeletal figure, was followed by an equally challenging reality-based role as a member of the troubled Apollo 13 (1995) lunar mission team in director Ron Howard's widely praised film. Proving that he could play sleaze as successfully as slice-of-life, Bacon took a turn for the worse as the sadistic reform-school guard responsible for the rape of a trio of young boys in Sleepers (1996) and as a cop investigating accusations of rape in director John McNaughton's raunchy sex-thriller Wild Things. Bacon's entertaining turn as a receptive father tangled in a mind-bending murder mystery in Stir of Echoes (1999) gained positive reviews, though the intelligent and subtle shocker withered in the shadow of another similarly themed thriller, The Sixth Sense. Though he wasn't visible for the majority of the film, Bacon fell into psychotic territory as the malicious genius consumed by his discovery of the key to invisibility in Paul Verhoeven's sadistic Hollow Man (2000). After an uncredited supporting role in the independent comedy Novocaine, Bacon once again went for the throat in Trapped; and though audiences were generally entertained by the film, it ultimately fell victim to a quick death at the box office due to poor timing (numerous stories of child abductions had been making headlines at the time Trapped was released). Of course with an actor such as Bacon, it was only a matter of time before he once again tackled a substantial dramatic role, and with the release of Mystic River in 2003 audiences found him doing just that. Adapted from the novel of the same name by author Dennis Lehane and directed by Clint Eastwood, Mystic River provided audiences with a brutal, slow-burning study in the effects of violence and the nature of revenge, withBacon's turn as a sympathetic detective playing pitch perfect opposite a mournful performance by Sean Penn. That same year, Bacon showed up in an uncredited role in the Jane Campion thriller In the Cut before taking the lead in the emotional drama The Woodsman.Bacon would continue to work on a variety of projects over the coming years, appearing in everything from the tense period thriller Where the Truth Lies to the ensemble rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love, to the superhero flick X-Men: First Class. Soon however, the actor found himself hungry for a more substantial project, and he found it with the Billy Bob Thornton directed drama Jane Mansfield's Car in 2012, which found him acting alongside heavyweights like Robert Duvall and John Hurt. In 2013, Bacon turned to television, headlining Fox's drama The Following.In addition to his film work, Bacon has frequently toured with brother Michael, playing upbeat country-folk rock under the alliterate moniker the Bacon Brothers.

Trivia: Dramatic actor Laurence Fishburne gained widespread acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his gripping performance as the Svengali-like Ike Turner in the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It (1993) and went on to rack up an impressive string of credits playing leads and supporting roles on stage, screen, and television.Born in Augusta, GA, the sole child of a corrections officer and an educator, Fishburne was raised in Brooklyn following his parents' divorce. An unusually sensitive child with a natural gift for acting, he was taken to various New York stage auditions before landing his first professional role at the age of ten. Two years later, he made his feature film debut with a major role in Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975). A turning point in the young actor's career came when he lied about his age and won the role of a young Navy gunner in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. On location in the Philippines, the teenage actor effectively bade farewell to childhood as he endured the many legendary problems that befell Coppola's production over the next two years. In between shooting days, Fishburne hung out with the adult actors, often exposing himself to their offscreen drinking and drugging antics.Back in Hollywood by the late '70s, he continued playing small supporting roles in features and on television. Like many black actors, he was frequently relegated to playing thugs and young hoodlums. He would continue to appear in Coppola productions like Rumble Fish (1983) and The Cotton Club (1984) throughout the 1980s. Wanting a change from playing heavies, he accepted a recurring role as friendly Cowboy Curtis opposite Paul Reubens on the loopy CBS children's series Pee-Wee's Playhouse. By the early '90s, Fishburne had begun to escape the stereotypical roles of his early career. In 1990, he played a psychotic hit man opposite Christopher Walken in Abel Ferrara's King of New York and a chess-playing hustler in Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). Following his great success in the Tina Turner biopic, he became one of Hollywood's most prolific actors, appearing in films such as John Singleton's Higher Learning (1995). Fishburne, who had known Singleton when the latter was a security guard on the Pee-Wee's Playhouse set, had previously appeared in the director's debut film Boyz 'N the Hood (1991). After Higher Learning came Othello (1995) and Always Outnumbered, which he also produced. Fishburne had previously produced Hoodlum (1997), in which he also starred. In 1999, he stepped into blockbuster territory with his starring role in the stylish sci-fi action film The Matrix. Increasingly geared towards action films, Fishburne could be seen in the fast and furious motorcycle flick Biker Boyz as fans prepared for the release of the upcoming Matrix sequels. Indeed, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (2003) earned Fishburne further praise from both fans and critics. The same year, Fishburne co-starred with Tim Robbins and Sean Penn in the role of a homicide detective for the Academy Award-winning thriller Mystic River. The actor went on to star as a cop-killing mobster for the crime drama Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), and as a somber professor of English in the critically acclaimed urban drama Akeelah and the Bee (2006). He would co-star in the ensemble political docudrama chronicling the life and death of Robert F. Kennedy (also in 2006), and join the cast of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007. Fishburne found success again in director Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (2011), and co-stars in the Superman reboot Man of Steel (2013) as the editor-and-chief of "The Daily Planet". In addition to his work in cinema, Fishburne has established a distinguished stage career, winning a Tony Award in 1992, for his role in August Wilson's Two Trains Running.

Trivia: Often noted for her striking feature debut as a gun-toting seductress in the Coen brothers' noirish gangster crime thriller Miller's Crossing (1990), Marcia Gay Harden has since bounced between disparaging disappointment and critical prosperity, and is commonly praised for her chameleon-like ability to immerse herself in characters that are often the polar opposite of the cheerfully optimistic actress.Born in La Jolla, CA, on August 14, 1959, as the third of five children in a military family, Harden's clan moved constantly. Her passion for drama sparked by a period that the family spent in Greece (when she attended Athenian plays), Harden studied drama in college, earning a B.A. in theater from the University of Texas, and an M.F.A. in theater from New York University. After graduation, Harden continued to hone her acting talents on stage in Washington, D.C. Immediately evincing an innate ability to portray a wide range of characterizations, Harden earned two Helen Hayes Award nominations - one for her role in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart and one for her role in The Miss Firecracker Contest. Angels in America brought Harden to Broadway, where she found further success in earning both Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations, as well as winning the Theater World Award for Best Actress. Though she had made an impressive screen debut in Miller's Crossing, disappointment soon followed with a slew of critically shunned successes mixed with a series of creative misfires. Though discouraged in the critics' failure to recognize what Harden considered to be some of her best work, Harden began to focus less on Hollywood validation for happiness, and instead shifted her attention to refining her acting abilities. Moving from quirky dramatic roles, such as her manipulative character in Crush (1992), to quiet dramas like 1996's The Spitfire Grill, and such mainstream efforts as The First Wives Club (also 1996) and Meet Joe Black (1998), Harden felt comfortable in a wide variety of roles. She also occasionally compromised on her choice of material during this period (perhaps out of necessity) - such as the dumb-dumb comedy Spy Hard, with Leslie Nielsen, and the 1997 Absent Minded Professor rehash Flubber (starring Robin Williams).But her fortunes began to turn with a supporting role in Ed Harris' long-anticipated Jackson Pollock biopic Pollock (2000) that finally brought the actress much-deserved, mainstream critical recognition for her work. Reunited with Harris from their pairing in an earlier stage production of Sam Shepard's Simpatico, Harden's role as Pollock's dysfunctional muse earned her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at the 2000 Academy Awards. The dawning years of the new millennium were undeniably kind to the tireless actress, and after a trio of made-for-television movies in the year 2000 Harden essayed the role of a stylish but enigmatic catalyst to a mystery with decidedly comic undertones in Susan Seidelman's Gaudi Afternoon, and portrayed the NASA engineer love interest of Tommy Lee Jones's crop duster, Hawk, in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys; Harden and Eastwood forged a strong professional bond and would work together again, several years later.A brief foray into sitcom territory followed soon thereafter, when Harden co-starred with Richard Dreyfuss in shortlived television series The Education of Max Bickford (2001), and the following year, she stuck to the small screen for the mini-series Guilty Hearts and the made-for-television feature King of Texas (the latter earning her a a Golden Sattelite nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Made for Television). An adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear set in the Old West, King of Texas found Harden essaying the role of cattle-baron John Lear's (Patrick Stewart) eldest daughter. Equally busy in 2003, Harden abandoned the small screen to work with some of the most acclaimed filmmakers in Hollywood. Following her second onscreen assignment for Clint Eastwood - in his deeply flawed but commendable ensemble piece Mystic River - Harden essayed the role of a mother attempting to adopt a South American girl in longtime indie filmmaker John Sayles' Casa de Los Babys and provided a key supporting performance in Mike Newell's Mona Lisa Smile. She contributed to the disappointing (and eminently forgettable) Gene Hackman/Ray Romano onscreen pairing Welcome to Mooseport (as president Hackman's campaign manager) but fared better by joining the cast of Richard Linklater's remake The Bad News Bears, starring Billy Bob Thornton (Harden plays the mom who brings Thornton's slovenly Morris Buttermaker in to coach the team). After relatively limited work throughout 2005 - including a small-scale voiceover assignment as Willa Cather in Joel Geyer's Willa Cather: the Road is All and Mrs. Merriman in the heartwarming family drama Felicity: An American Girl Adventure - Harden's activity crescendoed over the course of 2006, with appearances in no less than three A-list features. These entailed work in multiple genres, and suggested a broad array of fun and challenging characterizations. In Lasse Hallstrom's late 2006 docudrama The Hoax, Harden plays Edith Irving, the wife of scam artist Clifford Irving (portrayed by Richard Gere) during his notorious early-1970s scheme to forge an autobiography of the late Howard Hughes. In Paul Weitz's American Dreams, she plays yet another matron - this time the wife of American president Dennis Quaid, as the generally clueless fellow (!) is sent on a nationally-broadcast talent program. And Harden joins the celebrity-studded ensemble of the more conventional Dead Girl - a murder mystery directed by Karen Moncrieff, whose cast members include Harden, Giovanni Ribisi, Brittany Murphy, Piper Laurie, Josh Brolin, and Mary Steenburgen. The plot recalls Ray Lawrence's Lantana, in its investigation of several seemingly-unrelated lives that intersect in unforeseen ways as the mystery surrounding a woman's death is gradually disclosed to the characters and audience. In 2007 she acted in both The Hoax and Sean Penn's Into the Wild. She joined the cast of the hit show Damages in the second season. In 2009 she played a concerned mother in the roller derby comedy Whip It, and played a harried school administrator in Detachment for director Tony Kaye in 2011.Offscreen, Harden married property master and occasional location scout Thaddaeus Scheel (Boys on the Side, Houseguest, The Spitfire Grill) in 1996. The couple has three children.

Trivia: The daughter of respected off-Broadway playwright Romulus Linney, Laura Linney was born in New York City on February 5, 1964. Her parents divorced when she was six months old. Thanks to her father's job, Linney grew up working in the theater, both behind the scenes and, in her late teens, on the stage. Following prep school in Massachusetts, she attended both Brown University and Juilliard, and she was soon appearing in a number of Broadway productions. She garnered notice for her roles in plays like The Seagull and Six Degrees of Separation, and won particular acclaim for her performance in Hedda Gabler.Linney made her onscreen debut in 1992 with a small role as a teacher in Lorenzo's Oil. The following year, she had a brief but pivotal role as Kevin Kline's presidential mistress in Dave, appeared in Searching for Bobby Fischer, and landed a lead as one of the protagonists of Armistead Maupin's acclaimed Tales of the City, which aired on PBS. Linney later reprised her role as Mary Ann Singleton for More Tales of the City in 1998. Following leads in two box-office failures, A Simple Twist of Fate (1994) and Congo (1995), Linney had a supporting role as Richard Gere's lawyer/ex in Primal Fear (1996). Based on the strength of her performance, Clint Eastwood chose her to play his daughter -- another lawyer -- in Absolute Power the following year. In 1998, Linney sent up her wholesome, fresh-scrubbed appearance to great effect as Truman Burbank's wife in Peter Weir's highly acclaimed The Truman Show.The actress finally came into her own in 2000, thanks to two very different parts in two highly acclaimed independent features. Writer/director Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me featured Linney as Sammy, a small-town single mother whose placid life takes some interesting turns when she's visited by her errant brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo). Aided by Lonergan's precise script and her own copious note-taking, Linney turned in her most nuanced, accomplished performance to date. Critics paid attention: after its much-heralded debut at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, the film went on to garner a slew of recognition for its lead actress, including Best Actress of the Year awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle, and an eventual Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Linney further polished her reputation with a supporting turn as the icy Bertha Dorset in director Terence Davies' adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, released in late 2000.She continued working steadily and garnered great critical respect throughout the next decade. In addition to returning for Further Tales of the City, she was one of the many talented actors who appeared in the controversial The Laramie Project. She had a few big-budget films that missed their mark in The Mothman Prophecies and The Life of David Gale, but those came around the same time as her superb turn as Sean Penn's wife in Mystic River, and as one of the few Americans in the very British romantic comedy Love Actually. She continued to earn strong reviews as the headstrong wife to Liam Neeson's Kinsey, and in 2005 offered a subtle but penetrating portrayal of a selfish mother and divorcee opposite Jeff Daniels in The Squid and the Whale. The next year she acted opposite Robin Williams in Barry Levinson's political and social satire Man of the Year.In 2007 Linney offered a spot-on portrayal of a dissatisfied Manhattan wife and mother in The Nanny Diaries, and earned a wealth of strong reviews for her work in Tamara Jenkins' The Savages. Playing a neurotic woman opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman as her brother, Linney scored her third Academy Award nomination.2008 brought Linney her fourth Golden Globe nomination, and first win, for the portrayl of first lady Abigail Adams in the acclaimed HBO miniseries John Adams. In the following years, Linney would continue to appear in several projects, including movies like Morning and The Details, and the acclaimed Showtime series The C Word.

Trivia: Worked for Boston mayor Thomas Menino in the early 1990s; later worked as the director of Boston's film bureau. Also worked as a doorman and dabbled in stand-up comedy. Was discovered by director Ted Demme. Made his film debut in the 1998 drama Monument Ave. Produced the 2008 film Lonely Street.

Trivia: Possessing the sort of Cinemascope smile that could part the clouds over even the most curmudgeonly of pessimists, talented actress/singer Emmy Rossum has made her mark on stage and screen as one of the most promising talents of her generation. Having worked on-stage alongside such legends as Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, and held her own onscreen opposite such formidable talents as Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, Rossum had accomplished by the age of 18 what most actresses dream for a lifetime of achieving. A New York City native whose early work included tenures at the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall, the multi-lingual songbird performed in over 20 separate operas in six different languages before making her television debut in the popular daytime soap As the World Turns. Subsequently, Rossum was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her performance in the Disney Channel feature Genius, and her portrayal of a young Audrey Hepburn in the 2000 made-for-television drama The Audrey Hepburn Story provided the burgeoning screen talent with her widest exposure up to that point. Various television roles were quick to follow, with a feature debut as an Appalachian orphan in the 2000 drama Songcatcher proving that young Rossum could light up the silver screen just as effectively as she did its home-based counterpart. In addition to earning her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance, Songcatcher also took home the Best Ensemble Performance award at that year's Sundance Film Festival. As Rossum climbed the credits with roles in An American Rhapsody, Happy Now, and Passionada, it was obvious to those in the know that her career was only getting warmed up. Her role as the eponymous songwriter in the 2003 romantic comedy Nola proved without a doubt that she could carry a film and provided the perfect transition between her early independent career and her impending success in Hollywood. Cast as the ill-fated daughter of a former thug-turned-semi-legitimate small-business owner in director Clint Eastwood's critically acclaimed drama Mystic River, Rossum's blend of youthful innocence and daddy's girl charm echoed through the film in a way that made the violence of her death truly heartbreaking. After striving to survive the apocalyptic meteorological developments in the popcorn extravaganza The Day After Tomorrow, Rossum next had the honor of being handpicked by none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber for the role of Christine in the eagerly anticipated feature version of The Phantom of the Opera. The recipient of a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in the film, Rossum had indeed lived up to the potential seen by Lloyd Webber in the early stages of production. In 2006 Rossum raced through a sinking ship in Poseidon, and the following year she managed to make a splash in the pop world with her debut album Inside Out. And while in recent years it had appeared Rossum was gravitating away from television, a starring role in the Showtime series Shamless found her hitting an impressive stride on the small screen.

Trivia: Studied at Hindley Elementary School, Middlesex Middle School and Darien High School in Darien, Connecticut.Was a member of his high school's a cappella group called Oriocos.Kept a journal of his days on the set of Gladiator (2000).Has appeared on multiple television series like Mad Men, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Animal Kingdom.Best known for playing Lucius in Gladiator (2000).

Trivia: Was recruited to the University of Pennsylvania as a football player. Served in the Vietnam war. Moved to New York from Philadelphia in 1961 to work in advertising. Began acting at 46. Appeared in the 2008 LAByrinth off-Broadway production of Unconditional, opposite Anna Chlumsky. Provided a voice-over for a series of commercials for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013.

Trivia: A native of Boston, MA, actress Ari Graynor was born in 1983 and attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She broke through to acclaim with her supporting role as Caitlin Rucker, a sexually promiscuous, manic-depressive student at Meadow Soprano's college on the HBO mafia drama The Sopranos (during the third season, in 2001), and thereafter moved into features, with contributions to films from a broad cross-section of genres. These included the gritty drama Mystic River (2003), the bittersweet Jeff Daniels/Sigourney Weaver seriocomedy Imaginary Heroes (2004), and the Christopher Guest satire For Your Consideration (2006). In 2008, Graynor portrayed a flighty and befuddled young urbanite with a passion for turkey sandwiches in the teen-oriented romantic comedy Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Alongside her film and television work, Graynor has remained fully active on-stage, landing her most prominent role as Alison in the 2005 Broadway outing Brooklyn Boy.

Trivia: A New York City native who had more film and theater experience by the age of 15 than many actors could aspire to in a lifetime, Connor Paolo appeared in numerous television commercials before making the transition to Broadway in The Full Monty and playing a younger version of actor Kevin Bacon's character in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning Mystic River. Back in the B.C. era, Paolo could be seen portraying a young Alexander in director Oliver Stone's Alexander before continuing his partnership with the director as the son of Nicolas Cage's character in World Trade Center. On the small screen, Paolo's roles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Gossip Girl also helped to build the foundation for an enduring career in television that started to yield fruit with a major role on the series Revenge.

Trivia: With his rugged good looks and icon status, Clint Eastwood was long one of the few actors whose name on a movie marquee could guarantee a hit. Less well-known for a long time (at least until he won the Academy Award as Best Director for Unforgiven), was the fact that Eastwood was also a producer/director, with an enviable record of successes. Born May 31, 1930, in San Francisco, Eastwood worked as a logger and gas-station attendant, among other things, before coming to Hollywood in the mid-'50s. After his arrival, he played small roles in several Universal features (he's the pilot of the plane that napalms the giant spider at the end of Tarantula [1955]) before achieving some limited star status on the television series Rawhide. Thanks to the success of three Italian-made Sergio Leone Westerns -- A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) -- Eastwood soon exchanged this limited status for bona fide international stardom.Upon his return to the U.S., Eastwood set up his own production company, Malpaso, which had a hit right out of the box with the revenge Western Hang 'Em High (1968). He expanded his relatively limited acting range in a succession of roles -- most notably with the hit Dirty Harry (1971) -- during the late '60s and early '70s, and directed several of his most popular movies, including 1971's Play Misty for Me (a forerunner to Fatal Attraction), High Plains Drifter (1973, which took as its inspiration the tragic NYC murder of Kitty Genovese), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Though Eastwood became known for his violent roles, the gentler side of his persona came through in pictures such as Bronco Billy (1980), a romantic comedy that he directed and starred in. As a filmmaker, Eastwood learned his lessons from the best of his previous directors, Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, who knew just when to add some stylistic or visual flourish to an otherwise straightforward scene, and also understood the effect of small nuances on the big screen. Their approaches perfectly suited Eastwood's restrained acting style, and he integrated them into his filmmaking technique with startling results, culminating in 1993 with his Best Director Oscar for Unforgiven (1992). Also in 1993, Eastwood had another hit on his hands with In the Line of Fire. In 1995, he scored yet again with his film adaptation of the best-selling novel The Bridges of Madison County, in which he starred opposite Meryl Streep; in addition to serving as one of the film's stars, he also acted as its director and producer.Aside from producing the critical and financial misstep The Stars Fell on Henrietta in 1995, Eastwood has proven to be largely successful in his subsequent efforts. In 1997, he produced and directed the film adaptation of John Berendt's tale of Southern murder and mayhem, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and he followed that as the director, producer, and star of the same year's Absolute Power, 1999's True Crime, and 2000's Space Cowboys. With Eastwood's next movie, Blood Work (2002), many fans pondered whether the longtime actor/director still had what it took to craft a compelling film. Though some saw the mystery thriller as a fair notch in Eastwood's belt, many complained that the film was simply too routine, and the elegiac movie quickly faded at the box office. If any had voiced doubt as to Eastwood's abilities as a filmmaker in the wake of Blood Work, they were in for quite a surprise when his adaptation of the popular novel Mystic River hit screens in late 2003. Featuring a stellar cast that included Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon, Mystic River was a film that many critics and audiences cited as one of the director's finest. A downbeat meditation on violence and the nature of revenge, the film benefited not only from Eastwood's assured eye as a director, but also from a screenplay (by Brian Helgeland) that remained fairly faithful to Dennis Lehane's novel and from severely affecting performances by its three stars -- two of whom (Penn and Robbins) took home Oscars for their efforts. With Eastwood's reputation as a quality director now cemented well in place thanks to Mystic River's success, his remarkable ability to craft a compelling film was nearly beginning to eclipse his legendary status as an actor in the eyes of many. Indeed, few modern directors could exercise the efficiency and restraint that have highlighted Eastwood's career behind the camera, as so beautifully demonstrated in his 2004 follow-up, Million Dollar Baby. It would have been easy to layer the affecting tale of a young female boxer's rise from obscurity with the kind of pseudo-sentimental slop that seems to define such underdog-themed films, but it was precisely his refusal to do so that ultimately found the film taking home four of the six Oscars for which it was nominated at the 77th Annual Academy Awards -- including Best Director and Best Picture. Eastwood subsequently helmed two interrelated 2006 features that told the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from different angles. The English-language Flags of Our Fathers relayed the incident from the American end, while the Japanese-language Letters from Iwo Jima conveyed the event from a Japanese angle. Both films opened to strong reviews and were lauded with numerous critics and industry awards, with Letters capturing the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film before being nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Nowhere near slowing down, Eastwood would direct and star in the critically acclaimed Gran Torino, as well as helming critical favorites like Invictus, the Changeling, Hereafter, and J. Edgar, racking up numerous awards and nominations. In 2014, he helmed the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, to mixed reviews, and the biographical adaptation American Sniper.A prolific jazz pianist who occasionally shows up to play piano at his Carmel, CA restaurant, The Hog's Breath Inn, Eastwood has also contributed songs and scores to several of his films, including The Bridges of Madison County and Mystic River. Many saw his critically championed 1988 film Bird, starring Forest Whitaker (on the life of Charlie "Bird" Parker), as the direct product of this interest. Eastwood also served as the mayor of Carmel, CA, from 1986 until 1988.

Trivia: Jenny O'Hara is part of a performing family whose influence encompasses regional and New York theater from Warren, PA, to Greenwich Village and Broadway, and rock music from England to New York. Born in Sonora, CA, her father, John B. O'Hara, was a salesman and her mother, Edith, a journalist and drama teacher. Jenny, her singer/actress younger sister Jill O'Hara, and her singer/guitarist brother Jack O'Hara, grew up amid their mother's pursuit of a theatrical career, leading a gypsy-like existence in half-built houses and other accouterments of a struggling existence. Edith O'Hara directed a children's theater in Warren, where the two daughters occasionally participated as actresses during their teens, though neither took it seriously. Jenny spent a year at Carnegie Tech and a summer playing in stock theater, and then came to New York to study with Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner. She was in touring companies of Cactus Flower and Brecht on Brecht, with Lotte Lenya; off-Broadway productions of Arms and the Man, Play With the Tiger, and Hang Down Your Head and Die; and stock productions of Paint Your Wagon and Take Me Along, among many other musicals and straight plays. She also appeared on ABC's Time for Us. O'Hara's biggest stage credit of the '60s was in Dylan (opposite Alec Guinness) as Annabelle Graham-Pike. In 1970, O'Hara succeeded her younger sister Jill in the musical Promises, Promises. By the mid-'70s, Edith O'Hara was running the 13th Street Theatre in Greenwich Village (a major venue for off-off-Broadway and children's theater), and her brother Jack was in London, playing guitar and bass and singing with the band Eggs Over Easy, pioneering the pub rock scene in England. Meanwhile, Jenny had graduated to television, both in series and made-for-TV features, including a starring role in Brink's: The Great Robbery, The Return of the World's Greatest Detective (in which she took over a role originated by Joanne Woodward in the movie They Might Be Giants), Blind Ambition, and Blinded by the Light. She later worked in movies such as Career Opportunities, Mystic River, and Matchstick Men, and television series such as Law & Order, NYPD Blue, and ER.

Trivia: U.S. character actor Jonathan Togo is best known for his multi-season portrayal of Ryan Wolfe, the police officer-turned-laboratory geneticist on the blockbuster crime series CSI: Miami. His resumé also includes an appearance in the Clint Eastwood-helmed ensemble feature Mystic River (2003).

Trivia: Played 10 different characters in the series Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.Best known for his work in Mystic River (2003) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004).

Trivia: Was a rock and roll singer for many years while he was at school.Decided to pursue a career as an actor after acting in high school plays.Started acting in small theaters after graduating college.Initially started acting in comedy roles and eventually immersed in dramatic roles.Was cast in a movie while he was doing theater in Boston and then made his debut on the big screen.

Trivia: Long before earning his B.A. from the University of Texas and his M.A. in Education from C.C.N.Y., Eli Wallach made his first on-stage appearance in a 1930 amateur production. After World War II service and intensive training at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, the bumpy-nosed, gravel-voiced Wallach debuted on Broadway in Skydrift (1945). In 1951, he won a Tony award for his portrayal of Alvaro Mangiaco in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo. Though a staunch advocate of "The Method," Wallach could never be accused of being too introspective on-stage; in fact, his acting at times was downright ripe -- but deliciously so. He made his screen debut in Baby Doll (1956) playing another of Tennessee Williams' abrasive Latins, in this instance the duplicitous Silva Vaccaro; this performance earned Wallach the British equivalent of the Oscar. He spent the bulk of his screen time indulging in various brands of villainy, usually sporting an exotic accent (e.g., bandit leader Calvera in The Magnificent Seven [1960]). Perhaps his most antisocial onscreen act was the kidnapping of Hayley Mills in The Moon-Spinners (1965). Even when playing someone on "our" side, Wallach usually managed to make his character as prickly as possible: a prime example is Sgt. Craig in The Victors (1963), who manages to be vituperative and insulting even after his face is blown away. Busy on stage, screen, and TV into the 1990s, Wallach has played such unsavory types as a senile, half-blind hitman in Tough Guys (1986) and candy-munching Mafioso Don Altobello in The Godfather III (1990). He continued to work steadily into the 1990s with parts in the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes, the remake of Night and the City, Article 99, and narrating a number of documentaries. He didn't slow down much at all during the 21st century, appearing in the comedy Keepin the Faith, Clint Eastwood's Oscar Winning Mystic River, and The Hoax. In 2010 he acted for Roman Polanski in his thriller The Ghost Writer, and for Oliver Stone in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which was to be his last film role; Wallach died in 2014 at age 98.His television work has included an Emmy-winning performance in the 1967 all-star TV movie The Poppy Is Also a Flower and the continuing role of mob patriarch Vincent Danzig in Our Family Honor. Married since 1948 to actress Anne Jackson, Wallach has appeared on-stage with his wife in such plays as The Typists and the Tiger, Luv, and Next, and co-starred with her in the 1967 comedy film The Tiger Makes Out. Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson are the parents of special effects director Peter Wallach.